And a few more pics

Sunday was a fun day for Michaela. We went out to enjoy the Shetland summer (ha ha, see the heavy jacket she's had to wear!) and then later on, her second cousin came for a visit. Michaela just loves playing outside, so was very pleased to get to crawl around the garden.
Mom came out with her volleyball to play with because Michaela loves to play with a ball.
And once Mackenzie was over to play, Michaela just wanted to do whatever he was doing. Luckily we had two scooters for them to play on.
We're still waiting on this second top tooth to poke through, so we've got a very up and down little girl on our hands. And now she has a cold too. But here's hoping she'll be good for the nursery tomorrow and for Granny on Wednesday (Mom's work days).

Two of Michaela's favourite games

For her birthday, Michaela got two presents from her Granny Up-by - a scooter and a chair. Well, haven't these just been the best presents ever! Michaela loves going down the hill next to our house on her scooter. She even understands that if she lifts up her feet, she can go down faster! So here are some action shots of her speeding downhill.



And as I said in an earlier blog, Michaela loves her chair. Well now she understands that she can climb on it to look out of the window. What a great game this has become.

And Michaela has finally started taking a few steps on her own. She's still too scared to walk, but we've got her taking the occasional step herself. Mom's dreading her walking on her own, but I guess it has to come sometime.

Cute photos

Nothing much to report on, but we got some very cute photos of Michaela, so I couldn't resist updating the blog for them! Here she is with a puppet she got from Keith. She seems to like playing with this, although it's more fun when Daddy uses it and she has to try to get it.
Mom is very proud of her Ebay purchase - a gilet for 10p plus 50p postage. As well as wearing it in the usual fashion, Michaela like to put it on her head, so here she is looking through the arm hole.
Daddy did very well to manage to get these good photos. Below you can see her third tooth (at the top). The fourth tooth isn't far behind, but her teeth seem to take ages to pop through.
And here she is playing with her tunnel. She does like to crawl through it as you can see, but what she really loves is to have the tunnel put on top of her so she's sitting in her own little cocoon.
No other news to report on. Mom is really looking forward to Granny coming home from America on Thursday. Auntie Nan thinks Michaela likes her so much because she looks like Granny. I guess we'll find out in a few days.

What a weekend!

Michaela and Owen turned 1 on Friday! We had a party at Owen's house with the other Bigton June babies (Cerys and Ciaran), and later on, Tabitha came along (she was 1 in January). But before the party, we opened Michaela's gifts at home, with Granny Pat. She's got some really good gifts and is enjoying playing with them all.
Then on Saturday it was the Bigton Rowing Regatta. What a busy day for Mom as she was up making sandwiches at the hall at 10am and ended up working from then until about midnight, with a break for a race at 3 and few breaks to get something to eat. But it's only once every two years, so it's worth it to the club to do as much work as possible. Daddy took Michaela to the beach for her first time on the sand and she loved it! She seemed to be very interested in eating shells though.
Lucky for us, the weather was superb for the whole weekend and it's managed to stay great. Here's hoping this summer will be a good one and we can get to the beach more.
One of Michaela's top teeth has finally broken through, so we're up to three now - no picture of it yet. Unfortunately, these top teeth seem to be causing her quite a bit of bother, so we've got a very moody girl on our hands - sometimes very happy and playful and sometimes a big grump! But on the whole she's a happy girl, so a few days of grumpiness isn't too bad.

The start of the 1st birthdays

Yesterday was Cerys and James's first birthdays, so now starts the season of Michaela's pal's first birthdays - Mom's already bought six birthday cards for June babies turning one! About two weeks ago, we went to the Smith's house and there were five June babies there. Unfortunately, Carrie had to leave early with Ciaran, but we tried to get a photo with the four that were left. Below is the 'best' picture we have. I think we weren't expecting it to be so difficult to take a quick picture - ha ha! In the photo it's Cerys, James, Michaela and Owen - four babies, two birthdays!
So today was Cerys's birthday party, so we were along there trying out her new toys. Surprisingly, Michaela actually wore her party hat for most of the time we were there. Now that we've seen some of Cerys's toys, it'll be difficult not to go out and buy some of them, especially the little trampoline - Michaela just loved to bounce on it!
One of Michaela's birthday presents from Granny is her own chair. She seems to understand already that the chair is for her because when Daddy tried to sit on it, she got very angry! So here she is being very pleased with herself on her chair. Maybe she thinks it's like a throne?!

