Just a couple of photos...

... from the past couple of weeks

Simon was in the paper the other day. Not just a little write up either, a large spread with photo detailing one of the projects he is doing at the minute. Della was amazed to see her daddy in the paper and quickly pointed him out to us. 

We had a lovely lazy breakfast last weekend. We had eggs. It is the first time I've split scrambled eggs three ways meaning Della ate the same amount as us!! 

Here Della makes music with Simon - keep your eyes peeled for the next video when they perform together. I think we might have something that could make us our millions!

Piggy biscuit!

Della all at sea!

This morning Della went off to sea in a washing basket boat... Lets hope she makes it back in time for tea.

The crab...

The other night Uncle Nick came round to visit. Della was so excited she did her standard response to anything which blows her mind - jump and twirl.

Uncle Nick watched Della while me and Simon went out for a very quick pint. Before this Della did some laughing while tiring her daddy out...

What happens when you...

When you ask Della what happens when you poo, this is what she does...

 

The Deep blue

On Sunday it was wet, and later snowing, so we left York and went to Hull. They have the Deep - a big aquarium, and we thought it was the ideal place to stay in doors and look at pretty blue things. 

Della liked running around in the dark and looking at all the water and bubbles. Here are a couple of highlights, Simon might share more. 

Tea in the bath...

As I said in the last post, bath time is when Della reflects on her day and tells you the following: 

• What she ate (Mainly 'am - ham)
• Where she went (often chores, Mammy shops)
• Who she played with and what she did (can be 'Enry and 'Boo')
• Where daddy went (always work or football)
• If mammy was at work (mammy's in car, work)
• What she has dreamt about

The last one is a new addition and is only our interpretation of what she is going on about at present. Della often talks in her sleep which is very funny. At 4am suddenly the monitor can come alive with her babbles and rambles and occasional real words. We have checked and she is most certainly asleep when this happens. 

Recently she keeps telling us she has hurt her knee, nothing special but then she goes into detail about how she did it in the shower. Della, knee, fall, shower, bang. This is impossible as she doesn't go in the shower. We can only imagine she has dreamt about being in the shower and falling over. It must be re-occuring as it is one of her favourite topics of conversation! 

Below she has a pretend cup of tea (slaps herself in face with bubbles) with Daddy. 

Lambing day

On Sunday our local agricultural college had an open day. This is pretty well known locally as lambing day where people can stroll around the farm, cuddle a fresh baby lamb, look at baby farm animals, ride a tractor, watch cows being milked and if you are very very lucky, see an actual lamb being born. We managed to do all of these while we were there. 

Della was quite bemused when I held another version of her Gordon...

Della wasn't sure about the massive smelly cows but did learn a thing or two...

Simon took some time explaining to Della that cows make milk. This has stayed with her and if you ask where does milk come from she promptly replies cows. Wait til I explain where lamb chops come from!

Gordn did not want to miss out on the action with his family...

If you open the picture below and look very carefully you will see a tiny little pink lamb which is only seconds old. I have to admit I felt a bit sorry for her having lots of children stare in amazement/ shock as the bloody tiny creature but she didn't seem fussed at all...

I forgot to say, although it doesn't look it the day we went to the farm was in temperatures below freezing and we had to hide in doors for some of the time as icy snow fell in not very nice winds. To escape we bounced around on the tractor. 

In the bath after our visit we talkedabout the farm to Della (you often get the most sense out of her at this point in the day as she is reflecting on the new things she has learnt). We asked what she had done today and she talked about the milk and the cows more impressively she said tractor ride and out of nowhere 'big wheels'. We hadn't mentioned wheels whilst out so this was her own personal observation of what a tractor is. It is amazing what her brain contains now. 

Play Doh

Della is very creative. She likes to draw, paint, tell stories and now play with Play Doh. This isn't home made (it was on offer and I thought I would get it cheap to see how she got on with it). I shall be trying home made play doh now though because she loved it. She cut it, sqished it, made a hand print in it and even managed turning a ball into a sausage! Advanced play doh playing.

 

Happy birthday Asta

On Saturday Asta had her 4th birthday party. Della was invited and was very excited to go. She wrapped her present, put on her dancing shoes and we headed out in the rain.

I love this picture of Della 

The party had a very entertaining lady who the children loved. She wore a big pink wig and made balloon animals and and had a bubble machine. 

Della enjoyed watching Henry escape out of the room dressed as superman! 

At dinner Della got to sit with the big kids for cake.

Most of the children were much bigger than Della so understandably it took her a little while to come round but eventually she sat with the big girls and had lots of fun. 

World Book Day

On Thursday it was World Book Day. In York, and perhaps all over the world, this means that children go to nursery and school dressed as their favourite book character. Della has many favourite friends but the one she loves most is probably Penguin. in this book 'penguin says nothing'. 

So we decided in a classic Collins' Family Production to make her a penguin costume. 

Step one: get a black hoody and orange and while felt. 

Step two: cut it up, do some stitching and sticking

Step three: penguin costume complete!

Step four: pop it on child and wait for gasps of cuteness!

There will definitely be more shots of Della as a penguin, playing outside, on the back of the bike and so on...

We think it is adorable and so did all her friends at nursery.

Della practising her ABCs

The other night in the bath, Della was practicing her ABC's.... and got about half way.

posh train travel

This weekend Simon was meant to be working (it got cancelled) but we had booked train tickets to Durham so still went up. While there...

This is before she went, generally looking quite cute. 

Della did some talking on the phone whilst carrying her dolls in a car seat:

Played with Ethan in his new house:

Did some more talking on the phone:

Then finally for our trip back we had first class tickets, they were 15p more than standard class and you get free stuff, so it is worth the investment. Here she lounges on her large seat and stares at the other passengers with gordon. Our free stuff included tea, a can of coke, a sandwich, crisps and biscuits. Special, hope she doesn't get used to it.  

A few things we did

We had a rather quiet weekend while we all recovered from coughs and colds. Here are a few things we did...

Della drawing with daddy. She loves asking Simon to draw something (she manily asks for Gordon) and then watching very closely as Simon draws it perfectly (she is very lucky to have a Daddy who can draw so well) and getting very excited when the picture is finished. I think with all the copying she does she too will grow up with some creative flare. 

Can you believe fresh pineapples are only one pound. Here Della has a pineapple head - and sounds very funny when she says pineapple.

We did manage to have a stroll down the allotment. It's looking like it needs some work but Simon has lots of new fruit trees to go in and hopefully it will avoid flooding this year and we might get some lovely veg. the strawberry plants are looking like they survived so at least we can sit down there in the sunshine and eat them straight from the plants. 

While down there we said hello to the chickens. Della thought they were funny.