MacDonalds

Right sit down with a cup of tea and put your feet up folks, because this is a long blog update. So firstly lets get some generic stuff out of the way. Brandon is becoming a bit of a porker lately as we have got him eating pear 3 times a day now. This has also helped his sleeping as we are now managing to get him down at around 7 to 7.30 in the cot in the nursery room. For the first time in nearly 5 months we have had two evenings where both the boys have been asleep all evening and we have had some time to ourselves. On Friday Brandon also had his next lot of injections and this was the first time I have not been there as I had too much on with work.

For Tina's birthday last week we all went out for a nice meal and Joshua stuffed his face with fish and chicken. During the meal he also learnt to use a straw with his drink for the first time. 50% of the time he was flicking the straw, but he did drink with it occasionally. Also yesterday Joshua had a little fall down the David Lloyd and managed to stick his bottom two teeth through his lip. Lots of blood and a nasty cut, but he soon shook it off. The lip does not look great so we will keep a close eye on it over the next day or so in case it shows any signs of infection or not healing.

Anyway onto some fun pictures. Today we had a family day out and took the boys to Old MacDonalds Farm. The day was absolutely fantastic and I loved every minute of it. Joshua was an absolute blast and thoroughly enjoyed his day. Although despite wearing his hat and having factor 50 sun lotion we think he has a mild case of sun stroke. The farm itself is awesome with loads and loads of activities for the kids. In all we spent about 5 hours there which was a long time given that it was 26-27 degrees outside.


The first animal we saw was these little pony's which are right at the entrance to the farm.


Then there were some piggies - and I don't mean Joshie as he has hardly eaten a thing today.

Face to face with a bit of an unusual farm animal.


And look at this beautiful owl.

Every now and then it was time to sit down and recharge the batteries.

Joshua always seems to find these sit-on rides no matter where we go.............

And there was also a little ball park with air guns which we had a good blast in. The question in the picture below is: Is the blue ball floating because of air from the yellow thing or because of a rear end wind from Joshua????

Mummy and Joshua on the merry-go-round..........

Daddy and Joshie on the train - check out the grunge cow in the background!

After all that activity it was time to cool off with a nice ice cream. Joshie's face and t-shirt did not stay clean for long! He even got the ice cream in his ear!!!!

A small bouncy castle. Not quite up to the standards of Lisa's 80's themed bouncy castle but still fun.

Then it was onto the helta-sketler with Dad. With sack in hand we headed for the top where it was a bit wobbly to say the least.

Coming down I managed to rub my arm along the side to buffer Joshie and got a nice burn. Reminiscent of years ago when uncle David took me down a similar ride and managed to burn the back of my hand on the side rail!

OK, so far its all been about Joshie, but that's because Brandon slept a lot today. He did wake up to see a few of the animals as with this little goat below.

Me, Brandon and Joshie posing in front of a spiderman design of cow.

These little tractors were fab. Both Joshua and Brandon both enjoyed being push around by Dad. Of course Dad drew the short straw as it was pretty knackering whizzing the two boys around.

Let the race begin................on your marks...............get set....................GO!

And the winner is..................................Big B Brandon!

Joshua then took us all for a drive on a digger. He absolutely loved this sand pit play area and we had a real blast making snow balls with sand and destroying sand castles. Joshua was chuckling away like a good one.

This little goat found its way across the bridge.

And these two goats seemed very interested in Joshua.

OK pop quiz time..................spot Joshua in the picture below.

For those that couldn't spot him................... here is a close up.

Look at those beautiful deers in the background. Nice bench seat as well.

Mummy and Joshua sitting on one of the many decorated cows. Joshua seemed to call them all horsies.............still its another animal to his vocabulary instead of just dog, cat and duck!

The rabbit and guinea pig room is very well designed and the perfect height for Joshua to interact with the animals.

This little bunny escaped several times despite us picking him up and putting him back in his pen.

