The Whiteboard Story

Taylor has arrived!!!

Taylor Jack Nicholson Davis arrived on Monday the 25th February at 5:59p.m. weighing 7lb 13oz, length 20" at Anderson Hospital, Maryville, Illinois.




Rachael went into Anderson hospital on Sunday night to be induced. They started Rachael off at 7p.m. and within 2 hours the contractions were 1-2 mins apart, so they took her off the drugs and let nature take its own course. She managed to cope with the pain until 5a.m. on Monday morning when she decided to have the epidural as the progress was very slow, only 4cm dilated for 10 hours of work.



At 4p.m. Rachael had some extra pain relief and slept for the last hour and half of the labour. She woke at 5:30 with the urge to push and was told to hold on until the doctor arrived. Within 6 good pushes Taylor came into the world, another boy.


The hospital has a tradition of putting a footprint of every baby born on the wall in the maternity ward. With over a thousand babies born every year you can imagine that there are a lot of little feet all over the place.

After a 2 day stay at the hospital they both came home to a very excited older brother and grandparents. Hugh likes to help out with the baby, giving him books to read and putting his blankets on him. Hopefully they will grow up to be best buddies.

Still Pregnant

The baby was due on the 20th but as usual its still hanging in there - too cold here for it to want to come out (-4).

The end is in sight though, I am going in tonight to be induced - so watch this space!!!!



The tennis ball is for size comparison - what a whale!!!

Lewis and Clark museum

It is quite snowy here at the moment so we went to the Lewis and Clark museum for some indoor entertainment.

The museum is situated near the spot where Lewis and Clark set out on their expidition to discover the west of America. They have a replica of the original fort and Hugh had a great time exploring it. He was most facinated by the melting snow.




Here is a replica of the Keelboat they used to go up the Mississippi river.



Here is grandad playing with Hugh in the snow.

Arrival of the Warringtons

Mum and Dad arrived on Sunday to St Louis to help out with the imminant arrival of their second grandchild. Unfortunately they arrived but their luggage had some time delay issues and didn't get here until the following day.

The first day here was spent with a trip to the airport to retrieve the luggage before going to 'St Louis Mills' one of the big shopping malls for Dad to buy some long johns - its a little chilly here for him.

Here they are with Hugh in one of the department stores that had an outdoors theme.

Valentines Day

Hugh had a great time on valentines day with all of his friends at the 'Bounce House'. The mums club had booked this place for a couple of hours, just long enough for the children to go mad on all of the inflatables whilst the mums gossiped away. We then had a huge buffet where everyone brought a dish with them, we provided butterfly cakes with a velentines theme of love hearts instead of the wings.

St Louis City Museum

Today we went to the St Louis City Museum. We had been recommended it as a great place to take kids and it was amazing. It had lots of tunnels, caves, ladders etc.. for you to go between and on the different floors. It also had a circus, aquarium, hugh slides, massive swings, big art area where it was free to do paint, pottery etc.. and even a little interactive toddler section with a train they could ride on.

This is a shot of the entrance to the museum with a hugh slide on the left going from the top floor to the bottom one. You can make out one of the tubes you can crawl in at the top on the right.



Here is another tube that you can climb up to the next floor and in the distance is a massive sperm whale you can climb through.



Bruce had a great time bringing Hugh down the massive slide that was in the first photo. Here they are in an action film!!!

Zoo

St Louis has a fantastic Zoo in a hugh park area and the best thing about it is its free. We took Hugh there on Saturday afternoon and went to an area specifically for young children. They have lots of smaller animals there and a few that you can pet.

Here is Hugh with 2 very nervous guinee pigs. Hugh had already pulled some of the hair out of one of them.



We also got to watch the polar bear being fed and the pengiun and puffin section is really fun.




Here is one of the tree kangaroos being fed.

Hugh at the park

Hugh is really becoming more adventurous by the day and surprised us on Saturday by going down the slide on his own and going back for more.

Swimming Lessons

After a few weeks of what seems like torture for Hugh he has finally started to like his swimming lessons a bit more. Here he is with his dad singing 'the wheels on the bus'.

Hugh does his chores

Here is Hugh helping to do the washing up!!!

The wierd weather continues.....

After our 8 inches of snow and freezing temperatures the sun came out and yesterday it was 20 degrees celcius. We took the opportunity to sun ourselves and went to the park to have a play and feed the birds.

Here is Hugh feeding the ducks - one seems to have escaped and Hugh tries to catch it.



Hugh enjoying the rare warm weather.

The barbers

Hugh went with his dad to the barbers on Saturday to get his hair 'tidied up'. He was very still for the hairdresser - probobly because he was petrified of falling off the chair - it was a little high.

Valentines Cards

Here is Hugh making some valentines cards for his Nanna and Gi Gi back in England.

Snowed In!!

Woke up this morning to find 8" of snow on the ground and no way of getting the car down our drive - so we were officially snowed in.

Hugh made his first snow angel - see if you can spot it.



Here he is making the angel - not sure about Bruces technique here.



We went over to one of our neighbours, Keith, to borrow a shovel only to discover that they have a snow blower. So he and his 2 sons set to on our driveway and very quickly had it cleared for us. Here they are hard at work;