Brrrrrrrr

As I type this the wind is howling outside and it is very cold. that cold where you don't dare open your mouth in case your teeth freeze. I am hopeful that it will get colder and colder until magically on Christmas day it snows !!!

We have just got back from a lovely night spent at our friends, Jason and Sandi. They have a lovely little house in Watford. we left on Saturday afternoon and drove up there in a lot of rain. Once again Kristian pulled a goerge and went onto the hard shoulder as he thought it was the off ramp. I found this tremendously funny but he DID NOT. so I had to fight to control my laughter for a good 5 minutes.

We had a lovely evening with wine and lovely real champagne. They had done tomato soup, chicken , potatoes and veg and for pud a lovely hot chocolate pudding and treacle pudding yum!!

Lily was a star and kept Jason fit this morning walking up and down the stairs. She really loved them , being a bit of a novelty as we don't have stairs. We then went of to a village called Chipperfield to an old fashioned pub, overlooking farmlands and a green. a fireplace was crackling and I had some pork sausages, mash and red onion gravy.

So that was the weekend. On the Lily front she is growing like a weed and its all about chatting at the moment. This week alone she has said 3 different words. Ball is still her favorite but she is saying dad very well and there (der) and quack quack. she is imitating every word we say ( gulp) and is babbling away non stop. Her little sense of humour is so developed and she really is very funny. She has learnt how to hide now and hides everywhere. I truly believes she understands everything I say. She can point out mist of her body bits like her nose , feet , toes etc. All in all I am having such fun with her,its so rewarding being with her and watching her learning new things.

With all this Independence comes strong will though and on Friday I had my first toddler battle and did not fair too well. She keeps touching the coal in the fireplace getting her hands and my furniture and clothes filthy. also its dangerous obviously. Will she listen to me? not a chance!!!

I was stern, removed her and distracted her. then I tried putting her in the room for about 30 seconds and then going in and telling her mummy says no. nothing worked she kept going back and touching it while looking at me. My temper is very short and eventually i put her in the room and let her cry before she could come out. how terrible did I feel. I hated it but I made her look at me when I told her that she must not touch and she stopped doing it. yay I won

Oh here's her later that evening when she removed a piece of the coal and brought it to me and then smeared it all over her face. excuse the runny nose she is a bit sick , but it adds to the chimney sweep look. perhaps I did not win after all!!

Also a sad farewell to our friends Gavin , Catherine and baby Max. Tuesday sees them winging their way back to South Africa to start a brilliant new job. We will miss them . they are our singing partners :(

good luck guys ,enjoy it, and see you soon

I am of course insanely jealous and am popping in tomorrow to hide in their suitcase

Baby Max with his iggle piggle we gave him

I will leave you with a few photos from recent weeks.

Ps. be vey excited as my tree is going up in the week and I am going to bore you with many photos of that

xxxxx

Lily being serious