Crawling and Cruising

Well, Evangeline's slow crawling has been replaced by super fast crawling that has prompted Mummy to see about getting a custom gate put in the wine room to contain Ms. Pickle. It is never good to turn away for a minute and not be able to find the baby when you turn back! Hiding is one of Evie's favourite tricks . . . especially under Nana's bed. Evie has also be seen cruising along the furniture at Nana's house and the screaming her head off when she loses her balance! Poor baby.



Evie has also had her first hair cut as it was constantly in her eyes. She was very squiggly and tried hard to grab the scissors, but there was no blood. I think I might leave hair cuts in the capable hands of Mitzi in the future though.

The MOST exciting news of the week though is that Evie officially likes Marmite. This is lucky because had she not liked it, I might have had to question her status as a Brit. But she liked it nearly as much as the bread it was served on. We're trying fish next week!! And then beef a la Papa after that.

We're hoping that Evie will have a date with baby Alex this weekend. She will have to wear a ruffles . . .

Jane xx

New vs Old

See . .. look below! I finally got the pictures done. I even took away the red eye so that Evangeline doesn't look completely like a demon child. And all this after spending hours with Auggie making huge batches of Evie food. Time for some wine and a little update . . .

So, Evie is now sitting well and crawling around a bit, but not really proper crawling. She's also discovered that when she's with Nana and she doesn't want to sleep, yelling "Nananananananana" at the top of her voice will get Nana back in the nursery. She hates avocado but likes turkey very much. She also likes toast and can feed it to herself. Evie has also discovered Charlie Girl's tail. Luckily Charlie is a good kitty who doesn't mind tail pulling, hair pulling, or batting. Daddy gave her a piano lesson the other day but Mummy is not sure who was teaching whom. hehe. "DADA", stated loudly and firmly, is still Evie's current favourite word.

As most of you know, I (Jane) have a new job. This is a very good thing. It is also a very, very different thing. A few examples:

At the old, one could be fired for having alcohol on the premises, even if locked in the car boot.
At the new, the senior partner keeps beer in the fridge

At the old, one could be fired for having any kind of weapon on the premises.
At the new, we have gun cleaning sessions in the conference room and a firm shooting team.

At the old, one could be strongly cautioned by management if caught carrying a hot beverage without a lid.
At the new, we are treated like adults.

At the old, lunch was at 11.
At the new, lunch is when I'm hungry

At the old, one risked life and limb every day just by driving to the charming ghetto in which it was located.
At the new, I drive to one of the most exclusive areas of town

Needless to say, change is good :-p

The other big news is that we have booked next year's holiday. We're off to England in April for Ollie's wedding and my 30th (shh) birthday. We've decided to actually take a holiday - a REAL one - in a hotel and everything!! This is a big deal for someone as cheap as me. We're staying here: www.stayinacastle.com - fun or what!!!

More Evie updates later!

Jane and Auggie xxxxx

Evie in England Part 2

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England and Evie update!

Well, rather a lot has changed since I last posted for EVER ago. Not only has Evangline turned 6 months but she has also turned 7 months. Opps. I'm a very bad blogger and the moment. So . . . what has changed since last time?

Evie is SITTING UP!! Yippee!! This was an exciting moment for Grandad as she sat up for the first time on his lap. She now has discovered the whole new world of playing while sitting upright AND has discovered that you puke less when you're not rolling around on your tummy right after dinner. This is good news for both Evie and Mummy.

Evie is also crawling (sort of). She forgets how to do it sometimes but she definitely can do it if she feels like it. She's exceptional at going backwards but gets a bit frustrated because she wants to go forwards. One day soon she will get it all figured out. In the mean time her parents are amused.

Food is still one of the pickle's favourite things. She has added mashed potato, green beans, blueberries, banana, dates, yogurt, peas and rusks to her menu. The doc reckons she is allergic to beta carotene so no carrots or sweet potato for pickle. Nana would like her to try custard. We disagree and because Nana can't cook, we know she won't be doing it without us knowing, hehe. The only food that Evie has disliked so far is leek. She REALLY hated it. She kept eating it of course because this is Evie - but goodness me was she disgusted by it. We are trying turkey this coming week and then fish after that. yummy. Auggie and I are food processor pros now. We can puree anything.

