Leah and Ruby's day out at Fairyland

Mum was a little nervous of me going to Fairyland, she was scared I was going to start demanding fairy wings and tutus once I'd been there but it was more like Nursery Rhyme land. Today my friend Ruby and I went to a little park in Oakland especially for little ones, the whole place is themed around various nursery rhymes and stories with lots of animals and wooden sculptures. We had an absolutely smashing day in the sunshine talking to all the animals, eating ice-cream and playing WWF smackdown on our play-mat.

Mum and me have been practising our animal noises ever since Xmas so it was great to finally be able to see all those animals with all the great noises in person. However, for some reason Mum and Erika decided to start with these fellas:
As you can see, I wasn't too impressed. They then tried to fool me with this one:
but I humoured them because it gave me the opportunity to show off how well I can stand these days. Here's one who had a proper noise to make:
We also saw a sheep, roosters, guinea-pigs, a duck and a goose and these two:
Once we'd seen everything me and my mate Ruby had a roll around on our mat and got the rare chance to compare feet
as well as skydiving techniques:
We ended the day with a bit of wrestling, I think Ruby had me beat, I may be heavier but I think her longer reach gives her the advantage!

We have a tooth!!!

Leah's asleep so this is her mum posting on her behalf. Leah was obviously desperate to tell us something last night, she woke us up every couple of hours and we just thought it was her usual poor sleep habits but this morning I felt the very top ridges of a tiny tiny little tooth. I've tried repeatedly to prise open her little mouth to see if I can catch a glimpse of it but she sticks her tongue out and cover it up. After several attempts I finally saw the tiniest little silvery ridge...it's a tooth!!!!

As soon as it's possible to do so we will get a photo up here.

Elevensees with the Linden-Naylors

Today was my friend Ruby's mum Erika's birthday. My mum had organised a little surprised for Erika and I kept our little secret very well, I didn't even tell Ruby just in case she let it slip. We met Ruby & Erika at Fisherman's Wharf and Mum pretended she needed to buy something up in Ghiradelli Square so we walked up there, well me and Ruby were in our strollers, but Mum and Erika walked there pushing us up that really steep hill just before the square. We were a little early when we got there and unfortunately Erika spotted part of her surprise a bit too early - Natalie was making her way towards our meeting point at the same time as we were crossing the square but it didn't really matter because Erika was so happy to see her it was definitely worth it.

We pootled about a bit in Lola and then we took Erika to her surprise which was Elevensees at the Crown and Crumpet, a very girly, very pink tea-place in Ghiradelli Square - as Erika would say we were there to conduct a social-anthropological experiment, we were absolutely not there to be girly. The grown-ups ordered food and I got my own chair to sit in see:
and yes that is Elmer with me, he comes everywhere now you know.

They had lots of tea, cucumber sandwiches, crumpets, scones and little cakes. I got carrot and apple mush - doesn't really seem fair does it? Here's the birthday girl Erika and Natalie enjoying some fine English tea:
Notice they're not sharing that tea with Ruby either!

Here's me having a chat with Natalie:
After our tea me and Ruby settled down by the fire for a chat:
We couldn't hear each other very well across that roaring fire so we moved over to the sofa:
Finally I spotted my favourite footballer on the cover of Hello magazine so I took some time out to see what the lovely Mr Redknapp has been up to:
We all had a smashing time

Happy Birthday Erika!!
xxx

First....an apology

It's been way too long since I last blogged. I had quite a busy Xmas with my Mamgu and Grandad Greg coming to visit me, every day we were busy doing something and in between our outings I spent all my time playing with Mamgu so didn't get any chance at all to update this blog. As I was so busy during the day I did try several times to persuade my Mum to let me get up in the middle of the night so that I could blog but I don't think she understood what I was asking her and she kept trying to get me back to sleep.

Here are some of my favourite photos from Xmas anyway....

Here's me and my Dad doing some press-ups on Christmas Day, he's going to try and do a triathlon later this year, I think he said he's going to carry me the whole way so I figured I needed to get fit too:
My Mamgu bought me this smashing Arsenal football strip, she knows I love to watch football with my Dad on the weekend so now I can look the part too, look here's me practicing taking a throw-in along with Sagna:
We all went to the Academy of Sciences, it was very very busy but I managed to squeeze in amongst the crowds and have a chat with this lovely little fella:
Ohh here's me and my Mamgu on the swings, I love the swings and it was great to have my Mamgu pushing me for a change.
Ahhh here's my favourite picture of me and my Mamgu, we've walked to the top of this big hill in Tiburon and managed to find a good spot for a sit down and a play with Elmer.
And here's the whole gang together, for some reason Grandad Greg kept jumping up, running over to the camera and then running back to sit down, as you can see I'm trying to ask him what on earth he was doing:

Dad's race on Angel Island

Dad had signed up to run a race on Angel Island, he wanted me and mum to go with him but the weather forecasts all said it would be windy and rainy so Mum thought it wouldn't be a good idea for me to go but luckily when we woke up in the morning it was a beautiful day so once our friend JB had got to our place we all drove to Tiburon and caught the ferry over the island.

