The Penthouse Suite

Breaking news today is that we finally got planning permission for Joshua's Penthouse Suite up in the loft including his own personal bathroom. Building work will probably start in the next few weeks and will take just under 3 months to complete. In preparation for the builder to come and measure up for ordering of materials I spent today clearing out the loft ready (no mean feat I can tell you!). It took 6.5 hours and has resulted in two bedrooms full of boxes plus the garage roof all boarded out and full up, and a sore back for Dad!. Lets hope Joshua and J2 are not hoarders like their Dad!!!

Anyway here are the "before" pictures of the loft. As Joshua's penthouse suite develops I will keep you posted on the updates. PS Joshua will only get the benefit from having the whole top floor to himself for around 6 months or so. Then he will have to share with J2 since the plan is to put two new rooms upstairs.

Picasso or Rembrant

I haven't written much about J2 in a while - too occupied with Joshua, work, training, loft conversions etc! Anyway J2 is getting bigger by the day now and Tina is subsequently getting more and more tired. J2 appears to move around a lot more than Joshua did. This Friday we have another visit to see the midwife and hear the heart beat, plus Joshua has got to have another lot of injections - poor lad.

Joshua is getting smarter and smarter each day. He has reached the stage where he is copying me and Tina an awful lot. He is quickly learning how to put different shapes in mating holes and also seems to have mastered stacking his cups. He is forever opening and closing doors, cupboards and drawers (even if they do have child proof locks). The little guy has also nailed his bedtime routine down to a T, once washed, dressed and teeth cleaned he says night night to his toys, then kisses daddy, then mummy, then the baby (mummies belly) and then he turns off his light. After this his knows he gets laid down in his cot for his milk and so he arches his back rearwards with his arms out stretched ready for his bottle. Very funny to see.

You might all remember the professional picture that Tina had taken of Joshua for my birthday with him wearing a french style beret and holding and paint palette. Well maybe that shot wasn't too far from Joshua's true colours. As you can see from the pictures below he has really taken to drawing on his Disney Cars book set.

Santa Stop Here!

After Joshua's visit to see Santa on Friday it would appear he is now on an all out campaign to ensure the big bearded man pays him a visit this Christmas Eve by installing his own "Santa Stop Here" signs. God help Santa if he misses this house out............I wouldn't want this little fellow after me.


It would also appear that the little dude is starting to show an interest in fast, flashy cars like his old man. All weekend he has been whizzing around with this model Jaguar from one of the James Bond Movies.

Santa Clause is coming..........

Sorry for lack of updates this week. Once again work had me out in the chilly Czech Republic this week. Fingers crossed this will be my last visit for a while as I plan to do no travel after Xmas since it will be to close to J2's arrival.

Anyway today Joshua had his first visit to see Santa Clause with mummy. So no excuses for not knowing what to buy him for Xmas as the little man had a lengthy chat with Santa to explain all. Joshua was a little afraid of the Santa - no surprises really as he is not sure about beards! In fact he even hates it when I have a shave and go near him with my face covered in shaving foam.

Gunner 4 Life

The little guy seems to get smarter and smarter every day. It is amazing how much babies pick up and learn from you at only 13 months old. For example on Saturday he pulled a set of keys out of Tina's bag and started trying to insert them into the keyhole on the front door. He watches us using cutlery and mimics the actions with his spoon and also copies your hand gestures / movements. He has also now learnt how to "high five"!.

On Friday Joshua got to listen to the heart beat of J2 as we had another midwife appointment. All is well and it looks like we will get to see the baby again soon as they have now offered us an additional 36 week scan. This is just an extra precautionary scan to check the babies size since Joshua was such a large baby. Fingers crossed we won't be able to tell the babies sex (even though Tina is itching to find out!).

For today's picture here is a cute little shot of Joshua wearing one of his new Arsenal footie shirts that he got for his birthday.

This weekend has been fun with Joshua. On Friday he went back to PartyMan with Mia. On Saturday he met up with Millie and Joaben for a play down the gym while Daddy was training. And then today we took him back to the cinema to watch Ratatouille. The little guy watched the first 15 mins, then fell asleep for an hour, then woke for the last 15 mins!.

Poppy Day

As most of you already know today is remembrance day - 11th Nov to celebrate the end of World War 1. At nursery Joshua made this rather fetching poppy hat using hand painting to make the petals. How cool is that? We are well chuffed as this is the first thing he has brought home from nursery that he has made himself.

PartyMan

On Sunday we had a really fun day with Joshua. In the morning we decided to take him over to PartyMan again. This was the first time he has been since he has been walking. He absolutely loved it over there and was completely exhausted after an hour of running around like a lunatic! He thoroughly enjoyed the little slides and was very determined to try and climb as high as he could up the big red bouncy volcano. Anyway below are some pictures from PartyMan.

After Joshies lunchtime nap and some grub I decided to take him out for a little bike ride over the park to go and feed the ducks. Again he seemed to enjoy this - I just had to make sure he was well wrapped up in hat,gloves, coat etc as it was a bit nippy out.

Move over beach boy, theres a new surfer dude in town!

After an hour of running around the little guy was completely wiped out and decided to crash out on the volcano (not wise with other kids hurtling down and bounding up it constantly).

Mr Messy

What do you get when you go out for a round of golf and leave your one year old son with his Mum, the mad auntie, his nanny and a pot of paints??????? You get MR MESSY. Perhaps he was just painting his face like the Ultimate Warrior.

Still it could have been worse - there could have been glitter involved as well.

FEED ME

This week Joshua has started to use arm bands in the swimming pool for the first time. He didn't seem to mind them at all and it gives him a bit more freedom to move around rather than clinging to Daddy or being stuck in his floatie.