Before we bore you with more writing . . . he are some England photo highlights.








She was the perfect baby on the flight over and slept the whole way. On the way back, we were the people noone wants to sit next to. Evie decided to exercise her lungs. The only upside to this is that we were sitting in the row behind first class so allthe people who have more money than sense got to listen to Evie scream. Serves them right - should have sat in row 38 hehe.

England was super. Evie put her feet in the sea for the first time . . . the NORTH sea. Evie's a trooper. She liked the sand. She also went to her first Church Fete although she slept through most of it. Most importantly, she had her first (of many) trip to the pub and shared a beer with Uncle Alex. We did give her some culture (or Kulcha as we were in the south) at Leeds Castle and Wimpole Hall. Leeds Castle had a lovely room with a little Evie sized bed. I will post pictures of that later. Evie loved sight seeing. She was soooo good with the time difference. I think she was born to travel. More about England in a later post when we have all the pictures figured out.

Evie was happy that her Grandma and Uncle Thad came to visit this weekend :-) A good way to spend her first July 4th (although though as a dual citizen, Mummy has told her she's not sure whether to celebrate independance or good riddance hehe).

On that note, happy July 4th or happy Sunday - whichever way you like to look at it!

Jane xxx

Remembering Happy News

One year ago Auggie and I found out that our little gummy was in fact a little girl gummy. This was wonderful, amazing news. I squealed a little. But all of that was insignificant when compared to the major good news we received that day.

Auggie and I had found out in May 2009 that I was a carrier of Cystic Fibrosis - a horrible life ending disease that is the most common genetic disease affecting babies. We didn't worry too too much as it requires both parents to be carriers. So off Auggie went for testing. We knew it was bad when the Doctor called me. Despite the 1/860 chance of it happening, Auggie was also a carrier. This meant that our little gummy had a 1/4 chance of having Cystic Fibrosis. Worse still, we carried two different "class 1" mutations, meaning that gummy would have had the most serious form of the disease and therefore a very very short life expectancy.

So on June 1, 2009 I went for CVS Testing. It is hideous. The doctor was also hideous and slimy. But we needed to know if gummy had it because so much can be done right after birth to improve life quality for an affected child. It was a horrible day. I had to take the next day off because it still hurt.

Even though we were nervous, in my heart I knew our gummy was ok. One year ago, we found out that she was. And that she does not even carry the mutated gene - an added bonus. Excited as I was to find out that we were having a baby girl (which was all I had ever wanted) nothing will ever compare to hearing the news that our baby was ok.

Everyone should know more about Cystic Fibrosis. It is far more common than you might imagine. You can read more at: http://www.cff.org/

Jane xxx

Memorial Day Weekend!

Look who had a happy Memorial Day!!!




Daddy and I got all enthusiastic this weekend with making organic baby food. Our first effort was peach with rice. Here's a very unexciting photograph of it. We also made cream of courgette, cream of squash, applesauce and steamed pear puree. We will make some green beans next week once we have established whether she likes it. So far she has liked all the food we have given her - even the sweet potato that made her sick. She will also try blueberry and potato this week!



Evangeline wore red, white and blue in honour of Memorial Day. Red's really not her colour but since we have this pretty outfit, we thought it would be a good day for her to wear it. She didn't seem too unhappy about it! This is fairly typical cheerful pickle-pie. She was saying Dada a lot on Monday too. I'm trying not to get jealous but not entirely succeeding.




The "book" says that Evie "might" be able to bear some weight on her legs by this age. Clearly this is not a problem for her. Sitting up, however, seems to be far too boring for Evie and she can't even nearly do it.



After a long day of eating, drinking, and swimming, Evie was ready for bed wearing her czech jimjams. She had a little quiet playtime before bed.




I'm back at work full time now and still married to my pump. I'm really sad not to have my day of with Evie every week but it had to happen some time :-( I will give a proper Evie update later in the week when she turns 6 months old!!!

Jane xxxx

Photos!

So apparently we are bad parents who don't take very many photos of the pickle-pie. Nana has some others that I will have to get from her. But here are a few to keep you going.


I finally got a smile on camera!! Naturally the smile is associated with the anticipation of food. Food usually makes Evangeline smile.


Shy baby


Lazy afternoon with Uncle Rob and Papa.