Here is a photo of me on the ferry with one of my flags on the way over:
It only took about 10 minutes to get to Angel Island, Dad and JB got ready to run:
I was really embarrassed at the start of the race when they sang 'America the Beautiful', Mum, Dad and JB all stood there silently because they don't know the words, I was singing away but I'm not sure they understood what I was saying too well. The race took a long time to get started and I was really really hungry so I didn't get to see them start running because I was too busy getting something to eat.

Once they were gone on their run around the island it started to get very cold. Mum had me all bundled up so I didn't really feel it very much and she kept walking around to keep us both warm. Dad finished just over 45 minutes later and quickly got changed so that he could carry me while we waited for JB who was running around the island twice. I was starting to get a little cold by this point and my stroller looked a lot cozier than being out on the open even if it was with my Dad so I pretended I was tired so that they'd put me in. They snuggled me up in there while they waited out in the cold for JB who ran very very fast because the ferry was due to leave. Unfortunately he didn't make it back in time so I gave up waiting it out in the stroller and we all sat outside a little closed cafe to wait for the ferry. Here's me and my Mum:
She whispered in my ear to do a big pear sauce poop for Dad because he doesn't get to change my nappy as much and she told me that that makes him sad so I did the best I could and Dad got to change me out in the sunshine which I really enjoyed.

We finally got on the ferry at about 1.30pm and made our way back to the car in Tiburon. Here are some photos of me and my Dad on the way back:
That's me and my Dad, I'm not sure what I was looking at but there's usually something interesting going on somewhere.
That's me and Dad with JB and here's me and my Dad looking at the waves splashing on the boat.
It was a smashing day out even if it was a bit chilly in parts. I'd been very good all day but Dad decided we could both be a bit naughty and have our photo taken next to the poshest and most under-used police cars in all of California:

Leah and Ruby hit the swings - again!

Just a quick post today to show you the photos of me and my friend Ruby at the park today. Our mums have worked out a way for us to keep each other safe by sitting in the same swing, it was great fun!This way there's no danger of either of us falling backwards in the seat and we didn't clash heads once. It was nice to have my friend next to me the whole time.
And as always our mums found this all hysterical.
This is me trying to bite my mum - she calls me Sharkbite because I do this quite a lot and I'm very fast!

More soon.

Food Glorious Food - by Leah's Mum

Leah's in bed so I thought I'd post on her behalf and tell you all about the foods she has been eating. Leah turned 5 months old last week and since she gave up the bottle at only 2 months old we've been trying other methods of getting food down her so that when I go back to work she doesn't have a miserable time being very hungry. My daughter appears to be extremely 'strong-willed' (we're not allowed to say stubborn) so I don't know how long she'd go before she gave in and took the bottle, she's already outbattled her Dad for 7 hours so we're not taking the risk.

So we've tried:
Rice Cereal - no problems but very boring and little nutritional value
Oatmeal Cereal - as above, slightly more nutritional value

Then one blender and a visit to the Farmer's Market later we had:
Sweet potato - lots of happy faces, grabbing the spoon
Apples - probably the favourite so far, initial concern after the sweet potato but now slurps it down like it's the best chocolate
Butternut squash - initially fooled by the orange colour and thinking it was sweet potato we've now consigned this to the 'try later' shelf. I'm not sure if it's the thicker texture or just the taste but about as much comes out as goes in
Pluot - without doubt the messiest to make (a purple splashed kitchen prompted the swap from a hand blender to a food processor) it also has a slightly sharp taste which can produce some great faces from the Little One.

I've also made pears and courgettes (zucchini to you American chums), I'm reluctant to try the pears until we've had some more success with vegetables but having tasted the courgette I just can't imagine she's going to go for that if she's turning her nose up at butternut squash. I'm limited to seasonal veg that I can get down the market which luckily has more choice than seasonal veg in the UK at this time of year but still.

So any suggestions? I was thinking Cauliflower maybe? Carrots are on the no-no list I believe, something to do with nitrates.

Update:
Courgettes have been assigned to the 'will try again later' section of the freezer
Pears are a huge success

Carrots are next, nitrates or no nitrates!