Not much else has really been going on with Michaela. She's teething at the moment, so we have good days and bad days, both with good spells and bad spells, but it's okay. I can nearly see one of the top teeth poking through, so it shouldn't be much longer...... I hope!

I am bad

Okay, okay, I have done a really, really bad job of keeping the blog updated. But, I am going to blame it on going back to work and Jonathan going on a course for a few days - neither of which really affected my blogging ability, but they are good enough excuses.

So, the pics. Below is a picture of Michaela's new shoes. She seems to really like them and is standing much better wearing them. She's now at the stage of being able to balance for long periods of time, but she'd prefer to be holding on. She can also walk holding on to only one of your hands, but prefers to hold on to both. Luckily for Daddy, she didn't start walking while he was away, but Granny has gone away for five weeks, so she might start then. Here's hoping she doesn't - Mom isn't ready for a walking girl!

Michaela has started trying to feed herself with a spoon. So far Mom only allows her to do it when it's yogurt, but she is getting better each day! These last few days Michaela has become somewhat of a pig. She'll eat her meal, then eat a whole satsuma, then some grapes or raisins and maybe even a yogurt among all of that! We are so glad she likes fruit (which she obviously gets from her Daddy) since it's easy and healthy. We are those mean parents who haven't yet given her ice cream or biscuits or any of the 'good' stuff.On Sunday, it was Owen's Baptism, so Mom is now a Godmother! It was such a lovely day and both babies we so good in the church and for the rest of the day. After lunch, we decided to take Michaela to the playpark for the first time. She just loved it, so we ended up staying for over an hour! Here's Mom and Michaela coming down the slide (see the wooden house in the background on the left - that's ours so there's no excuses for why we've not been before!).And here's Michaela crawling down the ramp at the park. She also went on the swings. Uncle Hop came along too, so he took her around lots of the equipment while Mom and Dad just watched.
And Wednesday was Michaela's first full day at the nursery. She just loved it. So much so, that she only slept for 15 minutes in the morning and 25 minutes in the afternoon! But it meant she was so tired come bedtime, that she slept from 7pm until 7am - bliss!

Lots to catch up on

Here's a baby gathering at our house on Thursday afternoon (over a week ago). Michelle and I took our girls swimming - that's Cerys wearing the baseball cap. And when we got back, we watched Tabitha for a little while (she's in the background with Michelle). So we had a bit of time with the girls playing.

This is just a picture of Michaela in her high chair with one of her dummies that Mom won on a baby website. They're so cute because they have 'Michaela' written on them!

Here's a picture of one of Michaela's favourite games - make a mess! She just loves pulling all of Mom's catalogues (or magazines or newspapers or really anything she can get her hands on) off the shelf and just throwing them on the ground without looking at them. On Monday Granny came into the house to find Michaela surrounded by all of this mess.

On Tuesday Mom went back to work. It was really good and, surprisingly, Mom actually could remember bits of how to do her job! Unfortunately though, Michaela got ill on Tuesday night and was sick again on Wednesday morning and Thursday evening. So it was really difficult for Mom to go to work on Wednesday. Luckily it was Granny babysitting, so Mom knew Michaela was left in good hands! But it meant we couldn't go to the nursery on Thursday to check it out, so we'll do that on Monday instead.

Another of Michaela's favourite games is brushing teeth. She just loves to 'help' Mom brush her teeth in the morning.

On Thursday Auntie Ivanna came home, so we've been trying to spend a bit of time with her. The last time Auntie Ivanna saw Michaela was when we went to America in January, so she's noticed a huge difference in Michaela. But since Michaela is still a bit ill, Auntie Ivanna's not been able to see our usually happy little girl, but she has caught glimpses. Hopefully Michaela will be fully recovered before Auntie Ivanna goes on Monday afternoon.

We've also bought Michaela her first pair of proper, fitted shoes. Mom hasn't got a photo uploaded yet, but will do for the next blog. They are so cute, but also so expensive - £18 - and we've got to get her fitted every eight weeks! But Michaela seems to like them and we're finding they're great because she can't pull them off.

And on Friday, Michaela had her first sandwich - ham. She just loves, loves, loves bread, so thought this was a great lunch. She ate the ham too, but was more interested in shoving in as much bread as she possibly could! Anyway, think that's most of the news for now.