Toby's Passport

So, Toby is a US citizen, with a Social Security number and US birth certificate. And to give him the choice when he's 18 of whether to stay American we needed a US passport rather than a British one. But getting a passport photo of a 2 month old is rather interesting... The seat is designed to support the head and sitting position of a 3 month old, so these were taken very quickly...

We spent Sunday afternoon with our lovely friends the Pfeiffers; Kandi is an amazing photographer and took some beautiful photos of the kids. Check them out at http://thepfeiffers.blogspot.com/. Ahhhh!

February 07

Like you saw in our previous post, our good friends Pete and Nicola James came to stay. Pete is an avid boarder and Lucy took a liking to the idea too.

TOBY STARTED SMILING!!!

It's been a tough first 2 months as Toby had colic but it seems he's coming out of it now (please God). The fact that he started smiling was a little ray of sunshine in the madness.

If you're observant you'll have spotted the 'For Sale' sign next door to our house behind Lucy skateboarding. Our neighbours Chad and Heather are looking to sell - and so are we! After 2 very happy years in Anthem we believe the Lord's calling us to move to Glendale nearer the church. There's lots we'll miss, including our lovely neighbours (but hey, they tried to move first!) Here's their kids with ours...

Lizzy's loving the idea of moving and is prettying the house - she's very proud of her new pots in the back yard (all our plants were decimated by 2 nights of freezing temperatures at the start of the month so it's nice to have some colour again).

Serve Day

Once a year our church gets its hands dirty in the community through 'Serve Day' - over 2000 people helped out on projects from cleaning parks to building houses to feeding firemen and singing to the elderly. We picked citrus fruit, as it was something the kids could do safely too. It was lots of fun...

Our friend Daniel with a fruit picker; there's also Gareth, Charity, Lucy, Justus and his daughter Sadie in the photo.

Gareth and Eric working extremely hard.

Kandi and Missy (who looks amazingly like Lizzy!)

Daniel (with Sadie), Missy, Kandi, Eric, Jonny, Sarah, Gareth and Lizzy.

Kevin plays in my worship team. Kevin has a new truck. We like Kevin!

A photo we like of Daisy dressed up at Eric and Kandi's house doing a 'show' with Charity one Sunday afternoon.

We think this photo sums up Lucy pretty well.

Daisy and Lucy in their new jeans.

It was a pretty manic month - what better way to sooth ourselves into March than an afternoon at the Mallon's in the spa...

So here are the men, and the children... Anyone seen the ladies???

Aha.

Our 'very good friends' (they asked us to say that) Eric and Kandi with Sue. They were looking for themselves on our blog...!

The lovely Sue looking after Toby.

And finally, out of the vault from Christmas, Toby with his gorgeous God-parents Kandi and Eric Pfeiffer.

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.