Monday night treat

We had a fab day a couple of Mondays ago. We were able to go and get our photos taken at AKM Photography which was a real laugh. The photographer was great and had us in all kinds of positions and had a bag of balls to play with Charlie, plus Charlie was as smiley as ever. I couldn't wait to see how they turned out. As it turns out, I'm a little behind in writing this blog so I have a few of the pics (see below).

We chose this as one of our free photos, love him!

We chose this one too but in colour

Our photographer has kindly put a few extras up on facebook

After our photo shoot we decided to stay in town and have a little mooch about especially as we were having such good weather. It was nice to be able to spend some time together. After we'd had enough of town we remembered that we needed to go food shopping. As is the case most Mondays we really didn't feel like cooking anything so we decided we wanted to eat out. So we had a little look at prospective restaurants which included Pizza Hut, Chiquitos and Las Iguanas. In the end we decided on Frankie and Bennys.

As it was a Monday night they had a special 25% off offer on so we took full advantage of that! It was quite funny yet a lil upsetting that as we were looking at the menus we noticed Charlie kept bursting in to proper tears! We couldn't quite figure it out until we noticed that he cried every time he looked up. 

As we looked up to see what it was that was upsetting him we noticed that he was sat right underneath a huge ceiling fan! He must have thought that it was going to get him! Bless! Needless to say, we moved him on to the other side of the table where he was a little happier but he never took his eyes off that fan! Lol!

Lauren had a Calzone (and a ceasar salad! Which was thought was free... But we were charged for it!)

I had the biggest and nicest burger I think I'd ever had! YUM!

Charlie took full advantage of the dough sticks

We had an awesome Monday and looking forward to many more like it.

The week that was...

Usually a lot of what happens in my life is work related and therefore is forbidden to be shared amongst the masses. Fortunately this week has been a little more eventful, little being the operative word, so I thought I'd share it with you all.

First off, I have been re-paired/doubled crewed/teamed up again with my tutor who is just awesome! It's great because now I actually have some company whilst out on the beat and to give credit to her she hasn't forgotten a thing. I'm so glad she's back.

Secondly, I had one of my missionary companions come and stay with us and, bless them, they brought a little taste of america with them! That's right, LUCKY CHARMS AND REESES PUFFS for us AND some beef jerky for me! YUM YUM! Thanks again Jamie and Catherine! It was great to see them again and I had a great time reminising about all those years ago.... even if it did mean going to bed past 1 o'clock in the morning!

At the start of the week I had an email from a company called "Groupon" which is a company that offer special deals on... well... pretty much anything. Basically, what happens is they sell a "coupon" for 24hrs which doesn't become active until a set number of people purchase it. Hence "Groupon". The email was for an offer of a 45 minute photo session with a professional photographer (set up like Venture) and you got 1 x 8"x10", 3 x 7"x5" and 1 x 12"x10" prints all for £19! That's right £19!! After I had purchased my groupon we headed to the photo studio and have a booking for tomorrow being Monday 21st March 2011! Can't wait to see the finished article.

This next part is a little in-family joke but I had to include it as I know Hesbs and possibly Joe read my blog. (I hope it makes you laugh as much as we did!!).
After a hard day out on the streets my tutor and I went back to the station and whilst updating the system with what we had done my tutor came out with "oh! That's put the 'MOCKERS' on that!"..............
To fill the rest of you in on the joke. It occured during the Netherlands vs Spain world cup semi-final. We were all round Lauren's Nanny's house cheering on the Dutch... unfortunately our support was insufficient so Nanny came out with "Oh! I'm gona put the 'MOCKERS' on them!". Them being the Spaniards. This of course cracked us up as we had never heard of this "MOCKERS" but coupled along with Nanny's cursing fingers and "MOCKERS, MOCKERS, MOCKERS" chants it pretty much floored all of us! Brilliant! So there you go Hesbs and Joe it does exist but must be a generational thing.

Lastly, we had a great time at church today. We learnt a new song in primary today all about the prophet and apostles of our church. Hopefully I've been able to find a copy of it and put it on this post.
We were also given a new responsibility/assignment today to run a monthly event called "Faith in God" which is for 8+ year olds so we're eagerly waiting to get stuck in and do a good job.

And that's pretty much my week. Hope you have enjoyed!

