Sophie Jane Anne

Hello! Sophie Jane Anne is our little niece who arrived into this world on Sunday morning (UK time) to Helen and Niels. Sophie is doing fine and is gorgeous but poor Helen (and Niels) has had a rough time with both an emergency 'C' section and then a serious post 'C' section bleed. Thankfully Helen is now on the mend but it has been a worrying few days.

Apart from that, we are fine here and have had a busy weekend. I honestly can't remember much about the end of last week - I think we met up with Ulrike, Fritzi and Felix on Thursday but it is a long time ago! On Friday I know that we made some fairy cakes with very bright pink icing and sprinkles on top but other than that I really can't remember!

However, i can remember that on Saturday we had a very productive day! We set out on Saturday morning to take the old car to the cleaning service and they did a brilliant job. We were going to try and do it ourselves but I felt that the carpets would come up better if they were done using a powerful professional machine rather than either one that you can hire or our own. The car actually looks really good and it was worth the money. Now we can sell it looking like a really smart old car rather than the tatty thing that it used to look like!

Once we had dropped this off we went to a little furniture shop in Issaquah that I had past to look for some dining room chairs. We were in there a while but we found and bought 6 chairs that will be stained to match our table and we like them very much. Now we will have enough chairs for our guests and for our children, which is good!

After that we then went swimming and although we couldn't get in the lovely warm pool, we had a great time and managed very well with the children! After this we came home for some lunch and a quiet afternoon!

Yesterday we woke up to the news about Helen and then went to church. In the afternoon we met up with our friends from Nottingham who now also live in Seattle. Dan is working at the Children's hospital and Hannah is at home with their boys. WE had a great afternoon, it was lovely to see them! The children got on very well and Naomi said afterwards that she had enjoyed making new friends.  It was funny watching the children interact with each other! Hopefully we will see them again before not too long!

Today we had school this morning and Silas finally had his 12 month check up although I still ended up going straight to school to collect the girls despite it being a 10 am appointment! This afternoon, the girls and I did some craft together and then we did a bit of shopping which was fun!

Silas has been full of mischief today and emptied Tim's cereal all over the floor before I could tie it up! Yesterday it was the caraway seeds that we had everywhere and he liked those very much as they made a great mess and looked a bit like little ants! We also have discovered that he has a very mature sense of humour and likes "The News Quiz" on BBC Radio 4 as he was laughing and clapping along with the audience! It was very funny!

He has also been very affectionate and has given us a lot of hugs and kisses which is very sweet and makes up a little bit for when he tries to bite you as he is teething! He enjoyed seeing photos of his new baby cousin this morning as did the girls. I can imagine Sophie and Silas being up to real mischief in the next year or so! We had better watch out!

Well, that is it for now, I won't write on Wednesday as I will be cooking pies for Thursday's Thanksgiving meal but I will write sometime over the next few days.

Until then take care and love to you all.