October - Kitty the bat

In October, Kitty won best Halloween costume in her class. Mummy worked hard into the night for four nights to make it. For just a couple of pounds you can buy any number of ready made witch, pumpkin, batman or skeleton costumes but for me that's not what a competition is about - who can buy the best. It's a creative effort, and anyway Kitty REALLY wanted to be a bat and Sainsbury's don't do bat. She makes such a cute bat don't you think?

We all went to Alison, O'Neil and the kid's Halloween party. Here, the competition for best costume was much stronger!

Coco the baby bear from nursery came to stay with us for the weekend. I think we showed her a good time. Kitty and I had to write a diary about what we all got up to.

September

At the beginning of September, Grandma Pih took us all on a trip to the Zoo. It was freezing but we had a nice time. Kitty liked seeing the animals and spending time with grandma, but I must admit I find zoo's pretty depressing places. However much money they spend on the animal enclosures, the animals just look so out of place and miserable. The elephants and big cats looked particularly sad.

Kitty doing an impression of a miserable lizard.

Kitty and daddy playing in a viewing tunnel.

A bit of culture, as Kitty experienced the Tate Liverpool for the first time.

Mummy and Kitty look confused - is it art, or is it sticky tape on the floor???

Naughty Kitty trying to pull the installation off the wall.

August - a first birthday party

In August, Kitty was 1. We had a little party for her in the back garden with friends, family and lost of animals. Luckily the weather stayed nice and we had a lovely day. We had lots of nice veggie food and our friend Fran took charge of a BBQ for the meat eaters. Daddy made his speciality mini pink meringues (which are actually a Valentine Warner speciality) and great cousin Claire made Kitty one of her brilliant cakes. It was great to see lots of kids running around the place, playing together and enjoying being outside. Most of them went home good and dirty, a few scraped knees and plenty of nettle stings. Just as it should be!

Beautiful Kitty, captured in black and white by Uncle Darren's amazing Lumix LX3.

Lucky Kitty had a second party at nursery the following Monday. She took in homemade goodie

bags for her friends, a pass the parcel and the head from her birthday cake. Kitty especially enjoyed wearing the 'birthday girl' hat and dancing.

Later in the month we headed to Nottingham for little Cassian's naming ceremony. We took Cas a plant - Pennisetum Cassian's Choice (fountain grass).

It was a lovely day and Kitty enjoyed bossing Cas around! We stayed over with mama and grandad Simpson. By this time Kitty was well on her feet and enjoyed running around in great mama Kitty's massive garden.

Picking apples with grandad.

July - working mummy

The 'work life balance' seems not to exist in our world. With work hours peaking in July and weekends necessary, Mummy has to start taking Kitty to work with her on Saturdays for exhibitions. This is not ideal, but better than extra day-care surely? She seemed to enjoy it and so did the customers. Not sure about my boss though!

How lucky are those Mummies who get to forget about work for a couple of years while they take care of their little ones. I see them strolling past my office window everyday. Generally they look quite bored with it all. I feel like shouting out of the window and reminding them how lucky they are and to bloody well cheer up and enjoy the luxury of time they have to kill with their babes.

Kitty developed a new passion for chalk in July.

First real steps. First little shoes. Startrites bought with some money from great Mama Kitty. Thank you!

We found a piece of ginger that looks like Iggle

piggle.

Looking cute eating a peach.

May

Daddy played his gig at the Wychwood festival. All went well, and everyone seemed to like it. Next year Kitty should be big enough to go and see Daddy play.

April

Around April -May, Kitty's progress went mad as she suddenly worked out how to get up and with the help of toys and furniture, started cruizing around the place.

