Surprise

We had a busy day on Saturday, Pete's parents came over to help us do some work in the garden. At the last minute Pete decided to ask them to babysit so that we could go out for a curry. Pete got ready first and even ironed his clothes and looked really smart, he then convinced me that I should dress up too. So off we went to Sangams Balti Restaurant in Stoke and to my surprise all my friends were sat there waiting for me with their cameras at the ready. They had organised a baby shower for me and had made such an amazing effort, there were balloons, and banners and even little footprint confetti scattered all over the table. The real pièce de résistance though was the amazing nappy cake that my friends had made for me. For those of you that don't know, a nappy cake is an arrangement of nappies made in to the shape of a cake. They are tiered like a wedding cake, with ribbon and baby blankets used for decoration and hidden inside are loads of fab gifts for the new baby. We had a lovely curry and the evening was finished off with some beautiful cup cakes that had been made specially.

It was a fantastic night and I cant thank my friends (Sara, Carina, Sam, Claire and Vienna) enough for all the effort that they put in to arranging it. Also a massive well done to Pete for keeping it a secret from me which must have been hard because it doesn't take much for me to suspect that something is going on. 
Eliza had great fun the next morning helping me dig into the the nappy cake and seemed really excited that the gifts inside were for her new baby sister. 

Baby Number Two

I am now in 32 weeks and 3 days in to my pregnancy so this image is a little late in coming but here is the photograph we got of our baby at the 14 week scan. We were both really pleased with how clear it looked and really noticed the difference between that and the 12 week scan we had with Eliza. Its amazing how much difference those 2 weeks made in the development of our baby.

You can see the baby's spine really clearly on this image as well as being able to see a little hand and foot.

Baby number two at 14 weeks

Toilet Time

We've had a potty in the house for quite a while now but Eliza has never really been that interested in it, occasionally she would have a sit on it but that was about it. I'd thought about trying to potty train her but wondered if it might be better to leave it until after the new baby has arrived. In preparation I also bought a fab new toilet seat that has a toddler seat built into it so there is no worry of it slipping off while she is trying to climb on to the toilet.

Although I hadn't planned to start potty training I often ask Eliza if she wants to sit on the potty and if she does then I pop her on and if not I just leave it at that and don't pressure her. One morning a couple of weeks ago I put Eliza on the potty and she did a wee straight away, I gave her loads of praise and showed her how to tip the wee in the toilet. Throughout the day I continued to put her on the potty or the toilet and to my surprise she wee'd every time, she even did a poo on the potty. She was totally brilliant and her nappy stayed clean all day. I have continued to take her to the toilet every hour or so and she is usually quite happy to sit on it. At the moment I dont think she is quite at the stage where she would go to the toilet herself so it is up to me to keep taking her every so often but I think we have only had 3 accidents since we began I am so proud of her. She has taken to it really well so I guess she must have been ready.

I'm a big girl now

Almost two weeks ago we decided it was time to try Eliza in a big girls bed. We had discussed the idea a couple of times in the past but felt we should wait a little while through fear of it disrupting her fantastic sleeping habits. We took the decision to go for it this time around because we would like Eliza to be settled in her new bed in time for the arrival of baby number 2 as she will be going into the cot shortly after she is born. The last thing we want is for Eliza to think the new baby has stolen her cot from her.

Until now Eliza has always slept in a regular sized cot so we didn't have the option of just removing the sides and turning it into a bed. So once the decision had been made I took my Mum, Grandma and Eliza on a mission to Ikea to pick out a new bed. I was completely shattered by the time we got home but I really wanted to get the bed set up ready for Eliza's bed time. All was going well until I realised that there were no slats in the boxes so Eliza only had half a bed. I was completely gutted but the idea of driving all the way back to Ikea was not appealing. Thankfully my Mum suggested that we just make our own slats which sounded much easier than driving back down to Wednesbury. I'm pretty good at DIY so we headed over to my Mums house and found some pieces of wood which I cut with a jigsaw and sanded with an electric sander. The home made slats fit Eliza's new bed perfectly and if I'm honest I think they are probably more substantial than the ones that were supposed to be with it in the first place.

As you can imagine we were pretty nervous about how Eliza would react to her new bed but she did us so proud and went to sleep with absolutely no problems at all. In the morning she didn't even get out of her bed, she just sat there shouting me until I came and told her she could climb out. She is such a little star and is totally in love with her new bed.

The long awaited update

This post is really long overdue, but as I promised yesterday I am back to try and remember what's been happening over the last 5 months or so since I last bothered to write anything on here.

