Garden cutbacks and more smiles.

We'll start with some house stuff this week - we had a guy in on Friday to give the garden a serious haircut. It's been long overdue and it has made a massive difference although yet again it is a case of 1) being relieved that it has been done and then 2) being a bit shocked at how much still needs to be done.

We're having a party in the garden at the end of the month so I guess I better get cracking and start moving onto the next phase.

Anyway - back to the fun stuff - Sophie has continued to have a lot of excitement starting with Dad being off on Bank Holiday and attending the tadpoles swimming session. It was great to watch and when Sophie saw me in the cafe watching her she got all excited.

Mum has been experimenting with different ways to tie Sophie's hair up although we think it will be sometime before this is really necessary.

Sophie and Mum have done lots of visiting as usual but have also found time to have some laughs in the house when the weather hasn't been too good.

Sophie is a very lucky girl and got a brand new top of the range car seat this week and she loves it - photos to follow at some point.

Uncle David visited for a night on his way back to Malaysia - we cannot believe we didn't get a photo - we're all kicking ourselves about that. Uncle David dropped in lots of presents for Sophie to open on her birthday.

Today Sophie was playing with her fun colourful tunnel in the living room - a right good laugh before bed time.

Finally, Sophie this week continues to do everything that she knows she shouldn't be doing - and finding it all hilarious.

Only 3 weeks til the start of birthday week and then it's another 4 weeks until Dad is off on his summer holidays - how fast is time going?

All laughter and smiles this week ;o)

We are all smiles this week - firstly because Sophie's sleep has settled down and also because her other tooth (bottom right) has popped through so she is in less pain (probably got a lot to do with the settled sleep).

If you didn't know already the standard order of teeth is 1) The top centre two 2) The bottom centre two 3) the top two either side of the first top teeth 4) The bottom two on either side of the first bottom teeth. Make sense?

Sophie is now boasting a full compliment although her bottom two aren't fully through yet.

She has had another fun week with her swimming lessons starting back, visiting lots of people and spending some time with her Glasgow Gran and Grandad (My Mum and Dad).

Here are some videos of the wee bundle of fun.....

This was Sophie over at my Mum and Dad's today - she is laughing because she is putting her hand in a cup of water and my Mum is making a surprised face at her - i think you had to be there but it was really the most she has laughed ever, this video is only the last minute of a good 5 minutes of laughing.

This was Sophie showing off that she can now walk with only the assistance of her junior zimmer, sorry, her walker. She isn't far off now from running around the house - how things are going to change!

Sophie is also now able to stack discs onto the stick - a real skill, although she tries to do it even when she isn't looking.

Finally, we went to a cafe in the town centre on Saturday where we played with some toys and spoke to a dog called Bertie.

Another quick week.

We have had another quick week this week although my work has been quieter than it has been since January which has been a good thing,

Lots of things have happened this week but Sophie is still up during the night and now she is teething again!

Sophie has been getting lots of postcards from Auntie Nicole and Uncle Paul - they are now in her nursery so she can look at them every day. I haven't had a chance to rotate the pics so you'll just have to stick your head to one side.

We also looked at car seats this weekend, we thought the people in the shop were supposed to be experts but they were flippin' hopeless. Dad put up the stair gates finally and Mum bought 300 balls for a ball pool - turns out we could be doing with about 300 more. Sophie didn't seem to care - she was enjoying it regardless.

We are such lucky parents.

It's probably worth pointing out if you hadn't realised it yet that this blog doesn't dwell on the negatives but sometimes it's worth documenting for posterity. 

We're currently trying to get Sophie to sleep through the night - she's at the 10-11 month stage where all the babies are trying to assert their authority - Sophie just wants cuddles all the time and doesn't drop back off to sleep too easily some nights. So we are having a few stand offs at the moment. She's never really been a "sleep through the night" baby but we're working on helping her develop that skill.

Having said all that - sleeping through the night is the only thing that isn't going perfectly so we are very very lucky and we are very aware of this when we hear stories of babies on ventilators, babies in plaster casts and babies not eating at all.

We're also very lucky that Sophie is so happy, cute and loving - her personality is really starting to come through and she is always wanting to have fun just like her Mum and Dad.

End of the holidays: part 2

We have had a busy old time of it over the last couple of weeks and had lots of fun - it has actually been difficult this week as we have so many photos to fit into the blog posts!

We took a trip to Heads of Ayr Farm Park and Sophie really enjoyed it and so did we. We were out all day in the sun looking at animals - chipmunks, camels, pigs, birds, rabbits, lambs and horses to name a few - we saw it all and Sophie loved every minute although at times she was more interested in watching the other kids which is kind of expected these days.

Before we left for Heads of Ayr though we went next door to Jim and Valerie's House to visit their guests for the weekend - the family guinea pigs.

Then it was off for a snooze in the car on the way to Heads of Ayr.

Sophie loved the horses just like her Mum.

"Which one of these pigs is Peppa?"

"what do you mean none of them?"

"Our garden is also a bit like a farm"

Sophie dressed to impress in the garden

Sophie's hair has gotten so long these days she now needs to blow dry - Mum shows her how. Next thing she'll be wanting her own straighteners.

On Sunday we took a trip to Loch Lomond Shores and popped into the sealife centre - again Sophie was fascinated with the animals and other kids.

All in all, a great holiday! Roll on the summer ;o)

End of the holidays

It's the end of the holidays - no post tonight as I need to get some sleep before  back to work tomorrow. It'll be hard leaving the girls at home but the summer is just round the corner.