Another night out :-)

Claire and Chloe came again to look after Al while we went out to the Chinese. We had a lovely dinner and a chat without having to deal with tinks, and Al had a lovely time being looked after by a couple of real stars. This time we got a less blurry photo of them!

T**co's with Aralia

We met Nish and Aralia in our local supermarket for lunch today. We put the two babies in a double trolley while we shopped and they got lots of looks from other shoppers. Tesco's is one of Al's fave places partly because there's lots of lights and partly because he regularly gets lots of fuss from the ladies in the store. This time people were quite tickled to see the two babies together ... and Aralia was very affectionate to Al!

Another first ... to mummy's old place

We took Al on his first ferry trip for a weekend back in Brussels to introduce him to a few people ... and to see the main sites (Woluwe shopping centre and Delhaize supermarket!). It was a flying visit so we didn't see many people but we'll hopefully go again for longer in the new year sometime. We stayed at Vicki's flat in Folkestone the night before the ferry crossing, which was a treat but also quite entertaining! We picked up her key from her friends and got into the building no problem ... getting into the actual flat was a bit more tricky as the lock had broken! Vicki's downstairs neighbour was a real hero ... he came out as I was feeding Al on the stairs and welcomed us in like long lost friends, making us tea and having a chat. Clive got hold of the friends who had given us the key and they came round to get busy with the broken lock. Eventually they got us into the flat and hopefully by the time Vicki got home they will have fitted her a new lock too!

Once we got to Brussels we saw a few friends, shopped (yay!) and went to Elita's Zimbabwean event where we ate sausage made from goat stomach ... not surprisingly Elita only found one butcher in Brussels who could provide her with the stomach to make them. Actually maybe the surprising thing is that she actually found one butcher to do it!

Our only photos were of Al having his lunch on the boat, a nice one of Claude and then a couple of blurry ones taken with my phone. Looking forward to a longer visit next time to see more people (and fit in more shopping!).

We love ebay!

We got a real treat on ebay this week. We'd had lunch at Pippa and Andrew's and Al had played in Faith's baby nest very happily so we decided to try and get the lad one on ebay. We ended up with a real bargain - a fiver for one in really good nick and on top of that we didn't have to pay postage because it turned out that the family selling it only live a few miles from us!

As you can see from the photo Al is very happy with his new toy, and a happy Al makes for a happy mummy and daddy!

Al's pals

Al had a play date with Thomas round at the twins' house. There's only about 3 weeks between the four babies and they all seemed happy together right up until the moment when I took the photo and Al wailed. Ah well.

Angel baby to whingey baby and back again

We had a really tough couple of days when our normally peaceful and smiley little son turned into an unhappy wailing baby. We thought it must be teething (the constant dribble and explosive nappies were clues!) and maybe it was but we discovered on Thursday night that the poor lad was just starving! We had a couple of days of giving him a little pureed fruit and then Thursday Clive gave him a little bowl of baby porridge. Wow, what a difference! Our smiley lad was back gurgling and waving his arms and legs in the air on the window seat once again. Phew! So now he is away ... enjoying various pureed fruit and veg and organix baby banana porridge and apple muesli (which looks remarkably like the porridge!).

We give him fruit or veg in the middle of the day (butternut squash is his hot fave so far) and then Clive has the honour of giving him porridge for evening meal. Glad I get out of this one because it's MESSY!

New Toy (gives Mummy 10 mins peace!)

We bought Al a door bouncer toy and he LOVES it! Shame you can't post videos on here (or maybe you can and I just haven't worked out how yet) because we've got a great one of him dancing away in his new toy. When we first put him in it he enjoys being mobile and just sways around gently having a good look about him, but then he gets more confident and excited and starts bouncing and kicking his legs. All good fun!