Joshua's walking is also improving in leaps and bounds and he is now virtually running. The problem we have now is getting him to slow down so that he doesn't trip over. He can even manage to reach down from a standing position to pick something up and then stand back upright again unassisted. Tonight in Tesco's the little guy was even pushing the trolley around a bit!!!

As Joshua becomes more and more independent every day, it was only a matter of time before he started to feed himself. So this week we gave him the spoon and bowl and just let him get on with it. Its very messy, but he has got the right idea and as you can see from the pictures he does manage to get some of his yoghurt in his mouth.

Scare Tactics

Well Halloween, Bonoween and firework night is all over for us. It was fun dressing up for Joshie and his first trick or treat was a success. The little guy seems to really like fireworks and does not mind the noise at all. When the neighbours have been letting off fireworks over the last couple of nights he has slept right through.

Interestingly we put up a few Halloween decorations and Joshua was petrified of a couple of them. I found this really weird because how does he know how to be frightened about certain things? He has not been taught this, he has not seen this on TV or anything - is it instinct? Whats the difference between his big mega blok truck and a plastic decoration on a door that enables him to distinguish between good and bad. What a weird concept...........

Anyway here are a few piccies to enjoy.

How is this for a pumpkin carving, the tigers eyes even light up with red LED's.

My Joshua what long hair you have..............

And finally the 3 of us - the devil, the little vampire/dracula and the witch.

Trick or Treat

Not much to update the blog with this week. I have been a bit busy and have not given the blog much thought to be honest. Anyway Joshua had had a good week at the nursery (apart from having another bout of conjunctivitis!) and has been doing some more painting, playing in sand and having his photo taken by a photographer. He has also been swimming with Daddy twice this week after finishing work. On Thursday when I picked him up he did the most adorable thing ever. I picked him up to give him a cuddle and he placed his head on my shoulder for a hug. This was nice enough, but then I went on to talk to one of the staff to discuss his eating, sleep, nappies etc for the day. Because I was talking to her and not paying him any attention he put his hand on the side of my face, physically pulled my head around and gave me a big slobbery kiss!!!


We have also decided this week to try teaching Joshua some very basic sign language as I have read that babies can pick this up much quicker than verbal communication and it obviously helps out with understanding their needs. So we are trying a few signals for food, drink, sleep, going in the car and that kind of thing. I will keep you posted if he picks up on any of them and starts using them.

Finally here are some pictures of the little guy in his new Halloween costume - meet Count Dracula Junior!!!! Thanks to Nanny & Grandad for buying the costume for Joshua's first night out trick or treating. Be afraid, be very afraid. He may not bite you to death, but he will have a good go at kissing you to death.

And here are the spoils for one nights work, not bad eh!

And just in case you have forgotten, this was the little guy almost a year ago to the day and only a few weeks old at his very first Halloween all dressed up as a little pumpkin. My how he has changed in a year?

Monster House

Today I took Joshua to the cinema for the first time. At the Empire cinemas they run an early morning kids cartoon showing which only costs £1. We was hoping to watch Space Chimps but since it was fully booked we ended up watching Monster House (well about a 1/3rd of it). Joshua was excellent, he settled down on my lap with a bottle of milk and sat there watching the film for about 30 minutes with his thumb in his mouth. It was real nice to just have some Dad and Son time together whilst Tina went off to do some shopping. After about 30 mins or so Joshua started to get restless and so we decided to call it a day and headed off to the gym.

Joshua has also now discovered his toy box in his bedroom and realised the lid opens and inside is yet more undiscovered toys. So whats the first thing the little man wanted to do? Yes you guessed, climb inside...................

Also tonight something weird happened. For the first time ever I saw the look of fear on Joshua's face. He has never reacted in a frightened way until now. Basically what happened was we took him up to bed and I always read him a couple of stories in his cot. Well the 2nd story book I read was his 3D pop up dinosaur book which he usually loves (so do I!). When we got to the last page there is a big pop up T-Rex and Joshua was really frightened by the dinosaur and crept over to cuddle his mummy. I even tried joking around with the pop up dinosaur and tickling his chin etc, but Joshua was still frightened of it. Have I scarred the child for life by making him watch "Monster House" at the cinema????

Brave Little Soldier

Today our brave little soldier had to go to the GP for his 1 year old booster injections. Mum held the little man whilst Dad distracted him with his toy light sabre. Joshua was very brave and cried for only about 10 seconds or so, then with a few more distractions and a box of raisins as a gift from the nurse he soon forgot all about the pain.

Please vote on the new poll on Joshua's blog - this time the question is whether you think J2 will arrive early, on-time or late?

For today's piccies here are a few good snaps I took last week when me and the little man went over the park to kill some time. As you can see he is getting to be a little dare devil already by standing on the slide and trying to walk up it!!!

Note the blue mega block in hand!!! This has become his make shift mobile phone which gets carried around everywhere by the side of his ear.

Phones 4 U

Here are a few more pictures of Joshua playing with some of his birthday toys. He absolutely loves the little wooden hammer and walks around the house fixing everything (including windows). Touch wood nothing has broken yet.


Also earlier this week Joshua was a bit poorly so I had to collect him from nursery and work from home. To keep him occupied for a while I decided to teach him how to talk on a phone. As you can see he picked this up very quickly, but Dad didn't think this plan through very well. You see giving the baby your work mobile when you are working from home and getting calls from the customer is not clever. And as you know once a baby has something they like you cannot take it away without them crying. So if anyone has an old mobile phone knocking around - can Joshua claim it to play with?

"No Daddy cannot come to the phone Mr Jaguar STA, he is asleep on the sofa"

"Hello, is that Daddies office, can you pass on a message that he is not well and staying at home with his baby all day!"

"Hahaha, gotcha - adults are so gullible"