Half term break part 2.

After spending time with my family we travelled over to Ipswich to spend sometime with Lauren's family. We were able to stay in Chateau de Nannie which is always a pleasure (especially as she is an amazing cook!).

We always have a wonderful time round Nannie Annie's and this time was no different. Plus she always bakes me an amazing carrot cake, YUM!

We thought about what we could do with all the kiddies and decided on going for a walk through the Heath in Kesgrave. It was a nice little walk that took us to a little co-op type shop where we bought them all a drink (apart from Jude who chose sweetie burgers) and I found a little bargain. They have a toy shop upstairs that sold Warhammer stuff!! Result! So I went upstairs to take a ganders. Have you ever been in a shop looking at the products/stock when you notice one is priced cheaper than the other? Well that's what happened. I found a box of little night goblins priced at £12 instead of £18!! So I took them up to the till and they were good enough to let me have them at the discounted rate!

Whilst on our way home, not only was I carrying Jude AND Rose, but we also picked up a dog too!! We had a couple come up to us with a little scottie dog and said that they thought it belonged to a couple down the hill in the direction we were walking. It was a sweet little thing, still not sweet enough to influence me to get one mind. Fortunately we found the owners who were thankful that we'd returned their lil pooch.

We ended up spending Thursday night at David and Beth's where we played Just Dance on the Wii. Can I just say... One of the simplist, most fun games I have ever played. Saying that, you don't half sweat whilst playing it though! I was offered a controller by one of the kids and found myself dancing to some iggy pop song that Jude likes (He's 5). I have to admit that I did get a bit excited when I was cycling though the playlist and found MC Hammers "U can't touch this". It turns out.... When playing against me... No one could ;-)

On Saturday night we finished the week off in style and went to a sacred music festival and were roped in to singing with my Mum's choir. Needless to say it was a good night out and my Sis and 2nd Cousin Jade sang a fab duet and defo rocked the best act of the night!

It was a great end to a fantastic week. Just wish we'd have avoided all the illness :-(

Half term break part 1.

Well, I'm back. It's only taken me nearly a month to get back on here. To be honest there hasn't been much to report but thanks to half term we had a week of fun, frolics...... and illness :-(

With Lauren being a primary school teacher we're only able to take extended leave when school is out so we thought we'd take full advantage of the half term break and travel back east to see our families (not all of them though).

We had a great run down and made it back to Colchester in 2 and 1/2 hours! Before you say it, I didn't speed, traffic was just really good ;-)

Unfortunately Lauren came down with a coldey thing Saturday before the Sunday that we left and then gave it to Charlie and me... I guess Charlie has my immune system as we were both not right the whole week.
Sadly the reign of illness didn't stop there. My bro Josh felt queezy all day Wednesday and by the time we'd got over to Nannie Annies it looks like we'd taken it with us as she was up all night, bless her! I then learnt that my Mum had come down with the coldey thing and Dad had caught this sick bug.

Still, enough with all this illness talk. We did end up having a wonderful time with family.
We stayed in Colchester for the first half and saw my family. It was great to see them all again and for Nana and Grandpa Rowe to spend sometime with Charlie. Even though he wasn't well at all he still had plenty of smiles and giggles. We even took him in to town to get him some new clothes.
While we were in town I noticed that the Embassy Chinese Buffet had opened again... (I say again because it has closed and re-opened quite a few times). I had fancied a Chinese for a while now and when I saw that their lunch buffet was £4 per person there was no turning back! YUM!

As we were around family we thought we'd take advantage of having babysitters and go out to the cinema to see The Kings Speech. I have to admit, I wasn't exactly exstatic about seeing it but it was a great movie that I thoroughly enjoyed. I can certainly see why it's won all the awards it has.

Whilst in Colchester I promised my sister that we'd go see her new place and spend sometime with her and her two boys so Wednesday we thought we'd have a little visit which ended up with us all heading to a local play park. We were a little apprehensive when we turned up and saw the park over run by teenagers.... Not impressed.

Still, we proceeded with caution and let Isaac play on the swings whilst Seb and Charlie stayed warm and chilled out in their push chairs. A few minutes later these delightful youths pull out a football and start powering it across the park, each time the ball coming inches away from the little kids the park was built for. With each kick I winced and held myself back until one kick sent the ball our way.... That was it!

