As per Esther's requests...

Aunty Esther has been asking for more Toby photos... Here they are!!

This Monday he was weighted at over 10lbs - that would be putting on 4lbs in 5 weeks - no wonder Lizzy's tired!

Daisy and Lucy like Toby most of the time - except for when he's yelling. Lucy responds by trying to yell louder than him and Daisy was recently found hiding under her bunk beds till everyone had calmed down!!

Granny & Grandpa Curnock sent the girls these bouncers which they love

Here's our 'fireplace' - well, as good as it gets; Lizzy bought this with her Christmas money to go in our lounge. We love it.

Here's Daisy passing on the secret knowledge to Toby of how to suck your thumb. He's not a very good learner... the dummy (pacifier) is becoming a very good friend of ours, to our horror!

This is Pete from Sheffield who now does the job Gareth used to do at St Toms, who is staying with us for a week. Daisy and he were writing songs together today! His wife Nicola joins us tomorrow.

Yes, Gareth does look odd here. But we'd had one of the most stressful days we can remember, culminating in the annual Dad & Daughter dance, and this year Lucy came too. No, she doesn't look excited. Remember the stressful day thing? There you go! Look closely and Daisy is proudly showing off her new shoes.

More Toby photos

Here's Toby after his first bath at home. He looks amazingly like Daisy did at his age.

If only he slept like this at night...

The girls breastfeeding their babies

Toby in Great-Great-Grandpa Bucknall's arm chair

For those who are interested, here's our new-look front room which is now our office/'creative room' with Lizzy's new desk, chair and easel.

Pre-Christmas and Lizzy's birthday

Daisy's soccer season came to an end and the wonderful coach V and his wife put on an end-of-season party, award ceremony included! She was very proud to receive her certificate, trophy and medal.

She also performed with her dance group in the park, singing and dancing their version of 'We are Santa's Elves'

Then on the 23rd we celebrated Lizzy's birthday with a pancake breakfast...

...and a picnic lunch in the park with our friends Eric, Kandi and their kids Charity and Justus.

Lucy in the park video

Our friends the Kingsley-Smiths inspired us to work out how to put video on the blog. Here's our first attempt, it's a snippet of us at the park with our neighbours Chad and Heather and their kids, Scottie, Hannah and Hollen. Lucy loves trains!

Photos of Toby

Here's the boy...

Straight out of the womb, as they cleaned him...

6lb 8.3oz

The amazing Lizzy - they broke her waters at 5pm and at 910 he was here; only 2 pushes and out he came - with no pain relief!!! The shiny stuff on his face is the eye drops they gave him.

The proud big sisters. Lucy was enthralled with him...

Lizzy had a amazing nurse called Mary Ellen who goes to our church, and filled in all the paper work for us, so we could get home - a huge blessing. She also had this Christmas outfit they put on him to go home in!!

Toby Wesley Robinson

Lizzy gave birth last night to a beautiful baby boy - Toby Welsey - who came out at 6lb8oz and both mum & baby are doing great. Photos coming soon...

Pregnant Lizzy!

We know there aren't very many photos of Lizzy pregnant so here's a recent one taken by our lovely friend Kandi. Doesn't Lizzy look beautiful? (Not that I'm biased...)

Officially there are about 3 weeks to go, though judging by various contractions and other goings-on it may be here sooner rather than later...

Daisy's Ideal House

Last night we went to see the movie 'Charlotte's Web' - Lucy's first time in a cinema. It's a great movie, and we had lots of fun together. This morning Daisy was playing with her doll's house and had set it up so beautifully we thought we should take a photo.

This, apparently, is her ideal house, with a cinema on the top floor with Granny & Grandpa there to watch movies with! (though we don't know why there is a bath in the cinema and we've not tried making popcorn with a saucepan on a lamp...!) We're loving Daisy's imagination at the moment and her amazing creative play, so we thought we'd share it with you...

Granny and Grandpa do look very relaxed!

 

Christmas is here (well, nearly...)

Like we mentioned in our Thanksgiving post, the Christmas season here starts the next day. So we've gotten into the spirit of things and got our tree up and our other Christmas decorations...

And of course we've put lights outside our house, too.

And this week we had Breakfast with Santa at Daisy's preschool. We posted both pictures so you could see how Lucy warmed to him...

At least Santa looks happy!

 

Thanksgiving!

Another month, another festival!