The escaped bunny seemed to take a liking to little Brandon whilst he was sleeping in the pram.

Joshua crossing a bridge..................all to get to the "play" area.

Towards the end of the day those little legs were getting tired so Dad had to carry Joshua a bit.

Anyway that's all folks. Hope you enjoyed the pictures. If you have kids then head to Old MacDonalds as it is a great day out and in a really beautiful part of Essex..........South Weald.

Chocolate & Pear

Joshua seems to have really settled into his new room and has now slept in there 4 nights on the trot. We had a minor problem on Sunday with the heavy rain where initially the noise of the rain on the velux window woke him up. But once he got used to it he was fine again. The blinds for the velux windows have still not arrived so that are currently covered with bin bags to try and blackout the room of a night.

Brandon also has his new cot now set-up in the nursery room. Here is the little guy trying out his new bed. Now Daddy has just got to try fixing the second monitor so that we can keep track of both of them in the respective bedrooms.

The other news with Brandon is that tonight after swimming we decided to try the little guy with some pureed pear. He really wasn't taking to the baby rice so we figured there's nothing to lose. Anyway he seemed to love the pear and scoffed down a whole bowl. So it looks like the weaning process will start from now onwards.............

Joshua's latest word is "chocolate" - looking at the pictures below I can't imagine where he could have learnt that from!!!!!!

Penthouse Occupied

Well I think everyone knows that we have now started Brandon on the baby rice. I have to say it is not going as good as when we started Joshua so maybe we will move straight to the pureed pears. Last night I tried a small amount of mild curry sauce on my finger and Brandon seemed to really enjoy licking that off. As for Joshua, his eating is still up and down. Of a weekend though he still enjoys his kippers for breakfast as a special treat and normally polishes off a whole kipper after his bowl of porridge. Plenty of Omega 3 for the little guy. Anyway here is Brandon having his baby rice.

Joshua and Brandon are getting on really well lately and Joshua is extremely affectionate towards his younger brother. He is always smothering him with kisses and cuddles and is starting to be really gentle with him. There have been signs of the two of them playing together and bonding which is really nice to see. The following 3 pictures capture a few moments when the two boys were having some bonding time.........

And Brandon seems to be very content and always smiling lately................

The next two pictures are just a few old snaps of Joshua from a week or so ago when we took a walk out to Gloucester Park. The little guy walked so far on this day that his legs were so knackered. He didn't want to be carried and didn't want to go in the push chair. So he just sat down on the pavement a few times to rest - very funny to see. He would just shout "sit-down" and then plonk his bum down.

Last week I was in the Czech Republic again and this was the first time I have travelled this year due to Brandon being born. Since Brandon has been around I would say I spend even more time with Joshua and have bonded with him even more since Tina normally takes care of Brandon. Within 1 day of me being away Joshua had picked up on the fact that I was no longer around and caused all kinds of trouble for Tina, to the point where she had to pull him out of nursery because he was missing his Dad so much. Its great that he has made such a strong emotional bond, but bad for Tina should I have to travel much in the future.

Anyway after months and months of building work and weeks and weeks of decorating work the penthouse suite is finally open and occupied. Joshua officially moved in yesterday and slept in his new big boys room for the first time. We are over the moon with how his room turned out and think it is far better than we ever expected. Joshua seems to love it up there and already recognises it as his rooms, he just glides straight past the nursery now.

Joshua does have a toddler bed in his room but is currently still in his cot. We did not want to introduce too much change all at once and wanted to slowly get him used to the idea of a bed. So he has his new Disney Cars bed and his old cot in the room at the moment.

Joshua and Brandon trying out the new toddle bed.

We do not plan on decorating Brandon's new bedroom for some time yet as he will stay in the nursery room closer to our bedroom. We have built a new cot for him so over the next few weeks we plan to start phasing him into the nursery instead of the moses basket in our room. The next blog update will show pictures of Brandon in his new cot.