6 months old - the start of monthly reviews

Soooooo - you're maybe wondering where we've been - it's been a while since we blogged, and there's PLENTY to tell you all about.

Dad decided that weekly blogging was a mug's game, so from here on in it'll be monthly updates
- so strap yourself in for a bumper issue!

First up, Mum's still introducing us to all sorts of 'music' - and we still LOVE it.
To celebrate our favourite genre we got all dressed up in the t-shirts Dad's mate Paul gave us:


(this was when we were listening to Magic FM - it was a Queen special!)

Next up, Evie's started to 'laugh'. The funniest thing about this is that Evie doesn't actually realise how funny it is. And there's nothing better at the end of the day for putting a smile on your face than listening to this:



Towards the end of the day, we now take a 'bath' together. This is brilliant fun. Evie's has learned how to splash the water, and Joe has learned how to poo in there too.



On the food front, Mum has started feeding us outside when the sun's out. Here we are sporting the next line of "Jackson Headgear" that M+D continue to fashion out of other bits of clothing (see previous entry of http://theadventuresofjoeandeviejackson.blogspot.com/2008/03/11-weeks-old-its-all-about-joe.html)




(according to Cosmopolitan magazine the muslin is this year's 'must have' accessory)

We've also been to another fesitval - this one was Latitude in Suffolk, and this time we made our own music with instruments that Nana Linda brought back from Brighton.

We had an audience of 3.
(which Dad says was only marginally worse than some of the bands on stage)

The phone hasn't exactly been ringing off the hook, but we're sure our first single will be on YouTube soon.



Oh, and Joe had to take Iggle Piggle with him - for moral support or something.



Finally, we just can't stop being cute. This is all very well and good, but Dad's getting a little tired of endlessly running into the house for the camera when we do anything remotely photoworthy.

Baby hoodie anyone?

26 weeks old - 6 months!! and our first holiday

Lord Belborough and Brackett may well have thought that time flies by when you're the driver of a train (there's a test for you...), but I bet they didn't figure on how fast time flies when you're a pair of twins in PB.

6 months already - and only a few scars to show for it.

This week to celebrate our anniversary (we don't know the word for a half yearly celebration) M+D took us to Brighton on holiday.

We met loads of M+D's friends (Marv Jo Rosie & George, Lara, Katie & Lyla, Paul, Michelle, Darren Sophie & Charlie, and our cousins Fiona Eric Louis & Samuel) but one of the highlights was having our photos taken by Dad's mate Paul, who is a professional photographer (check out his website at blueturtlestudio)

here's a selection of his handiwork:











And to finish off - here's two of our shots:

From Dad "Confusious say: Yes it will frickin fit":



From Mum: "Supersonic ducks":

25 weeks old - in OUR night garden

"Yes our names are Joe & Evie, Evie-weevie-evie-weevie-evie
Yes our names are Joe & Evie, Evie-weevie-evie-weevie-woo!"

The sun came out in PB this week, so we decided to get back to nature and take in the sights and smells of our garden.

And imagine our surprise when we had a few visitors....

Isn't that a pip!

(did you spot the Pontipines? - how many?)

24 weeks old - our first birthday party

No, not ours you numpty, we mean the first one we've attended

Cousin Lucy was 2 this week, so we asked M+D to drive us up to Rutland to see her and the rest of our family.

First off we dropped in on Great Grandad to say hi.
...and Evie suffered her first embarrassing photoshoot....



So we made a sharp exit and headed off to see Lucy.

Grandma and Grandad were desperate to get a photo of us all together - you can see how successful they were in getting our attention...



Finally, Evie and Lucy had their first bonding experience as the new breed of Jackson girls:

23 weeks old - weaning begins in earnest

Well we don't know anyone called earnest, but by golly we love this green crap that M+D are serving up.





We started eating from a 'spoon' over a week ago with some fairly boring baby rice - man it beats sucking on those ruddy latex teats anyday. This week Mum brought out the interesting gear. Peas are our new best friends.

Plus we can spread it all over ourselves, the chairs, the cat, eachother - keeps us entertained for hours watching M+D chasing around wiping stuff up.

(a taste of things to come no doubt)

22 weeks old - ants in our pants

Things are beginning to look up.

We used to think that there wasn't much to do during the day except stare at the ceiling, dribble and poop our pants.

How wrong we were.

'Legs' it turns out are quite exciting - and have been keeping us amused all week.

Joe:
I'm rather partial to tapping out an imaginery tune with my leg:

Evie:
A couple of weeks ago you saw pictures of me in the door bouncer. Well here's footage of me in the exo-saucer doing a similar dance routine:

Roll on school discos!

21 weeks old - our first festival and market

Now you all know that M+D are hippies at heart, and love nothing more than a good festival and market (Cider and falafel are obligatory at each).

This week they introduced us to both, but don't get all excited just yet...

Always being inclined to support local events, they took us to the Rickmansworth Festival of Waterways and Boating - it was the 'highlight' of Ricky Week....
(Joe shat himself he got so excited).

