Peekaboo

Do you remember all the fun that can be had playing peekaboo? Ana's discovering this for herself by hiding her head under the furniture... lifting up the flap, and lowering it, and raising it... giggling, squirming, squealing with delight!

All the toys out of the basket...

Rather than throwing all of her toys out of the pram, Ana likes to deliberately pick all of her toys out of her toy basket. She started this a couple of weeks ago when Tim sat her next to her basket (with all the toys in), looked up 15 minutes later and she only had one left in the basket! She'd been incredibly quiet for the 15 minutes (normally a sign she's got something she shouldn't have!), and was surrounded by a sea of toys. We couldn't resist blogging this picture of her little cheeky grin : )

A week of developments

This has been a very exciting week Ana-wise. She now has 6 teeth, can crawl, and has stood unaided for a record length of 17 seconds!!! Oh, and I almost forgot, she can clap too! We're taking her to baby sign-language classes in the hopes of deep and meaningful conversations shortly (or maybe just 'milk please' would do for a start...)

What makes a baby crawl?

Toys are so passé! Mobile phones? Now they are worth chasing. As are books, which she is not allowed to chew...

Although she's still no crawling pro, she can at least move forwards when she puts her mind to it.

Paddling

"A little sea-bathing would set me up for ever." quoth Mrs Bennet. Ana seemed to agree, except for when a little wave splashed her and she decided Daddy's arms were far preferable to a little sea-bathing!

Water Baby

On our holiday in Devon, there was a lovely warm swimming pool in which Ana got her first taste of chlorine, I mean swimming. She loved it! (The swimming, not the chlorine.) She giggled, kicked, splashed and laughed - particularly enjoying going forwards. In subsequent swims she was less excited, but thoroughly enjoyed it. So then, on to the sea for some surfing...

Shed Restoration / Redemption

Lara and I love to restore things which have been left to ruin to something of their former glory (or improve upon that). There is something of the divine nature in that, we feel. Our mangy, spider-infested shed desparately needed some love and attention after being neglected for years. After some structural work and a good scrub down, we picked up the paintbrushes and set to work!

Unintentionally it turned out rather like a lovely beach hut, which is amusing considering we're about as far from the sea as is possible in England! In the picture you can see Ana trying to hide, in case we were to give her a paintbrush too.

Surf's up! (somewhere)

Bundle of joy!

Here is Ana having an after-bath snuggle, all bundled up in her towel. You can see two teeth in this picture, and it looks like two more will be joining them shortly...

Mmmmm....

Slurp, slurp, slurp...


(don't worry, we did peel it for her later.)

Please note, this is an orange

"Will the members of the board please pay attention... This, my colleagues, is... an orange.

''I will now demonstrate how to eat said orange, or at least how to chew it, skin and all."

The apples are ripening and Ana is striding forwards

With the apples ripening on the 'Nana and Grumpy tree', successfully transplanted from our house in Bedford to Olney, and rare summer sunshine drying the grass, Ana could practice her steps on the soft, soft grass (which needs to be cut. Again.... sigh...)

A magic basket ride...

We think our little pickle will like fairground rides if this is anything to go by! She loved being whooshed around the room in our laundry basket (and we wonder why the last one broke...!).

She also found her mother very amusing when she climbed up a tree on the way to Clifton Reynes yesterday -and even more amusing when she hung upside down from the branch. Ana laughed for a good 30 seconds at least, before pausing for breath. Very funny! She then kept laughing and giggling for the rest of the walk - sounds like she is developing a good little sense of humour.

This camera looks interesting...

Not the most flattering photo of our daughter, but it shows her inquisitive nature well... As I type, she is lunging toward the computer to 'help' me type... and pulling my arm hairs out! Ow!

Like daughter, like father

Who can roar loudest? - debatable. Either way, Ana found it amusing.

Who can squeal loudest? - not even a competition. Ana can reduce our legs to quivering jellies with her ultrasonic squeals.

Ear protection is provided to guests, on demand.

