"I want to go to Brighton!"

Ten points for anyone who can get what or who I'm quoting in the title of this post....

During Seth's week off, we went to Brighton for the day. We had been planning on doing it for ages and I'm so glad that we finally did it. The weather was perfect on the day that we chose to go. We told Caleb before we left home that we were going to the seaside and the whole way there, he just kept saying, "seaside, seaside!", he was so excited.

We didn't leave as early on in the day as early as we should have done to be able to spend a whole day there so we just had the afternoon there. There is so much to do and see in Brighton that really we should have allowed a whole day to explore. I think even then it would take longer to see everything but given the time we had, we just stuck to exploring the seafront. As we walked along the pier and looked out over the blue sea, Caleb was so excited, he said, "lots of seaside!" on more than one occasion, it was pretty sweet seeing him so happy and I'm really glad that it lived up to his little two year old expectations!

 So Caleb doesn't look too happy here...just take my word for it, he WAS excited!

Seth and I are both big people watchers, we just love being where lots of people are and taking everything in. Brighton was packed, busier than I thought it might be considering it was mid-week but then I guess it's summer and there are a lot of people not working. There are lots of cool, quirky shops, galleries and restaurants along the seafront and we enjoyed just walking, talking, and soaking it all up! We found a great children's paddling pool (it was a really hot day and we could have taken Caleb into the sea but Brighton beach is a stony one and we didn't really want to walk on the stones!) so we stopped there for a while so that Caleb could have a little splash around. I loved seeing him and his Daddy playing in the water, it always makes me so happy to see them both having fun together.

At one point, Caleb was shivering so much and he looked to adorable that I had to take a photo (or a few!) of him. He came up to me, lips trembling, asking for ice cream! I don't think he quite got the fact that ice cream would make him colder, bless him! Once we dried him off and dressed him we got him ice cream, so he was pretty happy about that.

I should have taken more photos of our day out as we had such a lovely time (and should have got Seth to take one or two of me and Caleb, we don't have many of us together!) but I was too busy just enjoying hanging out with my boys to take more pictures. Hopefully we will go back there soon as there seems like there is plenty more to explore.

Boys playing baseball

Seth had the other week off work. The whole week! It was such a novelty for Caleb and I to be able to spend that much time with him without work, revision or study getting in the way.

On Monday, Lin, Steve and the gingers headed down our way and we went to a batting cage in Harrow for Seth and Steve to play. I'm pretty sure there aren't actually that many batting cages in the country what with baseball really not being a big sport here so we're quite lucky to have one not too far away from us. The last time that Seth and Steve went there was over two years ago as I was still pregnant with Caleb, so it was really lovely for them to be able to do it again. Steve and Seth are two of a kind; they don't really love doing the whole socialising thing that much but they just get on so well with each other, which I'm very pleased about! While they played, the rest of us had a lovely picnic and Lin and I chatted lots while Sam and Cait were running around after Caleb. Seriously, they are such good little babysitters, they are just amazing with Caleb and he adores them and follows everywhere they go!

 
When we had finished there, we went to see my Dad's aunt (who has always just been Grandmother to us as she was pretty much a mother to him when he came to England) and his cousin, Sylvie. I can't even remember the last time I saw them, but I know it was definitely more than 5 years ago as I wasn't married to Seth and I'm pretty sure we may not have even been dating at that point! Grandmother isn't in the best of health at all so I am really glad that Seth and Caleb were able to meet her.

Once again, Sam and Cait were stars when it came to looking after Caleb and they were playing with him the whole time which allowed me to just be able to spend time with Grandmother. It was such a fun day. 

Two

Caleb turned two on 20th July. I'm still not quite sure how that happened because he was only born last week and yet, it is so! We were up north on the day of his Birthday and so as we didn't get to celebrate it then, Seth and I celebrated it with him on the Monday instead.

Seth was at work on the Monday but on the Sunday night we had filled the lounge with balloons and we had put out his cards and presents that people had bought for him. On Monday morning, I walked into his bedroom singing "Happy Birthday" and I don't think the poor boy had any idea what was going on, ha ha! However when he walked into the lounge he was thrilled to see "lots of balls!". He loved playing with the balloons and opening all of his cards and presents. Well, he liked the presents, the cards he wasn't quite so interested in, except for Mum's as she got him a Mr Tumble Birthday card. Caleb is obsessed with the TV programme, "Something Special", whose main character is Mr Tumble and so needless to say, my boy was pretty pleased with that!

We had a really fun day playing, then that evening when Seth was home we gave him our present, which was a basketball hoop. Caleb was so pleased with it and he went slightly hyper with excitement as he and Seth were playing with it. We took a bit of a gamble in getting it for Caleb as we weren't really sure if he would be that interested in it or not but he loved it and I loved seeing my boys having so much fun playing with it together.

The following weekend, Caleb and I were up in Norwich for a wedding (Seth couldn't come with us as he had a church camp all of the following week and he was in charge of organising it so he needed to get things sorted on the Saturday) and being as most of my family were all in the one place at the one time, we had a family Birthday celebration for Caleb. After the wedding, we headed to a lovely local park which we pretty much had to ourselves and we had a wonderful time playing and chatting.

Caleb loved being with his cousins, aunts and uncle and Grandma. I would like to include me in that list but I'm just his Mum, no novelty value there :). We sang "Happy Birthday" to Caleb (he was more familiar with it this time, especially as he had been singing it to himself all week long) and he (I) blew out the candles on his birthday cake. He loves cake but I think there's something about the candles that scares him so he freaks out when you try to get him to blow them out! We ate lots of cake and then Caleb opened lots of presents.