I approached the youths and said in a very quiet and low tone, "Guys, I don't mind you being in here if you're keeping yourselves to your yourselves but when you start doing things that can effect others... that's just not right. To be honest with you, if that ball hits my son, you're going to see a side of me that you won't like... OK?!". It was quite funny seeing their little faces. I think I got the message across and although it didn't happen I imagine all the parents in the park applauding as I walked back over the Charlie. Sad I know.

PANCAKE DAY!!!!!

Yes, that's right people it's that time of year already! It's time for everyone to get those frying pans out and start flipping, well those that can hehe!


In preparation, last week, we brought one of those "just add water" bottles of pancake mix thinking that it was the safest option... We were wrong! Not only did the mix turn out to be SUPER runny but our frying pan had a ridge so high I might as well had fried the pancakes in a wok!! 


So taking this in to account, on my way home from work, I stopped in to our local ROBERT DYAS and purchased the holy grail of frying pans. I didn't make the same mistake by buying a mix and thought I'd turn to the helpful hints and tips of none other than Mr Ainsley Harriet and his recipe for "American Dream Pancakes".

I have to say, the cooking went extremely well. I even got every flip right and none ended up as a crumpled mess in the pan.... or on the floor! 

Now, some like their pancakes with a little bit of sugar and lemon juice, others might fancy a bit of maple syrup... With us, knowing that I was making them from scratch, relied (quite heavily) on everyone's good friends mr Ben and Jerry!! Yep, you guessed it. Whilst in TESCO I spotted that they had their BnJ tubs on offer so I grabbed a tub of "FAIRLY NUTS" and knew I was all set.

Needless to say, they were enjoyed by all despite being a little rubbery!

We hope you all had a wonderful Shrove Tuesday!!

Our baby boy's 1st Birthday!

You know time is flying when one minute you are holding your newly born son and then then next you're celebrating the fact that a whole year has gone by! That's right peeps, on the 3rd February 2011 Charlie turned in to a 1 year old little boy (so now when Jude asks how old Charlie is we can actually give him a number rather than confusing him! Bless).
I thought it would be a good idea to share with you all what we did:

We had heard of this great place in Melksham for kids which is called "Boomerang". So on Monday 1st February we took Charlie and had a wonderful hour or so.

They had all kinds of soft play toys there, we took advantage of the bouncy castle being empty and dove on to see what Charlie thought. Unfortunately he was a little tired and wasn't too impressed.

We then took him over to the ball park which he loved!

I have to say, this donut thing was probably his favourite thing there. I get the impression he'd have stayed in this for hours!



We then took him on this "fun house" type gaunlet. Unfortunately Mummy was too afraid to come on but did a good job of getting some fab pics!

By this point I think he had completely lost interest... These pics were more for us I think lol!

That night we took Charlie in to Bath and went to STRADA where he had his first ever ordered meal. The waiter brought over some crayons (which said not suitable for under 36 months!) and a childrens menu to use them on a long with a few breadsticks which he LOVED! I was quite impressed that he actually got the hang of colouring in instead of just putting the crayons in his mouth.

Charlie ended up having grilled chicken breast and panacotta for dessert!

On his actual birthday we got some birthday banners and party food and had a little party at home for him. He got lots of nice things including; Money, new clothes & coat, a play telephone, shark towel & swimming shorts plus lots of new toys! AND as we're off to our roots at the end of February he has lots of pressies waiting for him!

To end the celebrations we thought we'd take him swimming. So today we packed our bags and set off for the Olympiad Leisure Centre. It's only a 10-15 minute walk but the day didn't look great so I suggested taking the car... Needless to say this was met by a lot of heckling from my beloved. We arrived and got down to the pool to find a bunch of old perishers  swimming in lanes! Luckily I asked the life guard who said it was ok to get in as they had extended the times for the over 50's so they'd just have to swim round us.
Charlie had a fab time and wee definately going to take him back soon.

We hope this has served as a great birthday celebration in his eyes and that he had lots of fun, I guess we shall never truly know.
Still it's a real blessing be able to celebrate the birth of our baby boy as it really is one of the bestest days of my life.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY BOY!!



A bunch of firsts...

