The aunties

tic toc tic toc...

Time seems to have flown by last week! And it is nearly Christmas :) Baba has a bit of a cough again which is not good - means we haven't had too much sleep last couple of nights. But he is still very adorable regardless of the snotty nose...

We are off down south tomorrow, driving down to Berko first and then on Christmas eve morning driving to David's parents via Gaenor & Rob. The weather forecast is icy and foggy, same as last Christmas when we drove down.

I popped to uni yesterday to show Henrik to everyone, he was generally adored. 

Ready for a walk

Henrik ready for a walk to face the cold northern air with his teddy and buzzy bee

Meet Snowball

Snowball is Henrik's cuddly bear puppet/blanket. He is silky on one side and furry on the other side, just perfect to be cuddled by little hands. It has been wonderfully frosty here for the last couple of days, it has even stayed cold during the day so the frost hasn't melted...good preparation for snowy Finland :)

Bouncy castle

Mums n toddlers at church had a Christmas party and Henrik had his first taste of bouncy castles...and I had an occasion to wear my antlers (they flash and have little jingly bells on them - a very superior pair of antlers) I got from secret santa on Monday at the theology groups Christmas party :)

Cutie pie

Henrik had his first visit to London last weekend. We went to a Jason Upton worship concert in the city and took him with us. We discovered the tube wasn't designed to be used with a pram...but we survived...carrying the pram up and down the stairs in the tiny central line corridors :)

Nautical nappy time

We bought Henrik a little mobile some time ago and as he is still in Moses basket in our room rather than in a cot in his own room we hang it above his changing table. And he loves it. He could spend hours staring at the boats going around and around. The blue and green are his favourites.

Me? Flirtatious?

When we went to the health visitors on Tuesday for weighing Henrik bestowed one of his gorgeous smiles on the health visitor who 'labeled' him flirtatious...but who could resist a smile like this?

Saturday morning glory

Here are some pics from our Saturday morning walk to the beach. The weather was gorgeous and we enjoyed ourselves :)

Henrik is much better today, he hasn't coughed at all and his nose is only moderately runny. He is suppose to have been sleeping for the last half an hour which hasn't happened...every couple of minutes he is crying or grizzling so I've going back to the bedroom and sticking the 'plug' back to his mouth...hopefully he'll settle soon, he had a mammoth feed so he can't be hungry...

David is in the pub with guys from church watching toon army play Arsenal.

Still sniffling

Henrik is a bit better and I think I am marginally better but not much :( Paula and baby Nathan came over yesterday so we had a nice afternoon chattering away in Finnish. We took Moses out together as well. It was quite amusing when we were leaving for the walk...both of the babies were crying and Moses was whimpering very excitedly as he realised he was coming too...

Moses is very quick to pick up on cues, usually by the time you pick up his lead he has got so excited that it is pretty impossible to calm him down. Some cues he has figured out that mean an impeding walk are locking the back doors, turning the heating of, taking the changing bag away from the pram and putting some rolled up plastic bags into the pram pocket - so even before you've had a chance for reaching for your shoes or jacket he knows he is going for walk and there is no peace!

I've been trying to add some photos still but for some reason they are refusing to be uploaded. I'll try again later hopefully with more luck.

We (me & Henrik) are going to the health visitor today to see how much the baba weighs. 

We watched the nativity story in theology group last night. It was pretty good, so if you can get hold of it, it's worth a watch especially this time of the year. 

Sniffly noses

All three of us have the cold :( so we are all sniffling, sneezing and coughing together. During the day is not too bad but the amount of sleep we've got last couple of nights has been seriously effected...

Yesterday we woke up or got woken up by Henrik 6ish. By the time I'd fed him we were both quite awake and thought there was no hope of us getting any more sleep even if the baba went back to bed so we bundled ourselves and the dog into the car and went for a morning walk. Baba slept in the baby carrier and missed the sunrise. 

On the way back we stopped at the butchers and got some bacon & sausages and cooked the most gorgeous fry-up for breakfast.

Bottle boy

David and Henrik have had extra daddy-son time over the last week as he has been giving the baba a bottle of expressed breast milk in the evenings. Baba doesn't seem to mind the bottle which is good. 

I was getting all excited that Henrik is sleeping through the night but he woke up for a feed last night and didn't sleep that well after it at all - I am hoping it is because this nasty cough he has...

The weather is not so nice today but it is not raining either which is good :)

Smile

This is what Henrik's smile looks like when he is not suffering from cold. He is still coughing but he had little bit better night and did not wake up coughing. He woke up for a feed at 6.30 which meant I had pretty good night sleep too even though I did still wake up at 2 and 4 wondering if he wanted to be fed.

The weather is gorgeous here, clear and windy. Perfect for drying washing so I am being a laundry girl today :) There is already one lot of washing on the line and other one in the washing machine.

The most important ladies in Henrik's life...after mummy of course

Mummi

Grannie

Time flies

Lots has happened over the last couple of weeks and the blogger has been temperamental about uploading photos so I have started writing a blog quite a few times but then by the time it comes up with error message saying unable to upload upload photos I am feeding the baba or changing nappies or doing something else baba related. 

My mum was over for week and a bit. People at church  still fondly talk about t he korvapuusti and ginger biscuits she made. She also baked a cake for the dedication that I decorated it and that was a great success too.

Henrik also has a horrible cough, viral upper respiratory tract infection the out of hours doctor who we saw on Saturday morning called it. He still has it but as he is so young they don't want to give him any antibiotics. 

Despite the cough and hour long coughing fits at night time he has slept through the night without feeds for quite a few nights now. Apart from last night - I went swimming in the evening with a girl from church and David was putting baba to bed & doing the last feed with some expressed breast milk...however the milk was in two separate containers in the fridge and baba only got one lot hence not getting enough food and woke up at night hungry.

