A busy weekend!

Isaac and I did quite a lot this weekend! A few firsts too.

On Saturday Simon, Isaac, Rinny and I went for Isaac's first excursion to the Peaks. The Peak District is close to where we live and it's really quite  a beautiful park of the UK. And quiet. I love that countryside silence; only broken by the bleating of sheep and a polite "hello" from other walkers.

We decided to go for a mooch around Stanton Moor in the White Peak, so called because of the light colour of the underlying limestone rock, common around the central and southern parts of the Peak District. I think. Anyhoo, we have a book called Kiddiwalks in the Peak District which we had yet to use. Turns out it's pretty good (especially if you can remember from school how to read a grid reference [thanks to Google for refreshing my rusty brain!] to find the starting point). It allowed 2 1/2 hours for the route we chose, but took us only 1, I suppose because we weren't walking at child speed and didn't really stop to look around/explore much.

I forgot my camera :-(

Even the point & shoot.

All I had was my phone. :-(

So this is all I took before I got peed off and turned my phone off out of frustration.

It was a lovely walk and the book points out lots of cool stuff, like the Nine Ladies Stone Circle with the Fiddler Stone, the Trig Point (from which you can see for miles!), the Cork Stone & an old overgrown quarry that sheep used for resting ledges.  Living in a city, it's marvellous to see such lush greenery and escape (what you don't realise is) contant background noise.

Isaac completely fell asleep in the carrier! I couldn't believe it! Bless him.

We're pretty excited about the rest of the walks in the book and so will be going up into the Peaks again with more planning done next time; it was a bit last minute, but still really nice to spend some time together. What next - camping perhaps?

On Saturday evening through 'til Monday evening Isaac and I went to see his Nanna & Grandpa (my Mum & Step-Dad) at their house in Leamington Spa. He always sleeps well there and likes the change of scenery. Nanna recently invested in a hot tub and so (after adjusting the temperature accordingly) Isaac took his first dip!

He. Loved. It.

Splashing his little arms all over the place, playing bongo on the filter cover, floating on his back (with some support from Mummy of course). He face planted the water a few times, but got over the initial shock quite quickly. I couldn't take pictures of him in there because it was just me and him at the time, but here's the cheeky scamp afterwards...

 ...and after dropping the towel on the floor for the 6th time, just to watch it fall...

I can't believe we're having such good weather at the moment and that we've made the most of a weekend when we don't have other commitments! I'm so pleased and am really looking forward to more; Grandad's come to stay with us for a bit so we'll see what else we get up to :-D

Introducing...

...Isaac's tongue!

Today, Isaac has been [mostly] introducing his tongue to the world and using his mouth to make a clicking sound; hilarious! Today is the first day he's really done this & he CAN'T GET ENOUGH! He finds it very amusing, as do I if I'm honest.

Over the past few weeks he has started to really like to passing things to you, as long as you give them back. Well, I don't think he has any expectations, but he's always pleased to get the item in question back. What a generous wee chappie young Master Turner is!

We also went to TinyTalk for the first time. It's excellent! The woman that runs it is possibly the most enthusiastic woman in the world, which is a good thing when teaching babies to sign. We learned the signs for hot, cold, rain, heavy rain, water and look/see. I also picked up the signs for all gone, water and happy from Steph (NCT chum). We're going back & even bought a CD of songs. There are only 3 more classes this term so will have to make the most of them. I'm glad we've finally gone - it'll do us good and Isaac seemed to enjoy it!

On a sunny June afternoon...

Bread!

I've tried to make bread before. Well, I've made bread before, but it resembled a door stop or small rock. Not the sort of bread you'd like to eat unless you were the Rock Biter from The Neverending Story. Which I'm not. So, my lovely mother (at my request) bought us a bread machine for our birthdays. (Mine &  Simon's birthdays are within 4 days of each other). It's bloody fantastic! Even Simon thinks so & he hasn't even used it! Long gone is the arduous task of kneading & the first proving. The beautiful machine does it for me! I made a garlic focaccia the other day for lunch when some friends visited and today I made  something that was bloomer shape, but the recipe was forwhite bread roll dough so it had that texture, but a bit lighter. I'm quite big on food aesthetics (believing that half the battle is won if it looks pretty) so I clearly need to work on presentation, but it tasted great - really fresh and went perfectly with what-veg-is-left-in-the-fridge? and lentil stew for tea - yum!

Isaac liked it too :-D

No more store bought bread for us! I never thought I'd see the day...

Finally!

After a few weeks of dadadadadadadaDADADADADADA...(you get the idea) I heard the long awaited mumumumumumumuma! My eyes prickled and my heart swelled. I know they're just sounds for now, but I was truly bowled over by how it made me feel and was reminded that one day my baby boy really will be calling me Mummy :-D

Isaac and his Nanna.

We've come to visit Isaac's Nanna and Grandpa for the weekend and today Mum, Isaac and I went to Stratford-upon-Avon for the afternoon. I'd forgotten how lovely it is. In fact, I'd forgotten how lovely most of Warwickshire is. All the little black and white beamed houses, groaning under the weight of age and history, keeping  locked in the walls and doors their secrets of lives past.  Not something I appreciated as a child growing up there, but now...it's just so charming. I could sit by the river for hours and watch the people go about their meanderings.  Heck, am I getting old?? Anyhoo I digress. Massively into my own musings. Apologies.

What I wanted to show you was this...

It's so incredibly terrific to see Mum with a smile this big on her face. She's been through a hell of a lot in recent years and it's not over yet. It makes me  happy and so utterly proud that our Little Man can instigate a beam like this.

I love you Mama and so does your wee grandson, he just can't say it yet.

I'm not even home...

...and I've found what I want to make next. Aren't they soooooooooooooooooo cute? I need buttons. Buttons buttons BUTTONS! Any excuse to shop for buttons, my primary one being - I don't have any suitable for this project. Which is, I guess, a pretty good reason to shop for buttons! SELINA! Where are you when a frenzy takes hold???!

Actually, I found the pattern months ago and queued it in Ravelry, but have decided that (as I'm about 60 miles away from my stash & hooks) I desperately want to start making them RIGHT NOW. The irksome thing is that (if I were at home) I could totally make them because I have a ton of Vanna's Choice solids & heathers (as you'll remember from my delivery delirium - amigurumi have blurred into my [now epic] Ravelry queue - damn you Ravelry for being so efficient at teasing me with a never-ending supply of completely beautiful things to make!).

I suppose the urge is upon me because I'm not at home and not being at home means I'm not surrounded by the endless-pile-of-stuff-that-needs-to-be-done-while-Isaac-is-asleep.

Anyhoo. I found them on Ravelry, but here is a link to the pattern for those of you non-Ravelers; shame on you! I like lots of her patterns...*sigh*...if only there were more hours in the day...