June 2011.  Coming up nine years old. Behaves like 14.  More energy than a Duracell bunny, mostly focused on stropping about.  Reserves a little for working at school, thankfully.  Loud.

January 2012. Post Christmas and excitment-frenzy. And Abby really can do 'excited', in a way that only a 9-year old can. Too bright for her own boots, majoring on backchat, can't help but wonder how we're going to mould this lunatic into sane adolescence...

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September 2009. Summery stuff, lots of caravan. Abby is actually a real pleasure to be with now - as long as she gets her own way... When she doesn't, it's terrible twos all over again...

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April 2010. Gosh... seven years old. Moving up to Holy Trinity this year. Bright, noisy, grumpy, giggly, cuddly. Everything you'd want of a daughter really. And she (mostly) gets on with Hatty now too...

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September 2008. Abby is a Giraffe. And precocious, noisy, disobedient, prone to tantrums, frustration and general mayhem. And we love her for it.

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March 2009 - just after the best snowfall in years. Still heavily in the High School Musical phase. Less stroppy, more considered, head disappearing in books. Good!

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May 2007. School looms at the end of the summer, and not a moment too soon. We no longer smile at her 'developing personality', we just deal with her 'personality'....

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Dec 2007. Abby has started at our local infant's school, is doing really well with her reading (which she loves) and generally having a lot of fun. Still behaving like a psychotic adolescent mind, but ho hum...

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Oct 2005. Abby has just passed her 3rd birthday and exhausted us both with a series of parties. There is no more demanding a guest than the three year old in search of a 'party bag'

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July 2006. No longer a child, more a small adult with no common-sense and a desire to drive others to distraction by talking, talking more and then doing some more talking. Particularly the 'Why?' word.

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July 2004 Abby is a fully-fledged little girl. And in the last 6 months we've taken her skiing, dragged her around Dorset, various weekends away with friends...and she's (mostly) been a delight

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Feb 2005. The 'character assertion through extreme tantrum' stage. Terrible twos, pah, the only terrible aspect of this is the physical pain Al and I are suffering from stifling our laughter at each bout of raging....

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4 months after I last updated this and about a zillion photos later - aren't digital cameras just wonderful things. I haven't been too discerning about which pictures are here, a quick scan through and 'Yep, that one, that one, that one........'

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As part of the general revamp of the site I'm catching up with this again - and these are pictures from 8-14 months odd. When Abby really started to be a person. And really let you know about it....

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Eight weeks later. Those who ask about the sleepless nights, who tell you your life's going to change for the worse....I have to wonder about their relationship with their children. I don't have superlatives to describe the experience

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Variety of pictures (mostly) taken over Abby's second two months - so these are still vaguely chronological. There's a few of Abby with Harry, her only cousin on the F-G side.

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Some pictures taken within the first day of Abby's existence. I'm surprised any of these came out at all as I hadn't slept for > 50 hours when most of them were taken.

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Pictures taken in Abbys first week. Which was predictably dominated by feeding, nappychanging, screaming and a very small amount of sleeping.