Today has been glorious, blue skies and gorgeous sunshine all day. At times though, we had fairly strong gusts of wind, as you can see by DS's hair in one photo! I do love it when DS can be outside all the time. Here's a selection showing the fun he had this afternoon.
DS was invited to a paddling pool playdate yesterday afternoon: he had more playing with the trucks than with the water. I think it was a little on the cold side!
I have been very spoiled today: lovely earrings from DH, 2 CDs from my boys, book, bookmark and notelets from mum, stash money and the lovely felt chick from Sib and Co. And the Postie brought lots of cards. And Agata, our lovely cleaning lady, is coming over to babysit tonight so we can go out!! Very excited!!
And a few more snaps. Am pleased with the shot of the murky water and ivy in the bird bath. Guess what little job we'll be doing over the weekend?!
I've been practising with the new camera this afternoon and, on the whole, was fairly pleased with the results. The biggest difference? The new camera is so small!!
I've been adding to the album about BF's children this week and this photo tied in with the weekly challenge. I don't know why I bother really because only 1 person has left a comment! (Not sure now about the placement of the flowers ...)
I'm the proud owner of a new camera - a Fujifilm Finepix S1500, basically an upgrade of the old camera. Jessops quoted £130 to repair the old camera and amazon had this camera at £155, less a penny. Despite being similar, things have moved on since we bought the 1st camera three and a half years ago so I'm having to read the manual properly and relearn where all the functions are. I wonder if the "Dummies" series of manuals feature this particular camera??
We had a day in the country yesterday, as we headed out to Lyneham for BF's birthday. The weather was glorious and the little people were able to spend every waking moment outside. BF's lovely InLaws came up as well, which was lovely as we haven't seen them since last August. (Unfortunately, BF's DH is away for a couple of weeks with work.) We were able to eat outside and decided to eat together at 5pm. I was a little worried that DS might refuse to eat what was offered, shepherd's pie with potato & sweet potato mash and cabbage, so I'd taken Plan B with me - butternut squash risotto. DS was a little star, he scoffed everything on offer, including half of my slice of birthday cake! (We're trying the 5pm family tea tonight as well.) I believe my GodDaughter was having the risotto for her lunch today!
Just take a look at the weather we had here at 9am this morning! Good enough for a trip to the park and a Starbucks to go. And while DS was asleep this afternoon? I tackled spring cleaning the fridge!!!
The challenge this week is scrap a song title. I chose Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol. Last week's SLYMI, Traintastic, was given a mention in dispatches by Shimelle so, all in all, I'm having a very good week scrapping wise!
DS was treated to a toy garage today from the ELC because we still had a 20% off voucher to use up. As you can see, he's pretty taken with it, especially as he's worked out how to make the lights flash and the horns sound. Mind you, the wee toad also worked out that if he stood on it it would take his weight! At that stage it was removed from his grasp, so hopefully he will soon learn that standing on it is a no no.
My lovely Sib sent DS a wee parcel today .... inside was a photograph of Hastings the monkey and details of a 6 month adoption. Apparently Kellogg's, the cereal people, are running a campaign just now in conjuntion with the Born Free Foundation. DS seemed a little under-whelmed by it but I think it's lovely! Thanks, Sib.
My sub copy of SBI arrived today, issue #54, and my LO is in it!!! Page 65, in case you were wondering!!
DS got up from his nap today in a terribly grumpy mood and wasn't in the mood to be easily distracted. However, Mummy prevailed and won the day by unearthing the sandpit from the shed. The sun chose to come out as well so that helped!
You should add this CD to your collection: Spirit of the Glen: Journey by The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards. It's an awesome collection and when you consider that 4 of the tracks were recorded live when the SDG were on operations in Iraq, somehow that makes it even more special.
The challenge was to use a pen: doodling around the edge, steam and carriage attachments on the train and hand written journaling.
DS has bounced back today and it's as if he was never poorly. The photos show him checking out his collection of DVDs this afternoon.
My wee man has been struck down with the lurgy today. I found him covered in sick this morning, when I went to get him up at 8am, and he was sick fairly regularly for most of the day. By teatime he seemed to be over the worst and managed a bowl of dry Shreddies, some plain mini bread sticks and a Digestive biscuit. He wasn't very happy when he realised that bedtime milk was not of offer this evening!
At 4pm this afternoon DS's little friend from the YMCA came over with her lovely Nanny, Ivana, for our 2nd playdate of the day. As you can see by the photo, DS was a tired teddy today and was only just up from his nap when they arrived (I took the photo at 3.45pm!). Luckily, the promised rain didn't materialise so we were able to have some outside play. The little people enjoyed playing in the tunnel and DS made my day when he correctly said red, blue, yellow and made a valiant attempt at pronouncing the word silver in response to my holding up a ball and asking him what colour it was! Ivana heard him too, so I have a witness!!
After the class at the YMCA this morning a small group of us somehow ended up watching our small people run around the play area for 30 minutes or so. The photos aren't that great becuase I'm hopless at catching action shots of small people on the move!! I ended up carrying out an unplanned good deed - one lady whose DS isn't yet two is 4 months pregnant and her DH has just been made redundant - and as we are expecting DS's new bed within the month I found myself offering her DS's cot, should she have need of it. She nearly took my hand off! Now, I know that I could have sold the cot on, but somehow I don't feel that I would have experienced the same glow of a good deed as I have by promising it to someone in need. DH, ever the business man, was taken aback when I told him what I'd done but has just said that it was a good thing to do.
DS has a real thing about phones, from the toy one Auntie L gave him to Daddy's super-duper one and all kinds in between. He's so funny to listen to ... Hello! Burble burble! Bye! He's also twigged that when Daddy is in his suit, it means that his phone won't be far away. DH was rather perturbed this evening to discover that DS had worked out how to switch the phone on and subsequently lock it, which is more than Mummy can do!
After the failure that was the colouring, I dug out all of DS's trains & cars from the toybox and set them up in the hall. They all have a magnet at one end so you can actually get quite a good "train" going. DS must have spent a good 45 - 50 minutes down on the floor with them. He had a ball.
This afternoon I thought I'd be brave and let DS have a go a colouring with crayons. He sat down at his wee table and got off to a good start ... then promptly began eating the blue crayon!! The crayons have gone away again for a few more months and I'll be letting Nursery deal with all his artistic needs for the time being!
Fun and games at breakfast this morning as DH decided to let DS give a Bonio to the pup. Only DS had other ideas and had a right good munch on it! Reminded me of lovely old Uncle Wal who used to eat Candy's dog biscuits.
This week's challenge was to scraplift a LO from the SLYMI gallery. Mine is taken from First Lessons by ~angie~. I was chuffed to see that someone had scraplifted my week 16 LO - See Saw and that Sib had been scraplifted as well. Further icing on the cake was Shimelle choosing my Haarlem LO as one of her picks of the week last week!
Autism. Such a small word, only six letters long. Autism. Such a big word, powerful enough to fill a parent's heart with dread and fe...