November's excuse to eat a lot is called Thanksgiving. Joking aside, we love this festival because there's nothing to it other than gathering as family and thanking God for all that He has provided in the previous year. And eating!

Lizzy's mum and dad came for a week on their way to New Zealand and it was lovely to see them again. Not least because Anne cooked and baked for us lots, and they sent us away for a night whilst they looked after the kids. On the day itself we roasted a turkey with all the trimmings and Anne made a Pumpkin Pie - a very traditional Thanksgiving dessert, from a recipe found in our Sainsbury's cookbook. Heather and Chad thought it was the best they've ever tasted!

We also made a gingerbread house, another Christmas tradition (the Christmas season here starts the day after Thanksgiving). Perfectionists Lizzy and David went to it and sometimes even allowed Daisy and Lucy to do some of it. We've been told that you're meant to keep them and buld up a collection (our neighbours have one that's 7 years old. Yes, 7.)

Lizzy's dad has recently retired from working as a paedatrician in Nottingham. Here's proof - still in pyjamas at 10am!!

Aaaah.

Our Halloween Alternative...

It might look a lot like a normal Halloween (for our US readers, anyway!) but this was our way of doing it alternatively... 'Trick or Treat' here is code for 'let me grab as much candy from you as I can possibly get.'

So our alternative?

Halloween is about giving!!

That's right folks. We and our neighbours parked our 4-and-under year olds in front of the candy table with strict instructions to give but one piece of candy per person. Halloween, after all, is about giving, right?!! (It's either that or wait for 2 kids to come along and having to hide for the rest of the night in darkness as 'trick or treaters' come knocking)

Which is what we found Mike and Sally doing when we went to see them. We had to break into their house just to say hello!!! They were hiding upstairs watching TV in the dark!!

We also gave out Starbucks coffee and a roaring fire to those willing to risk resting for a moment!

Here are the photos...

Daisy (Cinderella), Lucy (Nemo), Hollen (Ladybug), Hannah (Bee), Scotty (Bob [or Barb, as they say here] the Builder)

Ready for action.

Chad and Heather joined us. It's our driveway, but their fake grass, just to clear that up.

Lizzy demonstrating the spirit of generosity. Heather wondering how she ended up with a neighbour like this.

Notice the youg children in the front line of duty. Starbucks anyone?

Mommy & Me Halloween Alternative

Lizzy set up a mums & toddlers group at church in February which has kind of exploded. Loads of mums have connected to the church through it and the week of Halloween they had a fancy dress party...

Our beautiful God-daughter Tia Saxton rose to the occasion!

The amazing Heather (our next door neighbour) with her twins Hannah and Hollen.

Soccer!!!

Yes, we know, it's called football.

That clarified, soccer season has begun with a vengeance! Daisy is one of about 500 kids across Anthem playing soccer this season and yes, she plays competitive games each Saturday with training every Tuesday. (The first game we had to point out what a goal was to the children and what they were meant to do with it!)

Daisy loves it and is amazing at running after the ball - and has scored a goal in both games so far!!!

 

Soccer moms and dads...

 

Daisy during half time. We love how she's sitting!!

 

This is Coach 'V' who we love! He has the perfect attitude for coaching 3 and 4 year olds - that is, let them have a good time and who cares if they hand ball/look at the rabbits/pick flowers/run hand in hand with their friends... Not all the coaches have the same attitude though - the team we played last Saturday left the field in disgust!! (We all thought it was funny!)

  

The Pumpkin Patch

A couple of weeks ago we travelled up to Dewey to visit Young's Farm. It's apparently tradition that you choose your pumpkins from a pumpkin patch, and we hear that there's none better in Arizona than this one. We had a wonderful day as we did everything from hay rides to bouncy castles...

 

This is Daisy and Lucy being pulled by a tractor. We LOVE Lucy's face on this!

 

This is the real pumpkin patch where they grow the pumpkins.

 

We ate lunch there and felt very American with all the red and white table cloths and country music playing in the background!

 

This is the pumpkin patch where you get to choose your favourite pumpkin. We got 3 to go outside our front door (check the Mallon's blog for more on fall decorating!!).

Our favourite part of the day was a hay ride where 'Farmer Buzz' (9 children, 23 grandchildren!) told us all about the farm, raising free range turkeys, how to strip and eat fresh corn (yum) - and how Arizona water tax has meant that Young's Farm is having to close, so this is the last year the pumpkin patch will ever be there. We and Farmer Buzz were welling up together as he told us. Lizzy's planning her protest march...!