Bex and Ivor's

Mum, Dad, Olivia and I went down on the 29th to see Bex, Ivor, Molly and George. The 2 girls had a great time together and it was lovely to be able to catch up with everyone. Next day we were joined by Ivor's parents and sister: Diana, Colin and Rachel. After lunch Olivia wanted to go out into the garden and water the plants (!), despite there having been heavy rainfall...

Christmas Day Part II

Olivia had a tea set for Christmas which we had to play with straight away (thanks Angie!). Do you like your tea hot or warm? Doesn't matter, Olivia has the final say anyway...





After playing with the tea set we went over to my parents for tea. It was a good evening with all the usual friends and relatives:

Christmas Day 2009

Olivia understood Christmas a lot better this year (obviously). Unfortunately Richard had to work and so had left the house long before Olivia woke up. She opened her stocking up but we left the rest of the presents until after he'd got back late on in the afternoon. We've decided (a little controversially) not to do the Father Christmas thing that most people do. To be honest we just couldn't bring ourselves to lie to her. Instead we've encouraged her to focus on the fact that Christmas is when we celebrate Jesus' birthday (we had a birthday cake and candles to do this and sang 'Happy Birthday' too) and said that Father Christmas' real name is St Nicholas, that he was a real person who loved Jesus and gave presents to children and poor people and that we can remember him at Christmas too by having a stocking full of presents. It was (for me at least) a difficult decision to make but once we'd done it we felt a lot happier about taking this line.




Olivia wore her new party dress to church which her Aunty Kate had given her. We arrived our usual 12 mins after the service had started and Olivia announced very proudly that she'd had a new dress. She then proceeded to do a number of laps of honour around the room - very funny! After church Olivia and I went to Kate and Alun's for Christmas Day lunch.





Once Richard got back from work we showed Olivia her big present from us - her new bedroom. Up until 10 days or so before Christmas it had been our room so a quick turnaround had been necessary. We've moved into what was the office and we got handy-Andy to wallop some magnolia and white around Olivia's new room. She got a racing-car bed for Christmas (great Ebay purchase!) which she'd spotted in the Argos catalogue and we fished Richard's old rocking horse out of the roof. All her toys are now in her room (Hooray!) which means that the living-room is toy-free once more - at least until the bump turns up. She was clearly delighted with her new present:

Icy Days!

Tiddleywinks Nativity 2009

This year Olivia was a wise man. Last year she was an angel but she didn't want to be one this year she wanted to be a king. She certainly looked the part and at the end she sat herself straight in the middle of the montage, right in front of Mary and Joseph. It was a good way to spend a morning and I was grateful to be able to go and see it all.

Christmas Party at Longdon-On-Tern

This will have been Olivia's 3rd party at Longdon and she enjoyed every bit of it. When Father Christmas turned up and she realised that he was dishing out Christmas presents she rushed down the front and just stood there waiting for her name to be called (!). She's certainly not backwards at coming forwards.

Veg-Prep

Olivia has become a dab-hand with a speed peeler. She'd better watch it though otherwise Richard will end up employing her as a commis chef at wherever he ends up next...

Pop--tops

Richard and Dan have been on a training course to be able to fit pop-top roofs onto the vans. They had to travel all the way to Cardiff to do it. They slept in the van overnight and Dan can now officially confirm that Richard's snoring is dreadful (I feel somewhat vindicated!)

Olivia and Deana

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Olivia insisted on accompanying me with Deana out onto the backyard. Not sure who was walking whom!

18 Weeks Pregnant

Not the best picture of me ever but shows the developing bump quite nicely...
Baby No. 2 due on 31st March 2010! Olivia very pleased.

Richard and Olivia popped down to Gloucs to see the Champions in order to give me some much needed rest. They ended up stopping over and Olivia had a lovely time although she did have a bit of an accident...

Picnic in the Cave

Do you like the mural on the wall of the cave? Was a freebie of sorts done by a well-known graffiti artist called Panda. All done with cans of spray paint and completed in under 2 hours. Amazing.

Van Party

Dan and Richard are involved with something called Payback Project. They fit out T4 and T5 VW vans, turning them into camper vans. Volksworld magazine wanted to do a piece on what they were doing so we invited them to a T4/T5 van party/BBQ to do a photoshoot. The piece should come out in February 2010 and hopefully it'll generate some work for them.

Oscar's Christening

Oscar's christening - September. Forgot to take my camera, hence the rather dodgy blurred photo taken with my phone.

The Naked Chef

Olivia likes to pretend that she's a chef like Daddy.

Dancing - August 2009

Olivia loves to dance!

Attingham Park Farm

Olivia and I paid a visit to the farm at Attingham Park. We saw lots of different animals and Olivia got to play in the children's play area. She wasn't keen on the various ducks and geese that were free to roam but she was very taken with the milking.


Olivia and I paid a visit to the farm at Attingham Park. We saw lots of different animals and Olivia got to play in the children's play area. She wasn't keen on the various ducks and geese that were free to roam but she was very taken with the milking.

Picking Apples

We have a very productive apple tree in the garden. As I was feeling a little poorly at the time Richard decided to take Olivia out to pick the apples. Juiced and fermented they make great wine!

Food Glorious Food

Some of you may know that Richard is trying to write a book for chefs. To help with this he started creating dishes at home and photographing them. Olivia thought this was great idea and insisted that they took pictures of her banana too...