St. Fagans

We spent a nice, sunny, Saturday afternoon in St. Fagans today. Despite Thomas and Hannah recovering from a bought of conjunctivitus (and I'll be amazed if I spelt that correctly!), and Andy recovering from being ill for the last couple of days, we had a really great, but tiring time.
Hannah was in a whacky mood, and was determined to walk around St. Fagans at the furthest possible distance behind us, while still being able to see us! She soon came closer once we'd stopped at 'Ye Olde Bakery' and bought some cookies!

Happy Birthday Mummy!

In what is an extraordinarily expensive month in the Hurley household, another birthday arrives in February. This time, it's Ruth's - who is pictured above trying out the candyfloss maker that Hannah and Thomas 'bought' her for her birthday. Ruth also had a new hairdryer as one of the her presents, so she needs to take extra care that she doesn't mix up the two or she is likely to end up with a very strange hair-do!

Happy Birthday Nan-Nan!

It's Nan-Nan's birthday today (Andy's Nan's birthday), so we all made room for more birthday cake, and went round to celebrate. While we were there, Hannah, Thomas and James got to know Taffy and Dewi. James was fearless - at one stage he was putting his hand inside Taffy's mouth. We thought that he'd try and be a lion tamer and put his head in next...

Surprise!!!

The above photo is the moment that Nanny walked into her surprise 60th Birthday Party. She wasn't expecting a thing, despite Grumpy having a huge grin on his face all morning. Thanks to everyone who came and made Ann's day special!

Happy 60th Birthday, Nanny!

We had a lovely meal at the Ty Mawr this evening to celebrate Andy's Mum's 60th Birthday. It's the last year that she'll be more than double Andy's age, so he's catching up fast!

Keep your fingers clear...

Thomas' first tooth came through today, after what seems like months of 'nearly there'. It looks like the second isn't going to be too far behind. He'll be munching into a nice steak in no time at all!

Happy Christmas

Just like to wish all of our family and friends a very Happy Christmas and peaceful New Year. Hope we'll see you all soon in 2005! Love Andy, Ruth, Hannah & Thomas

A bit showery

Despite having written as long ago as July 19th that Hannah had started using her potty, there has been very little potty progress until the last few days. We decided to go all out with a major potty drive this weekend to see if we could slow down the speed with which the Cardiff land fill is overflowing with our families' nappies. Chocolate was the bribery tactic that we decided to use, but Hannah soon cottoned on to the fact that it was easy money. Sit on the potty, one drip = chocolate! Sit on the potty, another drip = chocolate! Once we realised that we were spending more money on chocolates than we had ever done on nappies, we decided to qualify our generosity with the rule of 'big wees only'! Hannah's doing pretty well now. If you do come and visit us in the next few weeks, then it may be an idea to keep your shoes on, but it looks like we're almost there...

Photo Update

It's taken a while to sort out all of the photos that we've taken over the last year or so. The main problem has been trying to find photos where Andy and Ruth look as if they've brushed their hair that day! Anyway, we've selected some of the best and have updated the Hurley Home photo gallery at www.hurleyhome.co.uk, so please wander over and have a look at some of the things we've been up to this year (and the last few years if you haven't seen our gallery before).

First day at Nursery

Hannah had her first day at Nursery today. She's going to the Lighthouse Nursery that's based at our local church / community centre, and she loves it!

We've tried to wrangle out of her exactly what she did while she was there, but she was in one of her "Just answer yes to all the questions and perhaps they'll stop asking me" moods, so it seems like she did painting, playing in sand, reading, drawing, playing in water, playing in the toy house, cycling and singing! Sounds like a busy afternoon!

Updated: I've finally got a copy of the obligatory photo of Hannah's first day, complete with nursery uniform and school bag...