Quiet and cold.....apart from crazy Hannah.

Anyone from Winnipeg, feel free to ignore and skip this first paragraph. You already know whats written within.... Everyone else...I have a task for you....If you have a chest freezer go to it and empty out all the food. Don't worry, you will put it back in shortly. If you don't have a chest freezer, go to your neighbours who do have one and empty out all their food. Once you have done this, turn the freezer down to its lowest setting and wait. Then when it is as cold as its going to get. climb in. See how long you can last inside. There is a reason I am asking you to do this Its because the COLDEST home chest freezers can go as low as -40 degrees C. That is bitingly cold. It is also 3 degrees warmer than the coldest temperature here at the moment. We have weather warnings telling us it will get close to minus 50 next week at least once. We do say that at minus 10 or minus 12, it feels like it is in England an 0 and that is true. But at minus 30 or 40 there is only one word for it. Cold. You breathe in and cough because the cols air hits your lugs and you cant breathe. You go out for a couple of minutes without a gloves or a hat and your skin freezes. Its not pleasant and can be downright dangerous. So ignore what I wrote, earlier - Put the food back into the freezer and do not get inside. You will die. Unless you are from Winnipeg, in which case its just another cold day. Although you do get to write things on the inside on the frozen porch windows.

There were some cool sun dogs over the city today too...

Welcome back Manitoban's, thanks for waiting.

So, its a Friday night and I am at home babysitting my crazy kid of a daughter. Buffy is out with choir tonight, so me and Hannah are causing havoc around the house. She is 7 months old in just over a week and is growing every day. She has put on nearly a pound in weight over the last two weeks and is definitely getting her eating skills from Buffy, who can fit a whole burger in her big mouth  when she wants to. It is awesome though as she eats so much she always has loads of energy. She loves her weekly swim with Grandma Susan and will love swimming in the pool and the sea when we go to Mexico in a few weeks for a getaway from the winter.

She is also now just over 2 feet tall and although her body is still small for her age, her head is bigger than most adults.
She also has a new best friend. Our best mates Adam and Alena had their little bundle of joy 'Jack' arrive just a couple of weeks ago. So Hannah has been round to visit him a couple of times already and Jack actually came round to our house for his first trip a out. Its great to have friends with a baby too now, and I am sure we will be spending a lot of time together as our crazy little bugars grow up.

Adam , Alena and Jack

Hannah and Jack meet!

Its not as if Hannah doesn't already have loads of mates. Her closest living friend is Holland, who owns Mike and Rebecca from a few doors down. Holland needed an hour away from his mum and dad last week, so he came to visit and brought his train set with him, spending a lovely hour with me and Buffy crashing trains in our lounge!

There hasn't been much else going on at our place this month so far. Its too cold to go out and do much and so we spent some time doing things around the house. The main job was to put up Pat and Erica's Christmas present in the basement. They bought us a Jets and a United perspex lit sign, which I decided to use as background lights to light the basement when watching TV or movies. So an easy job, just knocking in a nail or two to hang them from. But I had to take down some shelves and then run a power cable in a boxed in area for them. After taking down the shelves we painted the area of wall where they came from, but the paint was old and didn't match, so we decided to paint the whole basement  - and buy a TV mount to attach the TV to the wall. But that meant fishing in the wall to run the Ethernet cable for the android box. Then we rehung the united shirts and the Manchester photos. It turned out to be a real job! Anyway, it looks great now and we are really glad we did it all... This is what it looks like now...

Sp has there been any other news? Well, to be honest - not really! Things are generally good. Work for both me and Buffy is busy and Hannah is growing and changing every day. She is now able to stand up with assistance and will attempt to walk when given encouragement. She hasn't got enough balance to be able to do it on her own yet, but we don't expect it to be long. 

She is also eating real food now. She loves banana and peanut butter and is also happy try try all sorts of vegetables as long as she gets to hold the spoon!

 She has also graduated from making mmm noises and now sounds like a mix between a a velociraptor and an old Chinese woman clearing her throat and hoiking up. Here's an example....

 

She is also crazy about her jolly jumper, which she just loves!!

Here are a few photos from the last few weeks - enjoy and I will be back early in February!

Thanks for reading!