Evie really does love the water. She likes to put her head in and blow bubbles and drink the water. She also likes to splash herself.

Today Evangeline has decided that jumping is fun. She likes to try to bouce all the time. I think she might have ants in her pants!! She was very cheerful today indeed.

And finally . . . the biggest moment of Evie's (and probably Daddy's)life so far . . . SHE SAID "DADA"!! It was so cute. I think Daddy is very pleased with himself!!

Have a lovely memorial day everyone.

Jane xxx

We are still here . . . I promise!

This whole going to work business is seriously getting in the way of my blog updates!! I will have to add the photographs tomorrow as blogger is being naughty and not letting me upload. But here is a little update on Evangeline!

We certainly don't have to worry about not feeding her enough. I weighed her this weekend and she clocked in at 16lbs 11oz. What a little fatso! It is all cute baby fat of course!!

She tried vegetables for the first time last week. This was not fun. Apparently it is possible to have an intolerance of sweet potato. WHO KNEW? Well, the pale carpet covered in orange projectile vomit certainly knows. Lovely. Poor Evie - it is especially sad because she really liked the taste.
Apple was more successful. She's not wild about it by itself but thinks it is tasty when mixed in with her rice or oatmeal. She still has to have it plain sometimes though as we don't want her only liking sweet food.
I think we are trying peas tomorrow.

Evangeline always has a story before bedtime. Yesterday I read her her "Noddy" book and then started to say goodnight. Evie had other ideas. She reached around in her cot for the soft animal book, found it and handed it to me. Auggie's boss says she must either love literature or want to prolong sleep time. We are certain it is the latter. It was too cute, however.
Evie's also started chatting again. She had stopped for a week or so, but tonight she was full of opinions. She also likes to blow raspberries at people and imitate when we do it to her. Cute but probably not something we want to prolong!!!!

That's all for now. Pictures soon I promise.

Jane xxxxx

I know, it has been ages

but we have been insanely busy!!! Alex and Sam made a trip over from England, we had Mother's Day and we have been doing house projects. Evangeline had a lovely time with her cousin. He kept her entertained for most of the week and helped to feed her, dress her and to make sure she was happy. Evie seemed to like her cousin just as much.
Evangeline has also learned some new tricks. We had her playing on her mat about a week ago - and she started to show signs of crawling . . .





and then last week I decided to take a little nap while Evie played on her mat. SILLY MUMMY! When I woke up she was on the other side of her large playmat. I am pretty sure the cat didn't move her so she must have done it herself. With that in mind we have moved her cot/crib to the lower setting so she can't decided to climb out while we are not looking. Silly pickle!

We think that Evie might be a wizz in the kitchen. She decided to take a keen interest in my bread making on Saturday. I explained to her about oz and cups and how we had to measure everything. I must be a great teacher because she made a pretty good loaf. Here she is watching it bake with Daddy.



Evangeline has also discovered swimming. She likes it a lot, mainly because she can splash her parents. This apparently is great fun. Nana got her a UV protection cozzie in England to protect her pale pale skin. Isn't she cute! Couldn't be any colour other than pink could it? Luckily Nana has a lovely pool for her to play in.





Finally, Evangeline has declared her political affiliation for the UK. She was in a bit of a strop yesterday. That was until Gordon Brown was called a "one eyed, Scottish T***" - Evie found this so funny she belly laughed for a good 5 minutes. Then when the new PM went into Downing Street she smiled away and belly laughed again. My true blue baby - so proud.

Tomorrow is our wedding anniversary. Long service award in order for Auggie I think. We are letting Christine babysit while we go and have dinner. Let us hope that Evangeline is her usual perfect self and sleeps from 6:30 onwards or Christine might not offer again. Another new experience for us all will be starting veggies. I refuse to feed her anything orange because of the kind of puke it will produce so yellow squash here we come :-)

Jane xxxx

21 weeks old!

