Park

More recently, this past weekend across the UK has been ridiculously warm (I gather this even applies back home too). On Saturday we went to the park. It's always fun to watch Naomi on such trips as she knows from some distance away that the park is near and starts getting very excited. She really likes the slide and roundabout, and though she still enjoys the swing is less keen on it now as it means she can't walk about freely.

Thanks to Liz for buying Naomi's an ice cream! Here she is...

Walk

Here's some pictures we meant to post ages ago, the post has been sitting in draft form for about two months!

There's a big pond not far from our house (Charnwood Water), which we decided it was about time we took a look at. For the experience, we made use of the baby carrying device that the Freelands gave us before we left Aberdeen. Helpfully, I managed to take pictures of the walk to the pond but not the pond itself, that'll have to wait... Of course, with the pond being outside, Naomi very much enjoyed the occasion :)

Easterish

We had been planning to head back up to Scotland for Easter, but having realised that a friend's wedding (James and Kim - this is the wedding associated with the stag do in Milan) was happening a month earlier, we moved the trip to allow Jay and me to go to attend. So it was an "Easter-ish" trip.

After the success of a single day trek at Christmas, and given the reduced time we had due to running low on annual leave, we drove all the way from Loughborough to Jay's parents' house on 1 March. We managed the trip in record time since Naomi arrived (only 9 and a half hours), with only two stops. I actually quite enjoyed it! First stop was at a service area near Carlisle, and the second stop was for a lovely cup of tea at Peggy Scott's, a wee bit after Dundee.

Here's Naomi eagerly investigating everything happening at the service area (she likes these places - LOTS to look at):

 

Here she is at Peggy Scott's. Naomi's become a great fan of hiding and chasing, and as the place was fairly empty it was great for doing those things. She also had fun distracting all the staff from their work with her usual cuteness...

On to the wedding, which took place at St Machar's cathedral in Aberdeen and the reception was at Norwood Hall Hotel. Here's Jay looking even more beautiful than normal...

...and an award winning idea, a free tuck shop for guests during the bit where everyone is waiting for the photos to be done.

Here's one of the reasons I really like being back home:

Now on to a roundup of the other activities on our holiday...

Meeting more people... Naomi must think she's met everyone in the world by now! Here she is with Willow and Logan, children of our good friends Tom and Laura.

Naomi's got her own special seat at Granny and Granddad's

Uncle Ian's Creationary game. Pictionary, but with Lego. Absolutely genius.

Girls and their technology

"Dinner was lovely"

At the park with Grandma

On returning home to Loughborough, we've hit the ground running again. It must have thrown Naomi a bit, because now she's trying to use a whale as a telephone...

It made me smile at the end of a long day :)

Finally, worth a mention is that it's a couple of weeks since Jay gave her first sermon at church, on Acts 8. I'm really proud of her, she gave a really good message and God was right at the centre of it. I'd hoped to put a recording of it online so folks back home could hear it but unfortunately the usual one that's taken didn't work and I didn't think to make one at the time. I'll try to get one the next time she speaks!

Computer

Clearly Naomi is quite familiar with her daddy sitting at the computer, although I try not to do it too much when she's about, if only because it's more fun to play with her :-)

She was quite keen to find out "what the deal is" with the box that has flashing lights and buttons, so I made her a simple slideshow that changes the screen colour when she pushes the buttons. Here she is having a great time trying it out...

I'm quite proud of her! She even found some buttons to change the slides that I didn't know about.

I did do something more sophisticated for my nieces when they were small, with shapes, numbers, pictures and sounds - but I wrote it on my Amiga and sadly it fell victim to a power supply issue some years ago. Time for a rewrite I think.

Rainy Days

So Naomi and I spend a lot of time out the house, we go to toddler groups and we go to friends' houses.  We go to the park or we just go to the shops.  We love being outside!  But sometimes we end up having a rainy day and have to spend more time than usual indoors!

We still have lots of fun though!

Just after Naomi turned one we bought her her first dolly, she loves this dolly and so indoor time increasingly involves changing baby, feeding baby, reading to baby or just cuddling baby

Dolly is about to be fed, so needs to be safe in the high chair

 Naomi also loves to draw, we bought her crayons for Christmas and sometimes we organise everything so she can have a go

Of course it takes a lot of concentration to draw when you are only little

We've been meaning to share this picture with you for a very long time, it was Naomi's first picture! Ive darkened it a little so you can see the marks better, at the time she was only about 10.5 months old, so I was terribly impressed!

Naomi also likes to read books lots, her favourites are the ones with flaps, although she is also inclined to pull the flaps out! So we tend to do this while being supervised!

And if all else fails Naomi likes to go into the kitchen and pull everything out of the cupboards and use those things as toys!

Why wouldn't you play with a colander?

Of course, when it is really disgusting it is good fun to let you all know how we are getting on too!

Sadness

Naomi's just had her one-year-old injections and although she's now more protected against measles and other such horrors, is feeling a bit miserable this week. Rightly so, I've seen the three sore bits where the injections took place!

One nice thing though is that she's become a bit more clingy and evenings this week have mostly been about hugging. She's also learned to do kisses fairly recently, but doesn't yet understand that one's mouth should be closed for this, so it's not as pleasant as it might sound...

In other news, I've finally finished building my birthday present, the legendary K'Nex ferris wheel, which can be seen in any good toy shop's window, and now also our dining room. Awesome.

What a difference a year makes

Sandy, Naomi and I have just returned from the Open Heaven Weekend away, you can read about our experience last year here but suffice to say it is quite different going on such a thing with a one year old compared to taking a newborn!

One thing that was a good bit more challenging is that Naomi needed stimulated a lot more this time and being more aware of her surroundings meant that it potentially was harder to persuade her to sleep with all the goings on and it was definitely harder to keep her where we wanted her as she tried to explore every single corner of the Quinta centre.  That said, she was very much at home in the creche and loved getting to play with the bigger boys and girls and having so many people around.

Sandy and I managed to get to some of the seminars and worship sessions which was really good and we heard some great talks on sowing seed widely and on staying passionate about the love of God.

Each year there is a walk to Wales that people can go on, it is quite long at 2 hours but there is some beautiful country side to make it well worth the effort!  Last year I had given birth just a couple of weeks previously and as such wasn't in a fit state to go but Sandy took Naomi

This year though, I was well and truly up for the walk and here you see Naomi being a bit bigger and more noticeably enjoying the walk too, although in the same sling (best baby purchase ever made!)

Another photo we wanted to share comes from the morning before we left for the weekend away.  The car seat was in the living room because I was being given a lift to a group so Sandy could drive to work and Naomi wouldn't leave it alone, continuing in her desire to use everything in a context it is not meant for and crying if we try and use things as they are meant to be (hats, car seats, toothbrushes)

You can plainly see that here she thinks that car seat is amazing, anyone who has shared a car with Naomi can vouch for this not normally being her opinion on the matter!