Snow

It's really really really cold.

On the plus side, staggering drunkenly with ex-workmates in the snow around the City was pretty surreal.

But it is really really really cold.

Cake

Cake?



Cake!

Caaake!

CAAAAAKE!!!!

More Presents

Much presents from various family members and friends. mainly lots of nice tops, with a very pretty dress from Renata.

However the star of the show was the sheep bag, which was quite the hit with her snufflyness as you can see below.

As usual, an attempt to read a book resulted in Alix being covered in children.

And Emily wanted to 'help' Natasha unpack the box of blocks.

Lunchtime

Now generally much messier.

The girls thought the spread laid on for Natasha's birthday was pretty yummy. Emily hoovered the fairy bread in record time. It was apparently an almost acceptable substitute for cake.

Presents

Who needs to open them, when you can use them to clamber somewhere?

Adventuring

Finally put the photos up. And they look fabuloso.

Made in japan

This one's for you, Winston.

Morning After

Well that was interesting.

Spectacular meal at a "country restaurant", with many of Effs fellow concierges. Much incredibly yummy food, cold beer, and hot (and cold) sake. For a ridiculously low price.

Then we relocated to a karaoke box for more beer plus horrific screeching.

And to finish the night, a dodgy gay bar in Roppongi.

I stumbled home at 2ish, Supermodel and Unpronounceable at about 6, and Rhys staggered in at 10ish, muttering darkly about police.

Tokyo!

After a longish and completely sleep free flight (odd considering how little sleep I had over the last 2 days), we are now ensconced in the surrounding of the Tokyo Hilton, ready to head out to the dubious delights of Roppongi. Should be interesting.

Financial Crisis as Translated by Toddler

"I need lots and lots of money!"

Don't we all Emily, don't we all.

Working for Tha Man

Employed again, for a fairly good six-month contract on the edge of the City.

This whole getting up early to go to work is a bit sucky. I imagine it'll be suckier soon when I go to work in the dark, and come back in the dark.

Baby vs. Robot

Who needs a pet, when you've got Roomba.

Stubborn

Do you want me to take your bag? Noooo.

Do you want to put it in the pram? Nooo. Want to carry it.

Sigh.

Playing on the Lawn

Now in Widescreen.

Muffins

With nothing but a little light shopping on the agenda, we packed small

children into the pram and headed up to Westfield (via park for frolicking in autumn leaves and playground for swings and slides.

Since Starbucks has these nice comfy chairs, and lots of space to spread the children out (and a relaxed attitude to mess produced by the same), much coffee, cake, juice and panini was consumed. Yum.

Natasha, after creating a spectacular mess, crawled around looking adorable, getting lots of smiles.

One Mouse, To Go

Amazing what you can find in Habitat these days.

Nightlife

I thought is was pink elephants one was supposed to see on a night on the tiles.

Food? Nah.

But someone's learnt how to play peekaboo. On the downside, said video had just followed very little food going in the baby, and much food going on the baby (and parent).

Sometimes

You've got to pass out on the bed with a belly full of milk. Note cute buzzy bee shoes.




And in other news, toddler in red is still a bit obsessed with the Westfield information pods.

The Robots Are Here

And they're cleaning my floor.

We're now the pround owner of a Roomba. It's fantastico.

Sunny Liverpool

I was in Liverpool recently for a stag weekend, which naturally I can't talk much about, but I did get a chance to wander around the docks area a bit, since we were staying nearby (I can definitely recommend the Malmaison).

Other than fairly substantial cruise ship, the most impressive sight was the Liver Building. Rather grand really. And according to the book I was reading at the time (Thicker than Water, a Felix Castor novel), the Liver Birds which top the building don't actually exist.

Funky looking though.

Ducks, Redux, Redux.

At St James Park. Emily even grudgingly gave the ducks some of her fruit bread. Though it was a bit of a "one for me, one for them" scenario.

Shake It Baby

Maracas and swings (and ladybird boots) together again at last.

(yeah,yeah, it's a photo from June)

I Think I'm Turning...

Emily still thinks that the presents from Rob are fantastico.

Got to Move It Move It

Someone's on the move now....

This way, that way

At least in Ratcourt Park, the swings are still good.

Sound and Colour

Nice chilled out Bank Holiday weekend. Town was quiet, weather was fine-to-good, children were in a lovely mood (largely).

Caught up with Podman, whose international jettsetting saw him swing over our way for an evening. Curry. Yum.

Monday saw us swan over to St James Park, to see Kath and Dave before Kath takes delivery of a little blue bundle. Emily liked the sausage rolls at the park.


Emily still likes to help bring in the tomatos.



Breakfast is still the source of some amusement all round.




The children seem to be playing together (more or less).




And Her Snufflyness has started to crawl.



Did I mention sound?






And of course no day would be complete without some bouncing. In stereo, even.

Tasty

According to Natasha, sometimes you've just got to stuff some toes in your mouth and have a good munch.

Chocolat

I scream, you scream, we all scream for....

This Video Brought to You by the Letter N

Fear my superteeth, nectarine!

Wiggle

Bounce, bounce bounce.

Hmm. bit dark. Let's see what we can do.

And in this corner

Cute baby at Camp Bestival photo.

Tired

Aren't we all really?

Fountains

As Lisa discovered, Emily is turning into quite the water baby.

Cold Chesil

On holiday in Weymouth after Camp Bestival, we took the opportunity of a showery day to load everyone into the car and drive over to Portland because, you know, it's famous and everything due to Chesil Beach.

Thankfully the children were cooperative, sleeping through the dull (for them) bits, waking just in time as we swung into the pub next to the beach (the New Cove Inn?) for lunch.





After extremely large meals and Natasha making friends with lots of the pub customers, we wandered out to the beach which was pretty amazing - 15k of full-on stony beach. Emily was impressed at least.



Lisa also gave a synopsis of the book On Chesil Beach, which hasn 't exactly led me to put it on my 'must read' list.

Bouffant

Crazy happy baby is crazy happy.

Early Warning

Looks like I'll be going on the Supermodel farewell tour to Tokyo at the end of October.

Testing.. 1.2.3

Am I just having a technopeasant moment?

Answer - yes. I'll figure out the other photos later.

Little Ducks

Kewtastic.

Edit - hmmm.. not too sure why you can't expand the photos for this and the two posts below. Will look into it.

Edit 2 - Hahaha! A mighty victory over the forces of Blogger.

Yog-yog

This whole food thing? I can dig it.

Stripey

Little Miss Emily has recently been moved from the cot into a bed. This was largely necessitated by the snuffles' prodigous growth, causing her to outgrow the moses basket.

The whole cot-to-bed routine worked OKish, though was a little chaotic before we got a stairgate for the bedroom door. Since then, things have worked very smoothly.

Well, mostly.

I Want One

Ducks

Happy (almost) Birthday Little Miss Emily!

Since Grandma Cheryl wasn't going to be here for Emily's birthday today, we decided to celebrate it a little early, and made a family expedition down to the Barnes Wetland Centre, armed with a picnic and presents.

Emily thought the fields of daisies were great.

However, she wasn't so impressed with the birthday cake, giving us the "you're dead to me" look.

Until she had some, of course.