Lydia was one!

Well, I guess she still is, but we had a fun day celebrating her birthday. Here's some photos from the day.

The beautiful birthday girl!

We had a few friends round after school to help celebrate, here the chaos!

Sharing her toys

Food!

More food!

 Opening presents :-)

More presents after Daddy came home

Chocolate!

Chocolate resulting in the cream cardigan being removed

Very appreciative of this present which Lydia got to sample a few hours after me.

The mess after everyone had gone

Order restored

Lydia

Lydia, you are one! I've done my best to somehow make time stand still but I can't and here you are, one year old!  As you will learn over the years, it is my custom to write a letter to each of you girls on your birthday and so here is your first letter from Mummy.

It has been quite a year, from the dramatic entrance you made to the world right up until today you are always making sure that your presence is known and that even though you are a third baby you are not willing to be forgotten. You might be small but you are mighty, it might have been you that Shakespeare was talking about when he wrote the line in A midsummer night's dream "And though she be but little, she is fierce." You are an ever present feature in our family now, I saw a photo a few days ago from just before you were born, it took me a long time of studying to work out what was "wrong" with it, it was just that you were not there!

I shall take this brief moment to take the opportunity to thank you for looking a bit like me! You look so like me that even I can tell you do and I am normally rubbish at seeing family resemblances. Thank you for teaching me to love the way I look a bit by looking so much like me and being *beautiful*. You are truly stunning, a truly beautiful human being both in terms of your looks but also your character.  Your default setting is one of joy. You are happy to be here, happy to be alive, happy to be joining in, happy to be part of the gang and we are so happy to have you here.

Just now your main passion is learning to move, to walk, to climb, to get over there (there normally being wherever your sisters are).  You are so close to walking, I'm sure it will happen any day now.  That said, I told people weeks ago I would be surprised if you weren't walking by your first birthday and you have shown me wrong. You like to try and make me look like I am making things up though, never showing off a skill or character trait if I try and get you to show others.  You also like to wait till you are sure you are able to complete a task before you try it, I am sure the day you finally walk will be the day you run across the room.

You are an anomaly to all that know you when it comes to eating, you can eat and eat and eat and eat, and yet at 12 months old are still wearing mostly 6-9 month clothes. I have no idea where you put all this food if you don't use it to grow, it makes you very happy though. Little makes you more visibly happy than being told it is a meal time of some description.

You love to dance, and to bounce. You love going on our little trampoline, you love to dance, bobbing up and down. You love to clap to the music and sometimes even try and sing along too.

You definitely love to join in with your big sisters, you want to be like them and do whatever they are doing and put up with a lot of being pushed/pulled around and squashed just to be able to be part of the action.  You are definitely one of them and I can't think how much mischief you will all be getting up to once you are probably only a tiny bit bigger.

If life were completely down to you, you would live in the bath. You *love* the bath. On the nights we don't do one we can tell you are less than impressed and from a really young age the bath was always something that helped settle you down if you were sad. In fact along with the sound of the electric toothbrush the bath was one of only two things that helped you feel better during the colic months!

One thing you are definitely not so keen on is sleep, why sleep when you can see Mummy several times a night!?! I love you baby, I really do, but I'll find it easier to show you this if you could let me get some rest! Maybe this can be the next thing you work on, right?

Lydia, you are an utter joy to parent, a true blessing to have in our family. Thank you for helping us find simple pleasures in being alive for teaching us to find joy in every situation.

My prayer for you is that you would maintain your sense of joy, that life won't beat you down and that you will continue in your masterful skill of brightening up a room just by being in it! I pray that you will grow into a woman of God who will be a warrior for Him, that though you be but little you will be fierce. Oh my special Lydia, I pray that you will grow to know Jesus, love Jesus and fight for the things Jesus loves.

Thank you for being in my life, my beautiful, joyous, special little girl.

Profiteroles

Sandy and I have been baking again, it's a favourite activity for us on date night and probably largely responsible for our not-shrinking waist lines.

The latest attempt was profiteroles, I can confirm they were delicious and can also confirm that adding Baileys to the cream on the inside is delicious!

Look, they actually look like profiteroles!

Yum!

They were really delicious, although might have benefited from an extra 2 minutes in the oven

Button Jar treats!

