Holland trip

Naomi playing

Updates

Sorry, no news for ages and now you are getting double portions!
I just thought I better do a video for those who want to see our girl in action. It pretty much describes what stage she is in at the moment which is a lot of walking around between the kitchen and lounge playing with her doll, toys and particularly books! She loves reading books to herself or will bring them to us to read and she is getting very good at pointing at the right things. We take regular trips to the park and playground where she loves climbing, swinging, sliding etc. Her vocabularly is limited to daddy, mama(sometimes) ball, teddy,ta (dank/thank you), bah (dirty)and daar(there) whilst pointing her finger. All very cute. She has no problems understanding us though, particularly when she shakes or nods her head in response! She is still such a happy easy going little girl who makes us very proud.
Daddy and Mama are doing well too! Chris is getting into his promotion at work looking after Morrisons now and I still love my work-home life balance. We are doing the Alpha Marriage course which has been very good! It is so relevant to every marriage and we are finding it really helpful because it forces us to communicate more and better! Would recommend it if you can get to one!
We are looking forward to a trip to Holland soon as we were last there in June. Naomi will love playing with her cousins!

Sure Start

Now Naomi is getting bigger I need to stimulate her a lot more and what better than making use of the excellent services of my local Sure Start centre! In case you never heard of them, its a government led initiative to have children's centres in local communities that have integrated services available from antenatal and baby clinics, stay and play sessions, cookery classes, parent classes and family support. Today I went to a keep fit class while Naomi went into the creche all for free! Fantastic, I can now get fit every week while she is having a great time in this brand new playroom with very excitng toys! Do check it out if there is one near you, all you have to do is register.
www.surestartgov.uk

Zelf eten! (I want to do it myself!)

Family visits and Holiday!

well it has been a busy few weeks. We first had my parents from Holland staying here as well as my cousin and his wife from Canada so it was a 'gezellig' full house. We had a great time together and had nice long catch ups and coffee's. They also visited Adriaan and Rebecca before they came here and its great to see how they enjoy spending time with their half-english granddaughters. I noticed we were not the only one who forgot to take some pictures! Anna and Naomi are very different especially as Anna is a year older and speaking english and dutch very well unlike Naomi who at the moment is using her loud voice and finger pointing to say what she wants. She is a keen walker now and it has made life a bit easier for both of us.
We have just been to Mallorca for our first proper summer holiday and it was great! Unfortunately we were not so organised again with the camera as it ran out of batteries so we didn't get many photo's. You can see Naomi enjoyed the pool although it was freezing, but she didn't mind. We bought a little boat that everyone had for their kids and it was great for her and for us to be able to have a swim and ball game in the bigger pool. Naomi was very considerate is letting us have a sleep in till 9.30 every day....amazing! I must say we do recommend Mallorca as its only just over 2 hours flight which was just enough for Naomi and she is pretty good. The weather is generally good (we had 3 days rain typically!) and its very child friendly! So now back to normal life and looking forward to our trip to Holland in November!

Naomi is almost walking!

and a very excited mama!

In the sea

Day on the beach

Big teeth!

Just wanted to give you a picture of the bigger teeth as it looks so funny and cute! It is amazing how she is changing into a little girl with all her expressions, determination and tantrums too!

Special guests

Chris and I have become host family for foreign students who come to Manchester to learn English. We now have two delightful eighteen year old girls from Poland and France. They go to school 5 days a week and in their free time we get to know eachother, Manchester, English culture and some Dutch thrown in as well! It has brought back some memories of being an eighteen year old coming to Manchester! The girls are just lovely and we have some good giggles. Chris is being quite cheeky with them and certainly teaching them some of the typical English words. Naomi is a great hit and loving all the extra attention. We are all going to miss them lots when they go on sunday but maybe we meet again in their home town one day!

Birthday girl

Birthday girl Naomi is one!

Our little girl is one! We celebrated her birthday as a family on friday and had a garden birthday party on saturday. The photo's show Naomi opening some presents with mama's help! The swing was mama and daddy's present and you can see why! She had lots of fun with 6 little friends whilst the adults enjoyed pimms, scones and strawberries on a perfect hot summer day! She had a first proper piece of chocolate birthday cake too which you can see she loved! It was a really lovely time and hereby thank you for all the great presents she got! I think we got more excited than Naomi just opening them!

Learning to walk

Back to work!