Actually it was good fun, there was live music, skinny dogs on bits of string, men in grubby coats, and cheap cider.



And from there, they took us from the sublime to the ridiculous (or at least mildly bizarre) - Camden Lock market - where we had a walkabout.

It was great, there was live music, skinny dogs on bits of string, men in grubby coats, and cheap cider.....



And finally this week, at Mum's behest, here's Evie sporting the latest in "Hello Kitty Haute Couture"...

20 weeks old - Evie gets her groove going, and we all went to the park

"Dancing Queen, young and sweet only 19 weeeeeeks!...."

"I'm in the mood for dancin, and dribblin', I'm gonna fill up my pants tonight..."

Yes - this week I learned I love to dance - so much so in fact that I have to shout very very loudly when I do it to let everyone know.

Here I am in the bouncer. Dad had some awesome video footage of me doing this, but he's managed to nadger it up on the camera, so you'll have to imagine these 3 photos moving (click on them to make them bigger).



Also this week we went to a 'park'. They're green and full of other babies and stuff.

Grandpa Michael and Nana Tami came too (but they're not babies) and we all had ice creams (well they did, we had milk, again).

19 weeks old - God bless the babies!

This week we got officially blessed by Rabbi Katz at the Hendon Reform Synogogue.

Here's the invitation that was sent out:



We're not sure what blessings mean, but it gave M+D the chance to dress us up in a posh frock and proper shirt!





Afterwards we went to Great Nana Trudy's for tea.

18 weeks old - Joe rolls over!

Watch out world, here I come!!!

Whilst Evie's using her massive eyelashes and cheeky chops to attract attention and get what she wants, I've devised a much more cunning plan - I'm gonna get moving and get it myself!

Step one - learn to roll over onto my front (this took a while):

Step two - ahh well you see, this is where the plan falls over somewhat cos once I'm over I can't actually do much except suck the floor....

"waaaaaaaaaaah - Daaaaaad!"

(more on my plan as it develops....)

17 weeks old - Potters Bar Fashion Week

STRIKE A POSE!

fash•ion•ista /fnist/ noun (used especially in newspapers) a fashion designer, or a person who is always dressed in a fashionable way.

...the following evidence proves that we're both well on our way to catwalk heaven.

Our personal fashion designer and dresser (M+D in that order) think that they've discovered a couple of new looks that they hope will be sweeping the shows in Milan, Paris and New York in no time:

1) Evie's homage to 70s kitsch - and obviously a tribute to Mum's peculiar addiction:



2) Joe's re-interpretation of the classic James Herriot pre-war vet look from All Creatures Great and Small:


"'Oh, Mr. Herriot,' Mrs. Pumphrey said, looking at her pet anxiously. 'I'm so glad you've come. Tricki has gone flop-bott again."

16 weeks - toys are us!

Everyone knows that Dad loves his gadgets (yawn) - well sadly we seem to have caught his bug already.

The good news is that we're limiting our geekery to toys and baby devices for now.

This week we realised that 'Donkey' and 'Cow' that George and Rosie bought us are actually TOTALLY GENIUS!

We have now figured out how to hold them, how to suck their faces off, and how to drop them over the side of our chairs (this is the best bit cos Dad has to get off his fat ass and pick them up!)



...and the bells that are hidden in their legs ROCK - man we could shake those for hours.

Next up is something called a BUMBO - well frankly we don't care what it's called - it's purple, it's rubbery and it makes us sit up in it all by ourselves.

Here's Joe drooling over it, Dad suspects that one day Joe will host "Pimp my Bumbo" for MTV.


"mmm, smoooooth - but it could do with some flames up the side and a nice fat spoiler"

Evie's just happy to be sitting up on her own:



Finally this week, Evie has found out that she's got more than one volume level, and has developed her own language.


"waaa weeeahh weeeeaarrrp peeeep"
= "OI! get the milk out you numpty - I'm dying over here!"

15 weeks - it's all about evie

Regular readers will know that Evie was born with a cleft lip - which requires a major operation, general anaesthetic and 4 days in hospital - doesn't get much worse for a 3 month old baby.

Here's her story...

I went into hospital on Sunday (Addenbrookes in Cambridge). It's like a big house but with more lights, louder corridors, more people, and no cats.

Here's how I looked the day before my operation.



On Monday morning Dad took me down to theatre and a blue man put a mask on my face and then I zzzzzzzzzzzz.......

(Dad's note: this was actually the worst part of the whole experience. If you're taking your baby in for a general anaesthetic then prepare yourself for the trauma of seeing them go under by gas - it caught me off guard)

...and then the purple rabbit hopped away and I was left on my cloud eating raspberries.

Oh, you're back. So I woke up about 3 hours later quite happy because of something called 'morphine' - man I gotta get me a stash of that stuff.

The rest of the day I spent snoozing - all of the nurses told M+D what a superstar I'd been, and that they had never seen anyone be so relaxed or hardly cry - well all I can say is when you're as high as I was it's difficult to do much more than grin at pretty much anyone who cares to look at you.

Here's how I looked the next morning.



