Skipton Puppet Festival

We've had a lovely morning at the Skipton Puppet Festival.  It turned out to be a beautiful early autumn's day, and there were lots of visitors in Skipton for the parade and events.

We had tickets to see Who's Been Sitting In My Chair, a Goldilocks-based theatrical affair.  Calling it a puppet show rather underplays how lovely it was.  The set was particularly well done, and both Marisca and Tom were enchanted.  Elspeth and I in no small part too.  After that was a parade through town: Tom mostly slept through this, but Marisca, again was delighted.

And we finished the morning with pie and mash.

A great day.

Sleeping

I'm not sure when we last mentioned sleeping.  We seem to be going through some flux, with a week or so of Tom waking up in the night for longer than just a feed.  This has meant that he has been back in bed with us a few times, which has been rather nice for cuddles.  He certainly seems to settle well with a cuddle.

The other night he woke in tears so early that we brought him down for the evening.  A bit of gurgling and some settee cuddles led to a super cute sleeping boy.

And, on cue, he's woken again now.  Fingers crossed that a feed will suffice.  If not, I'll get my cuddle groove on.

Pre-bedtime fun

Thomas and Marisca love playing together: Tom loves watching Marisca bounce around, and Marisca loves making him giggle. I managed to catch this lovely moment just before bed this evening. Watch out for the comedy fall at the end - both children were fine afterwards!

Festival (part 3)

And finally, well, it'd be rude not to as the continental market is exactly on our way home from church. If we make a suitable detour. Anyway, it's good to support local crepe makers, right?

 

Festival (part 2)

Not many tasters on offer at this year's food stalls, but we're still having a nice time, currently sitting listening to music from the bandstand. Live blogging!

 

 

Ten months

My boy is beautiful. We think his blue eyes are here to stay, and his hair is showing signs of curl - especially cute is the little flicky curl over one ear, shown above. And his smile! Always ready to grin and coo at anyone who stops to say hello, but he reserves special smiles and excitement for his Mummy and Daddy.

Ten months old and Tom now has a mean turn of speed when crawling. Depending on the situation he either pulls up onto his knees, walks along awkwardly on hands and feet, or drops down and does his 'worm' commando crawl. When he reaches a wall or chair he pulls himself up, but is showing no signs of wanting to walk yet. One of his favourite games is crawling after his sister as she chases around him. Watching them giggle together and enjoy each others company is lovely, and makes up for all the times I have to pull Marisca off Thomas or remove Thomas from Marisca's toys!

Talking of toys and games, Thomas is currently loving toys with wheels and balls that he can roll then crawl after. He loves engaging us in 'conversation' and giggles his head off if we copy his head nods and clapping. His dexterity continues to improve, and he is putting this to great use at meal times. He is particularly good at handing us things: blocks, happyland firemen, his yoghurt spoon for us to refill... What a clever boy!

Festival (part 1)

We popped down to Roberts Park for the first weekend of this year's Saltaire festival.  It was a good one for Marisca as it mostly centred around children's events: some puppets, decorating some masks, going on a canal boat, and having scooting fun.  The second weekend is the bigger one with food festival, and with his current appetite I'm sure that Tom will enjoy that one all the more.

The Lakes

Windermere, specifically.  With only one time to get my camera out before the batteries were used in a bubble blower.  Last camping of the year, with Mary and Stewart.  The weather was colder and wetter than other trips, but the company was good and the children had lovely fun.  We climbed Moor How from the campsite, with the aid of jelly snakes, and Risky climbed the whole thing :-)

And on Saturday we had a bit of fun at a lake.  What a lovely lovely girl.

Building

Is it more impressive that Marisca has built such a brilliant tower, or that Thomas has not yet wandered over to knock it over? Well done both!