Not blogging

Since going back to work full time in February, it's been difficult to find the time to even brush my hair, let alone boot up a computer, download photos and type a load of non-essential ramblings for pure enjoyment - so alas blogging went out of the window completely. I did however continue to incessantly document Kitty's and our escapades in the world with my little camera. Over the last eight months she has grown and developed massively and I regret not keeping up with this blog (if only for my own delight to look back on), so I have decided to make the effort while I am on holiday to backdate these pages over the next few days and to make it my New Years resolution to try and keep it up as Kitty enters the adventure of 2010 and beyond!

pictured: my beautiful Kitty, 27 December 2009, by Grandad Pih

Bouncing baby

For a few weeks now Kitty has been trying hard to talk. She has quite a good range of vocal noises and is expert at "ma ma", "ba ba" and "na na", however, until today (and much to Peaheads frustration) "da da" has eluded her. Today Kitty said "da da". Peahead phoned me at work to break the news.

Today, Kitty also discovered jumping on her bed. She is very mobile now and stands up whenever she has something to hold on to. She frequently stands up in her cot and today she realised how bouncy her mattress is. Cheeky monkey!

Sam, our childminder is now VERY pregnant and struggling with Kitty. We have been trying to find someone new for a while now, but it would seem that good childminders are few and far between. We decided we would have to reconsider nurseries. We have a meeting tomorrow at the one really good place we know of. Previously when we contacted them, they laughed and said you need to book a place before you even get pregnant to get in, but it seems we are in luck and they have a vacancy. Fingers crossed.

Rally Kitty

Today daddy was taking care of Kitty while I was at work. This meant spanners, oil and nappy changing in the back of a rally car. Me thinks a tom-boy is in our midst.

Daddy Bloggin'

Daddy looked after Kitty today. They tidied the house, walked the dogs, went to the supermarket and visited Billy in Manchester.

Kitty enjoyed it, the sun was shining and there was lots of stuff to fiddle with at Billy's house.

Daddy's band confirmed at Wychwood Festival.

Mummy has had to work until late today and is too tired to blog, so Daddy has done it.

Snuffle babe

Mama and Grandad Simpson came up at the weekend so that I could go to Peaheads gig at the Dry Bar in Manchester. Kitty enjoyed herself playing with Mama and Grandad, but the gig was a bit of a let down as not many people came.

Kitty got mummy some pretty flowers for mothers day. Thanks Kitty. x

Kitty developed a nasty cold after the weekend. She has been so 'snotty' that it has been making her sick, so I had to take most of the week off work to take care of her.  Poor Kitty.  I don't like using medicines, but for the first time, we resorted to Calpol and Snuffle Babe. Both work wonders.

She hasn't let it get her down though. In between being sick and sleeping, she has made the most of mummy being home. It's great mama Kitty's 90th birthday at the weekend so we wrote her a letter and Kitty did some colouring on the back.






















Being poorly, didn't stop Kitty tucking in to Grandma Pih's chocolate muffin when we visited on Thursday! What a mess.

Waiting for daddy

Daddy is working away this week. We are missing him lots. To cheer us both up, we bought some paints yesterday. Kitty decided she wanted to paint daddy a picture ready for when he gets back tomorrow.

She enjoyed it quite a lot.

Results are pretty impressive. I think daddy will like it.

Today we bought some fabric remnants today to make Kitty some pretty summer clothes. All of these pieces for £2.50! Kitty was a little upset though, as she lost her little plastic boy in the fabric shop. I looked all over, but he was no where to be found.

Later the sun came out, so we sat out and had lunch with the dogs. Kitty thought she looked pretty cute in the hat and glasses she got for her holidays.

Eugie was pretty impressed too.

It's great being Kitty

It's great being Kitty, as people just keep sending her presents through the post. Today she received these cute little leggings with ladybirds on from Holly and Cas. Thanks! The top was a Christmas present from Robbie and Carla.

We were hoping to tidy the garden a little this weekend as it's quite an embarrassment, but the wind is just unbearable today. Instead, we decided to go swimming. We have been saving coupons from our bran flakes, so it didn't cost us a penny. Kitty had a really good time. She really likes the water and giggles when dad splashes her around. We are going to get a waterproof camera for our holiday in June so we can take pictures of her swimming as it's so cute.

