Bouncing baby

As you can see, Elodie is all squidgy and lovely. She's a happy little thing and is interested in everything.

Cuddles, cuddles and more cuddles

These pictures were taken in February and March.

Katya is managing some pretty long walks these days. In this case, the hot chocolate and biscuits were a great incentive for us all to climb back up the hill from Ilam.

Grandma & Grandad's three lovely girls

December

The snow prevented Proud Dad from going to work for a few days, forcing him to have lots of fun with his girls instead!

Snuggling up in front of the fire.

Proud Dad whipped up a fabulous Xmas Day feast for us, Grandma & Grandad, Auntie Joanne, Uncle Kevin and Jodie.

It was all too much excitement for this little Santa!

The arrival of Elodie Sky

A week after her due date, once Elodie decided it was time to come out, she didn't mess around - labour was just 4 hours from start to finish and the beautiful Miss Elodie Sky Wells joined us at 2:06am on 4th November.
Katya is delighted with her little sister and has proven to be the best big sister in the world. Proud Dad is, of course, overjoyed with his two girls:

Proud Mum's dream came true this time - she was able to keep her baby with her and they left the hospital together within hours of the birth. We even got to celebrate with pink champagne and cake later on at home with the family. Happy happy times.

Elodie has a fantastic appetite like the rest of the family - here she is having a little snack in the Bongo.

October

Here's Proud Dad taking some time out from working on the house to have a snuggle with his little girl... always time for that!
And here's one of the Honey Monster chilling out... definitely plenty of time for that.

Kat dressed up as a panther for a jungle day at school. Proud Mum went along that day to join in the fun.
And here's a witch and the big fat baby momma.

September

The big event in September was Katya starting school (which is handily located just across the road from our house). Here she is having her breakfast on her first morning. Kat being Kat, she took the whole experience in her stride and was really excited to wear her uniform.

August

The highlight of August was the Just So Festival. We had a fantastic day making things, dancing, playing, eating, doing yoga in the woods and playing samba drums in a lantern parade.

Just a couple of photos of typical scenes in Katya's life: eating cake at a birthday party and walking it off in the fields and woods with Honey.

May and June

Well, as you can imagine, life has been a bit hectic in recent months. We're slowly getting the house sorted though and Proud Dad has done an excellent job of making it lovely for his girls (with much-appreciated help from the family). Katya noticed that Proud Mum was getting a bit fat back in May, saying "Why is your tummy so fat? There might be a baby in there." And she wasn't wrong! There's now no missing my enormous bulk, which isn't surprising seeing as I'm just over a week from the due date. Needless to say, we're all very excited!

Shoey & John were our first overnight visitors in the new house. We had a lovely weekend and celebrated Shoey's birthday on the Sunday.
I love Katya & John's matching grins in this photo. They're holding the pre-school giraffe we had to look after for the weekend - quite a responsibility!

We had more visitors later in the month when Juana & Yann came over from France for a few days. It was Juana's first visit to England and she saw it in its best possible light. The weather was fabulous and we all enjoyed picnics and walking in the Peak District. We were having so much fun we forgot to take any photos, it seems.

Proud Dad, Mum and Katya had a great time at Dovedale Garden Party at the end of May. Highlights included a clown, singing by local school children, a bouncy castle and a "duck race". Here we are eating chips while listening to a folk group.

Kat had a lovely 4th birthday party in June. We all had a fab time playing party games in the garden and enjoyed an enormous feast.

From Burton to Ipstones (via Cheddleton)

We've now settled into our new house and are all loving it! Still some decorating to do but Kat's bedroom is all done and looking very lovely indeedy... will put some photos on here soon. Also need to take some photos of the cows we now have in the field surrounding our garden. They're great fun to watch and like to stick their heads over the wall. Proud Mum is delighted with the new pad as she can watch the sunset from the comfort of the settee. Here we are enjoying the golden hour.

Here are Kat and Jodie having fun at the local pub where they've already got to know Kat's regular order of "a glass of milk with a straw, please bartender".

We recently had a fantastic day out at Alton Towers - there was so much to see and do.

Kat's not looking too sure about the giant bear on this one, but we were amazed she went anywhere near him at all.

Katya has settled into her new nursery well. She'll be starting school in September (which is opposite our house) with 10 of her friends from nursery (practically the whole class). We've already visited the school for an afternoon of activities and it all seemed very nice. Kat's looking forward to it, especially the school uniform.

December

December highlights included: buying a lovely Xmas tree and it not trying to poison Proud Mum this year; Katya's nursery play, which was just fantastic; going to stay at Jodie's house for a night and, of course, Christmas itself.
Here's Kat making gingerbread ladies and animals. Santa was most generous:Honey was decidedly unimpressed with us trying to make her wear her Xmas scarf again this year.

Kat and Hon compare gnashers.

November

Kat saw her first ever bonfire at the beginning of November and loved it. She also enjoyed the fireworks this year (as opposed to last year when she hated them and had an asthma crisis). We went to the forestry centre we often go to and took a flask of mulled apple juice and some flapjack - perfect!
Later in the month Jodie and Auntie Joanne came to stay for a couple of days and we all had lots of fun.

And here's Kat enjoying a "cappuccino" (a little weekend ritual in the Wells household is daddy making cappuccinos for his girls - hoorah!).