Merry Christmas

And Happy New Year

Abigail's First Nativity

Abigail had her first Nativity last week at a local church in Blyth. She goes to a Playgroup in the adjacent Church Hall every Tuesday so she's involved in loads of stuff in the run up to Christmas as you can imagine.

It was her Christmas Party today and Santa made appearance so no doubt pictures of that will appear on here soon. She's also in a repeat of the Nativity on Xmas eve.

Anyway, getting back to last week; I took some time off work so I could go along, and it turned out to be really good. It was obviously an extremely condensed version of the Christmas Story so that the kids didn't get bored, but the message was still there.

My Mam went along, thinking that she'd just be there to watch but she ended up getting dragged into it too so that Abigail would sit still!

The highlight for everyone seemed to be singing "Twinkle, Twinkle.." as they all love doing the hand actions.

Notice how I got through this whole entry without any sarcasm about Abigail being an Angel!

iPhone Moan

iPhone Charger Fault
Originally uploaded by Beebop Alula

Only had my iPhone a week and the charger's goosed!

Let's just hope it's a one off and I'm not being punished for years of allegiance to everything PC!!

It's the USB converter part of the charger that's not working. Thankfully I can still charge it via the laptop or using my wife's charger :o)

Apple have said a replacement part will be with me by Tuesday....

Growing up fast

(Yep, I know it's been a while since I posted, but I haven't abandoned this altogether)

One thing's for sure - Abigail certainly isn't a baby any more. Apart from looking very grown up she's becoming extremely strong willed and seems to have a never ending source of energy!
Although I haven't posted much on here lately, I have continued to post flickr photos of Aboo whenever possible.

We took her to 'Bounce' on Sunday morning - a local indoor childrens activity centre, and because we were there quite early, Abigail had free run of the place!
No ride or climbing frame seemed to be too big for her, and she just wanted to try them all. Yet there's other times when she can be scared of the strangest little things - kids are just weird!

Although Abigail is fine for short journeys around town, she tends to get bored and quite ratty if we're in the car too long. I bought a portable DVD Player a few years back for this exact situation - see how confident I was that we'd be starting a family, Lol! So I tried her with the player and some of her programs in the car at the weekend and she seems to love it :o)
It's hilarious when I'm driving and I look over my shoulder to see her dancing away to the Backyardigans songs!

Wonder if the place will ever be the same

Morpeth has been all over the news the last few days because of the devastation caused by the floods. The above picture (click to enlarge) on the right was taken about a week ago when me and Jen took Abigail to feed the ducks and for a walk along the river. The picture on the left is from one of the BBC news videos, and by my reckoning we were standing about where the red dot is!!
There's actually a path under the bridge which is hard to believe when you look at the height the water had risen to.
I work in Morpeth and when I left there on Friday I had no idea of what was about to happen to the place. Strangely enough we were actually out drinking in Morpeth with friends on Friday night, which must have been less than 9 hours before the river burst it's banks!
We crossed one of the bridges whilst running between pubs (due to the rain!) and I remember pointing out how fast the river seemed, but of course with drink on board I didn't think much of it.
It's been more than 40 years since Morpeth last had a major flood. Just makes me wonder how much the place is going to change as a result of this weekend....

And so it begins....

Worryingly Abigail likes nothing better than being out shopping! I'm talking proper shopping here mind, not boring old food shopping. - You only ever get half way round Asda before she starts!

After 6 weeks of using 'Cruisers' until she was comfortable walking properly, it was time yesterday to take Abigail for her first pair of decent walking shoes. Some thing's haven't changed from when I was a bairn, in that 'Clarks' is still seen as the place to go.

Hardest part seemed to be finding a pair with a proper buckle. Erm hello! -what's the point of Velcro on babies shoes?! Surely it obvious they'll just constantly take them off. Or at least Abigail would!

Anyway we got there in the end, and the staff pulled out a Polaroid camera (never seen one of them in a while!) to make a presentation card of the occasion....


Having a whale of a time in Mothercare breaking in the shoes..!

How to save spending a tenner on a cheap Teddy Bear

When we were holidaying in Scotland a few weeks ago, I decided to try and get the bairn a prize from one of them rip-off Crane/Claw Games.

Normally I get absolutely no where with them and just walk away about a fiver out of pocket. On that occasion I was lucky and Abigail got a cute little Dog which has now been aptly named 'Tara' after the Craig Tara caravan park.

Anyhoo, I came across this video this morning and realise that's the way to do it! This must be every kids dream....!

http://view.break.com/536276

Go Go Gadget Legs...!

Abigail is on the move! She's gone from 2 steps on Tuesday to this earlier on tonight;

Another chapter in the Cornell family Album

I have at last gotten round to sorting out and uploading the batch of photo's from our recent Spanish Holiday, and they're available on Flickr as usual...or as a slideshow if you prefer.

The photo's are from two different cameras - mine and my Dads, and the difference in quality between the Digital and Digital SLR is massive in some shots! Details on the bottom right of each photo screen;

We bought Abigail various toys whilst on holiday including a Baby Walker from my parents which we brought home with us!! Another of these was a rubber football which she loved to chase around the villa on her hands and knees doing her infamous sniper crawl. I couldn't help but notice on one of the photos how much her kicking pose resembles that of Beckham's when lining up a free-kick....!!

"We're all off to sunny spain...."