And she has a chair of her own

On our recent visit to Bristol, this cute antique chair seemed to suit Ana perfectly. She loved sitting in it, kicking her legs with glee! It's the simple things in life...

Are you this happy about your chair?

Our little baby can sit

Now, seven months old, and our little baby can sit up all on her very own! Plunking her on the floor with a number of toys allows us a few minutes of 'freedom' to unload a few dishes from the dishwasher before she has tossed all her toys across the room, out of her reach. Won't be long before she crawls to get them!

First steps in the grass

Here is Ana taking a few deliciously wobbly steps with Daddy's assistance (providing some much-needed stability!). Her encounters with grass have been brief this summer as most of the time it has been sodden. She was therefore slightly surprised by the sensation at first, but soon got used to the feel of it.

First Tennis Lessons

Lesson 1: How to hold a racket.

"Oh, Uncle Simon, this is SUCH fun!"

Bring on Wimbledon 2025...

Simon's through to the Semi-Finals!

A tribute to my honourable younger brother who is through to the semi-finals in both the singles and the doubles in a tournament in Bury St. Edmunds tomorrow; Simon provided us with an emotional day of tennis on Wednesday, cruising through three matches with panache and style. The Toro certainly became Loco when a badly-behaved opponent showed his true colours. Simon's then turbo-charged serve would have made Federer shudder and was more than enough to remove the unworthy player from the court in next to no time. Indeed, of the next 13 games, Simon convincingly won 12, in about half an hour.

An excellent first day of tennis watching for Ana.

Ana's introduction to the forest

We all went to this lovely forest today, with an incredible walkway through the treetops. Ana had never been in a forest before and seemed to love it, if her squeals of delight were anything to go by.

The walkway was amazing, getting up to 20m above the ground. What was very interesting is just how much the whole trunks of the trees move in the wind.

Keeping her off the keyboard

We are trying to discourage Ana from following a computer science career by keeping her off the keyboard. This is proving more and more difficult, as she becomes more mobile. So here is the most recent approach of removing the keyboard from her grasp...

Little Poppet

As we had a request from Great-Grandpa Ben for more photos... Here's one Mr. Gavin Forrest took earlier today prior to her messy lunch of brocolli and apple (which she hated...)

The teeth have arrived

Ana used to do this regularly (chewing on people's fingers), but it now has to stop... the teeth have arrived. This was discovered by Mummy one day when she noticed what felt like a razorblade emerging from Ana's gum. Since then Ana nearly drew blood on one occassion when an unsuspecting parent got bitten, ouch! Instead of chewing on fingers she now has pears, butternut squash and baby rice - much more tasty!

Our submission for the Tate Modern

We'd like to call it Nappies Online pandering to both traditional values and the e-society in which we live.

Lara Farewell, 2007, (bamboo on plastic line with metal poles)

Art is art. You can't argue with that.

And this has to be more creative than a perfectly white room. (For that 'art' see earlier postings from the renovation...)

'Studio' lighting

Lara is exploring the option of setting up a designer jewellery business.

I have been roped in (enthusiastically) as the photographer, and have discovered that photographing jewellery well is extremely difficult! But, after a week or so of experimentation, I think we've got there -perfect white, shadowless backgrounds!

This is the third 'light box' I've made, and unlike the first two, it seems to work. I could have bought this setup for £180 or so, but instead, some nice people at Freecycle Olney provided the desk lamps, combined with a bit of white paint in an old cardboard box, supported by a spatula taped to a potato masher...

Some may call it 'bodging'. We prefer the term 'resourceful'.

For those of you who might be interested, the trick appears to be getting enough distance between the product (i.e. the earrings) and the background. This is so you can place the lights which light the background behind the product. I found you need the background to be something like 3-4 stops overexposed in order to wash it out completely. So, you need to have another light (less bright) lighting the product, so that this is correctly exposed.

The other very important thing is to get your white balance correct - otherwise you get a beautiful grey or salmon colour... Lots of people, it seem, use daylight bulbs, but there doesn't appear to be that need for that expense anymore if your camera can handle manually set white balances.