This week we are celebrating Naomi's first birthday and Leonore ending a year of maternity leave!! It has been an amazing year being home with Naomi and I seriously have total respect and understanding for stay at home mums! Its a very fulfilling place to be and I have loved every minute....seriously! I can particularly recommend the many coffee's at Starbucks, lunches at the local deli with my friends, walks in the park, shopping trips and visiting family...and some girlie nights out! It really has felt like a long holiday but lets not underestimate the full-time care for a baby! I think Chris has come to appreciate that over time. At the centre of all my social activities this year has been other mums I got to know and love hanging out with. Being bonded together by motherhood, sharing its ups and downs (though mainly ups for me) Life never being the same again, but even better!
And now back in the midwife role, leaving the care of Naomi in the very capable hands of Petra, our dutch friend. A new chapter and looking forward to it!

First teeth!

more happy holidays

We also spend some time at my parents little blue holiday home which was adorable. Especially Naomi in the kitchen sink was all part off the holiday fun. We ate pancakes in a pancake house, went cycling and enjoyed those kind of relaxing dutch things.

Happy Holidays

We enjoyed our first long holiday to Holland in June going by ferry. The photo's show a very happy opa and oma (grandparents) with some exciting play time in the garden and on the bike! We particulary looked forward to taking Naomi cycling as its such a dutch thing to do. We even bought a little front seat to cycle over here! As you can see we got Naomi's support for the dutch football! Was already planning on an orange decorated house on return but sadly not happening.

Dorset family holiday

Naomi is crawling!

Naomi at Nana's

Having a good time in a box at Nana and Grandad!

on a ride!

New pictures

clapping, swinging and tired!

Well a lot has happened to Naomi the last few weeks! She can clap and swing! How exciting! As you have noticed by now, this blog is mainly about Naomi's development which makes our life sound quite uninteresting but that's the joy of parenthood. Suddenly there is someone in your life who is more important than anything else(apart from God!) and everything they do is amazing (except crying in the middle of the night then!) So here's some pictures of our proud little girl!

On the move!

Naomi is just so keen to get going at the moment. She loves sitting up in her playpen (box) or on a rug on the floor and before I know it she has thrown herself on her tummy, rolling on her back or moving herself in reverse kind of crawling. its fascinating to watch. As you can see on the video she just loves standing on her feet and we think we have a child who will probably walk by the age of 10-12 months at this rate! (sorry its another mummy gone crazy action!)

Happy Holidays

Hope you all had a nice easter! We had a great time in Holland as always. Opa and Oma (leo's parents) loved spending time with Naomi especially now that she has changed and grown so much. I must say although every baby stage is amazing we do particulary enjoy this 8 months fase as she is just learning so many new things. We have been singing a dutch clapping song to her and now she can clap, things like that. Naomi is lots of fun and she is a very content happy little girl. She does have a reputation of being a bit serious or stoical as my dad calls her but as we are a bit crazy now and again we don't have trouble making her smile!
The photo's kind of speak for themselves, 1) with opa and oma at easter 2)Naomi loving a ride on a old fashion rocking horse at opa and oma's house 3) doing very well drinking from a cup.

sitting time!

It has been quite an eventfull few weeks with weekends away with the final finale in Holland. We had a lovely time in the lake district with our homegroup and we have just had a Adriaan and Rebecca (Leo's brother) staying for a long weekend which was great. It was so cute to see the two cousins together and amongst Anna's wide vocabulary 'Naomi huilen' (Naomi crying) was repeated quite a lot as Naomi kept us all awake for a few nights. We are not quite sure what is bothering her but hopefully its of short duration.
Other than that Naomi is being as cute as always and her little character is coming through more and more. She loves sitting up now, especially in the bath! She kind of throws herself forward now on her tummy and has started to roll over! So its another milestone reached. Nothing in her reach is safe any more as the video shows! We can't wait to show oma and opa (Leo's parents)how much she has changed.

Miss Chatterbox

We have had a great week starting with a visit from Leonore's nephew Maarten as on the first picture. We took him to a lovely spot overlooking Manchester and the hills. It was a chilled out time with lots of cuddles for Naomi with her cousin and quitr a few visits to Starbucks which proved a hit with Maarten. He wished there was one in Maastricht, but another good reason for him to come again!
Then we have just returned from a city break in Stockholm! We had a great time admiring this lovely city with its beautifull buildings and the islands all around it. The food was particularly good but very expensive! Leonore was able to enjoy some familiar herring although they do many varieties which puts the dutch to shame! Naomi was very happy in her pram and probably the most warm and comfiest than we were as it was cold and rainy most of the weekend! She made up for it at night which wasn't so good! Anyway, we feel like we've had a holiday so this city break certainly works wonders! The 3 visits to the sauna and steam room also added to that! The lake district and Holland are next so its holiday time all round for us!

Eventful week!