House update, and other grown up stuff

We're still waiting to exchange contracts on the sale of this house; it's been 6 weeks since we agreed a price, and I chased our conveyancer today, so we can find out where we are in the process before we go on holiday next Monday. I sent back our seller's questionnaires 4 weeks ago, and returned our signed copies of the contract last week. As soon as we get word that contracts will be exchanged, then we can put in an application on a rental property. At the moment we're checking Rightmove daily, and have a shortlist with possible properties on it, and we've even viewed three of those, two of which remain on the "possibles" list.
We're taken on more space in a local self storage place, and have started moving stuff that won't be needed in the next few months into that space. I emptied our loft space last Sunday, for example, and we'll keep doing that kind of decluttering until we have a certain moving date.
We're off on holiday next Monday, with a night in a hotel at Gatwick before an early flight to Palma de Mallorca, to catch our cruise ship. The itinerary is Tangier, Gibraltar, Malaga, Cartagena, and Valencia. Grandma is coming too, for her second family holday after 10 days in France with Cath, Nick, Elizabeth and William.  The conveyancer and estate agent know that I can take calls and check emails on the ship, so hopefully we'll have some positive news either during the trip or as soon as we get back.
While we were up at my mum's house, we went to see Guns 'n' Roses at the MEN Arena, my treat to Olga for doing a wonderful job with Danil. G'n'R didn't do their 30-something-with-kids demographic any favours, only coming on stage at 11.07pm, when I'd assumed we'd have been back at mum's by midnight! Olga and I decided to leave at 1.10am so we could let mum go to bed, and Axl Rose was still singing, with a couple more hits still to come, so although they were late onto stage, they certainly gave value for money. And Olga looked great!

It's the cricket season of course, and whilst I've only played three games so far, I have been to Lords, thanks to my uni friend Ed, an MCC member. It was the first day of the first test against the West Indies, and we were in the Warner Stand, next to the Pavillion. There was even a view of the cricket from the Gents!

Lara's update

Lara has been busy too over the last month, mainly with the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. She learnt the National Anthem so she could sing it at the nursery's party:

She enjoyed performing it, she gave a lovely rendition at a family party when we went up to see Grandma at the end of May, and I caught her practising whilst on her throne:


Luda arrived from Russia on the Sunday of Jubilee weekend, and Olga wasted no time in taking her, Lara and Danil to London to join in the celebrations on the Tuesday:

It's great to have Luda here, helping out with Danny and Lara, and the dogs, and around the house generally, and Lara is loving having her Baba here, and it's clear how Lara has grown up in the 8 months since Luda left, she's much more willing to attempt a little Russian when we prompt her, so I really hope after 6 months Lara's Russian will have improved a lot.
She's also developed a new catchphrase: "I don't like that!........ I LOVE it".
We went up to see Grandma for a few days at the end of May, to help celebrate Grandma's birthday, and so we could view a couple of potential rental properties in the north west. One of these viewings was some hours drive north of mum's house, and we took Danny, but Grandma's birthday present was to have to look after Lara for the day, but the weather was brilliant, and they went to the park and had ice creams and had generally wonderful time.
I took the dogs for a walk that evening, with Lara, in the farmer's fields behind my mum's house. The grass hadn't been cut for some time, and was very long, so much so that I kept losing sight of Jackson. I took a video of the boys enjoying themselves, but caught Lara in the background... she disappeared too! Keep your eye on her once I bring the camera back up after looking at Mishka:


She twisted her ankle a little, but was a brave little trooper and barely cried!
Finally, she's had a growth spurt, and has put on 4cm in height in 3 months, she's now 109cm, and from the looks of him, it won't be long before Danny catches her up!

Danny @ 3 Months

Wow, nearly a month since an update, that gives a hint as to how busy we have been. Between Danny, Lara, work and the house, there just doesn't seem to have been time to write a post.

But this seems to be the right day to catch up, seeing as Danny is three months old today.  He's growing really well, over 7kg now, and he's sleeping very well too. Over the past 2 weeks, he has consistently been increasing his nighttime sleep duration. We noticed it first when he went for 8 and a half hours, then the next night it was nearly 9 hours. It has continued to increase, until he hit a recent personal best of 11 hours and 50 minutes.  He's growing so well that sleepsuits or vests for 9-12 months old are only a little bit too big. We reckon he's going to be tall!
His sister still loves hugging him, and making him smile, and he loves to oblige. Here they are one morning, with Danil giving me his best Alan Sugar "You're hired!" look:

He's started laughing now, and there's lots of chat coming from him, especially in the mornings, perhaps trying to tell us about his dreams!

His first teeth are not far away, we can see them under his gums, and the teething gel came out last week. He does get some comfort from sucking his thumb though:

Lara's Writing

We've not spent as much time as we would have liked helping Lara with writing practice, but based on her efforts this morning, she doesn't need our help!

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Beer, Grass, House Hunting & a walkabout dog

Other things going on in the past few weeks - we had our annual trip to the Reading Beer Festival on Bank Holiday Sunday, Lara was desperate to get there to play on the bouncy castle with her friends Eve and Tess, she was asking about it for days in advance. The girls also had their make-up done:

This has been the wettest drought in history, it's rained almost every day for the 6 weeks since a hosepipe ban was announced. However, this last weekend was dry, and after getting my first cricket match of the summer in on Saturday, I was able to mow the lawns for the first time since March on Sunday. Here's a before and after :-)

Lara enjoyed having a picnic while I mowed around her..

(that's not Danny's pram, by the way, it's for Lara's dolls!)
Hopefully I'll only have to mow that lawn one more time before we move out; we've been filling in all the necessary paperwork for the solicitors for the sale, and it should all be sent back to them tomorrow.
While that's all being processed, we'll carry on with househunting, with a view to starting to visit potential properties in June.
We had some fun and games on Saturday night, after we got home from cricket at Littlewick Green, where Olga, Lara and Danny had spent much of the day, with Lara climbing trees and making pretend camp fires in the woods. We let the dogs out into the back garden to do their business, and when I called them back in after a couple of minutes, only Mishka returned... Jacky had disappeared again. I did two laps of Deeds Grove calling for him to no avail, so I got in the car and started driving round the estate, before Olga called to say a woman had phoned - Jacky had turned up at their house, a quarter of a mile away, and they were looking after him! I got the address and popped home to grab a  bottle of wine as a thank-you, and went to collect the little tearaway. Sometimes he's just too friendly, although we suspect he escaped to chase one of our fox family!
Only a month now till our holiday, yayy! And tomorrow Danny is off to the Doc's for some injections, Lara will be keen to know if he cries or not - she loves to boast how she never did for her injections...