As Charlie has just had his first birthday it made me look back at all the "firsts" he has had in just the quick one year of his life:

1. Charlie's 1st day on earth.

What a wonderful day this was. It took a while for him to be born but after lots of complications we were greeted by our little baby boy Charlie Joseph Rowe at 4:59pm on 3rd February 2010 weighing 6lb 7oz at Bath Royal United Hospital.

2. Charlie's 1st bath.

Soon after his birth a very yellow looking boy was introduced to bath time! He didn't seem to mind at all and continues to enjoy bath time... It's when he has to come out that's the problem!

3. Charlie's 1st day home.

After 11 loooong days of being stuck in a 12' x 12' square room Charlie was finally given the all clear and we ran as fast as our legs could carry us!!! And since then we've never looked back.

4. Charlie's 1st day at church.

After being a litle rebelious and not attending church the first couple of weeks we finally were able to dress him in his Sunday best and show him off to all our friends. He was very excited.

5. Charlie's 1st trip to the temple.

We're priviledged to have two LDS temples in the UK, one in Preston and this one in London, East Grinstead. We wanted to take Charlie to the temple as soon as possible, but as I don't have Lauren here right now I can't quite tell you when that was....

6. Charlie's 1st "proper" smile.

There aren't many things in this world that could lift the mood of any person/situation but a childs smile is one of them.I know I'm being biased, but Charlie's is the BEST!

7. Charlie's 1st trip to the park

This must have been sometime in early June of 2010. We thought it'd be nice to take a walk (ride in Charlie's case) to John Coles Park which is a park we used to visit often to chill and listen to the occassional band playing on the bandstand in the park. From what I can remeber it was a gorgeous day and a quality afternoon.



8. Charlie's 1st train ride.

In July 2010 Charlie had his first experience of public transport. He absolutely loved his train ride to London, unfortunately there was a fault on the line on the way home and the train became a nightmare. The car was full to the brim and soon became extremely hot. One man feinted (TWICE!) and Charlie was stripped right down to his nappy! Bless.

9. Charlie's 1st trip to London.

Charlie's train ride in July 2010 led on to his first trip to our nations capitol, London. Lauren and I have a great love for London and love to go. Ironically we don't get much chance now Charlie is here. Still, here Charlie is at Paddington station with Paddington Bear. There were no marmalade sandwiches though.

10. Charlie's 1st meal time at the table.

For Charlie's first Christmas we thought we'd go the sensible route and buy him something that he needed. Before this point he was actually put on the table in his bumbo like some obsurd cannabalistic main course! So we thought it best to buy him his own seat at the table.

11. Charlie's 1st plane journey.

Charlie certainly doesn't do things by halves! My 1st plane journey was at 19 and was 2 hours to Portugal. Charlie braved an 11 hour flight over to LA!! Well I say braved... He moaned for the 1st 5 hours!

12. Charlie's 1st Christmas.

December 2010 Charlie was able to experience Christmas for the 1st time. He was thoroughly spoiled (as all children should be) but not only did he get in-undated with toys and clothes etc he also had two Christmas celebrations AND was able to see Nana Rowe and Nana & Grandad Baxter (Grandad Rowe was sorely missed).

13. Charlie's 1st meal out.

Instead of doing the whole party thing for his birthday we thought that we would spend a lot of time as a family and treat our little boy. So we took him in to Bath and did a little bit of shopping and then went out to eat at STRADA (strange choice for a one year old I know). He ended up having grilled chicken and panacota for dessert!

14. Charlie's 1st brithday celebration.

On 3rd February 2011 our little boy turned 1! Once again it was another wonderful opportunity for his loved ones to show him just how loved is. Not only did we take him to a soft play area called "Boomerang" but we also took him shopping, out to eat and swimming! 

15. Charlie's 1st time swimming.

 As part of his birthday celebration we took Charlie swimming at the Olympiad Leisure Centre. Nana and Grandad Baxter were kind enough to buy him his very own little shark towel and shorts so he looked very cool in his trendy gear! He ended up having a great time and Daddy was brave enough to dunk him.... just once as it was fairly evident that Charlie did not like it!

Well peeps that's all the firsts I could think of right now, I'm sure there are loads, but I am looking forward to a future full of 1sts with my little baby boy; his 1st steps, tooth, words list goes on.