21 weeks old already!! We can't believe that she is growing up so fast. And Evangeline is learning new tricks so fast we can hardly keep up. Of course, some of the tricks we could do without, such as pulling the side of her happy so that poo comes out. Despite Nana's claims to the contrary, Evie is rolling over a lot now. I've caught her in her cot a couple of times on her tummy with her legs dangling out of the crib. Generally she likes to do it when noone is looking so we have yet to catch her on video. However, here is a snap of her just post roll. Evie now knows her name too - she looked at me here after I called her name. I don't think "Evangeline" means much to her yet though. Silly parents confusing her with two names. Evie is also big enough for her 6 month clothes and has been trying out some new things. I think this has been influenced by the slightly early arrival of her boyfriend, Alex Grundy. She is picking the perfect outfit for her first date with him in a few weeks. Of course, Daddy will always be her first love! This dress is a contender for her first meeting with Alex though. Soft and feminine but not too much, don't you think? Evangeline had complained to her landlords a.k.a. her parents about the state of the garden. To be fair, the girl has a point. There were more weeds than soil and more dead bushes than live. So, last weekend, supervised by Evie of course, we soiled, mulched, planted, weeded etc etc the whole garden. Here are a few snaps of the one of the flower beds. I think she approved. She did a little pukey of appreciation. Evie's also still eating like a little piglet. She opens up her little mouth for food the minute she sees the high chair. I think this has contributed to her being 15lbs 7oz at last measure. I tried to upload an example but as usual it didn't work. It was a cute one of our nice quiet baby of a few weeks ago. She's become noisier since then and often tries to eat her chair. She certainly appreciates her grub!I won't leave it so long between posts next time! We should have some pictures from Sammy's visit next week! Yippeee Jane xxxx

Moving around . . .

It has been a long old time since I've updated . . . sorry about that grandparents!! But we have been sooo busy and we don't know where the time goes.
Evie drank from a cup for the first time last week!! Nana had a while "sloping" cup that she bought in the NAG Chemists in 1979. It was the perfect first cup. We didn't think in a million years those cups would still be available but they are!! Doidy is still going strong. Evie did very well with her cup.









Exciting for her but rather less so for us is that Evangeline is very mobile these days. She rolls a lot but in addition to that, she is now squiggling around all over the place. She turned herself 180 degrees in her cot today and is able to climb out of a high chair. So, no more leaving her and not worrying about it!! She also tries to get out of the bath even though she loves it.




We bought a baby scale online yesterday. We're fed up of having to wait for doctors appointments to find out how much she weighs. Now I can be obsessive about it!!

Enjoy the pictures!

Jane xxx

Stop Press!

This morning Evangeline rolled over from her back to her front!! Her parents missed this :-( but luckily Nana saw it and it was a nice birthday present for Papa. Congratulations baby girl

xxxx

Happy Birthday to . . . . well, me actually

That's right! Saturday was Mummy's birthday and it was a great one! As anyone who knows me will know, my birthday begins on British Summer Time and ends on Central time, making it 6 hours longer than a normal birthday. This year, however, I was a good girl and didn't open my presents and cards until the morning because I wanted Evie there too.

Before I get into any birthday stuff I should mention Evangeline's 4 month appointment on Wednesday since apparently people read this blog to hear about her rather than me. She's 13lbs 14oz and 24 1/2 inches, which means she is not quite the chunker that she once was. This is a good thing. The doctor says she is doing very well. She did not take too terribly kindly to the shots. The roto virus syrup was a great hit of course because it is food, but we had much screaming with the shots. But a few Mummy cuddles followed by a few Nana cuddles seemed to do the trick.

Evie is definitely growing! She's still not a bit bothered about rolling over. Standing seems to be her new goal, and maybe a bit of sitting up. Impatient much??




We don't have to go back again until 6 months.

So, back to the more important topic of my birthday . . . .

Evie and Daddy made sure I had a super duper time. I got lovely presents and cards, and Evie gave me lots of cuddles. Kevin dropped by to say hi, although I think he was also more interested in Evie than my birthday.








In the evening we went off to Yao for Peking Duck. It was yummy. I spent my birthday money from Ma and Pa earlier in the day on a new frock. Of course, I had to wear it to dinner!! Its actually a pretty good choice for dinner out because its tight around the stomach so prevents you from making too much of a pig of yourself :-) Here's me modelling it standing in my usual "peter pan" pose - can anyone tell my WHY I stand like that??? Answers on a postcard please.



And now, for my best present. The "Moody Cow" jimmies from Uncle Alex and Sam. So true on so many levels and so hideous you kinda have to like them don't you think . . . . ?



And as a side note, Evie has already puke marked her territory on these - some things are pretty much a given!