Comedy Kitty

Today we did our bit for Comic Relief. A bake sale at work. Kitty of course, was the star of the show in her red nose t-shirt. She even got her picture taken for the local paper. We made a couple of hundred pounds selling donated goodies to staff.

Kit with Ryaz, Katy and Mash from our office.



Kits contribution to comedy.

Talking?

Kitty has started doing a new talking thing. It's really funny. No words, but definite intent.

Busy, busy, busy....

Where does all the time go? Now that I'm back at work, the days and weeks just seem to fly and it seems we never get chance to get anything done. I blink and Kitty has learned something new and outgrown her clothes. The washing pile just gets bigger and bigger, the house is being neglected, the dogs aren't being walked properly and I haven't set foot in the garden for over six months. It's worth it though. I'm glad that I will have this blog to look back and see the whirl-wind that was baby Kitty Bean.



We went to visit mama and grandad Simpson at the end of Feb. Kitty had a great time playing in their sink. It's much deeper than ours, so she was able to sit safely without her bath seat.

Great Mama Kitty gave little Kitty some (more) money. Thank you. She added most of it to her already bulging piggy bank, but decided to treat herself to some nice crayons and drawing paper. We had a go today. I helped quite a bit, but she soon got the idea.

With the proceeds from one of Peaheads gigs, he bought us a nice new hoover. It's ace. See, there is a place for rock n roll in the thirty-something lifestyle. He has another gig coming up, Manchester Dry Bar March 21st.....we need a new toilet. \m/ yeah!





















Darren, Nicky, Ben and puppy Flinn came to visit. Chaos but fun. We went down to the river and got mucky. Lifting a pram over a stile is something we won't be repeating in a hurry.

Since seeing the Chinook, I have become obsessed with UFO. I swear I spotted something the other night. It was a really clear night and I was checking out the various constellations while walking the dogs and saw something really strange. It was so far away I had trouble focusing, but it look like lots of little green, blue and yellow lights moving around. I tried to take a picture, but it didn't show up. It was directly above the bright star visible in the picture. I think I need a telescope. (Hum.... I feel another gig coming on Peahead).

I have been trying to fit in a bit of knitting here and there. So far, I have completed the back and the left front side of Kitty's new purple cardi. Probably be complete 2011!!!

Rei's ear was healing nicely, but the other day I went to check on him and the inside of the shed looked like a scene from Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Blood EVERYWHERE and Rei not looking too good. I managed to stop the bleeding with corn flour (a tip I found on the web) and cleaned him up. He has been fine for a few days, but tonight it was bleeding again. I bathed it and gave him some pain killers. It doesn't seem to bother him too much but it needs to heal soon.

Valentine weekend

It's been a quite week. I had a go (with disappointing results) at using my Sukie iron-on transfers. Kitty's bear top was the only acceptable item, and this still has quite a faded appearance. The rest were just rubbish. I don't think my iron gets hot enough.





















I made a new rubber stamp which doubles for valentines and anniversaries (Happy 1st Anniversary Mr & Mrs Khan! have a great holiday).

Rei has had a nasty accident (the squeamish - look away now).















He caught his ear tag on the fence and ripped his ear in two. He has had some medicine and lots of tlc and seems ok, despite the horror of it. I never liked those ear tags, it juts seems barbaric. Both of poor Rei's ears are now scarred by the stupid things. They are actually a legal requirement for livestock like cows, sheep and goats since foot and mouth, but I will now be part of the campaign to change this. I can almost understand that animals like this need to have ID, but a tattoo or microchip would be much more humane. Plastic tags are just hideous and cause pointless suffering for farm animals.

On a more pleasant note, Kitty loves goats and books so today we bought her four nice story books. My favourite of which is 'Tell Me a Story Mummy' which is about a little goat called Salsa who can't sleep. Bargain - four books for £5.00 at The Works.

Peahead had another gig on Friday (a friend took a picture, but it's tiny). I couldn't go as babysitters are pretty scarce around here, but all went well and apparently there is interest from the organiser of the Wychwood Festival for them to play. Keep your diaries free the last weekend in may, as it's a great family event by all accounts.