This is the bookshelf that Martin built. Isn't he handy?

Martin is painting the front of our house a slightly classier shade of green, and is thrilled to be having his photo taken.

The front of the house, mostly painted. Just the top section to be painted the new green and the bottom to be painted white. Looks better, huh?

This is what happens to the house when mommy takes an afternoon nap and daddy and Dylan play together for a little while.

Dylan's latest funny face!

He's still a traveling man.

Dylan and Beth at Tesco. He thinks he's playing, but he's really beating her up.

Our Sunday afternoon walk at Waters' Edge.

Dylan and Daddy check out the ducks.

The highlight of my week...

Sadly, the highlight of my week is that Barton got a Tesco. That's the biggest supermarket chain in the UK (£1 in every £7 in the country is spent there, apparently). It's similar to WalMart, but not as good. We have done our shopping at Tesco for a long time, but we always had to drive in to Scunthorpe or Grimsby to do it, and now we have a 5 minute walk instead of a 20 minute drive. For those of you who have visited us, it is where Proudfoot used to be. You might not know where that was, actually, because I never shopped there. It was cramped, over-priced, and dirty. I always felt like I was shopping in the ghetto.
Unfortunately, Tesco opening has been the highlight of a lot of other peoples' weeks as well. Traffic on our road has really increased and the store is absolutely PACKED all the time. It took us way longer than normal to do our shopping. I can't wait for the novelty to wear off so people stop going there just to check it out.
We took Dylan to watch "Prince Caspian" last night. That was good fun, but the movie was so long that it totally threw off his routine and he ended up going to sleep before he had any proper dinner. So he woke up at 2 am and again at 5:30 am. After his 5:30 feed, he wouldn't go back to sleep. Martin and 6 am don't mix well, so we got into a huge fight. It's all good now, though. The only time we ever fight is when we're both tired.
The garden is starting to look GREAT! We have been eating radish for a few weeks now, and I will have strawberries and raspberries in a few weeks' time. The potatoes are close, and we'll be enjoying leeks and parsnip in a few months. The grass looks good, and Martin has built us a new table in the barbecue area. He's now in the process of building an actual barbecue made from one of the oil tins from work. We should be done, or close to it, by next weekend and Martin's birthday/4th of July party.
Dylan has started crawling on his hands and feet and he's getting really good at climbing stairs. He's into everything at the minute, so I need to go chase him and make sure he's not trying to eat anything weird. The house is not quite baby-proofed yet!

Thanks again mom...

Random thanks to my mother for her advice...

"Don't take your bra off while you are breastfeeding. Ever!"

Dylan and I went swimming at Brigg today and their changing facilities are open. There was a lady with two kids there, and she had the saggiest boobs of anyone under the age of 60 I've ever seen.

So, thanks again, mom! Keep that good advice coming!

Drowning in a sea of tweed...

We went to the Lincolnshire show on Wednesday, and it was good fun. The only thing I can compare it to is the county fair, only more competetive. Maybe a cross between a county fair and a State fair? Anyway, it was a strange experience.
I got to see a side of Britain that I normally don't. We usually associate with the working classes and sometimes with the middle class. The sort of people who participate in the show are upper middle class to upper class. These are the landed gentry and lesser nobles--the ones who one property and horses and family jewels. Here's a video clip I had Martin take just so everyone could hear a "real" posh English accent...




Dylan had a great time looking at the animals, though the first time he saw a horse it scared the life out of him. To be fair, this wasn't like the horses dad and grandpa Cook ride back home. This was a thouroughbred--a hunter. It was MASSIVE, and surrounded by a pack of "honds" (that's hounds for all us plebs not educated at Eton and Oxford)!



After some quick cuddles with me, he was just fine. That first view just scared the life out of the poor little guy!

He really liked the dogs. Only a few went around the arena with hunters on horses. These ones had handlers on foot, but they were still in silly little outfits.

We took a quick trip over to see the livestock. Dylan is fascinated by sheep, so we spent a lot of time there. Martin especially liked the local breed--Lincolnshire long-haired sheep. Dylan liked them all!
We also went over to a stall hosted by Rand Farm park. They brought aminals for the kiddies to pet, and Dylan loved the donkeys!
It was a really windy day, but we had a great time all the same. Next year will be even better!

Not the best way to start off your day.....

This my favourite way to start a sentence...

Funny story...

