Ricky Moorhouse

2007

Garden Renovations

Over Easter, we put the finishing touches to our Garden changes so we can at last use the garden again! We'd decided that we wanted to find a replacement for the paving that we'd feel happy with playing on, and inevitably falling over on. We considered a few options, but the one we liked best and decided on in the end was rubber mulch.

Firstly we had to remove the paving slabs, which came up much more easily than expected, although it was still a big job as they were fairly heavy. Once we'd done that, we had to put in an edging to hold the mulch in place - for this we decided on log roll edging. We ordered the edging but then when it arrived it took us a while to get round to fitting it, but once we got round to it, it went in well - hard work as you have to hammer each one in so that it goes down to give us the depth we needed (the logs were 6 inches high and the mulch was only due to be 2 inches deep).

The mulch was delivered to side of the kerb on the Thursday before Easter, and I had to carry each of the 20kg bags all through the house to store them ready to lay it. The next stage was to lay weed block which I initially thought was going to be easy - just a case of cutting the right length strips and putting it there - but when the wind picked up, I realised that we needed quite a few weights to hold it down (good job we hadn't got rid of the paving slabs!)

After I'd initially put down the weed block (with Abi in the sling), I enlisted some help to tape it together and prepare it to put the mulch down. Abi really loved the gaffa tape that we'd used to join the sheets as it was so shiny and was disappointed when we covered them up with mulch. Once she sat on it though, she seemed to find it interesting and fun to play with.

Garden Garden Garden Garden Garden Garden

Unfortunately, the colour started to come off the mulch, so we're waiting for the company to come and replace it for us - but otherwise its great!

300th post! Prizes to be won!

I just noticed that this would be my 300th blog post so I decided to do something a bit different. Firstly, I'd get my wife to write this post. Secondly anyone who comments on this post within the next week will win a prize - the better the comment, the better the prize ;)

My blog started back on June 2003 with this insightful post. Since then I have explored life living in a foreign land, have pondered upon new advances in technological masterpieces such as Firefox and revealed my thoughts on life as a daddykins.

So please comment so that I feel that all this has not been in vain.

My humble thanks

Ps the prizes will be really really good

Original Design Another Design Yet Another Design

Fun at feeding time

Abi's now been on solids for over a month, and it's been great fun feeding her them. Now that she's 6 months, she can have pretty much anything, although we're still being careful and introducing things individually. She's so far had lots of purees - both vegetables - butternut squash, carrot, parsnip, potato, sweet potato, broccoli and courgette - mixed in various interesting combinations and also lots of fruit - she particularly seems to like banana and apple (not together - don't think we've tried that yet!). This week she tried natural yoghurt for the first time - which she loved - really odd as we thought it would be a bit too sour for her. It's been messy though - particularly with her raspberries and self-feeding!

We've also tried some more solid foods, some with more success than others - she likes broccoli florets, if she gets them the right way round, and gums them into smitherines.

Mango at the picnic Yoghurt...yummy A piece of apple

Abigail Rolling (video)

Today we were trying to catch Abigail's cute noises on video, and didn't manage as when we pointed the camera at her, the noises changed from happy to sad. However I decided to try and record her playing on her tummy with her butterfly, and she decided to roll!!

2006 - Year of Change!

2006 has been quite a year for us - lots and lots has happened and changed. Laura has done a great summary of her highs and lows for the year, and here's my year...

New Baby

In February, whilst away for the weekend we found out that Laura was pregnant. This was great news, as we'd been praying for a baby. On my birthday, we felt the baby kick for the first time which was incredible, as was seeing her moving about on the scan pictures (no wonder she's so active now!). In October after quite a long early labour at 9pm on the 8th, our child was born and it's been an amazing journey ever since. It's just incredible watching her grow and develop!

New House

For a while, we'd been hoping to move to somewhere with a bit more space, but with the imminent arrival, this became more urgent. After having the flat up for sale for a long time we thought we had found a buyer, so we set things moving on buying our new house. Unfortunately they pulled out part way into the process so we were left in an awkward position for a while - but thankfully my parents bought the flat from us to enable us to get moving quicker ready for the baby. So in May we moved to our new house. Since then there's been all sorts of bits we've done with it - decorating, changing the toilet and preparing the nursery.

New Church

Also this year we've starting going to Paulsgrove Baptist Church - which has been brilliant for us. We've joined a life group and feel really at home there.

New Job

Back in June, I moved jobs within the same department at work. Previously I had been working in the DB2 team, and I moved to a role as an Application Developer. This is much more of the sort of work I enjoy and had wanted to do, working on LAMP based Web Applications. *[LAMP ]: Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP/Perl

Abi's Jabs

Today we went to the doctors for the second set of jabs. The waiting was awful - we were both dreading it, and she was being her usual sweet and gorgeous self. When we finally got in to see the nurse, burst out in giggles - it was lovely, but we didn't think it would last.

So then it came to the injection and she was quiet, and then a few seconds afterwards had another little giggle! Unfortunatley the second injection didn't have the same effect - she wasn't happy after that one, but it didn't last and she'd soon cheered up and was smiling and giggling again

What a bizarre baby :) She's lovely!