At last!

Elizabeth rolled over today from her back to her front. The first time she did it, it took her about 5 minutes. She was determined to get all the way over didn't stop trying. I was so excited!

The second time didn't take quite as long but was still a struggle. She desperately wanted a toy...

The third time was when she was trying to reach me. She flipped over so quickly, you would've thought she'd been doing it for weeks. She then decided I was far too boring and scooted round on her front until she found a toy she wanted which had been by her feet.

A little while later, Elizabeth went down for her nap. I checked in on her 10 minutes later and she was fast asleep.

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I'm not so sure Daddy

Elizabeth's first taste of Ginger Beer...

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Will she be an early walker?

Our beautiful daughter has started to grow up too fast. She's now got teeth, can sit up unaided (most of the time), has started on solid food and prefers to stand rather than sit or lay down. Her balance is getting pretty good and I know it'll be a while before she's standing on her own but she's got some determination, I can tell you!

Hoorah!

On Sunday, Elizabeth's first tooth popped through! She has been quite out-of-sorts for the past week or so, being sick lots (she's not a sicky baby) and not sleeping well. I thought she had a cold or something then the tooth appeared. There were a couple of hours on Sunday when Elizabeth was quite upset, just after the tooth appeared, but otherwise she's been fine since.

Then yesterday Elizabeth got really upset in the afternoon and was inconsolable. When I eventually tried to give her some teething gel, I found a second tooth had popped through! Two teeth in three days!

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This is the life!

Having a soak in the tub after a hard day.

The Gallery - Mustachioed

So over at Sticky Fingers - a blog I love reading - there is a weekly 'thing' called The Gallery. A theme is suggested each week and people can post their photos so that everyone else can see their interpretation. The theme this week is 'mustachioed' - everything mustache-related can be used to amuse the masses!

This is my first ever entry and so this seemed like a fitting photo. This is Elizabeth, our 24-week old daughter, having her first taste of baby rice. More went round her mouth than in it but I guess you have to start somewhere! I'm not sure how I'm going to handle so much mess....

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Oh dear!

I clearly shake my head too much. This is Elizabeth's latest trick...

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It's just dawned on me...

...our little girl is growing up. When she was a newborn, all those months ago, Elizabeth lived in baby grows (also known as sleepsuits or all-in-one suits). Now that she's 23 weeks old and just past the 5 months stage, I mostly dress her in little outfits, be it a dress or trousers and a top. At night she wears a long sleeved vest in her sleeping bag. Needless to say she doesn't wear baby grows very often anymore. I put her in one the other day and she looked like she was ready for bed! It made me realise how much she has grown and how quickly she has gone from this helpless newborn baby to this alert little girl who can't wait to start moving on her own.

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A Danish weekend

Sorry for the the delay in writing this.

So Elizabeth was less than 5 months old when we took her on her second holiday. We went to Denmark for Easter to see the family and again Elizabeth was pretty good on the plane. Unfortunately we had a much later flight out than when we went to France so when we landed, Elizabeth should've been in bed. This really seemed to mess her up as she couldn't settle well enough in the buggy whilst traveling on the trains that we needed to take to get to Frans' sister Laura's house. This was torture for me as there didn't seem to be anything I could do to help her. She did fall asleep once we were off the second train and walking. By this point I think it had been a couple of hours since we had landed so Elizabeth was pretty knackered. We were borrowing a car and car seat from Laura so we got the car packed as quickly as possible then started the 1hr 20m drive down to the summer house in Nysted. We were starting our holiday with a short stay with Inger and Bruno. Elizabeth slept for most of the car journey but fed and went down to sleep easily once we arrived at the summer house.

I believe that Elizabeth actually slept pretty well on that first night. In the few days leading up to this trip, Elizabeth had started to sleep for between 8 and 10 hours in one go. This trip didn't really disrupt that and she continued to sleep well on most of the nights that we were in Denmark. Result!

Elizabeth had a few 'firsts' on this trip - her first giggle, her first time in a high chair - and she really seemed to enjoy her holiday. It was wonderful watching her. We had a fab few days down at the summer house with some gorgeous food - thanks again Inger - then headed back up to Copenhagen on the Sunday for Jonas' confirmation.



We haven't seen the boys since last summer so this was the first time that they had met their niece. Anders and Jonas were keen to have a cuddle and we had a lovely day with them. We put Elizabeth in a gorgeous pink party dress that my cousin gave her. Adorable, of course!



On the Monday, Elizabeth met some more family members. We spent the afternoon with Kris and Dwight and they were a big hit with Elizabeth. She also met a cat for the first time. We had a really chilled out day and then headed back to meet Laura and Ulrich. Unfortunately we did have a few problems with Elizabeth at this point.

