New sounds.

It's been a very vocal week for little Astrid as she has discovered new sounds - aaaarrrrrggghhhhh (that's Astrid's noise, not Mummy's!).


With particular emphasis on the 'a' and 'g' and the different tones.


Oh and lots of drool too.


Cheeky thing likes to have a good chat now with Mummy when she should be feeding.


Hmm ... I think we might have a chatterbox in our midst!

Out and about again!

Finally after a week indoors with the Chicken Pox it was time to get out and about again for a family stroll in the winter sun.


Although Felix was still a little out of sorts to Daddy's immense joy!


Poor Daddy, remember life before kids?? Easy!

Felix & his spots!

Ugg ... so these are Felix's Chicken Pox in all their glory.


Poor little lamb!


(Nothing like sharing in 'our' suffering is there!)

Pre-Chicken-Pox-Felix.

Here is our little cherub BCP (before Chicken Pox).Divine clear skin. That certainly is not the case now as he is covered in spots - ugg! Mummy hasn't had the camera out this week as this is not a 'moment' she wants to capture.

Poor Felix's favourite phrase at the moment is "I don't like Chicken Pox" and "It hurts!". He is incredibly uncomfortable and yet is a real trouper resisting the urge to scratch. Yesterday was the lowest day of all. Let's hope the road ahead is better!

Spots.

For those of you not in the know Felix has Chicken Pox. So Felix, Astrid and Mummy are keeping a very low profile at the moment. Apparently it is pretty rare for babies younger than 6 months to catch it. Here's hoping. Can't see any spots so far, can you?

Colouring in.

Felix and Mummy had an afternoon of colouring in today, for a certain Aunty's 30th Birthday card (which btw will be late!).


Well, actually Felix was colouring in and Mummy was brushing up her 'no flash' photography skills.


We had some giggles too along the way.


Luckily for us, the little Astrid was having her afternoon siesta.


And luckily (for Mummy), afterwards Felix had a little snooze* too.


(*Funnily enough Felix refuses to have a nap these days. But if Mummy suggests he goes in and plays with his trains and if he wants he can have a little snooze, sure enough he will have a snooze!)

A typical Saturday.

It's a typical lazy Saturday morning at our place today.


And young Felix is doing a spot of reading and playing.


Alas poor Daddy has to work ... let's hope this doesn't become a typical thang!

Somewhat quieter!

Now that Felix has gone back to school Mummy has some more one-on-one time with Astrid during the day.


Lots of time for regular naps, tummy time and general baby-stuff.


Mummy now realises how easy it was with one!

Our little Frenchie!

So it seems that young Felix's french is going from strength to strength and increasingly more often he is starting to play in french.


He chats away to himself with a perfect little french accent -rolling his R's etc.


Funnily enough, when we go out and he hears people speaking english he says "Mummy they are speaking english!".


And he doesn't seem to confuse his sentences too much either and it seems to be pretty natural for him to speak 100% french or 100% english.


Lucky thing!

Astrid - 3 months.

Today Astrid is three months old. Where has our little newborn gone? From about 11 weeks she started outgrowing her 0-3 months clothes and Mummy has had to clear out the drawers of all the teeny things. At about 12 weeks she started to realise she can reach and touch things now and has great fun on her play gym trying to touch her dangling caterpillar. At 12 weeks we also introduced a nightly dream feed before we go to bed so she wakes at 3ish for a feed and if we are lucky wakes at 7am for the next one. But often she gets a bit unsettled at 5am and likes to have snuggles in bed. She is generally pretty chilled and seems pretty content. And terribly social. Her daytime naps are starting to fall into place which is starting to make things a little easier. But the poor little pet seems to be catching colds left right and centre. She was sick over Xmas for three weeks, just recovered only to get another cold a week later. But all in all she is going really well and we all love our new addition to our family. Bliss!

A quiet cuddle.

Now that there are two munchkins in the family, Mummy understands so much more ...


How much older siblings love their younger siblings ...


And the craziness the younger siblings have to endure from the older ones!

Daddy's last day of holidays!

On the eve of Daddy's return to work we took Felix for a ride on the local carousel.


First ride was on the number 28 bus ... but alas, poor Daddy missed the bus!


Next Felix had a ride on the fire-truck ...


By this stage he was pretty frozen (note his red nose!), so it was the last ride on the motorbike.


Even our eskimo coats weren't keeping us overly warm in the sub zero temperatures.


So we briskly walked home to warm up!


Oh yes, Paris in January! Brrrrr...

Antoinette Visits!

We had our first visitor of 2008 today...


It was Antoinette (Daddy's oldest friend) who was passing through Paris after spending a few days in Dijon.


We had a delicious Chili Prawn Pasta at our place, cooked by our very own Chef Daddie.


And then after lots of nice long chats it was time for Antoinette to catch the Eurostar back to London and for us to go for a nice afternoon stroll.


Playing some hide and seek along the way!

A-chooo.

There has been much coughing and sneezing going on in our household and it seems after the Christmas celebrations the bugs have spread to Bon Papa, Nanna Carol and Uncle Jonso. Sorry! But Mummy think Astrid wins the prize for being cutest sneezer!