...cuddles with Miss Wiggles

Our good friend Jill visited this weekend, it was the first time she had met Joel and we had so much to catch up on; labour, breastfeeding and what it's like to have your life turned upside down by a tiny weeny boy.

Jill brought Joel some lovely gifts. They were colour co-ordinated in the same colours as the nursery and the baby shower. Jill gave him- A lovely story book from the 1940's, Jill said she thought that the author must have been American as her photograph was so glamerous with her hair all set and her makeup done (then we laughed as we both said 'because english women didn't even know where there next meal was coming from let alone the next pair of tights)
A brilliantly funny pair of knitted boot/socks which as you can see by the photograph look like they are for a five year old in the foot but a six month old in the leg. Jills mum made a beautiful cardigan (Jill picked the colours).

The best present of all was this lovely patchwork quilt which Jill had made from an online pattern. It's in all the colours we have used in the nursery and looked spendid on Joels bright orange cot. What a lucky boy he is to have such nice things.

We went for afternoon tea in town and saw this very summery window display in one of my favourite shops, Woodbridge and Mounsey. They have a dusty dim lit back room stacked high with fabric and wallpaper books, it would probably take you months to look through them all. The window was of the new Sanderson range of wallpapers and had been displayed as though they were swim suits. We were impressed and I'm sure Joel would have been if he'd been awake.

...party

Last weekend we went to our friend Neils birthday party. He organised a field for everyone to celebrate his 40th birthday in. It was a lovely, relaxed event. Sitting amidst the fantastic Longsleddale valley round the bonfire with Mr B and Joel made a great change to being at home.

Here's Neil thanking everyone for coming to his party. Some of his friends sang and played guitar and his cake was of him cycling, he is a very keen cyclist. The bonfire was super toasty.

We stayed until quite late, despite both being very tired, as it was such a lovely evening.

...nursery

You may remember I just managed to get Joels nursery curtains finished before he was born, the final bit of work which needed doing to his nursery, which I promised to tell you about but the day I was going to blog about it we had Joel.
We decided on a colour scheme which was fun, unisex and imaginative. A room which could grow with Joel. Using a retro scandinavian style print on two of the walls and then two different shades of green paint on the other two walls. You can see the wallpaper in these pictures of some of his toys. We don't want him to have loads of toys, rather that there were fewer better quality toys that he will play with for longer.

Here are some of his books, some of which were my books when I was small. It's so lovely that he will hear the same stories I did as a child. I wonder which will be his favourites?

The cot turned out not only to be mine when I was small but my mums, my aunties and my cousins! How amazing is that. We painted it bright orange to contrast and compliment the greens. I strung up some of the paper bunting from our baby shower as a sort of welcome to your bedroom gesture for Joels arrival at Oakbank.

I managed to track down one of those brilliant Fisher Price cot activity centres for him, he likes me spinning and squeeking the games on it for him whilst he watches me in the mirror. Soon he'll be able to do the games for himself.

Mr B's mum and dad bought us a nursing chair which rocks, along with its foot stool, which is so comfy. Oh and here are the curtains too.

On the window sill is Joels apple money box, his swiss chalet music box which plays Brahms lullaby and a little mat from Austria.

The view from his room is of the gardens and shed roofs of Oakbank. He can see Florences beans growing, Dick and Sharons washing line and our garden path which sometimes has Joey sat on it watching the wall for voles popping out!

What a lovely room for our little boy, we're sure he'll be very happy playing, sleeping and dreaming in here.

...boat trip.

This weekend our good friend Michael came to stay. We took a steamer trip across lake Windermere from Bowness to Ambleside on the Sunday.

It was Joels first boat trip and of course, like all other trips away from Oakbank, he slept through the whole thing, even when a great big spider crawled across his blanket!
The weather was great, if a little nippy on the water, so he was all wrapped up in his little hooded cardi. Alot of his clothes are still too big for him and you can just see in this picture how his hands are covered by the long knitted sleeves.
The views were great and we got to see the backs of all the really posh house which you can see set back from the main road. They had lawned gardens which came down to the side of the lake and some had boat houses and jetties.
We spotted this really cool little boat with red sails. It looked like something from Swallows and Amazons, which is set in the Lakes.

