Living Arrows 12/52 (2016)

It’s been a fairly quiet week here. Gabe has just about recovered from his cold and turned seven months old, and Toby’s just been getting on with being two and a half, just like he always does!

We had a fun morning at soft play on Wednesday and Toby really showed how much his confidence has grown when he was playing on the big kids bit. He continued his progress this weekend at the park. It was a lovely sunny day on Saturday so we walked up to one of the bigger play parks near where we live. He really showed no fear climbing up to the top of the slide… I’m loving this new adventurous phase of his!

Toby at the top of the slide

Gabe has been adventuring in his own way this week too. Toby is very possessive of his toys and doesn’t really like sharing with Gabe. So when Toby is at nursery Gabe loves a chance to get his hands on all those things he can’t play with in the mornings!

Gabe playing with his brother's puzzle

Living Arrows

Living Arrows 11/52 (2016)

I feel like I’m repeating myself, but this last week has been very much like the one before. Gabe still has his cold and hasn’t been sleeping much. After getting some drops from the doctor his eyes have cleared up at least, and although he’s still snotty he does seem to improving slightly.

Toby is still just being lovely, funny, sometimes whiney, Toby. Most of the time he is lovely but he’s been getting a bit too attached to playing on the CBeebies app on my Kindle lately and we’ve had some tears when it’s been time to turn it off. I found him a colouring app too (which doesn’t let you go outside the lines) that I thought he would enjoy…which he did but every single picture he just wanted to colour them all purple! I’m assuming this is just normal toddler behaviour and not some sort of obsessiveness I should be worried about. We definitely need to work on limiting Kindle time though before it starts being an issue. He does call the Kindle the tiny telly though (we used to watch quite a bit of iPlayer on it when it was younger because it was the only way to get him to stay still when changing his nappy) which is pretty cute.

Anyway, to this week’s pictures. They were both just taken one morning at home – I’d been taking some product shots for a review and Toby wanted his picture taken so I took the opportunity to take a few of both of them.

I do love a good face shot of Toby – I don’t know where the scratches on his nose came from though, I think he must have done it in his sleep.

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And as for Gabe, you can see he’s still suffering with his cold by the two streams of snot pouring down his face, but he still managed to crack a smile.

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Living Arrows

Living Arrows 10/52 (2016)

Here we are with another week of Living Arrows – and we’re into March already, this year is just flying by!

This week has been pretty miserable for the most part. Gabe has been choked with a cold – it’s been awful not being able to help him. It’s been so bad he even had snot coming out of his eyes, which has now turned into conjunctivitis. Poor little bear. The last few nights haven’t been too bad but most nights last week I ended up sleeping on the sofa with him because the only way he could breath was if he was upright on my shoulder. Aside from his eyes the cold does seem to be improving a little bit so I’m hoping he’s on the mend.

Despite feeling rubbish we have had a few smiles out of Gabe this week. He seems to enjoy being in his high chair (and weaning is still moving along quite well) which means he can stay there for a little while after lunch while I get Toby ready for nursery. I love the concentration on his face in this picture – this toy was Toby’s (and still is if you ask him) and it’s great because it sticks to the high chair so I don’t have to pick it up off the floor every two minutes!

Gabe playing with a bead toy

So far Toby has succumbed to the lurgy beyond a snotty nose so here’s hoping it stays that way! I took this photo of him when I was getting him to pose for last week’s What Toby Wore post but I couldn’t resist using it for this week’s Living Arrows too because he just looks too flipping cute!

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Living Arrows

Living Arrows 9/52 (2016)

Week 9 of the Living Arrows and we’re already at the end of February! And I just want to say a hello and thank you to our new Living Arrows host; my friend Donna over at What the Redhead Said.

We had some lovely weather this weekend so on Saturday we put Gabe in the buggy then walked to the supermarket and came back via the little park at the top of our road. Toby used to quite like the swing when he was really little but then went off them and wouldn’t go on them at all for ages. They seem to have come back into favour again recently and this weekend, for the first time ever he was actually asked to go higher!

He certainly looks like he was having fun anyway…

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Gabe’s photo this week was just taken one day while I was getting dressed in the bedroom. His sitting up is still a work in progress so I had built him a nest of pillows to sit in and he was having a cuddle with his fab fox that my brother and sister-in-law bought him for Christmas. It’s almost as big as he is!

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Living Arrows

Living Arrows 8/52 (2016)

Apart from our trip to Dundee on Wednesday we’ve had a fairly quiet week here, recovering from our coughs and colds and trying to keep out of the still miserable weather.

This week’s Living Arrows photos were just taken in the house, and I’m still struggling to get any decent light, even during the day!

