Anita & Kai - our first visitors!

Well, obviously I wasn't around when this one was taken. Mummy and Daddy went out with Kai's mummy (Anita) and we didn't even know about it because we were already tucked up in bed! They are in the cockatail lounge of the Intercontinental where mummy and daddy stayed on their honeymoon. It has a great view of Hong Kong as it is on the Kowloon-side. Apparently. Looks well boring to me- not a plastic toy in sight and everything just looks too clean. Glad I didn't go in the end...

This is mummy reading Kai and I some bedtime stories. Kai has got some really good books and left me a couple of DVDs (High 5 and the Wiggles). That's us watching it in front of that big telly of Dad's I was telling you about. I was so excites about watching it I wasn't even wearing clothes at the time or anything! In front of a boy as well.

This is me and Kai again, this time in my bed. Actually I didn't mind him being in there, he's really nice and even though he's older than me and can walk and stuff, actually he was very kind to me and we shared all of our toys. Mummy tells me we are all going to go on holiday together at Christmas and I really hope I can walk too! The last one is me being cuddled in the pool with Anita and Kai. I love my orange rubber duck, and sometimes when I squeeze it bathwater shoots out of its bottom. It's hillarious!

Our new home...

This place is great! Not only do I get my own room, this brilliant high chair I can sit at and make loads of mess at... check out the telly! It's made of plasmoids or something and is superskill for watching Tellytubbies, High 5 or the Wiggles on. The only down side is that because it's such a boy's toy, Daddy gets a bit annoyed with me when I put the remote in my mouth when I am eating my rusks. Mummy's tried to tell him to chill out and wipe all the dried-in rusk off with a baby wipe, but I think I am going to try and stop doing it even though it feels nice at the time.

This is a picture of me and Daddy down at the pool. I love swimming, I learned how to do it when I was on my last holiday in Martinique. Mummy made up a song called 'Swimming like a Fish' about me because I love the water so much. I've got this trick at the moment where I put my face in the water and try and drink but through my nose. It doesn't work, I don't know why. And it makes me cough. Actually it's a rubbish trick, I don't know why I do it come to think of it.

Our new flat has a nice view too. You can see the sea and all the lovely mountains I was telling you about. The best things about it are the playroom where I can hang out with my nanny, Edith, and all the other children that love here. So far I have made friends with Isabella who is the same age as me and her nanny is called Wilma. Wilma is a friend of Edith's and they both sing in the same choir on Sundays at St Anne's church in Stanley. Also there is a little French boy called Pierre and his nanny is called Marilyn. Pierre's a bit naughty and a real live wire- and he's about 16 months old. Mummy has met his parents and she says they are a very nice couple too. I think we're going to like living here.

Sundays at Gymboree!

Every Sunday since we've been here I have been going to the baby crawlers class at Gymboree and it's brilliant. There are loads of other children the same age as me and we get to play with the great toys andstuff they have there. Usually we do singing and dancing and then they get the bubble-making machine out and we get to pop the bubbles! I think my favourite bit though is when they get the parachute out (it's the thing I am sat on in the photo) and we make this tent thing like a hot air baloon and we all go inside it. A lot of the other babies tend to hang around their mums or cry sometimes, but I love it. I just wander off on my own and climb over people.

The boy behind me in the photo is called Lachlan. He was my friend, along with another boy called Dominic and even though they were big one year olds, I was still chasing after them and climbing over them. I think they were a bit scared of me. Anyway, it turns out they got the last laugh as they can both walk now and are in the bigger class. So now I am practising myself how to walk so I can be in their class. Another funny thing that happens there is that I get a badge with my name written on it every week, but even so the teachers still call me 'Lula'. I mean, it's an OK name but I never thought so many people would find my name so difficult. Grandad Welsh still calls me Lola and he's known me for ten months now!

Move to Hong Kong June 2005

For the first couple of weeks when we moved to Hong Kong, we lived in a serviced apartment in Old Peak Road. If you don't know Hong Kong, then let me explain it's live an island that is one big mountain that is made up of lots of smaller mountains. The top of one of the mountains is called 'The Peak' and we've been up there a couple of times because you get a great view of the Hong Kong skyline from there. So this place we were living was about 3/4 of the way up the peak and to go even to the supermarket you had to descend and then climb back up again. I didn't care because I was in my puschair, but I noticed mummy sweating and panting quite a bit! Also it's very humid and hot right now as it's rainy season, and believe me, when it rains it RAINS!!! The road outside our apartment block was like a river flowing! So for the first couple of weeks we had to stay in most of the time, which wasn't so bad as mummy wasn't working and so we just used to put my French nursery rhymes on or watch daytime TV. We also used to go to the indoor shopping malls quite alot: I didn't really enjoy it but mummy is like a demon posessed when the sales are on. I think she should buy shares in Marc Jacobs!