The next day it was Michaels birthday, we bought him some walking boots for when he visits us (and if we get another snowy winter!) which will mean he doesn't have to borrow my leaky old ones. I used this great wrapping paper by Alice Stevenson, isn't it lovely! I really like her choice of colours, they remind me of the colours on a typewriter ribbon or carbon paper. I used to love carbon paper when I was a child, I thought it was magic. Maybe Joel will too.

Joels first....

Joel has been going on little walks round Oakbank every day that he can, sometimes the weather has been too bad for even a short stroll (hard to believe in August!). Here he is all ready for an adventure.

There's always something interesting to see but as the little man is usually sleeping he is missing out on all these wonderful things. I've been telling him what's what just incase he is half listening but I decided I'd post about these things and Joels other first experiences for him to read about when he is older. These will be under the label tag of 'Joels first...' so you can read more about Joels first experiences and encounters as posts with those tags are written by clicking on the label.

...nature walks

A couple of weeks ago (I've been sitting on these posts for some time due to the demands of motherhood) Joel saw his first caterpillar, infact he saw two in as many days! The first we think was quite possibly a Hawk Moth caterpillar, it was huge!! I made sure my finger was in the picture for scale reference.

He was making his way across the lane. Mum moved him onto a nearby plant but then on the way back he'd decided to embark on the dangerous journey once again. There must have been something really good on the other side of the lane so we decided to leave him to it.

Then the next day we saw this furry fella, again in the middle of the lane. Maybe it was some kind of annual get together or migration from one hedgerow to another?

Talking of migration imagine our surprise when we pulled back the bedroom curtains last week to see all the House Martins gathered together on the telephone wires just right next to us. It was great to see them up close and they were't one bit bothered by having their picture taken.

Whilst out on a walk with Millie we spotted all these Red Admiral butterflys on a brightly coloured bush of blooms in our neighbours garden. The whole thing was covered with them and most shared a bloom with a bee or three. What a lovely sight!

Joel is only one month old and yet he already has so many amazing things to see and do all around him.

Will you?

As if my week couldn't have got any better, it did. Just two days after Joels birth Mr B proposed to me. He bought Joel a cute little french mouse in a box and put the most beautiful diamond ring in it's apron pocket.

Then in true romantic fashion he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. I was so overwhelmed with emotion, and tiredness, I just cried and said thankyou, totally forgetting to say yes!!! Anyway I did say yes, obviously. Happy happy!

How very neighbourly.

Whilst we were in hospital, and on our return home, our neighbours have been really kind and dropped in gifts and food to help us out at this very hectic time.

Sue and Stephan from Sprint Mill brought us a loaf of artisan bread (Stephan is a baker) and have also been walking Myrtle most days for us.

An anonamous allotment grower left some new potatoes on our doorstep whilst we were still in hospital.

Mary who lives down the lane brought Joel a lovely comforter with all different bits of ribbon stitched on the edges for him to rub for comfort.

Florence gave us some meadow flowers and this rather amusingly shaped courgette from her garden.

It's a great feeling being part of a really caring small community, exactly the reason we decided not to move into town and want to raise our family here at number 5.

Look what the stork brought us.

It's taken me this long to get time to tell you all about the new arrival in our family. Joel Eaves-Butterworth was born on the 27th July at 7.49pm after ten hours labour and weighed 8lbs 4oz, there were no complications so he was born in our local hospitals midwife led maternity unit, a lovely relaxed place which promotes natural methods of pain relief rather than the use of drugs and epidurals (obviously this is only suited to uncomplicated births). He is the spitting image of Mr B, everyone says so. I am completely in love with him, we both are.

I spent four nights in hospital, the first night Mr B stayed with us in the units 'home from home' room which is decorated like a normal bedrom but with a sofa, TV and a nice big bath to put us all at ease after the labour and allow us all to spend our first night together as a family. We got well aquainted during the next few days and got to grips with breastfeeding under the guidance of the midwives.

Breastfeeding has been such a massive learning curve for us all, what little I read on it before Joels birth made it sound like the easiest thing in the world but it really isn't, well it hasn't been for us anyway. At first Joel didn't feed much so he got quite jaundiced and lost a bit more weight than expected by the time of his midwife check up at home, this was then compounded by me not getting him latched on properly for his feeds during his 10 day growth spurt. Anyway things seem to be sorted now and he's gained 1lb.

So aside from us getting very little sleep all is good and full of love at number 5.