Gabe is developing so quickly…but it does mean he needs to be entertained all the time now. His sitting up still isn’t brilliant so he seems to enjoy playing in this Mamas & Papas seat that I got second hand off a local Facebook selling page. Saying that he only manages about 10 or 15 minutes at a push before he gets fed up of it. I did get some pictures of him smiling but I quite like the quizzical expression on his face in this one…

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And as for Toby this week. Well he quite likes having his picture taken at the moment, especially if I’ve got the camera out to take photos of Gabe. He also seems to constantly have his tongue out at the moment, although I have no idea why! So anyway, that’s why we ended up with this picture…

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Living Arrows

Living Arrows 7/52 (2016)

It’s been a pretty awful week here with teething, colds, tonsillitis, croup, two visits to the out of hours GP and not an awful lot of sleep. However, we did manage a lovely morning out in the sun on Wednesday and it seems everyone is starting to feel better on the coughs and colds front so here’s hoping next week is a bit more settled!

Toby’s Living Arrows photo this week was taken when we were out on Wednesday. He loves pretending to be a tiger at the moment hence the pouncing hands in this shot…

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Gabe’s photo was taken yesterday morning. He is six months old in a few days and so we decided we should probably start thinking about weaning. Unlike with Toby though I’m not in any huge rush so this was the first time Gabe has been in the high chair. Toby very kindly shared some of his cereal with him but he only really seemed interested in throwing it on the floor! He seemed to quite like being in the high chair anyway so my whole weaning plan is just to keep putting him in it when we’re eating, put a bit of whatever we’re eating (or Toby is eating) in front of him and leave him to it. I’m sure he’ll get the hang of it eventually…

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Living Arrows

Living Arrows 6/52 (2016)

It’s been a bit of a mixed week here, we had a lovely morning at the park on Wednesday when I took this week’s picture of Toby but then Gabe has been teething and on Thursday night he wouldn’t settle at all, I even resorted to taking him out in the car at 11 pm which I never done before in my two and a half years of being a mum. I ended up on the sofa with him waking every hour through the night…and we still haven’t got a tooth to show for it!

Sometimes Toby can be quite shy and unsure of new places and new people but then other times he is quite happy just to go off exploring on his own. I took this picture at the park as he marched off up the hill on his own with not a care as to where I was! I hope he keeps his adventurous spirit as he gets older, it would be such a shame for him to lose it.

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And as for Gabe, well despite his teething we’ve still had some smiles out of him this week. He’s really close to being able to sit up by himself but until he gets there he seems to enjoy sitting on the sofa surrounded by a mountain of cushions.

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I’m hoping this tooth makes an appearance this week (I can feel a sharp corner right under the gum) and things settle down again for a bit. Although if Gabe is anything like his brother he’ll be teething pretty much constantly from now on!

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Living Arrows 5/52 (2016)

It’s been another quiet week here – this horrible weather doesn’t really encourage us to get out and about much.

I often feel guilty that I don’t do enough with Toby when we’re at home. It’s hard to go out in the mornings because I like Gabe to have at least one nap at home in bed and it tends to be the morning one. Toby is quite good at playing independently but we do seem to watch an awful lot of CBeebies at the moment too. Anyway, I saw this activity on someone’s blog last week (and I’m really sorry but I can’t remember where I saw it – if it was you then please do let me know so I can link to your post) and I thought we would give it a try.

I think the sticks were supposed to be spaghetti but we didn’t have any so I used some wooden kebab sticks instead. Threading the Cheerios on to the sticks helps develop fine motor skills but to be honest Toby’s are really good already. He didn’t actually find this too difficult but it held his attention for a long time (in toddler terms anyway) and I think he only dropped about three Cheerios the whole time.

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When the first two sticks were full he asked for another stick and more cereal, although he did finally get bored half way through that one. I think I was most impressed that he didn’t just eat all the cereal!

And so to Gabe. He has learnt a new trick this week – his blowing raspberries had me in hysterics yesterday. He’s so serious about it!

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Living Arrows

Living Arrows 4/52 (2016)

Another week gone already and it’s been just a normal stay at home, go to nursery, run a few errands kind of a week. This week’s Living Arrows pictures were taken at home at the weekend while we were all just chilling out. Toby was having a snack in his tent and Gabe was just having a wriggle on the floor (he’s sooo close to rolling back to front but he’s still not quite there yet).

I’m still enjoying playing with our new camera lenses – these ones were taken with the 50mm; it’s my new favourite!

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I love both of their big grins in these photos!

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Living Arrows 3/52 (2016)

I’m actually going to manage to get my Living Arrows post out on time this week!

Yesterday we had had a bit of snow overnight so Toby was super excited to go out and play in it. I think we might have had a tiny bit of snow last year but not enough to play in, and he probably wouldn’t have remembered anyway! There wasn’t much in the garden but Toby had fun running around and throwing snowballs.

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And as for Gabe, he got a chance to try out his super snuggly pram suit this weekend. It’s supposed to be 6-12 months but as I seem to have produced another baby with a ridiculously long body he’ll be lucky if it fits for the whole winter!

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Living Arrows