It's that time again, the girls had filled their button jars and because they did it at the same time we decided to do something a bit bigger, so we went to a restaurant for lunch after church.  Although it was a treat we were really impressed by how well behaved the girls were especially as the place we chose didn't open till 2.30 so they got their food much later than we had expected.

Naomi looking ever so grown up with a big girl goblet of water too!

Excited!

It wouldn't be a treat without pudding!!

Sometimes treats can be a bit exhausting!

A pretty dress is what makes these occasions!

And mainly to prove I also photograph my husband!

Pancakes

As you can see here, last July, Sandy travelled to Vancouver and brought back with him a jug of maple syrup the size of his head!

This was to enable us to continue with the wonderful family tradition of making pancakes most Saturdays.

Here is Miriam helping make them today...

Naomi made a monster's face out of today's offering

However, seven months on we are sad to report the maple syrup has run out :-( Sandy will investigate more work in Canada to stock up our supply

Cloudy

I've been in London the past few days for a work meeting. All in all a productive few days but very tiring! Jay took the girls up to see all the grandparents - I gather this was much enjoyed by all - more to come on that.

Anyway, this morning I decided to walk to work to get some nice clean Scottish air into me. The clouds were looking really good this morning so I thought I'd share:

I also spotted this picture of Miriam on my phone, from a couple of weeks ago. She's getting the hang of this eating business - just need to get a little more of the food in the mouth...

Meow

This morning at breakfast, Miriam was too impatient to wait for mummy to feed her, so picked up the spoon and had a go by herself. She's quite good!

In other news, for most of Thursday, and part of yesterday, Naomi was a cat. Meow!

Sorry for the radio silence!

Life has been a little hectic with all the moving and such but here are some photos/stories/goings on by way of some updates!

I have been finding life a little tough without toddler groups as that is something we did a lot of in Loughborough.  We will do toddler groups soon but it is the school holidays here and has been since we arrived and so instead we have been going to the park!

We have been really lucky with some beautiful weather since we arrived so we have been touring all the parks to see which ones are best.

This one is a fair walk from the house but it's lots of fun and has a toilet for our potty trained toddler!

surveying the scene

\Naomi can now climb into this unaided!

 Miriam is now an absolute fiend at eating, here you can see her eating some french toast, not bad when you consider she only has two teeth!

Favourite activity of the moment, for Miriam, is to swing!

Here we are swinging together!

On my way home from the "big" park we have this lovely view, stunning!

Miriam got some rare time with mummy to herself as her sister fell asleep in the buggy one day, as you can see we had fun together.

Lots of sunshine means lots of lunches in the garden

More swinging!

Naomi is learning to share.  For her age I think she does an admirable job.  She is very keen to share and indeed naturally seems inclined to make sure that everyone has something to play with.  That said, she is very inclined to make sure she gets the best "thing" (whatever that may be) for herself.  I told her she could only have the toy she was trying to snatch from her sister if she replaced it with something else.  Naomi promptly found Miriam a clothes peg! Not quite what I had in mind!  This photo sums it up perfectly, Naomi was picking daisies and wanted Mummy to have one too, as you can see, though, she kept the best (bigger is always better when you are two) for herself!

 I love this photo of Naomi in her chosen outfit for the day ready to go to the shops!

Miriam had a taste of mango here, she enjoyed it lots, although was a little frustrated by its slippery nature.

this photo makes me smile just because it gives me hope that one day, rather than having to constantly protect Miriam from an overbearing Naomi, they will learn to play together.  This particular day I was very poorly and mummying all had to be done from the sofa so lots of non-squabbling was much appreciated!

A random photo of Naomi enjoying the garden in the new house.  The garden is easily the best bit about our new house!

I recently went down to Loughborough for a night to celebrate with my good friends Kate and Shayne who have been married for 10 years! (Sandy and I get to celebrate that particular milestone next month).  For a variety of reasons we decided it would be too much to take the who family down and so I went down on my own.  With no children.  Alone! This resulted in a very exciting prospect of managing to read a whole book!  It was a very fun night and I was really pleased to come back to some girls (and a husband) who had missed me and gave me awesome cuddles and amazing smiles.  Less good was that Miriam woke frequently over the night to make sure I hadn't gone away again.  Oh well, you win some, you lose some!