Sam goes swimming

... for all of 5 minutes as we didn't want to tempt fate! He seemed to like it (in that he didn't cry!).

Tristan loved swimming as always but had an extra idea to try out - walking on water (having been taken to church that morning and doing the story of Jesus walking on the water!). It's his second classic line that week after me over-hearing him via the baby monitor calmly inform a sleeping Samuel that he was about to have his nails cut - I didn't know I could move that fast!

Samuel is 7 (weeks old)

Yes he is seven weeks old now and loosing that screwed up new-born look and starting to enjoy the world a bit - this is the best smile I've managed to capture (I really had to work for it off camera!):

With Tristan getting into the erm  swing of things (first trip to the playground)

 Ok the jury's out as to whether this is a cute thing to do to children, but here they are as 'twins' or not

 Tristan (whose idea it was) rebelled and was wearing other clothes by 9am, but perhaps this opens the way for a whole range of dressing ideas (can I get them in Manu's size too?!)!

Sam meets grandma

Grandma came to visit  (/cleaning bootcamp!). During the whole two seeks there was only one day without rain so we managed to get out to a farm. Here they are posing on a jeep.

It looked fun so I climbed on too (plus we don't get many opportunities to pose for a 'four of us' picture!)

Tristan went one better and also got a pony ride. Sam had his own thrills as we tried out our new sling (too sleep deprived to be sure we understand it and he wont fall out - we'll revisit it another day!)

European cup..?

This is from Tristan's weekly football...

He's very enthusiastic and perhaps professional football would be more interesting with a bit of an assault course on the pitch!

Jubilee

 Manu bucked the French republican trend by helping to organise our jubilee street party. I have been laughing at him a lot for this particularly the amount of bunting and union jacks he has now put up!

All in all about 200 people came a long and it went really well - I even won the bingo competition (a keyring) which was all very exciting and more than made up for our atrocious performance on the 'everything to do with the queen' quiz!

Manu was on the main committee as well as the sports sub-committee and the treasurer! This meant that he was responsible for building one of the games ('Olympic rings') - he did this during his paternity leave (not what I was wanting him to be doing but it did look good!).

Tristan and Grandma made a crown for the 'decorate a crown' competition - he was a runner up.

Here Tristan is dancing with Evie on the stage, Sam slept through it all despite all the old ladies coming over to admire him and get told the birth story!

Samuel starts to wake up

Samuel is now just over a month old and is starting to be more awake and engaged in everything. He is trying to smile too (but never round a camera).

He is very different to Tristan - generally more contented but a lot more gassy - our major preoccupation is with trying to get wind up and (or down) - it's even become something of a competition as to who can achieve the loudest burp!

 Sleep is still not great but he is managing on average 3 hour stints and every 2-3 days surprises us with 5 hour stint (which normally leaves me awake wishing he would wake up so I can feed him). Latest weigh-in 11lbs 7 ozs or 5.2 kilos.

Sam (meets papi and mami)

Papi and mami came for a week with an agenda of meeting their new grandson (our agenda was good food and cheap labour).

Mami was great at getting him to sleep...

Papi was funny as he was more than happy to have a cuddle but the second Sam cried he would desperately look for someone to off-load him on.

Here's a few are photos of our increasingly awake boy!

Lawn!

We have worked out that with Samuel and Tristan's tag team tactic of needing us, diy and progress of any kind is a thing of the past. So we took advantage of mami and papi's visit and the better adult to child ratio to do the lawn.

We had to re-rotivate as it had turned to clay since we last did it.

It was a boiling hot day (yes there was one person full time on watering can duty - we hate the hosepipe ban!)

Getting to nearly done...

and the finished product viewed from the patio

- and from the end of the garden.

More firsts

This is probably a bit of a guilt page for not including more about Tristan. He also has had some first in the last few weeks...

First tree climbed (not easy in wellies)

First competitive race at the preschool he goes to on a Friday morning - he came second (out of three!).

First full meal of mussels

...and first French lessons. He now has 3 hours of French a week to de-anglicise him and try and get him to say something more than 'oui' and 'non' (a lot) . I think the thing that made him enthusiastic was all the kit (the cap, sweatshirt and especially the pencil case!). PS don't magnify this as you would see he has a black eye from falling over (the black eye is another first) of course with Sam its at prime time for seeing health professionals which I think was my first reaction rather than concern!