Eve

Congratulations lou and mike on the arrival of the stunning Eve, she is the only one worthy of a capital in this sentence - you make good girls!! I am looking forward to my boys butts being handed to them on all future holidays by your Campbell tag team.
Less importantly we have serious kitchen action this week.

We have had some help with the painting this week and a whole new floor!

This week we are starting with a room and adding a kitchen very very exciting!!
Albert also made a Mike the knight helmet this week.

We went to the aquarium too as it is freezing and as we are the only place in the uk not to have snow it's no fun outside!

Kitchen

This weekend we went up to reading for our first 40th party as 30 something's - a scary thing!! Then we went up to Notts as Adam and Frank ripped apart our kitchen.
Mum and Dad took good care of us, Grandad Pop took us for a walk in the woods with the famous Nigel Slater burger van at lunch time.
Here Rowan and Albert realise that their cheese sandwich was a total fob off as Pop comes back with our lunch!

It was also Adams birthday before we left and we cooked a big cake our last cake in the old kitchen which was a little sad, Albert helped with the testing.

We also found the elusive octonaut Peso in Arnold sainsburys which is a big result, i would like to pretend getting excited about rare action figures is new for me but I have a large collection of x- men figures which would say I'm lying. At least this time it's for someone else. I have also let Albert have a wolverine and iceman to play with the rest are more a five plus age bracket I feel if ever.
Anyway we got back to a bomb site of a kitchen,

Albert did say the next day, oh no, daddy has broken the kitchen - an understatement I feel!

First man in was Pete the electrician, he very quickly found a rotten floor which was brilliant, luckily he knew a man who could help so it should be ok.
Here are some new plugs and a rotten floor.

This week we have also had Jason the plumber come and make the washing machine work again yay, and Russell the plasterer so it is already starting to look like a room again.

Albert has even been helping filling in the holes, Adam has high hopes for a useful profession in the family.

We also managed to squeeze in some puddles at the farm and while Rowan has been quite poorly he is starting to really enjoy the popping elephant. He also got his first pair of shoes from clarks very exciting!

Sharing.

It amazes me how much Rowan loves Albert, well until I think about it and he is most definitely the most exciting person in the house. Now Rowan wants to walk he mostly wants to follow Albert around they can play this game were Albert stands in front of Rowan right in his face everytime he tries to get round him and they find it hilarious. It's also brilliant to see how much Albert loves Rowan and just wants him to be involved and how excited he gets when they are playing together.
Sharing is a difficult concept and it mostly involves Albert taking things off Rowan and giving him something slightly lame in return. But sometimes there is unprompted sharing and that's awesome.

Not only does he share his watermelon ice lolly but on the way home from nursery Albert had a cake he baked and I heard him telling me he was sharing with Baby which it turned out meant Rowan had the paper case, Rowan managed to eat a fair amount before we got off the motorway.

First day back.

Unfortunately the start of January also meant the first day back at work for me and the first day at nursery for Rowan. This sucks although now I have been back two whole weeks it's not too bad and I am getting to drink an awful lot of hot drinks and eat all of my food instead of sharing it with two other people.
Here is Rowan on his first morning to nursery.

He is starting to sort of enjoy it bless him and he definitely doesn't hate it so that's good. Albert is loving nursery now he is going with rowan which is a relief and he likes to pick him up at the end of the day and check out the baby toys.

This new years eve we went to a soft play centre in the morning with our friends and then took it in turns to go to a party, I got the late shift as me appendix meant I missed out on everything before Christmas and managed to stay up till 1, with my two drinks - how times have changed.

Rowan also at the moment loves the musical instrument box he is great at shaking, and banging. He has also learnt to wave, clap and hi five this month and Albert and him really make each other laugh.

At the end of last year we put our name down for an allotment and we had a letter saying we are 110 on the waiting list which we reckon is a good few years! Adams grandma let us have her garden to turn into a veg patch as she no longer uses it so we have spent a sunny weekend with Gemma and Adams friend Stephen dig dig digging ready to plant some seeds.

Digging and eating biscuits.

Also new kitchen = new cooker, very excited!!

Christmas!

This year was Rowan's first Christmas and Albert's third which is crazy, and he got it more then we thought he would. He wanted a racing car which was good as we got him a scalextric for Adam and I to play with. It was a lovely and long Christmas this year. For the first half we went to Nana and Pop's for a pre Christmas and Rowan rode up in his new car seat which was exciting for all of the back seat.

Then we had some presents and a lovely Christmas dinner, Albert got a very cool new bike of his grandparents and a helmet of his great grandad, one of my proudest parent moments:
Unwrapping a present, Albert: look it's a triceratops!
He is a bit of a clever clogs.

Nana and Pop also treated us all to the panto which was excellent both boys loved the dancing animals, Albert was so engrossed that potty training flew out the window, luckily for daddy he
was sitting on my knee. The best bit for Albert and Rowan was the spinning light up things!!

We got back to Portsmouth in time to cook all day Christmas eve and see Adams family for party
games in the evening and then Santa came.
We managed to make Rowan a stocking with minutes to spare and then we left them out for Santa.

They were both brilliant as they had to wait till the middle of the morning for the big presents under the tree and it was all too much at one point but Albert rocked through, the food was brilliant if I do say so myself and it was lovely to have Aunty Gemma for a whole Christmas day instead of bits here and there, it all went far to fast. Most played with presents so far are the bad guys from grandma and the octonauts but that is mostly because the
cool submarines go in the bath with them.
On boxing day we had a nice country walk.

Adam tried on a pair of glasses Albert got on a magazine in his stocking and he came running in with them broken and said my glasses are broken, daddy must have done them with his big BIG ..eyes!
And finally baby led weaning at Christmas!

A big thank you to everyone who made this Christmas brilliant!

Happy boys

I have been away for a couple of days being ill and I cannot wait to see them!!

December.

It is unbelievably December which is strange as I am getting stupidly excited about Christmas but am also dreading going back to work at the start of January.
So even though it's too early we put our tree up already - this wouldn't have happened until a lot later normally but we just couldn't stop ourselves this year!

We also got out nativity down and Albert was immediately obsessed as it had a donkey and a camel in it so we finally got round to making them a manger, I think it looks pretty cool myself!

I've also been busy seeing people this last week, Rowan and I got the train to visit Lena which was brilliant as she has been in the States for 2 years and I missed her. Rowan liked the train alot!!

We also went to see my friend Abi and one if her little boys Toby, they spent alot of time playing in a box which was nice. It was also our first non nappy trip out and it went really well, in fact Albert is doing so much better at potty training then I thought he would he is kicking butt!

In fact we would like to thank Nana for her generous chocolate button contribution to the cause a few weeks ago - combined with the odd sticker they have really helped.