The biggest news I have to share is that we are expecting our second baby. I am currently 27 weeks pregnant and our baby GIRL is due on 16th September 2011. I cant wait to meet the new addition to our family and see how Eliza interacts with her. I have explained to Eliza that she will be having a baby sister but she probably doesn't fully understand at the moment. I think she understands that there is a baby in my tummy though and she very often comes over to give it a kiss or sing twinkle twinkle. I have just ordered her a book from Amazon called "My new baby" so hopefully that will help her a little. I'm sure having a new baby in the house will come as a big shock to Eliza but in time it will be great for her to have a companion who she can fuss over and boss about :)

During the last few months Eliza has also celebrated her 2nd Birthday and we have been two holidays. Her birthday was a pretty quiet affair really, we had a little party for her which she thought was fantastic. I asked her what she wanted for her party and she said "hats, balloons, cake and flowers" so that's exactly what she got. Her little face was an absolute picture when she saw the candles being lit on her birthday cake. She was given some lovely gifts including a dolls pushchair, fairy costume and a sand and water play table. 

Here she is looking completely gorgeous in her fairy costume.

Happy Birthday Princess

Back in May we went on a lovely 10 day holiday to Peniscola in Spain, Pete's parents have a place out there so we stayed in an apartment nearby. The weather was lovely while we were there although i must admit, it was a little bit too hot for me some of the time. I think this must have been down to pregnancy because the heat doesn't usually bother me too much. The place that Pete's parent live is really great as it has loads of facilities including and indoor pool, outdoor pool, tennis court, playground and mini golf. The indoor pool was fantastic for Eliza as it was lovely and warm and had a kids splash pool with slide. Her confidence in the water grew massive while we were there and after only a few days she was swimming on her own with just armbands to aid her. We were all so proud of her and couldn't believe our eyes when she did it for the first time. 

 Having fun on the slide

Family photo in Vinaros

Unfortunatley, a couple of days before we came home, Eliza came down with a fever. She was feeling very poorly so we had to get her some infant suspension from a local pharmacy. The following day she came out in a rash all over her hands, feet, arms and legs. We thought it could have been chicken pox so were a bit worried about flying home with her but luckily we had no problems. Over the next few days the rash spread a little but she had no spots on her tummy or back. A few of them looked like typical chicken pox but the majority were much smaller blisters. A few days after we returned from our holiday Pete also came down with an awful fever and gradually a rash appeared. The doctors assured us that it wasn't chicken pox but weret able to tell us what it actually was. In fact, one of the doctors was really great and arranged for Pete to see a consultant. Unfortunately, by the time the appointment came around Pete's rash a pretty much gone so we didn't see much point in him going to the appointment so the virus stil remains a mystery.

Just over a week after we returned from Spain, Me my Mum and Eliza headed off to Wales for a few days. We stayed in a lovely 3 bedroom static caravan on a holiday park in Abergele. It was great to spend the week with my Mum and we managed to fit loads things in. We made a few trips down the road to Llandudno and played on the beach with Eliza we also took her to an aquarium which she loved. Mum really wanted to visit Bodnant Gardens because she used to go there every year with my Dad. We also managed to fit in visits to The Welsh Mountain Zoo, Caernarfon Castle and Penrhyn Castle.

 Me and Eliza at Bodnant Gardens

 Cheeky monkeys at welsh Mountain Zoo

 Windy day on the west shore, Llandudno

Caernarfon Castle

So there is a little update of what's been happening over the last few months. Hopefully I wont leave it too long before my next update. Goodbye for now.

I am officially useless

Good grief, I am obviously pretty useless at this blogging business. It's been months since I posted anything. So much has happened since I last posted so I really wish I had kept up to date so that I can look back on it in the future.
I'm currently writing this from my mums iPod touch which isn't great for writing a huge post so I will try my best to write something more in depth from my laptop this evening. I may need Pete to give me a kick up the backside to make sure I do it though. Until then, goodbye x

Moon Child

Eliza is 20 months old now and coming on leaps and bounds, each day I am amazed at how much she knows and understands about her surroundings. Just yesterday we were playing with some Mega Blocks and the next thing I know she is counting to 7 completely unprompted. I knew that she could count to 3 but I was completely shocked when she went all the way up to 7. It seems that there isn't a word that she doesn't know at the moment and we are all so proud of how well she is developing. She doesn't just say random words either, she uses them in the right context and seems to know what they mean. For the past month or so she has also started to join two or more words together which is fantastic. For instance she loves throwing her teddy's to the bottom of the stairs and the other day she said to her Daddy "Cat, throw it down" because she wanted to go upstairs and throw her cat toy down the stairs. The next thing she wanted to throw down was her baby Annabell doll. Now, throwing babies isn't something I'm trying to encourage.

In a previous post I mentioned that Eliza gets obsessions every now and again and unfortunately her latest one involves something that is a little out of reach. A couple of days ago after dark I decided it would be nice to stand Eliza in her window sill and show her the moon and stars. She was absolutely fascinated and kept wanting to go back to have another look. She was even blowing kisses to it and was saying "nice" and "hug" which was incredibly cute. The problem is, she wants to look at the moon all of the time and unfortunately its not there. This morning she woke at 6am and screamed the house down for about half an hour until I eventually summoned up the energy to get out of bed and go in to her. It turned out that she was crying because she wanted to see the moon and give it a hug as well as a nice slice of toast.  I'm telling you, she is one strange child, I dread to think what she will be into next.