Then I tried some more smiling and a bit of gurgling, but something in my lip was getting in the way of my normal smile, so I freaked out for quite a while, and sounded a little weird.

There was also something called nasal stents up my nose to help reshape my nostrils, which were a total drag and make it really really hard to eat.

All of this made me wanna scream....so I did. Quite a lot.... for the next 5 days....

Some other drugs helped me to calm down from time to time, but Mum really deserves an award for being the person who seemed to be able to sooth me the best. Dad and Ruth (my new maternity nurse friend) also helped me to relax.

Joe was no help whatsoever (I've logged that for future reference).

Thankfully the stents came out a week later...but it hasn't stopped me screaming just yet

Here's how I look now:



So all in all everything went amazingly well, if you're interested in more details ask M+D - it's really been quite a week so I'm going to sleep now.

where's that morphine when you need it ......zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

14 weeks old - food glorious food! (well milky milk anyway)

Now we're sure you'll all remember Oliver Twist's dilemma:
"Please Sir, I want some more..."

Well, in this house we ain't got time for pleasantries - and we've figured out if we open our lungs the milky stuff just keeps on a-comin'!

This week Dad was forced to take emergency action - picture the scene - Mum sleeping soundly after yet another day (and night) of dealing with us, it's 5am in the morning and we're feeling a little peckish - we could handle an amuse bouche of lactose...

"Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-aaaah-aaaaa-aaah..."

Ten seconds later:



Ten minutes later:



Mission accomplished... "buuuurp"

After that we needed some entertainment, so Dad called on our new best friend "Morning Bird" - he's kinda like Big Bird, but not as big...or yellow...or annoying

He even manged to fly into one of our photos:

13 weeks old - Sun, Sea, Sand, and....Snow? (oh, and cardigans)

First of all, HAPPY EASTER to all our readers!

This weekend we went down to Nana Linda's house in the country.

M+D did were a bit worried about something called the 'weather' but frankly there ain't much gonna stop us from guzzling our milky milk or pooping sideways out of our pants - so we were pretty excited about seeing somewhere new.

Apart from the obvious stuff like being passed around various members of the family, we also experienced 3 new very cool things.

On Friday we went to Southwold and saw the 'sea' which was very noisy and wet (not unlike Joe in the bath), and sand - which was gritty and yellow (not unlike the contents of one of Evie's special nappies).



there was also plenty of wind (...no comment).

On Saturday and Sunday we saw something called 'snow' (which is kinda like a frozen version of the milk spit that we make when we sneeze during a feed).



And because of all the cold, wind, wet, snow and general wintery-ness, we also experienced our first Radio 2 moment - M+D put us in cardigans.

(we actually love them - and mucho gracias to Sheila and Nick for getting them for us)

12 weeks old - let's get a sense of perspective here!

Now we'd be the first to admit that M+D are normally pretty good behind the lens of the ol' box brownie, but recently they've taken some snaps that haven't exactly been flattering to either of us.

So, given that we're now 3 months old - and plenty of people are asking M+D how we're doing, how big are we - etc etc, we thought we'd show you good people two shining examples of how NOT to take a baby photo.

In second place - courtesy of Mum's mobile phone - is Evie doing her Gulliver's Travels impression..



She's actually a bit bigger than that - it's just a big chair.

First place goes to Dad's frankly bizarre pic of Joe - doing a strange mixture of Kenny Everett meets Jeremy Beadle in the hand department.

Look quickly at this one and tell us it didn't either make you laugh or freak out:



...and just for the record Joe's hands are indeed the same size.

We think we should all be thankful that Dad hasn't gotten around to taking the photos he's be threatening to take of us next to household objects so that readers can "get a sense of perspective"

Kodak's slogan used to be "You press the button, we do the rest"
We say "Not in this house you don't!"

sigh.

[oh, and finally, slightly off topic, but just to really round things off...

Here's one of Evie in her car seat at Great Nana Trudy's house.....]

11 weeks old - it's all about Joe

Me, me, me, me, me.

This week Joe hogs the limelight, although to be fair only because Evie spent a lot of time sleeping. And we're sure she'll get her own back soon.

Scene 1: - In which I score my first chick (and my sister wasn't even looking)
So here I am, with my ladeeez in da club - Evie on the right, Athene on the left, she's one of our new friends (check out her blog from our links on the right).

I went for the old "yawn and sneak the arm around the shoulder routine" - she never noticed - I'm definitely in there.


"Yo bartender - wassup - gimme another bottle of Cristal and 3 Hennessey chasers"

Scene 2: My new Personal Assistants George and Rosie
Here I am with more new friends who like to do lots of things for me. So far they've pushed me in the swing, stroked my head, and generally made sure I'm ok. They also didn't drop me which was a bonus. For that I saved up my poop until Dad took me back off them.

I could get used to this PA malarkey.


Scene 3: The new man in the hat
Now I have no idea what JazzFunk is, nor do I know "how to get down" or "take it to the bridge", but I do know a good makeshift hat when i see one.

Here I am in my latest invention - the sleepsuit beany.

"On yer bike Jamiroquai, there's a new space cowboy in town."