Friday, August 31, 2007

Who's that trip-trapping on my bridge?

Another day, another day-trip! This time to 'Seven Locks' where there are, apparently, seven locks. We were more worried about 'Tim the Troll' who kept appearing on the bridges that we were crossing!

Will? He just slept...

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Rub-a-dub-dub

Here's a great photo of Hannah, Thomas and Anya sailing in the boat that Grandad made for them.

Not really sure why they're all wearing pyjamas, but Thomas looks particularly fetching in Anya's spare pink PJs!

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Here be dragons

Will's third day-trip took him (and the rest of the family) to Roath Park, where we got to see the fantastic statue of the red-dragon beating the white-dragon (which is what we're hoping will happen in the upcoming Rugby World Cup!)

Thomas and Anya had a competition to see who could be the shortest...

...and this is just a really nice picture of Hannah!

There's no photo to prove it, but Will spent most of the trip asleep again!

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Happy Birthday, Grandma

Grandma (or Granny as she's starting to become known) celebrated her second 60th birthday today! Here she is opening her presents, while Uncle Tim and Grandad pray that it's not a rolling-pin!

Here comes Frank!

Hannah and Thomas were able to put their fears of combine harvesters aside and climb up onto a 'Frank' look-alike at Cefn Mably Farm Park today. If you're not sure what a 'Frank' is, then we highly recommend that you watch the 'Cars' movie!

And what did Will make of his second ever day-trip? He pretty much slept right through it!

Monday, August 27, 2007

Will's big day out

Having reached the dizzy heights of eight-days-old, Will took his first ever day trip today to the Heath Park Model Railway.

It was a big family day out, with Uncle Tim, Auntie Abby, Chloe, Anya, Grandma and Grandad all along for the ride. Here's an 'on-train' view of our first ride:

Hannah enjoyed catching up with Chloe, and sharing details on missing teeth.

While Thomas took the opportunity to spend some quality time with his cousin Anya.

And what did Will make of it all? He pretty much spent the whole outing asleep!

Here's how you do it...

Here's a photo of Thomas giving Will a quick lesson in how to get the most out of a baby gym!

Sunday, August 26, 2007

That's the tooth!

Quicker than we expected, Hannah woke us all up this morning with a shout:

My tooth's fallen out!

Ruth legged it into her bedroom, half expecting blood to be squirting out, or to find out that Hannah had swallowed it in her sleep (and you just know that she's going to want her tooth when it comes out the other end...)

Thankfully, none of that happened - Hannah was lying there calmly holding the tooth in her hand, and happily saying that it hadn't hurt when it came out. She's now got the 'cute-gap' look, and we've all been having great fun making her say words containing the letter 's'.

Friday, August 24, 2007

...and the winner is...

Will Samuel Hurley!

Finally, that's the name that we've decided will suit 'Baby Boy Hurley' down to the ground. The Will is short for William, which will be on his birth certificate, but the only time we'll call him by his full name is when he's being told off!

Apparently, the name William means 'Will - desire' and 'Helmet - protection'. We think that he probably 'desires protection' from his big brother and sister! They love him to pieces (at the moment!) but Will is definitely getting more attention and cuddles and hugs from them than he probably wants!

Thomas isn't too keen on the name Will, though. He still calls the baby Mike, and tells us off when we call him Will! I guess the name Mike is going to be a brotherly thing that goes on between them - at least it's a polite name that's being called!

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Getting to know the little man

It's been a fantastic experience getting to know the new addition to the Hurley House. After being in no rush to make an entrance, that laid-back coolness has continued to be evident over the last few days. He doesn't seem to be in a rush to do anything - Feeding time, whenever! Sleeping time, whenever! Nappy change, whenever!

It really does appear as if he hasn't a care in the world. He's also sleeping reasonably well during the night, too! The first couple of nights he needed some company, but he's now getting the right idea about sleeping in a crib, rather than in someone's arms. Surely it's not going to be this easy all the way...

Big, bigger, biggest!

It's going to cost us a fortune to keep these feet in shoes.

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Happy Birthday, Grumpy

With all of the excitement over the last few days, Grumpy was getting a bit worried that we were going to forget his birthday! Being the grandfather of five children seems to be taking a toll on him!

Instead of pass-the-parcel, we played pass-the-baby. Nanny won!

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Looking out for a hero

There's still no definite sightings of a name for "Baby Boy" Hurley. Hannah has decided that he has to have one before he's five, otherwise it'll cause havoc with the school register!

We've had a few suggestions from people, though:

  • Thomas thinks the baby should be called Mike (he's a big fan of Uncle Mike!);
  • Neil has suggested Horatio - thanks, but no thanks;
  • Sarah-Jane recommends the name Sarah-Jane - she says that it's served her well;
  • Martyn suggests "Elijah" because he seems very fast!

Thanks for all the suggestions, but we'll keep looking...

One name that keeps coming back to us over and over again is because we've been watching Heroes on TV at the moment. We think that Baby Boy Hurley is a splitting image of Hiro from the TV programme! Look at what we mean:

The face that baby makes when he has a poo makes it look like he's trying to stop time! Hiro Hurley anyone?

Sunday, August 19, 2007

Rocket Man

The countdown may have taken longer than planned, but when the timer hit zero... boy - did that baby fly!

We now have a brand new addition to the Hurley Home, in the gorgeous shape of 'Baby Boy Hurley', born 19th August 2007, at 6:45am, weighing in at 8lb 6.5oz.

