Rachel, Owen and Kathryn

Kate shows off her muscles helping out in the garden. Indoors she continues to enjoy climbing into boxes and covered spaces, and loves making a home out of her igloo-style tent: she even takes my hand to drag me inside too. A teacher friend tells me this is an 'enveloping schema' - in which case the cats are very postally inclined too. Her favourite word at the moment is Ma! (Taken over from Da!) Yesterday she apparently said two words when she pointed at a picture and asked Who da?

A typical conversation with Katy at 1 year (+ 3 weeks) might go something like this: Katy, what does a cow say? Mmmm! What does a dog say? Ufff! What does the clock say? BAH! Oh, are you off then Katy? Bye! The clock question perhaps needs some explanation. We have a chiming clock on the wall in the kitchen, and since we try to eat a family meal at 5:45 she always notices the 6 o'clock bongs - and even anticipates them. As the clock makes its little whirring noise a minute before striking, Katy already chimes in with an enthusiastic BAH! In the picture: a chocolate icecream and a ride on the light railway in Markeaton Park (with Derby grandparents) turned out to be a real hit.

Model wears DiziDays by Clarkes (size 4G) shot on location in a Gatley garden. The nursery staff told us Katy has been taking lots more steps by herself, and appropriately enough she chose a foot-measuring, shoe-buying visit to John Lewis to demonstrate her ability to walk all over the shop. On the way home I found my phone seems to have developed an echo: I finished a call in the traditional manner and heard another little voice say 'bye', in exactly the same intonation.

Katy displays her ingenuity and increased confidence on her feet by squeezing into an inaccessible (so we thought) corner.

Who says toys have to be complicated and expensive? We made a wendy house out of the box the new car seat came in and filled it with loads of little plastic balls from Asda (£5 for a sack of 'em). It was carefully designed with a front door, a round window, a square window, and a sort of serving hatch at the back. Katy made a very different assessment, however, and decided the hatch was a suitably challenging alternative entrance. Here she is, already half-way through. Her gross motor skills are actually better than appear in this video, which was made at the end of a tiring day (very noticeable how babies' co-ordination fails as they get tired), but you'll hear her linguistic skills in evidence at the end.

And she is a one, too ... she's just started saying "ta" if we give her something desirable (like a large blackberry) in a disarmingly charming way. To say I don't know where the year has gone would be a cliche, but I did find myself yesterday reliving some still very vivid memories of giving birth . The feeling of a small, warm, fuzzy haired thing being put on my tummy is one which will never fade. We both had to go to work on her actual birthday, but we had lots of fun the day before. Her cousins joined us for a family day out to what was billed as a 'teddy bears' picnic' organised by the East Lancashire Railway , which turned out to be a cross between a traditional village fete and Phoenix Nights . The promised steam train broke down, but at least we didn't get rained on. We visited the Leicester grandparents on Sunday and will see the Derby grandparents next Sunday. My first day in my new role went well, and I'm wondering if a pattern is emergi