Jane xxx

One Year Ago Today . . .

. . . we found out we were having a baby! At that time we called it "gummy".

Having signed up for a fertility study that started on April 7th, I thought I should take a pregnancy test just in case. I thought I'd look a bit of a twit turning up to something claiming to be unable to get pregnant if I was, in fact, pregnant. So I popped into the loo at work, peed on the stick and started thinking about lunch. I had no symptoms or anything. So imagine my suprise when two lines showed up bright bright blue! I called Auggie who had the same thought - what does this mean for the study? I guess neither of us were thinking clearly. I called my mum who confirmed that you can't have a false positive. I even got Lindsay at work to read the lines for me to make sure I wasn't seeing things! And at lunch I went off to the pharmacy to get another test (or three). And of course, they were all positive.

So, we were pretty excited and a bit shocked. We didn't tell everyone at first, which turned out to be a good thing with all the cystic fibrosis drama that followed. But April 6th will always be remembered as a happy day for us and a day for which we had waited a long old time - the day we knew our pickle was on the way!

Easter 2010 Part 1 and Evie is 4 Months

Happy Easter Everyone!

We hope that your weekend was as lovely as ours. Evangeline went on her first ever road trip on Friday to Eden, TX to see Ma and Pa (Auggie's Dad and Step-Mum). On this trip we became very grateful for Evie's lie flat car seat because she could really really have a good nap during the journey!

The 5 hour drive was a breeze and we stopped just once in Taylor for lunch. Sadly there was no changing table in the loo. I mean seriously, you'd think most places would have them these days. But apparently not. So Evie had to show her bottom to the world and have a new nappy in the back of the car. Evie was a perfect baby for the whole journey. Mummy and Daddy also proved all of their critics wrong and proved once and for all that you can pack for a weekend away with two parents and a baby - including pack and play and stroller - in a Honda Civic.

Amusing Evie moment came when Ma showed her a spoon to see if she would grab with her left hand or her right. We all know Evie loves her grub and inevitably, Evie went for the spoon with her mouth!!

Evie turned 4 months on Saturday and celebrated with a very busy day. She met Auntie Becky and Uncle Doug. She'd been looking forward to making the trip into San Angelo to see them. It was a nice end to a lovely day where we also saw Great Ma and Great Pa at the ranch, had lunch at Lowake Steak House and met Auntie Jill and Uncle Luke for the first time. Another first was experiencing the dry dry West Texas air. Evie was less keen on that. But all in all a good day.



Jill thought this was a perfect colour for an Easter dress :-)

Evie relaxing with Auntie Becky. I think she's actually watching the TV which worryingly is a great source of entertainment to Evie.



And a couple from when we got home today. Evie's in jimjams because she did a huge wee in the car all over her outfit. Silly baby. This caused an unscheduled stop in Hempstead which I will forgive Evie for on this occasion . . . :-)





Ma and Pa have more pictures on their camera and we will post them as soon as we get them!

Happy Easter Everyone

First Food!

Evangeline had her first food today!! It was very exciting for all of us although perhaps more so for Mummy and Daddy than for Evie. We did have to make a call to Nana mid feed to find out if we were doing it right. Evie figured out the whole eating thing quite quickly. This did not really suprise us as she's something of a piggywig.


Evie's a pukey eater so we put on her bib which as usual she tried to eat.










First spoonful!!











Yummy??










This is actually a smile. Evie definitely seemed to like her rice.





All in all a good experience for everyone. Evie puked in the sick cloth and not on either of us, she kept most of it down, and she seemed to like it a LOT! Evie will be having her usual 4 feeds a day plus rice for tea. It alarms us slightly that she's growing up so fast. She's trying so hard to crawl that we know it will only be a matter of time. This would be alarming in many ways, but mainly because we could no longer put her down and know she would be in the same spot 10 mins later. Moving babies = scary!!

This picture is just for fun because it is so cute. Evie was enjoying her time with Daddy after he got home from work.





And these are from tonight. Evie was playing with her new rattle. Note that Evie is not wearing any knickers thanks to a little blow out earlier on. Auntie Jana and I went to Target at lunch time and got Evangeline a few new things. Auntie Jana is expecting baby Alex in June. Evie can't wait to meet him and thinks that they will be great friends.





Four month pictures to come next week!!!

Jane xxx