It's funny, even if Henrik doesn't wake up for a feed, I still wake up at the times he used to wake up thinking it's time to feed him and when I look in the moses basket he is happily snoozing away!

I asked the health visitor to measure his height yesterday and he was 59cm which is bang in the middle of the percentile charts. He weighed 9lb and 4 oz (4.3kg I think). Some of the new born baby clothes are starting to be a bit small for him too, especially the sleeves on long sleeved vests come half way up his arms. And he has the cutest little baby fat ripples on his legs, when he was born his legs were like rope with knot (knee) so he is fattening up very nicely :)

Boys time

Dedication part 2

Henrik's dedication part 1

We had a lovely time celebrating Henrik's dedication on Sunday. It was lovely to have family and friends to come up all the way to the deepest darkest north to be with us & share the day. Becky spent the day being a paparazzi so we got lots of photos. The church put on a bun fight after the service...there was enough food to feed an army. Here are some pics of the day, more will follow when I have more time. 

Cake my mum baked & I decorated

Some pressies Henrik was given

The man himself (and my double chin)

Alan showing Henrik to everyone at the beginning of the dedication

bird rescue

Couple of days ago David's mum and I took the dogs for a walk on the beach. When we were walking back Moses discovered something we assumed was dead fish or pile of sea weed. It was getting dark so we couldn't see properly but he kept sniffing and sniffing it so I went over to see what it was.

It turned out to be a little auk, washed up to the beach by the tide. We were a bit unsure what to do with it but we couldn't leave it there so we took him home with us and phoned the RSPB. A very helpful lady there told us that it was a little auk - as we didn't know what it was and also said that they had been getting calls about washed up little auks up and down the coast, apparently they had been displaced by the strong wind we had last week. 

She also told us to try to feed the bird with some fresh fish but unfortunately it died before we got that far. So we were all in tears and quite upset about it.

Something sweet

Love is ageless.

Still here

Henrik had his first injections today and was not very  impressed. And I ended up leaving one of the muslins to the doctors - I discovered I need more hands! Baby carrier, handbag, my coat, baba's health record book, baba's clothes and the baba himself of course!

Gorgeous

Smile

hmmm....

Old laws are funny thing. Recently there was a vote for the most obscure laws in England and here are couple of examples of the top ten:

- It is illegal to die in the houses of Parliament (but I guess they can't sue you if that happens as you are dead!)

- It is an act of treason to place a postage stamp bearing the British king or queen's image upside-down (makes me want to do it just to see if anything happens...)

 - Eating mince pies on Christmas Day is banned (apparently by Cromwell but much must have changed since as mince pies are essential part of Christmas feast here)

- It is illegal to enter the Houses of Parliament wearing a suit of armour (could you imagine Gordon Brown in shining armour?)

- It is legal to murder a Scotsman within the ancient city walls of York, but only if he is carrying a bow and arrow...

Baba

Exploring

We had a day/afternoon of exploring yesterday. We've been talking for a while that we should explore more Northumberland which is on our doorstep so yesterday we headed to a small fishing village called Craster and walked from along the coastal path from there to Dunstanburgh castle.

Moses seemed to appreciate the outing and Henrik happily slept through the whole thing in his baby carrier. The castle (or the ruins of it) was pretty impressive, we stopped along the coastal path and had our sandwiches sitting on the rocks overlooking the caslte. The weather was nice so we had a nice autumnal drive there and back as well.

And here's the result...

...hopefully the passport people will be happy with it...

Not a happy bunny

We tried to take a photo of Henrik for his passport yesterday morning (I was still in my pjs) and he was not best pleased as you can see! So we went along photographic shop that the lady in the post office had recommended being good at taking baby passport photos. We discovered that specialising in taking baby photos meant that they had a blow up cushion they put on a floor with a white sheet and that's it. Henrik didn't perform - wouldn't keep his head straight and started crying so we didn't get a photo of him. We tried taking the photo again at home this morning with bit more luck and David's just gone to get it printed.

Stripy suit

Most baby clothes for little boys are baby blue so we were very excited when we found this turquoise & brown stripy suit... he looks adorable in it...and even his dummy matches the colours!

An other facial expression

The 'this is how your mouth should look like when you say u' face is a common expression

Wednesday morning kisses

Shopping again

We ventured into town again today. First time by the metro. Henrik behaved in an exemplary manner. Our tour of the town included trip to Marks and Spencer's to buy a little outfit for Henrik, then to John Lewis to get couple of more baby things, muslins, grobag and a baby toy with a mirror that we are planning to fix into the car so we can see his face without having to twist ourselves into an awfully awkward positions. We also discovered that John Lewis is brilliant for babies in a practical point of view...They have a parental room where you can change nappies and feed the babies. 

We had a lovely lunch in a cafe flatbread which was the name says served flatbread with little dips and things. It was delicious and Henrik slept all the way through it. It was brilliant, really really yammy, healthy and freshly prepared. 

We also ventured to the Christian bookshops in effort to try to replace a bible Moses chewed. When we were in Canada we bought this nice leather cover and a bible to go with it for David. Moses had a bit of a bored moment last week and chewed the bible. The cover survived. And we realised it was not that easy to find a bible to fit the covers, especially if you want it with concordance and cross referenced especially if the original one was bought in Canada where they use funny size paper anyway (A4 does not exist in Canada)!

Pulling funny faces

Henrik has a wonderful selection of facial expressions and we could spend hours just looking at him very adoringly.  So here are the 'nose crunch', 'sneeze' and 'if I stare hard enough something is going to happen' faces for you to enjoy!