I fed her and then she needed to go to bed. We didn't have her cot with us and she really wasn't happy about going to sleep somewhere else. In the end she stayed up with us for a bit then we managed to get her to sleep in her car seat an hour or so later. When it was time to leave, we gently lifted her out of the car seat and wrapped her in a blanket. We took her down to the buggy and she slept on the short walk back to where we were staying. We did transfer her to the cot but she wasn't happy about it. That night we were up with Elizabeth every 90 minutes, for at least half an hour at a time. She just wouldn't settle. Eventually I suggest we put her in the buggy and walk her to sleep - she fell asleep INSTANTLY when we put her in there. Must remember that trick....

We had a lovely breakfast the next day with Laura, Ulrich and the kids, then it was time to go home. We had some fun going through security at the airport - never again are we going through the desk that has staff training - but eventually made it to the gate. Elizabeth wasn't too happy about being on a plane again and didn't want to sleep until we started the descent into Gatwick. She then slept in my arms until we picked up our bags!

We had another wonderful holiday and Elizabeth got that all-important second stamp in her passport :)

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It's not what it seems!

I don't know if you can really see the picture properly but this is a love bite...from Elizabeth! She was happily sucking on my arm last night while we were waiting for Daddy to get Elizabeth's bath ready. When I picked her up, I had this on my arm!

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Romantic dinner for two

We're away for the weekend on a spa break at a fancy hotel. It's a wedding present, but with the pregnancy and all we didn't have a chance to go until now. Last night we had a table booked in the restaurant for a romantic meal for two. However, Elizabeth figured it should be a meal for three. That sort of put paid to any concerns about observing table manners and remembering to use the correct cutlery :)

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Elizabeth's favourite trick

Whilst we were on holiday in France, we actually witnessed Elizabeth turning herself round in her cot. We'd sort of seen it before we left but only the result, not the method. It would appear that Elizabeth pulls her legs up to her chest, throws her weight to the side while kicking her legs back out, pushes on her feet which have found the side of the cot and hey presto, she's turned. Once we were home I managed to get photographic evidence of her endeavors!

Our first family holiday, part 4

Our flight back on the Saturday was late afternoon so we hung around the hotel, playing scrabble and reading on the balcony. It was a beautiful day. Elizabeth wore her cute pink sun hat and didn't like having the sun cream put on.

Our coach finally arrived to take us back to the airport and we piled on. I wasn't really sure what to expect from Elizabeth - would she be as easy as the flight and coach trip out or would she really hate it?  I expected Elizabeth to be a bit unhappy until she got settled but she didn't settle (and then fall asleep) until we were almost at the airport. I felt so sorry for her. At least she had a little nap so I was fairly confident that she'd be fine in the airport.

Wrong again! She was ok for the first 15/20 minutes but then she started crying whilst we were queuing for the check-in desk. What a nightmare that experience was! It was hot, over-crowded, noisy and time consuming. Elizabeth got so worked up that I got her out of the buggy and stripped her down to her vest to cool her down. We eventually made it to the check-in desk - we were almost last in the queue - and then got through security. Elizabeth was clearly quite tired and hungry by this point so we sat down and I fed Elizabeth, thinking we had about an hour before we would board the plane. About 10 minutes after I finished feeding Elizabeth, our flight started boarding so we gathered our belongings and off we went.  I was praying for a good flight.

As I mentioned, Elizabeth was really tired by this point and she managed to fall asleep as we were taking off.  She slept for most of the flight, waking once we started our descent to Gatwick. She burst into tears and so I quickly started feeding her. That did the trick. My Mum was telling me that the descent to Gatwick is quite steep so it was no surprise that Elizabeth had that reaction. So that was our holiday over :(

We had such a wonderful holiday and I loved watching Elizabeth bond with everyone. We can't wait to fill up Elizabeth's passport with more stamps as we continue to travel all over the place with our beautiful daughter.

Our first family holiday, part 3

So Monday arrived after a good night from Elizabeth - the adults weren't quite so lucky - and we were greeted by lots of snow on the ground! Frans and I were really excited to get up the mountain so we had breakfast and passed Elizabeth over to 'the babysitters' as quickly as possible. We had a wonderful day and met Elizabeth, my Mum and Tim for lunch. They'd all had a good morning too.

The rest ofMonday and Tuesday was pretty uneventful and there was no more snow falling. We had already decided to have a break from skiing on the Wednesday and we had a family day. Both Frans and I agreed that was one of our best days :) We had a lazy morning and decided to go swimming with Elizabeth. It's do wonderful to see her enjoying the water. The temperature was slightly cooler than she is used to but she didn't seem to mind. We then took it in turns to play some table tennis which I haven't done for a long time. Great fun though.

We went out skiing again on the Thursday and arranged to meet Mum, Tim and Elizabeth for lunch. I was feeling much more confident on my skis by then but was finding the slush really hard to ski on. We decided to call it a day at lunch time and didn't even bother skiing on the Friday. I think the temperature got up to about 16 degrees.