Appointments, postboxes, photos and birthday preparations

We have had a couple of appointments this week - Jessica had a trip to the dentist on Monday and was very good at sitting in the chair and letting the dentist look at her teeth. The fourth canine is through so she has sixteen teeth in total, all of which look healthy which is good. This morning's appointment was with the paediatrician who was very happy with how Jessica is getting on. She now weighs 10.86kg (23lb 14oz) and is continuing to follow the 25th centile line nicely. Height-wise she seems to be taking after Mummy - she is now 80.6cm tall and is just under the 9th centile for height. Sats were also good today at 85% and we don't need to see the paediatrician again now until April although will continue to have monthly visits from the community nurse and a heart check-up at the end of November.

Jessica's speaking vocabulary is really starting to increase now - we are getting a new word almost every day now - over the last few days we have added 'shoes', 'cheese' and 'food' to the list. She is also starting to copy things that we do - one of our discipline techniques is the three chances technique - it is quite funny to hear Jessica saying 'no' and holding up her finger and saying 'one' although we have to try not to let her see us laughing!

 Daddy got to see Jessica briefly on his birthday as he only got back from Cologne that evening, The next day, we were off to Sunderland for the bank holiday weekend as Daddy was working on the family fun day at the Nissan factory - Jessica quite enjoyed helping him test the racing game. We ticked off a few more gold postboxes on our way back home and have now visited all of the Olympic ones other than the Isle of Man and Sark and are halfway through the Paralympic ones.

Jessica did her first walk into the village and back last week - it is only a few minutes away but seemed a fair distance for her little legs. She absolutely loved being able to walk there with Mummy though (who found that Jessica's walking pace is not too different from hers these days!) and has enjoyed a couple more opportunities to have a longer walk when out and about.

We have now got the photos through from the Charlie Jones' Foundation Book of Love photo shoot and are absolutely delighted with them, thank you so much to Broomhill Photography for such fabulous photos. We have shared a few of our favourites below.

This week is looking to be quite a busy one as we are preparing for Jessica's second birthday on Friday. We can't quite believe that our baby girl is about to turn two already - how time has flown but what a wonderful blessing it has been to watch her grow from a tiny baby to the beautiful happy toddler she is today.