We're not sure whether it was the ten-pin bowling or watching '24' that did it, but whatever the reason, Ruth was kept awake during the night by a lot of baby movement. Then, at about 4:45am a big, painful, contraction was enough to make things look like it was all systems go. Andy slowly came-to at about 5 o'clock, and the race was on to ring grandparents to come and babysit, to ring hospitals to let them know that we were on our way, and for Andy to eat breakfast before heading out of the door!

We reached the hospital at 6:05, and were considering whether or not to have a water birth. The midwife checked Ruth over and found that the baby was about to arrive any minute, and there simply wasn't time to fill the birthing pool before the baby would be born!

This turned out to be the case, as a handful of contractions later, and Ruth was ready to push! The baby did manage to get the umbilical cord lassoed around it's neck at one stage, but thankfully the midwife was on the case and did the necessary Houdini magic. And then - vrrooommm! Onto the scene arrives Baby Hurley, making it all look very easy from a baby point of view!

Ruth had some problems with blood loss after the event, but recovered quickly enough to be allowed home this evening. The baby is looking (and sounding!) very healthy, and seems to be a very contented little thing at the moment.

The baby is still without a name, so any suggestions will be gratefully received. He's been enjoying meeting the rest of the Hurley House, and looks like he will fit in very well - he's already been getting his fair-share of prods, pokes and sloppy kisses!

Saturday, August 18, 2007

World record attempt

It seems like our latest 'incoming' is going for a world record attempt at holding it's breath underwater. There's still absolutely no news, and no sign of news, despite now being 6 days past the due-date.

Ruth is still having reasonably regular contractions during the day and while she's moving around, but as soon as she goes to bed it's like the baby decides that actually it's pretty comfy in there after all, and everything stops again!

Rather than mope around the house waiting, though, we headed out for a quick round of ten-pin bowling! It was the first time that Thomas had ever played, and he got a very respectable 93, with Hannah coming third. Daddy was the winner of course! Ruth claimed that her last place was due to the fact that she was 1 day short of 41 weeks pregnant, but we're not sure how much stock to place on that. It was a strange sight to see someone, clearly expecting a baby imminently, chucking a bowling ball down the lane!

In fact, the manager nearly didn't let us leave, because it looked like Ruth was stealing one of their bowling balls under her t-shirt!

We also went to the hospital this afternoon for a check-up, to make sure that everything was still going well under the covers. The baby seems happy enough in there, according to it's stats - maybe the problem is that it's too happy!

Anyway, we're still waiting. We watched the first two episodes of series 3 of the TV show '24' this evening, so hopefully the excitement of that will start the (bowling) ball rolling.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Growing up fast

It only seems like yesterday that we were waiting for Hannah to be born, but she's growing up way too quickly for her own (and our) good! The latest milestone this week has been her first wobbly tooth! It's still got a few good weeks left in it, but there's a definite wobble to it.

The tooth-fairies have been notified and are on high alert, but they need to realise that they're dealing with a professional haggler with Hannah. Her statement this week is probably the real reason why the stock markets were in turmoil.

Hannah: I wish that tooth-fairies didn't give money for teeth, but gave you the toys that you wanted instead...

The pound:tooth currency rates went crazy on that news!

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

...still waiting...

Despite being sure that this one was going to come early, we're now two days past the due date and there's still no sign of any imminent arrival!

It was a good thing that it didn't arrive last week in the end, as Ruth came down with a sickness bug and was pretty wasted for a few days - not much fun when you're 39-and-a-half weeks pregnant! We then took the opportunity on Saturday, as still nothing was happening, to do another last tidy up of the house - Andy painted the shed and the fence, while Ruth went nuts with the vacuum cleaner.

Ruth's been trying all sorts to get this baby going - eating pineapple, bouncing on Hannah's space-hopper, going for long walks, but the baby's going nowhere! As Mark in work said this week - perhaps Ruth should have been the one painting the fence as that might have started things off!

Any year now....

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Keep fit

On a day trip to Margam Park, Hannah took the opportunity to pump some iron!

Wouldn't you love to know how big the weights are on the end of the bar?!?

And, we finally have proof that Hannah and Thomas love each other very much!

Sunday, August 05, 2007

Family photo

This is probably the first family photo that we've got of the five of us that make up the Hurley House.

I'm pretty sure that the baby is sticking it's tongue out...

Any minute now...

If you're reading this blog because you know us (and if not, then you must have a really boring life!), then it probably won't come as any surprise for you to know that we're expecting a new baby to make our lives interesting sometime soon.

In fact, the baby (sex currently unknown!) is due a week today, but since Hannah and Thomas were both 8 days early, Ruth is now officially the most pregnant that she's ever been!

We're both very keen for the baby to arrive this weekend. Ruth is keen because she's been pregnant for 39 weeks, and she's had enough now! Andy is keen because he left work on Friday with everything in a state where he could be away for two weeks paternity leave without it causing too many hassles - plus the weather is finally looking good at last!

Anyway, regardless of the reasons, we're trying everything we can think of to encourage the baby to make an appearance tonight or tomorrow morning. Hot curries, driving over speed bumps, bouncing on Mike and Jan's trampoline (joke!). The idea of this blog entry was that perhaps the baby was refusing to arrive until it had had a big build-up on the blog...

So, here's a photo of the baby from way back in February. It's a lot bigger now (so Ruth tells me!), and we're looking forward to meeting it!

The current news on the 'incoming status' is that Ruth is having quite a few contractions each hour, but they're not very regular or painful at the moment. Watch this space!