"We're all off to sunny spain...."
Originally uploaded by Beebop Alula

Abigail ended up with her own seat between me and Jen on the way here, as plane wasn't full. The pic is of her buckled up (attached to my seat belt) ready for take off. The whole flight thing didn't seem to bother her at all. She was awake the whole time taking it all in.

Happy Birthday Jefna

Happy Birthday Jefna
Originally uploaded by Beebop Alula

Chilling in a bar on Javea Beach, Spain having a Birthday drink with Jen. Glass is definitely half full :-)

High Brow Business Lunch

Bezzy mates Abigail and Amber met at the South Beach pub last Friday evening to discuss business....

Abigail: "So we've called this meeting to hold a telephone auction of that particular toy"

Amber: "I will now consult my buyers guide to see what we can expect for this most sought after item..."

Amber: "According to this we should expect to receive at least a couple of grand for it. Can you believe it?! I mean look at it...!"

Abigail: "Seems a lot like. I'll get straight on the blower and see what we can get for it"

(10 minutes, and a dozen phone calls later...)

Abigail: "5op!!! Can you believe that! The cheeky ****"

Amber: "WHAT! I'd rather throw it away than let it go for that!"

.....

Abigail: "Right are you going to the bar or am I...?!"

The 3rd love of my life and a post without Abigail in it!

A mate (cheers Ian) offered me a last minute ticket to the biggest football match of the year for Newcastle - the local 'Tyne, Wear Derby" against Sunderland.

Although I've got season tickets in my name, I sell them on each year (for a number of reasons) and don't really get to the match much as a result. This was actually my first game of the season.

Turned out to be a good game, mainly because Owen scored so early and that was all my nerves settled. Final score was 2-0 to Newcastle for anyone that doesn't know......and if you didn't know - Shame on you!!

More Photo's Here

Seperated at Birth

Wordy from Look & Read (Means nothing unless you're a school child of the early 80's!)

Abigail's bath time

Better Late Than Never!

Back in December of last year whilst out doing some last minute Christmas shopping we walked past one of those mobile professional photographers in a local shopping centre. We had time to spare, so thought what the hell, and for once Abigail wasn't covered head to toe in baby food!

It's only taken me 3 months to get the resulting photos uploaded!.....blame too much PS3 time and not enough blog time!!!

Can't believe how quickly she's changing at the minute. I'll have to get some recent photos uploaded, along with a video of Abigail's version of crawling...!

Hoody Culture

'Aboo' as she's now come to be known, just at times has bother written all over her face! At the minute, with those two bottom teeth she has the look of a cartoon dog...I just can't decide which one; Gnasher (Dennis the Menace's partner in crime) or an upside down Goofy (the Disney Dog)..!

And so it begins/ends....

Abigail had her first day at Nursery today, which meant it was also Jen's first day back at work and the end of her 9 months Maternity Leave.
Jen's been taking her for introductory days over the last few weeks to get used to the people and new environment etc, so when it came to saying goodbye this morning Jen was kind of accustomed to it. I went along this morning too, and I have to say I found it a lot harder than I expected! Don't get me wrong the nursery is really spot on and I can't fault the place but it just felt really strange saying goodbye for the day - heart wrenching I think is the phrase.
Anyway Abigail had a good day and according to her daily diary/report (!!) they think she'll settle in no bother :o)
Out little girl is growing up...!!

Not Strictly A Concert

Jen is massively into the 'Strictly Come Dancing' series that are now an anual event on BBC1. So when they announced there was to be a tour, she was mad keen to go as you can imagine...!

As a kind of extended Christmas pressie I managed to get us some of the floor side seats - 3 rows from the front when the show came to Newcastle Arena last month. It was certainly the strangest 'gig' I've ever been to and I've just gotten round to putting the photo's online....

Fame Again

I took the photo on the left in September 2006 whilst at the Robbie Williams concert at Hampden Park, Glasgow. It was uploaded to Flickr as with most of my photos and then gradually forgotten about, - or so I thought...


Got an e-mail completely out of the blue from someone at Schmap a few weeks back to say they'd like to use the Hampden Park pic. Schmap basically do online dynamic travel guides and this one was obviously intended for Glasgow. I gave them permission to use the photo as let's be honest by putting it on the web I was leaving it open to be used anyway, and I thought it was actually nice to be asked.


Then just before Christmas they e-mailed again to say thanks for the photo and provided details of where it could be seen online, - HERE. (The page takes a couple of seconds to fully display due to the amount of information on it).


(I chose to display the picture with the name of my flickr alias rather than my real name. Obviously not hard to link the two, but I just to prefer posting on the web that way).

Flawless

We've got a Laminate floor in our living room, which although is ideal when you've got pets and is great for keeping clean - it's not ideal for a growing baby who's trying to crawl and often takes a tumble! I spotted something which looked ideal in a friends flickr pages and then set about sourcing one on eBay.

There are 36 pieces (A-Z and 0-9) and each is 12" square and made of foam. Abigial loves it and we're now a lot more relaxed when she's chucking hereself around the floor! One day she'll even be able to jump around and spell her name on it....

Christmas Coke

Coca-Cola advertise right at the top of the famous corner screens in Piccadilly Circus, London and over the Festive Period they gave people the opportunity to send in a message for friends or family which they would display on the screen.

They then send an e-mail informing of the 15 slot when your message will appear. Best of all, for people that can't get to Piccadilly Circus to see their message in person - there was a webcam in place producing Live Feed to their website. I managed to catch a shot of our message... :o)