look who's talking

So we have an unsurprisingly chatty baby.

And her favourite Disney story is 'Beauty and the Beast', just like her mamma.

hello and thank you

Just a little video from Anna and myself to say thank you for all of the lovely gifts and cards we've received. She is a very lucky girl.

I also wanted to make sure we could say a proper hello to all of the grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts and uncles, as I know that we can't usually get to Skype or Facetime very easily due to the time difference.

Much love,
Ally and Anna xxxxx

anna looks like...

So Anna is a very interesting mixture of everyone in the family it seems. Forehead, chin, cheeks, cheekbones, hands, feet, eyes, nose, skin.

What I have discovered is that she looks like me when she smiles...

...and like Luke when she frowns.

Clever girl.

Ally xx

anna and nonna...

Hi everyone,

Photos of Anna and Anna only in this post [thanks for the suggestion Bronte]...

So I've been encouraging Nonna to talk to Anna in Italian all the time. It happens in about 10 second bursts. Then she goes back to English or clapping at her. Or banging cups. Something to get her attention. Anything to get her attention. It's genetic though, because Nonnina [Domenica] does the same thing.

Ladies, she's a month old. Bright lights, Daddy's voice and food are the only three things she turns her head to. Sorry :P

Anyway, I think her listening to Italian or being spoken to in Italian would be wonderful. Because it would mean she's learning through osmosis more Italian than I've been able to learn my whole life. Allora.

Things are going well. Ally is keeping a nice routine at home with her during the day and we're both trying to do the same in the evenings so she's nice and settled at night time. Sleeping cycles during the day tend to be 40 minutes then she's up and wanting to explore the world again.

[could probably stitch these two together...]

Anna was 1 month old yesterday and it seems like she's growing more every day that I get back from work. She just about fits 000 clothes. Kind of. If she were to like her clothes baggy. We'll get there. Her feet are too big for 000 things so we'll just leave it at that.

Plan for tomorrow is to try and get a few nice family photos [as in the 3 of us] which in turn we will put up here as well as send to people if they let us know. Which has just reminded me I need to catch up on some emails. All baby-related, of course.

That's all for now,

With love, as always,

Luke x

four weeks old

Anna was four weeks old as of last night, and apart from giving us some gorgeous gassy smiles, making strange squawking noises in her sleep, turning her head when she hears me or Luke speak and finally, finally falling asleep in her pram, she really hasn't done anything extreme yet (and nothing that I can photograph).

Apparently month #2 is the month of real smiles and giggles, so there will be photos! Oh, there will be photos.

Actually I tell a lie, here's a gassy smile pic. Nonna had just asked Anna if she wanted to go to church - at first Anna smiled and made a goo-goo noise, and then she farted.

Just in case you also wanted to see the behind-the-scenes from Luke's photoshoot with Anna from the previous post, I managed to film some for you all.

I hope everyone has had a lovely Easter break. Hopefully we can upload some family photos one weekend soon! She's getting quite chunky pretty quickly, so she's starting to look like a fat little lady now.

Much love,

Ally xx