Everyone was so generous in getting him such lovely gifts and Caleb was genuinely so pleased with them all, he has played with them all a lot since receiving them. It was so nice being able to celebrate Caleb's (belated) Birthday with the family and I know that he had a great time.

Northern adventures

July was a fun month for us, it seemed that we had a lot of things on, which is how I like it! Towards the end of July, we headed up North for Seth's friend, Guy's wedding. We got to know him during the time we lived in Lancaster and he and Seth got on really well. I like to claim him as my friend too but to be honest, if it weren't for Seth I probably wouldn't have been invited to the wedding, ha ha!

We travelled up on the Friday night and broke up our trip by staying overnight at Laura's. It was a 5 hour journey to get there and despite leaving at 8pm (an hour after we usually put Caleb to bed), he only slept for an hour in the car! It was quite freaky on the journey actually because at one point, a big lorry veered into our lane and at that exact point, Caleb woke up, said "be careful" and went straight back to sleep again! What are the chances of that happening??! When we parked at Laura's, Caleb was a bit disoriented as he wasn't sure where we were and when I told him that we had come to see Laura, he got so excited! Laura came down to the car to meet us and Caleb was wide awake and happy, despite it being after midnight!

Not the best quality photo over as it was taken in the darkness on my phone but they just looked to cute walking along together that I had to share anyway!

Laura always takes such good care of us whenever we go to see her, not only does she give up her room for us but we also always have free reign of anything and everything and this applies to Caleb too. This is one of the reasons he loves being at Laura's; nothing is off limits! He had fun playing with her basketball and football while Seth was setting up the travel cot in Laura's bedroom and Laura turned the sofa so that it was looking out of her floor to ceiling window overlooking Liverpool (there is a great photo of this but I don't have it, it was on Laura's phone. Grrr). Caleb was having a great time looking out and taking it all in! Once he was in bed, we sat and ate Krispy Kreme doughnuts and chatted until about 2am. I would like to say that we were making sure that Caleb was asleep before we went to bed but I think it has more to do with the fact that we talk way too much when we're together, despite speaking to each other most days!

We went to Preston for Guy's wedding on Saturday morning. Even though I was looking forward to the wedding itself, I was more excited to see my lovely friends, Anna and Ruth who are Guy's sisters. I basically just love all of the family, they made Seth and me feel like we were a part of the family when we lived in Lancaster. The wedding was beautiful, as was the reception and we were at the same table as Anna and her husband Phil, which is always a bonus!

Note the lovely orange Michael Kors watch that Laura leant me because it went with the outfit!

Anna is one of my best friends in the world, I could literally tell her anything and know that she wouldn't judge me or think any the less of me for it. Seth was in Lancaster at university for a year before we got married and I moved up there to be with him. He and Anna were very close friends and he told me that we would get on brilliantly. When I first got there, that wasn't really the case, as I'm sure Anna would agree! In fact, that wasn't the case for the first year of being there, we would talk to each other but we didn't really click as much as Seth seemed to think we would. And then there was the guys night where I think all of the boys congregated at our house and the girls night where we were all at Anna's. That was the turning point. We had so much fun and just clicked and we were pretty much inseparable for the rest of our time there!

We had a lovely weekend catching up with Laura and seeing friends who I wish we could see a lot more than we do.

The invasion of the wasps plus some random cuteness

The end of June and beginning of July was pretty busy. Seth was spending pretty much every Saturday studying for his upcoming Masters exams so Caleb and I would pretty much do whatever we felt like doing that day without Seth. One Saturday morning, he went into university to get some studying done and Caleb and I were getting ready to go out. When I went into his room to get some socks for him, I saw a wasp flying around. I absolutely hate wasps, they really freak me out. I think they just look plain scary! So this really wasn't an ideal situation for me. I closed the bedroom door, opened the window and tried to coax it into flying out, which it did, eventually, only for me to then find to more wasps in his room! I was freaking out a little but I managed to get them to leave as well, whilst wishing that Seth were there to deal with it the whole time. Yes, I'm such a girl, I know.

Caleb and I went out for a little while and when we came back, I again went to go into his room to get something. I just walked straight in, as I always do, without even thinking about it. However, this time I was met by loads of wasps! There were loads all over the window, some of them were flying around and some of them were on the floor. If I was freaking out before then at this stage I was going slightly out of my mind! I slammed that door shut, ran into my bedroom and called Seth in tears, telling him what I had found (I wouldn't usually cry over something like that but 1. it was pretty scary and 2. I'm pregnant, I cry at everything these days!). Seth, being the wonderful man that he is, told me not to worry and he would come straight home but told me to go out and get some wasp killer and an electric fly swat thing, so I obeyed!

When Caleb and I went out to the car I looked up at the back of our flat and saw that loads of wasps were flying in through the ventilation brick straight into Caleb's room so there must have been a nest in between those two layers of wall. And even from the outside I could see them all up and the window, in all their waspy glory. Cringe!

Okay, so in this picture you can only see about 4, but there were LOADS!

Seth met me in town and we headed home together, equipped with everything that we needed. (I say we, clearly I wasn't going to be the one going in there and dealing with anything!). When we got home, Caleb and I hung out in the lounge while we sent Seth in to deal with it all. A couple of hours later, he emerged, having killed all of the wasps. All 147 of them. Yes, he counted them all. He's an actuary, he deals with numbers, what can I say?!

So I am glad to report that after that, our waspy nightmare was over, no more came into the house after that, although Caleb slept in our room for most of that week just so that we could be sure!

This is completely unrelated to this post but I just had to put this picture of Caleb on here because seriously, how cute is he?!

We were in Mamas and Papas and he desperately wanted to try on this hat, so I let him. I kind of wish I had bought it now, he is too adorable! Biased Mum, much??