This is us down at the swimming pool in Hillsborough Court. It was a nice sunny day and it was good that daddy wasn't working for once. After the pool, we went to Gymboree and then that evening we walked up Old Peak road all the way up to the Peak! Daddy pushed me, and I kept very quiet as it looked really hard work so I appreciated the fact he was pushing me rather than making me get out and crawl. I don't think I could have managed it. They said it was fantastic excercise and actually when we got to the top the views over Victoria Harbour we're pretty amazing so I think we'll probably do it again sometime.

Relative values...

Here are some pictures of me with some of my family...

This is me with my Grandad Welsh. I stayed with him and Grandma in Southampton for a week just before we cam out to Hong Kong. I loved being there, they had this brilliant mirror on the floor that I could look into and see this really cute baby that used to laugh at me all the time.

In the next photo is Gramdma Welsh, she was lovely and made me really nice dinners with like potatoes all mashed up with mince stew. I think she used to make the same for my mummy when she was a little girl and lived in that house. While I was there, Auntie Gigi cam over from Ireland too, and then Uncle Danny came home as well. It was brilliant to see everyone.

This is me with Auntie Gigi when I was just a newborn baby. We went over to see her in Donegal when I was only about two months old so I don't really remember it much. I was still in that stage where I only drank milk and used to sleep quite alot. While I was there I met my cousin Daniel and Gigi's fiance, Joe. It was great to meet them all.

This photo was taken only a few days after I was born. Granny & Pops Binnion flew over from England especially as soon as they found out I was born. I was born when they were on holiday in Italy, and they were sat in Sofia Square when my daddy called them. That's one of the reasons my middle name is Sophie. My full name is Fionnuala Sophie Teresa, the Teresa part is after my Great Granny Greene who died about a month before I was born and so I never got to meet her.

This picture is also of when I was a newborn. I was probably about a week old when this was taken. My Grandma Welsh came over to help my mummy look after me for a couple of weeks when I was first born. I think looking after babies is probably hard work, but my mum seems to have a lot of people to help her.

My Family

This is a picture of me with my Mummy. It was taken when we were on holiday in Martinique and it's the first time I had ever been in the sea. It was brilliant! I loved being on holiday and having mummy and daddy all to mself all day long. I still wasn't crawling properly at this stage, which I think mummy and daddy were glad about because they could just put me in the shade and not worry too much about me getting into too much trouble...

This is another cute photo of me with my Daddy. This was also when we were on holiday in Martinique. That was in mid-April just before he moved out to Hong Kong. It was nice to get away for a few weeks and it was my first holiday in the sun. I played on the beach, swam in the little plunge pool outside our room and slept without pyjamas on for the first time too!

Coucou les Amis!

Hello to my old friends in Paris!

This is a picture of me with my old nanny, Fati. I used to share Fati with my friend Anna, who is next to me sat on her mummy Geraldine's lap. That's our old living room.

This is a picture of me with my Daddy in the Tuileries which is the park in front of the Louvre. It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon in the Spring.

Living in Paris was great. We lived right in the centre, not far from the Louvre and the old Opera house. Fati took Anna and I on some great walks throught the Tuileries and Palais Royal. It was a nice apartment too, but there was only one bedroom so I had to sleep in with my mummy and daddy. Now I have my own bedroom here in Hong Kong I miss being able to wake them up early in the morning. I think they pretend they can't hear me now, and usually I just go back to sleep.

I did start to pick up some French while I was there, and I still love listening to my French nursery rhymes. My favourites songs are Pirouette-Cacahuete, Au Feu les Pompiers and Il Etait un Petit Navire. Maybe one day I'll go back, I am half-French after all!

Hi Peeps!

Family and friends....

Just thought I would put this blog together so that you could see what I am up to in my new life in Hong Kong.

I have been here about six weeks now, we moved out here from Paris (where I was born) and so far I think it's pretty good fun.

I'm just over ten months old, I love swimming, eating, dancing and listening to music. I am also very cheeky (or so my Daddy tells me) and have four teeth which I have recently discovered are great for biting my rusks or my cot with. My best friends are Brian the Big Brown Bear which I got for Christmas, and Doudou that my Auntie Kerrie gave me when I was one of those newborn type babies that are really small and can't really do anything.

Please come back and check on these pages regularly so you can see how I am doing and how I am growing.

Bye for now!