Conor's Big Day

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Today was Conor's christening, and thanks to many prayers, the Lord blessed us with a beautiful day. We were lucky to have so many of our friends and family there to share this special day with us. In the ideal world, all of you would have been there and we know you would have liked to have been there too. But we won't take you off the Christmas card list or anything drastic!

Conor was privileged to be wearing the same gown (also known as a dress but not really manly enough!) that Patrick had worn, and Michael and Joanne before them. It's almost becoming an heirloom. My job now is to have it ready for the day Joanne tells us she needs it!!

Patrick was a superstar at the church - there had been much preparation and talk of how the minister was going to put water on Conor's head and later carry him around the church for everyone to see. But it was still a near miracle that he didn't cry out for Conor to come back! In fact, after Conor had been blessed, Patrick asked me, "Is God going to take Conor round the church now?"  He's too cute, that boy!

After the service, we had a lovely BBQ at the house. Too much food consumed and lots of fun had. It was really a great day. Thank you everyone for your lovely cards and kind gifts - all much appreciated. Individual thank you notes will be winging their way in the next few days!

You may notice the conspicuous lack of pictures of just us Boyds below - it does make it look like Michael and I have fallen out and can't stand to be in the same photo! Actually all the pics of us are on dad's camera, so we'll have to wait until he e-mails them to us. They will be added sometime soon.

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Yikes! That was rather larger than expected!

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Paris

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As promised I'm posting a few photos that I took in Paris last week. For once I pretended I'm not obsessed with getting a good picture and just took mum's handy digital so I could relax and actually enjoy the trip without constantly worrying about the photographs! Slightly anal but I usually can't help myself.

Having never been to Paris before I was pretty excited and hoping that it lived up to my expectations. My first view of the city was coming up from the Metro and being faced with the Arc de Triomph right in front of me. Definitely not a disappointment! Our hotel was just a few minutes walk from here so we were well placed for some mooching up the Champs Elysees - clearly not buying anything other than food since that took all our money!

We did pretty much all we wanted to without wrecking ourselves, although we did still manage to walk the legs off ourselves on more than one occasion. Everything looks closer than it actually is! Went to the Louvre (v impressive and super good value - a bit obsessed with getting pictures here but I calmed down afterwards!), went to the top of the Eifel Tower (Michael not altoghether thrilled with the lift ride), took a boat along the Seine, got ripped off for ice cream and crepes (surely part of the whole experience!), and did a bit of shopping. Tried not to feel too guilty about leaving the boys behind, especially since they both had horrendous colds at the time! Had a lovely relaxing time, just the two of us. We must start saving to do this again!

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Yikes! It's been ages!

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Well I'm not doing too well at keeping you all up to date with us! It's been a busy few weeks with the boys and other things. So, here's a few highlights.

1. Everybody has been sick! All Michael's fault. Stupid cough and cold, but Conor decided to add his own twist to it and had an overnight stay in hospital. Nothing major, but a very high temperature and rash which resulted in a lumbar puncture :-( Anyway, he was fine after a few days, but both the boys are coughing like they're heavy smokers!! So that's nice for all of us!

2. Michael and I went to Paris for a few days. Didn't even feel guilty about leaving the boys behind! Had a great time seeing the sights and getting ripped off for crepes and cokes. Gorgeous weather too. Good fun trying to come up with non-child related topics of conversation - almost missed talking about who had done more poo or how many times Conor had spewed!! Will post pics when I get them uploaded.

3. I've been doing a lot of photography for Liz, my friendly baby yoga instructor. She asked me to take pictures at all her classes (baby massage, yoga, swimming, ante-natal yoga etc) so she can get promotional flyers done. And from that a few mums have asked me to come and take photos of their kids at home.  All very exciting as this is something I'm keen to do more of as part of my 'I don't want to be a teacher anymore' plan! Also had the opportunity to photograph a few friends' babies too, so I've been having fun. Again, I'll post pictures when I get permission from the parents - have to keep myself right. But if anyone reading this knows of anyone in my area (Greater Belfast) who would like photos taken of kids/babies in their own home, just pass my e-mail on to them. I need as much experience as I can get!

Sorry for lack of photos this time round -will get some up by the weekend.

Very late birthday pics!

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Ok, so I'm a rubbish mum - I took so many pictures of Patrick on his birthday and haven't posted any of them yet. But since he doesn't even know about this site I reckon he won't really care! He had such a fun time at his party - thank you to all who came and brought him fab presents. And also to everyone who sent cards and gifts through the post. We will get on to our thank yous very soon. On Monday, his actual birthday, we took him to the drivng range (after birthday coffee at the garden centre!). Usually he hits some cracking shots but he was rubbish - maybe he was put off by daddy in the next bay shanking nearly every ball he hit! Back at home he made us put the paddling pool up and then stripped off for some splashing! And finally, we had all the family to our house for tea. Much stuffing of faces and blowing out of candles! So far the present highlights of the 3rd birthday have been:

1. The golf bag - he just looks so cute with it on his back!

2. The Wiggles DVD - clearly not loved at all by mum or dad,but it does serve to make Thomas very enjoyable viewing!

3. The paddling pool - thanks to some lovely May weather.

4.The scooter - although I don't think he's likely to do himself any damage on it at the speed he's going!

5. The LeapPad book - at last something relatively quiet he can play with on his own!

6. Michael's old trumpet - whose idea was this anyway?

Here are just a few pics of his day.

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(just one of Conor spewing everywhere at the driving range - he was the only one with any accuracy, ie all over me!)

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I can't actually believe he's 3 already.

As you can probably tell from picture #2, Conor is doing well too. 15lb 12oz at his last weigh-in on Thursday. Clearly the spewing is having no adverse effects on this boy! And he had his first solids today - not one drop of it went on the bib! I'm guessing he's ready for grub!!

Planes, trains and automobiles

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Since Michael has been off this week we've been making a special effort to get out and do some fun family bonding activities. Yesterday Michael took Patrick to Blackwood driving range to hit some golf balls, which I believe was a big success! And today was a whole family outing to the Transport Museum - via Northern Ireland Railways. This was Patrick's first time on one of the 'blue trains' as he likes to call them. He's seen them sitting at the station so often that we thought we should really take him on one. And very impressive it was too! All new and fast! I thought Patrick was going to be sick he was so excited! You can't really tell from the look on his face though!

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So we had a lot of fun looking at trains, cars, planes etc. I'm not sure that Michael didn't nearly have more fun than Patrick. And as for Conor, he was barely aware that we were out of the house! Just as it should be!

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