Meabh's christening!

At long last we managed to get the Hulls (well, most of them), the Fergusons, some godparents (most of them) a priest, another priest and a church all in the same place at the same time. On September 13th Rosa Meabh was christened (or baptised, or, from Meabh's point of view, held awkwardly over a bath while 4 pints of cold water were poured over her head).

Meabh seemed to enjoy getting dressed up in her fineries, and the wonders of the sat nav miraculously guided everyone to the church on time. Father Gerry did a grand job of explaining what the whole thing was all about, even managing to bring over an impressively large picture of Jesus which he'd borrowed from a friendly parishioner's house in Ireland to explain what we were all there for. His slight mishap with the sharp candlestick was resolved by Mum's ever-resourceful handbag and some plasters. Although Meabh didn't exactly 'enjoy' the experience, after a mere 1 hour 48 minutes all was well, and we all emerged into the daylight again ready for some lunch.


Huge mountains of food and far too much bubbly then ensued, and everybody seemed to have a good time (especially Marie-Claire's Uncle Paul who snuck off to the pub to catch the second half of Liverpool beating Man Utd 2-1).

Here are some pictures of the day, including some great ones of Meabh in her super-hero cape, and one of the three us (with a very tired-looking Mummy and Daddy!) at the end of the day.

Nic and Doug's wedding

We've just been in Peterborough for the weekend for Nic and Doug's wedding. After a two-week build-up of stag dos and hen dos, the big day finally arrived, and my big sister married my mate Doug at Orton Waterville church on Saturday. Marie-Claire had made at least 372 hats (including two for herself), the best of which I think was Meabh's big pink flower. She managed to keep it on for at least 20 minutes, before getting cross and wriggling out of it - just long enough for us to take some photos to embarrass her when she's 18.

The day went really well, thanks to loads of carefully laid plans (and patios), and an amazing set of caterers who seemed to spend most of the afternoon doing the washing up. Well done Dad for the speech, and Meabh says sorry we missed it, but she really enjoyed being wheeled around the streets of Eye by her slightly-over-dressed parents trying to get her to go to sleep. In the end, the succession of almost indistinguishable bungalows and front gardens lulled her off and we were able to head back and get a few glasses of bubbly with everyone else.

It was great to see everyone, and to swap lots of baby stories, tips and suggestions with all the other Mums and Dads - something I never imagined I would enjoy doing until 4 months ago!

Here are some pictures of the happy couple too - currently on their Honeymoon in Cuba and having a great time no doubt. Congratulations to em both!

Morecambe and Meabh

I got soaked today coming home and York was plunged into chaos with roads closed and mini flash floods springing up all over the place. To cheer everybody (and me) up, here's another video of Meabh enjoying the bouncer (taken at more or less the same time yesterday, lest you all think we dress her in the same clothes everyday -tempting though it is). In this one, she gets a good jig going with the feet, or maybe she's tap dancing? It must be all those Morecambe and Wise videos we watch.

As we speak, Meabh is going back in her bouncer as she refuses to sleep so we thought we'd experiment in wearing her out. We'll let you know the results... The next step will be one of those perspex hamster rollers.

24Legs...Relaunched (and bouncy)

24Legs are back - relaunched, reloaded and, er, refreshed from our little break from blogging. The last two months seem to have been a blur of bottles and babygrows, and in the meantime at least two of our legs seem to have grown bigger and longer. Meabh's insatiable appetite seems to be getting her somewhere and she's growing up super fast.

Last weekend, we collected a baby bouncer from Granny and Grandad Hull and have then spent much of the last two days laughing at our funny daughter working out how to bounce up and down. I'm sure we should be looking on admiringly, but frankly she's just funny. After bouncing for about 10 minutes she then gets bored and frustrated and the more she gets restless the more she bounces, and the more she gets frustrated - endless hours of fun for us! Here's a new-fangled video of her bouncing, and a good ol' fashioned snap.

Meabh is now exactly two feet long, and according to the latest measurement weighs in at a hefty 14lb 9oz. Hopefully the baby bouncer (and the doorframe it's attached to) will survive the onslaught a bit longer...

In other news, Mr Jelly and Jamjar have taken to sleeping out all night now - dirty stop-outs. I'm not sure what they get up to but they come in starving in the morning and covered in vegetation that doesn't seem to be evident in our garden anywhere.

Paranoia.........

Recently Meabh has been telling me that she feels a "presence" - as if she is being stalked by something. Personally, i think she's imagining things!

The egg mystery is solved

Phew. More dastardly tactics by the Hull Hens have resulted in a drying up of the egg supply in recent days. Either Meabh has secretly mastered the art of walking and has been collecting and then eating them during the day when I'm not here, or the chickens have been trying to create a little brood by hiding their eggs again. Sharp eyed 24Legs readers will note that a clutch was found (and recovered) by the pond 2 weeks ago, however, they've turned to new corners of the garden. The trouble is there are now about 48 corners in the garden as the nettles and bindweed take over the nether reaches and create stretches of jungle. After 4 days of searching over the weekend, a long period of surveillance yesterday morning (in the rain, in my dressing gown, I might add) eventually detected Bernadette (pictured) skuttling off behind a pile of paving slabs and an old patio door. I had to wait until the rain had stopped to shift all this out the way, but there lay an impressive nest containing seven very shiny well-sat-on eggs. Unfortunately for Bernadette, these were never destined to hatch little chickens and are now in our kitchen.

In other news, Meabh continues to guzzle huge quantities of milk, and has been doing lots smiling. On occasion, and in the right light, she might even have started laughing. She'll certainly need her sense of humour living in this house.

Meanwhile, Naomi claims that the blog has yet to feature a picture of her, so here's a picture of her in our garden a couple of weeks ago (with Chris and Eddie), about to bravely head down to the village hairdressers for a trim. Rather her than me.

Meabh socialises (sort of)

Meabh had the Rimes-Dougalls to visit this weekend, and at last met the last (or first) of her cousins. Here's a picture of Olivia holding her, with Meabh looking a bit uncertain about the whole thing. Her only-slightly-older cousin Alexander showed off by being extremely well-behaved and smiley all weekend, while Meabh decided to see how loudly she could cry on Saturday night. She managed an impressive 1048 decibels, for about 90 minutes, and then decided that she'd demonstrated her mightily impressive lung power for long enough and then had a good long kip. Phew!

Olivia and I battled through the end of the garden and finally found where the chickens had been secretly laying some of their eggs. We then mounted a brave assault on the nest, risking life and limb through the nettles and across the pond, and smuggled three eggs away before they noticed.

Here are some pictures of the Rimes-Dougalls and Meabh...