James' first swimming lesson!

James started swimming lessons tonight. Here he is with Daddy all ready to go!

James seemed to love his swimming lesson - he looked a little bit overwhelmed to start with but there were no tears and pretty soon there were lots of smiles and "again! again!"s ... Unfortunately most of the photos didn't come out too well but we did get one good bit of video. I think both Dan and James are going to really enjoy this time together!

These photos didn't come out very well at all but I just love the face expressions - on both of my boys!

He got a swimming passport to keep track of how he's doing. Each week it gets stamped by the instructor and he gets to pick a sticker. This week he got a sticker for being able to "float with help"!

A week at home ...

James was sick all last week with a bad cold and so we didn't get out much. So it was a week spent at home trying to keep ourselves amused ... it was a bit of a long week to be honest! But here are some of the things we got up to ...

Art attack!

James loves using his marker pens at the moment and so we decided to make a huge poster. This is still "in development" at the moment so keep watching for the final project to be unveiled!

Sand art

We tried an experimental art project ... First paint with glue (AKA "Gooo") ...

Then sprinkle with sand using this handy little shaker thing from the Dollar Store!

The finished product!

Mummy then got a bit over ambitious and had the *brilliant* idea of using glitter instead ... This was when it all went pear-shaped ... and why there aren't any more photos ... James got bored. Stood in the glue. Got covered in glitter. Refused to have his hands washed. Got very grumpy and decided to use the word "no" ALOT. And then refused to sit down in the bath when Mummy tried to wash away all the glitter ... NOTE TO SELF: QUIT WHILE YOU'RE AHEAD ... AND DON'T USE GLITTER!!!!

Painting with water outside ...

He looked like he was concentrating so hard. We started "painting" the patio but it didn't show up very well so we moved on to the old rotten shed instead!

Playing with cars

He really loves playing with his cars at the moment. He got the Sesame Street garage the other week. Mummy likes playing with cars too!

Sleeping beauty ...

He was so tired last week that he kept falling asleep at meal times - this was after dinner one night. He just looked so long!

Working on some thank-you cards for his Easter presents ...

International Blog Stars!!!!

Katy and Laurie are on spring break from UC Davis this week and so they came to spend the afternoon with us. Unfortunately James is a bit sick at the moment so he wasn't quite his usual cheery self but he had a great time playing with them and showing them all his toys. Here they are doing some crayon colouring. [When we arranged for them to come over when we saw them on Sunday one of their first requests was to be on the blog ... so here you go!!!]

James loved Katy's 'the-crayon's-fixed' trick ... He broke the crayon and she 'fixed' it for him - he thought it was really funny when he took it off her and it was broken again!

Not sure who had more fun with the tunnel ... ;0)

"Where'd Laurie go?!"

Here she is!!!

[I love the face expressions!!]

"Give me five!"

Doing some water painting ...

Thank you for coming to play, Katy and Laurie! James had a great afternoon with you (and so did his Mummy!)!!

Vital Statistics!

James is 18 months old today and so he had his 18 month check-up with Doctor Tipnis. He's doing really well. He weighed in at 31 lbs and 4 oz and was 34inches tall.

It was good we had the doctor's appointment today as yesterday afternoon he started coughing and in the night was running a bit of a temperature and had quite a restless night. But the doctor checked him out today and it's nothing to worry about - we just have to keep an eye on his temperature for the next few days. Today he's been a bit lethargic and wanting lots of cuddles and has had a very runny nose.

He perked up when Daddy came home though so let's hope he has a better night tonight ... for all our sakes!

Easter Egg Hunt at church

On Sunday there was an Easter Egg hunt between the services at church. Last year I totally missed it and so this year I wanted to make sure I was with James. There was a special toddler area in the playground and so James had fun hunting for the eggs and putting them in his basket.

Alyce Joel's first Easter!

Checking out his loot.

James figured out pretty quickly that he could open the eggs to find chocolate inside ... So he started to do that and leave the egg shells behind ...

Kelli and Max going down the slide.

In the afternoon we gave James a present from the Easter Bunny. It was an American/English combo present - an Easter bag with some Easter presents (a wind-up chick, a vibrating bunny, a few Easter books and the floppy Bunny ears) and a chocolate Easter Egg.

James thought the wind-up Easter chick was quite funny.

The Easter Bunny even managed to find a good old chocolate Easter Egg (much more common in England than the American Easter Basket idea!)

Oh yes, our son is a chocolate monster ... he took a great big bite out of the end of the egg!

He wasn't too keen on the sweets/candy inside the egg though!

Happy Easter Everyone!!!

Making Easter Chocolate Bird's Nest Cakes!

This was one of the ideas from the craft book Nanny and Grandad sent so yesterday James and I decided to give it a go. Here all the ingredients ready to go!

James got stuck right in - he recognized the "Choc-ott" right away and couldn't wait to rip the wrapper off!

Putting the chocolate into the saucepan ready for melting ...

The best ingredient of all - Cadbury's Mini Eggs (that Nanny and Grandad sent) - these come later though. (You can see from the tell-tale chocolate dribble that James already sampled some of the Cadbury's chocolate ...)

Once we'd added all the Golden Syrup I let James have a quick lick of the spoon ...

Adding the eggs to the nests ...

"Hmmmm, this is hard work ... maybe I should just sample one of the eggs ...
just for quality control, of course ..."