This morning I was woken up by Dylan at about 7am, which is not a problem in any way shape or form. I lounged in bed with Jamie and Dylan for a little while before deciding to get out of bed, have a shower and get my self ready for work. Jamie had decided to go back to sleep as she was not feeling 100% so I wasn't worried about skipping out early on them.

So I am all clean dressed and ready to start my day. I have even decided to go into work early which is very unusual but I was feeling good. Downstairs I go, through into the dining nook. On the dining table I spy a bottle of Thickie (like a smoothie but surprisingly enough, thicker, made with yoghurt and this one also contained oats). Now, the previous evening Jamie had left the bottle out for me, but i had forgotten about it. in passing I had taken a swig of this stuff from the bottle and it tasted like it was going off. You know how yoghurt feels fizzy on your tongue when it is going bad. Yeah well this was very fizzy. So I put it back down. Back to this morning. The bottle was still on the table and being the dutiful husband that I am I pick it up and take it in the kitchen and set it down on the draining board.

Here comes the good bit....

BOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ever seen a kitchen painted with smoothie? How about a human being? Now our kitchen isn't exactly the biggest, but the EXPLODING THICKIE managed to get on absolutely everything. Ceiling -check. Floor-check. All the kithcen cabinets - check. windows - check. Every other single item in the kitchen - check. Oh, I nearly forgot....ME! I froze, dripping thickie, my work clothes covered in disgusting smelling pink goo! And it was on my face and in my hair. So, back upstairs strip everything off, back in the shower and hurriedly get dressed again as now I have to at least start cleaning the gunk off the ceiling! My early trip to work to get stuff done and have a relaxing start gone in one catastrophic splurge.
So as you can all imagine, not the best way to start my day. It didn't get much better when at work the lunch time help called in sick and we had a ridiclous day! But hey, at least i can laugh now. See, big smiles.

Just to give you an example of the devastation, here are some photos......

The offending article

Good spatter pattern

Dylan is teaching me...

I am learning a lot from the little man. Today especially, for some reason, I am thinking about life lessons.

I am currently trying to teach Dylan to turn around and get off my bed backwards so he doesn't fall on his face. He's not getting it--maybe he's a bit young. He's definitely too fearless. As I was turning him around and showing him how to get his feet on the ground, it suddenly occurred to me that I was going to have to let him hurt himself in order for him to learn this particular lesson, and it broke my heart.

I would do just about anything to keep Dylan safe and happy. I would do anything to save him from pain. But if I don't allow him to experience pain, he will never learn anything for himself. I'm going to spend the rest of my life watching my baby grow up and make mistakes, helpless to stop him and forcing myself to step back. I'm going to be so torn--I want him to be safe, but I want him to learn and grow.

Pretty deep stuff, considering I'm exhausted. This post might not make any sense when I'm more alert.

Parenthood is teaching me a lot.

How do you do it, mom? How do you let your babies hurt themselves?

Martin gives everyone a virtual tour of our garden...

Dylan REALLY enjoyed his dinner tonight. Ratatouille is a favorite at our house. And check out those teeth!!!

The garden as of this evening. The grass is getting it's first haircut tomorrow.

The old door is no more! We've plastered it up. Now it just needs to be painted and Martin needs to build my bookshelf!

Dylan and I took a walk this afternoon. We both really enjoyed the bright summer sun--he's starting to get a tan.

I thought I'd take a few pictures of the English summer. Gloriously beautiful, isn't it?

We saw some swans and signets on our walk down at Water's Edge today.

Dylan enjoys his bubble bath!

Martin went to Manchester today to play baseball, so Dylan and I were on our own. We had a pretty good day, too. Church was hard without Martin there to help me, but we managed to stick it out for all 3 hours. Then we came home and chilled out in the back garden. I weeded my poppies, and Dylan tried to eat the weeds. Then we went for a walk down at Water's Edge, and it was fantastic!

Dylan is really starting to get interested in animals. We went for a picnic and a walk on Friday and saw some sheep. He just stared at them, completely fascinated. Then today we saw loads of ducks, swans, and geese. Anything that can keep this kid's attention for longer than 10 minutes has to be good!

Martin's baseball games ran late, so he's still not home and therefore in big trouble--he was supposed to be home before Dylan's bath time at 7, and it's after 9 now. But it was a good day, and I got some lovely pictures. I hope you all enjoy them. I'm trying to post pictures of things OTHER than Dylan, so enjoy the scenery!

Dylan is learning how to crawl!

The garden as of last week

Dylan checks out his new U.S. passport.