Our New Conservatory

I know its been Christmas and those pictures are way more exciting than these but this was easier to blog. It took the guys 2 weeks to complete from start to finish and we are so glad to no longer have a leaking roof!!

All of the sand, cement and bricks arriving.

The foundation work begins.

Now you can see the shape but it didn't look very big. Not until the existing window was knocked down could we really see the size.

The finished product. Its still a little cold inside with the weather outside not helping but overall we are very pleased to not have to worry about the rain and snow dripping through the ceiling! Now we just have to paint inside, tidy up outside and buy some flooring!! Its taken 3 years to get to this point so I'm sure we will be finished within another 3 years!

Evie's 2nd Birthday

Although Evie doesn't turn 2 until 25th Dec we decided that having a birthday party on Christmas Day is not the best option. This year we had a party on the 12th December. I'm not sure what we will do in the future but this worked.

After a few presents in the morning she had a bath and sat singing to herself. Our daughter has a beautiful voice, especially when singing....... Enjoy the video!

After eating food we played a few little party games, pass the parcel and musical bumps. The children were really good at Dead Lions - a game were when the music stopped they had to lie on the floor and pretend to be a 'dead lion'! Dairus was our favourite dancer although Evie and Eliza did try to out dance him.

The cake this year was made completely by Richard and he did an excellent job. Evie loved it and especially enjoyed blowing out the candles. When we tried to explain to her that she was having birthday party all she wanted to do was have a cake and blow out candles!

Presents this year included a lovely wooden crib and she even got a cute little ballerina dolly to put in the crib. She loved her new kitchen and all the food she now has to put in the oven. I haven't quite managed to explain that yoghurt doesn't need cooking! Another favourite was a little beauty set with lipstick, perfume, curlers and a hairdryer.

Thank you everyone for coming and for making a little nearly 2 year olds day!

Evies New Bedroom

Evie has been sleeping in her new room for several weeks now. She loves that all her toys are in there and that she can read book all night long. We have caught her climbing the book shelf trying to reach her favourite titles!

The lettering is on the front of her wardrobe.

I just thought it added that little bit of girly magic to the room.

Preparing for Christmas Time

It may only be November but we have been practicing a little song for Christmas. Evie is doing really well at remember the words and will often ask to sing the Santa song. She watch a Christmas movie with Daddy the other day and now also know that Santa has reindeer that pull his sleigh. Oh how Christmas is going to be very different this year!

Considering Evie isn't two yet she sure likes to talk!!

Its time for Halloween

Its time for pumpkins, bats, ghost and ghouls and Evie is loving every moment. This week she has been practicing her spooky halloween words. She can now say pumpkin and explains that we have a mummy, daddy and baby pumpkin on the fireplace. She has also been loving a spooky sticker book I bought her and made the ghosts kiss the baby ghost (that is crying) before sticking the stickers down.

How I have loved spending Mummy time with our little girl this week. She is learning so fast and its great to be the one teaching her for a change and seeing the funny things she does everyday. Today we looked at fish in the pet shop and she kissed the tanks as we left and waved good bye to the fish. She cried when grandad scared her with a toy dinosaur and loved watching the silly dancing santas in the christmas department.....yes thats right halloween isn't even over and the christmas decorations are on sale!!

Carving 'Grandad' Pumpkin at Grandmas House -- Grandad was away walking in the Lake District so it was named after him!

Making our Halloween Cookies -- They had lots of fingers prints in them

Our attempt at decorating the halloween cookies - Evie preferred to eat them and break them, suck the icing tubes and eat the jellies to go on top. I did managed to decorate a few pumpkins before they were destroyed!

Unfortunately no one opened this door, although we did collect lots of treats from other houses. The video is very dark so I'm not sure how good it will be to view - you get the idea though.

We went out around the streets with Cousin Bumblebee Aidan, Cousin Wall-e Edward and. friends Tinkerbell Eliza and Lost Boy Fenton. We also had Wendy and Peter Pan helping us

Our little cheerleader in the making, enjoying the chocolate and treats we collected.

Paris

At the end of August Richard and I went to Paris for the weekend of my Birthday. As it's the big 30 we thought it would be nice to celebrate in a memorable way. We spent our 3 days being complete tourists and saw most of the main sites in the city.

Views from the top of Tour Montparnasse. The tower block is supposed to be the most ugly thing in Paris but has the best views.

Arc de Triomphe and the tomb of the unknown soldier.

The Sacre Coeur cathedral (church of the sacred heart)

The [pyramid at the Louvre as made famous by the Da-Vinci code.

Views of Notre Dame Catherdal.

The happy couple during our boat ride down the River Seine

On Sunday morning we journeyed to the largest cemetery in Paris and went famous grave spotting. They sell a map at the entrance showing you where all the well known graves are. Among them included the composer Frederick Chopin, the writer Oscar Wilde and lead singer of the Doors Jim Morrison.

Our relaxing stroll in one of the many gardens in Paris.

The famous landmark, it does look spectacular at night and even flashes different colours every hour. We had a great time wandering the city and soaking up the atmosphere. Even if I did get a year older and hit the big 30. Richard just wants to know what we can do for his 30th now!!

A Day of Castles

Saturday 10th October

Last weekend we were able to take a trip to Alnwick and Bamburgh Castle. We went with Matt, Sarah and the boys and a new family in our ward. First we made a stop at the Bookstore, Richard's favourite place in Alnwick and we ended up buying more than we took in this time!

We were fortunate enough to be able to sneak into the grounds of the Castle and sat on a bench to enjoy our lunch with beautiful views of the castle in front of us.

After lunch we headed across to the coast to Bamburgh castle. Our friends went into the castle while we entertained the children in the park. Evie and Edward are become as thick as thieves and follow each other around. They had a great time on this swing together and neither of them wanted to get off.

Once our friends returned we all headed down to the sea to have a quick paddle. The North Sea is not at all warm in October and I did notice Evie's feet starting to go a little pink with the cold.

Overall we had a great day and I am very appreciative of the beautiful area we live in. I especially love it in the Autumn, I think it is becoming my favourite season.

Autumn has arrived.

There is just something about walking in the park on an autumn day that I love. This day was a blustery day and we were blown all over the place. The leaves were flying everywhere making the park a beautiful place to be.

Collecting conkers is addictive in autumn, because it was so windy lots of conkers had been blown down from the tree and we ready for our pockets. We stood for around 20mins collecting bags full. It was really hard to force ourselves to walk away and still leave more conkers on the ground.

Two little girls had a great time on the swings.

We all enjoyed feeding the ducks, geese, swans......

and gulls. This one has just caught a piece of bread in it's beak.
On our way back home we past our conker collecting tree, in the short time we had been at the other side of the park some rather large branches had been blown down right from the top of the tree. We were just very glad that it hadn't happened while we had been stood there.