Charmers

Tom is six months old today. He is celebrating by screaming/crying whenever he is awake. Teething we think, but we don't like.

He is now fast asleep on me and I dare not move.





This is not a preferred, nor a frequent parenting position for me, thus I am pretty pleased with the self-portrait photos.

This morning was cousin G's birthday party. Harry had a lovely time. He adores party food.


Even when everyone else has finished and gone out to play.


My sister is due to arrive with three teenagers any time now. I think we provide excellent contraception right about now.

Cousins

This evening I am mostly frustrated at my inability to get videos from Sian's new flip video thing onto this iPad. The videos are great quality, unlike my iPhone specials, but the mp4 format is kicking my butt.

Anyway. I wanted better graphics for talking about the visit from my brother and family, but my crappy iPhone pics it must be for now.

We had not seen them for a couple of years, and it was awesome to see the cousins bond. Olivia is 4 years old, six months older than Harry. Then consider that she is a she rather than a he, that Harry is a small little English dude and Olivia is a sassy-pants California girl, and the age gap seemed more like 18 months. Harry likes older women, he adores being mothered by all the four-year-old girls at preschool, so I had high hopes. I was not disappointed.

Olivia was totally the boss of Harry.





Harry had such a great time, I wish they would hurry up with the tele porter technology already.

It was also much less scary when Olivia had Tom in her lap in comparison to Harry's over-excited death-grip.





Hackings, you are missed!

Video to follow. (Advice welcome.)

Birthday Weekend

Last weekend was momentous -- Mum's 70th birthday party. The highlight of the evening was the cake:






It's not every day you see your mother's face on a life-sized wonder woman cake complete with golden lasso. I'm not sure how long the baking took my sister, but it took both my sisters three hours to decorate. Attention to detail was impeccable. Harry chose the first incision point:






I can now unveil my stealth knitting project. I knitted a silk shawl. It turned out beautifully, if I do say so myself!







Other highlights were seeing my American sibs, nieces and nephews, my Auntie Jane (aka Super Jane), and my mums best buddies from LA, the glamour boys. I don't have very good photos, but will try harder when each of my US sibs visit over the next few weeks.

Here's one cutie pie pic though, smallest Oxford niece with Tom:



For now, we are back to our regularly scheduled programming.