Round Our Way

The arrival of Natalie's teeth has triggered a change to her bedtime routine, as we now have to brush them after she's had her bedtime milk feed. So we've started feeding her dinner, followed by a bath (extremely necessary - she's becoming a more and more messy eater by the day), and then we pop out somewhere local for a walk before giving her some milk and brushing her teeth.

This has meant we've discovered some really nice places right on our doorstep, and it also means we dont waste half an hour watching rubbish telly waiting for bedtime! We have the advantage of living close to the Thames path, but even the walks round the neighbourhood are pretty interesting.

A bit more of an update on Natalie:

We got some bandana bibs (from Bubba Bibs) and Natalie's dribble rash has cleared up a lot! Not sure yet if the rash has cleared because of the bibs or because we've cut orange juice out of her diet this week (an experiment suggested by my mum because I used to be a bit allergic to OJ).

They do a great deal - 5 for £10.45 plus 1 free - 100+ designs to choose from!

Natalie started eating a lot of new things last weekend - Weetabix, cow's milk, chicken, fish, fromage frais and cottage cheese (she doesn't like this one - I dont really blame her, it looks like sour milk!). She even had jelly today, I made up some using fruit juice and gelatine sheets and it went down extremely well!

mmm, chicken!!

grated apple fangs!

We had a few new words (well, sounds really) from her - she now says 'dada', 'gaga' and blows raspberries!

Natalie's strong legs are being put to good use as she now loves standing up!

And again, for the grandparents (and anyone else who needs a big Natalie fix every now and then), here are a couple of cutie pics:

Natalie update...

So I realised I haven't posted for a while - I've had trouble getting Natalie to nap during the day for over a week but she seems to have gotten back into the rhythm again now so my hands (and brain) are free to blog!

Here's my latest photo montage - Natalie at 25 weeks - wow, she's nearly 6 months old - time's gone so fast!

Natalie now has 2 teeth, which she's still getting used to - the other day she bit her tongue and made it bleed - she was NOT very happy about that!

She's widened her repertoire of foods:

carrot

swede

butternut squash - her favourite

avocado & papaya - not so keen on that one!

rice cakes

and also banana, courgette, green beans, potato, apple, sweet potato, pear, peach, brocolli, cauliflower, leek, and dried fruit! Next month we'll be trying some meat, and not long after that we'll hopefully be able to feed her the same things we eat!

Natalie's new 'thing' is standing up - we obviously have to hold her while she does this but she's loving having her feet down and straightening her legs at the moment!

And to finish today, here are a couple of pictures of Natalie looking cute (these one's are for you Nanny, Nonno, Granny & Grandad!)

I spy with my little eye....a tiny bit of a tooth!

It's been a while so here's a bit of an update (and a recipe to make amends!).

Last weekend was my grandad's 90th birthday and my great aunts 60th jubilee of nunhood (is that a word??) so we made our way to Upminster for the celebration.
29 members of the family pitched up, along with a few friends which was great, although Natalie was a bit overstimulated by all the attention. Grandad's house used to feel huge when I was little, but now that the family has grown so big it's struggling to contain us all!

Natalie can now add butternut squash to her list of favourite foods! She's also tried courgette and green beans, and is loving all the new experiences. Next week we'll move onto 3 meals a day (at the moment she's just having breakfast and dinner) which will be fun, it wont be long before she's eating the same meals as we are.

We managed to get a great charity shop purchase the other day - this lovely pumpkin patch vest was only 99p!

We harvested our carrots the other day. They're a special variety - they're spherical! They taste yummy - very sweet!

I finished (well, almost) the student welcome packs for church. Here's what they look like:

You're probably wondering when I'm going to tell you about the tooth I mentioned in the title of this blog. The wait is over! Yesterday Natalie did 5 poos - literally every nappy bar one was a pooey one. I now realise why, as she was smiling up at me this morning and I spotted a tiny (and I mean really tiny) bit of tooth poking up from her bottom gum! What a big girl - she's growing so fast!

(ok, you can't really see it in the pic but it is there!)

We also had some really good tummy time yesterday, mucho progress!

I almost forgot to mention that our dishwasher miraculously came back to life! After handing in his case study, Pete decided to have another look at the dishwasher to see if he could fix it. He switched it on for a rinse to see what it would do, and it seemed to work fine! Not sure how long it'd been working for, hopefully not long so that the weeks of washing up haven't been in vain!

I've been thinking about the blog, and have decided I'd like to make it a bit more tailored as I currently cover lots of different subjects in each post. I'm coming up with a list of topics so watch out for the slightly more focussed Purple Toucan, coming very soon!

Now, here's the recipe.

Bacon & Pea Risotto

We eat this meal quite a lot because its really tasty but very easy to make and doesn't require many ingredients at all. You may think that the words 'easy' and 'risotto' are oxymorons, but this is a bit of a cheats risotto that doesn't require constant stirring. Enjoy...

Serves 2
1 onion, finely chopped
2 rashers of bacon, chopped
150g risotto rice
500ml hot vegetable stock
50g frozen peas

1. Fry the onion until lightly browned in 1tbsp olive oil and a knob of butter in a saucepan (about 7 minutes).
2. Add the bacon and fry for 5 minutes until it starts to crisp.
3. Add the rice and stock and bring to the boil. Stir well, then turn down the heat and cook, covered, for 15-20 minutes.
4. Stir in the peas, add a little pepper, and cook for 3 more minutes.
5. Dish up and serve with some grated parmesan.