Park life

As it was half term a couple of weeks ago, my sister Lin and my nephew and niece, Sam and Caitlin came down to play with us! I don't really get to see them as much as I would like to, so it's always lovely when we are able to get together. It especially makes me happy to see Sam, Caitlin and Caleb playing together, I love seeing the cousins hanging out and although Caleb is quite a bit younger than them, he just loves being in their company and thinks that everything they do is amazing!

Lin and the family recently went on holiday to Utah and they bought Caleb a BYU t-shirt to match Sam's. When he saw it and saw that it was the same as the one Sam was wearing, he immediately started to try and take his own t-shirt off so that he could put on his new one, it was the sweetest thing!

We did the usual thing we do when we get together and went park hopping. We went to Hall Place first for a picnic. I have so many memories of Hall Place as it's where the family all used to go when I was little. We moved away from the area when I was 8 years old, so it's quite funny that I should end up being back down here and seeing Caleb get to experience some of the things and go to some of the places that I loved as a child. The kids were having great fun playing with a giant frisbee thing and we all had ice creams afterwards. You can just see how much Caleb was enjoying his!

From there, we went to a park in the village where my family used to live and after that, we went to the park close to where we live now. Sam, Cait and Caleb especially enjoyed going on the zipwire, we spent a long time playing on that. Who doesn't love a good zipwire?! It was so great to see how much they were enjoying themselves. Here are a few pictures from the day.

Yes, I know I put in a million pictures but with a family this lovely, it just has to be done, I'm afraid! :)

The day we went to Space

A few weeks ago, Caleb and I walked into town and the whole way there and back, the conversation went a little like this - "I want to go to space Mummy, would YOU like to go to space? I am going to be an astronaut and wear a space suit and see the planets. Can we go to space tomorrow? We can go in a rocket and go high in the sky." Yep, literally the whole way there and back. it's a four mile round trip. That boy really wants to go to space!

The next day we decided to make it happen for him, or as close as we could. We could have gone to the observatory in Greenwich but figured that might be a little too advanced for him, so we went to the Science Museum in London. They have a space exhibition there, with parts of space shuttles suspended from the ceiling. I have never seen a little boy so excited! He went charging around that place, trying to find the next rocket to look at. I love seeing how animated and excited he gets over things that he loves. I really wanted to get a good picture of him to capture it but it's pretty dark in there and the photos didn't come out very well.

Afterwards, we went down to the children's part of the museum where he enjoyed playing with the water and boats. He had a great time and didn't even get too soaked, surprisingly.

While we were at the science museum anyway, we also went up to have a look at the aviation section. Caleb loved looking at all of the planes with Seth, he was in raptures. Maybe he will be a pilot one day, who knows?!

Of course, one of his favourite things of the day was being on the train. The boy is obsessed with trains and it's the first time he was actually able to sit on a seat on the train instead of being in his pram so he had a great view and gave a running commentary on everything he saw out of the window. I love seeing things through his little child eyes!

There are so many times when I wonder if I'm a good enough Mum and if there is so much more that I could be doing for him. Whilst there may be many more things that I could do, I love it when as a family we're able to go and do things that he loves to do and I'm so glad that we were able to go to "space" with him!

Four months

It's amazing how fast or how slowly time can pass by sometimes. When I was pregnant, especially in the final weeks, even the days seemed to drag because I was so looking forward to having my new baby in my arms. I really can't believe that our little Levi has been with us for four months now. I know that a lot of people always say, "where does the time go?" but seriously, where did that time go??!

Levi is the sweetest, happiest little baby. Except for when he's not smiling; then he has furrowed eyebrows that make him look so grumpy! Every morning when I look into his Moses basket he greets me with the biggest smile and there is never any doubt that he thinks I'm pretty great! He was born with a ton of black hair and he hasn't lost any of it, except for that slight bald spot at the back of his head.

He loves being tickled, especially on his tummy and under his arms.

He loves dancing and music, so I am hoping that he will end up being musical.

He is so sociable. He hates to be left alone in a room for even a couple of minutes and the more people around him, the better.

He loves cuddles. You could literally hold him all day long and he wouldn't struggle to get away. Or maybe he would, I've not yet tried to actually hold him all day long.

He adores Caleb and will always break into the biggest smile whenever he sees Caleb or whenever Caleb talks to him.

He loves to have his hair brushed or have his hair played with.

He likes to be rocked to sleep. He can fall asleep on his own but when I feed him at around 7ish in the evening, I will always rock him until he falls asleep. Or maybe it's me that likes this more than him, who knows??

He chews his hands all the time. Or anything he can find to chew on. I would say that it's a sign that he might be teething but Caleb did exactly the same thing and didn't cut his first tooth until he was a year old!

He is already showing signs of being independent; when I am feeding him, he will have his hand on the bottle or he will try to pull it out of his mouth. I may have fun with his strong will in years to come, ha ha!

I absolutely love this little boy of mine (well, I adore both of them but being as this post is about Levi, I am referring specifically to him!) In some ways I can't believe that he is four months old already but in other ways, it feels like he has been a part of our family forever. He's pretty amazing, even if I do say so myself!