FINALLY……a NEW gallery!

Yes, I have FINALLY pulled my finger out of my wotsits and have put up a new gallery of pictures!

A couple are from our recent trip away but most of them were taken at home over the last couple of weeks!

We’ll put up another post soon with more details about our mini holiday but for now, enjoy the photos!

Isabel12/DSCF0014.jpg Click the photo on the left to go to the gallery.

We’ve got a wee cough

Er, I mean we’ve got a week off. Today (24th October) is Labour Day here in NZ, which means, rather ironically, that everything shuts down for the day and it is a public holiday. To save using my holiday entitlement we therefore decided that we’d take the rest of the week off for a well-deserved break. (Well deserved in our opinion, at least!) We’re planning to go away for a few days and have booked a mini-break in Taupo at the end of the week.

Although we’ve been there before, when we were over here on holiday in 2003, we didn’t spend much time there, so have decided to base ourselves there again and spend some time exploring the area. We plan to test drive the Munchkin carrier to make sure it works successfully and generally spend a few days getting some R&R.

Kate’s been looking in the Rough Guide and has found Taupo’s answer to a British pub. According to the description although it doesn’t look like a British pub it serves a dozen English beers which have travelled well (apparently) and it serves fish ‘n’ chips and an all-day breakfast. Well, it sounds like that’s the food and drink options sorted!!

To crawl or not to crawl….

Well, it’s been just us girls this week and we’ve been pretty busy but still haven’t persuaded Isabel to move forwards!

Monday was a dress fitting and then Sarah and Henry came for lunch – being 2, Henry got a bit restless in the afternoon so we packed up and moved to the park round the corner to let him run off a bit of steam!

Tuesday we cleared up the bomb site that was the kitchen and then went for a walk with Jody and Madeleine – it was so hot that I got horribly sunburnt so I’m now being careful and have swapped my t-shirt for a long sleeve polo neck….good job it rained today or I’d have boiled! Erica came for dinner in the evening which was lovely.

Wednesday was antenatal get together at Lisa’s – Isabel is still one of the most advanced in the group being the only one with teeth and the only one threatening to move but Arabella has beaten everyone by being the 1st to sit up! After that, Sarah and Henry came for a brew before picking Tim up from work and then Rachel came round for a brew or 2 and a chat before picking Paul up from football!

So we have taken the chance today to do bugger all and have chilled out at home (the rain helped in this decision!) and I have booked some accommodation for us to go away for a few days at the end of next week – we’re heading up to Taupo for a change of scenery and we are really looking forward to it!

Tomorrow we are going to get the fabric for the wedding dress I am making and then the plan is to go and see Charlie and Anna at their new house before shooting home to make sure everything is beautiful before Dan gets home at 6.30!

Food, Glorious Food!

isabel with food on her face

We thought Isabel wasn’t bothered about solid food yet as she never seemed that interested in the things we were giving her but today we have discovered a flavour of baby food that she loves – Pumpkin and Sweetcorn of all things! We have supplied a pic of her happily tucking into her dinner – you can see just how much she liked it by the state of her face (her bib only got that colour because I used it to clean her face at least twice before this pic was taken!) so I’ve added it to my shopping list for today to make sure we have plenty in the cupboard!

Busy, Busy, Busy…….

Still no forward motion in the crawling department – we have had some progress in that Isabel now gets up into full press-up mode, brings her knees in and forwards and then collapses on her face! This doesn’t seem to be bothering her much – it would bother me if I was landing on my face so regularly, but small people are clearly much more resiliant to these sorts of things!

Busy week ahead of us next week – Dan is off to Auckland for the whole week so it’ll be a girly fest here! We have another fitting for the wedding dress I am currently constructing, antenatal get together, trips out to the beach and people coming for lunch, dinner and we may add some breakfast into the mix! So, all in all, a busy schedule that we are looking forward to!

The weather has been a bit dodgy of late – has a cunning way of lulling you into believing it will do one thing, and then doing the complete opposite! Last Saturday is a good example – peered out of the window before getting myself and the Munchkin dressed to find clear blue skies and glorious sunshine! Summer attire was chosen, put on and we headed into town so Dan could have his hair cut. By the time we got into town, the wind was howling, sky was black and it was starting to pour with rain…..and nobody had a coat! Anyway, the last couple of days have been lovely and pretty consistent so fingers crossed for a reasonable weekend – not sure we’ll get chance to road test the new Munchkin carrying contraption but we’ll let you know and provide pics if we do!

Rucksacks and teeth….

This weekend, we bought Isabel a new Phil & Ted’s “Escape” Backpack carrier. She’s getting a bit big for her front pack now (even though, in theory, she could weigh a lot more and still be carried around in it!) and we decided that it would make trips out and holidays a much easier experience – especially when taking her buggy is not an option!

We’ve yet to try her in it – we tried her in it in the shop but haven’t had a chance to go out properly for a test run….roll on next weekend and any weather you can throw at us as we can test the storm hood as well then!

We also think that she is getting 2 teeth at once – it feels as though both her front, bottom teeth are coming through at the same time! 2 for the price (and pain) of 1 – what more could we possibly want!

Phew, that was lucky!

Much to our surprise, we came home from a lovely day out and evening at Paul and Rachel’s house to find the garage door WIDE OPEN – and given we went out at about midday, it had been like that for just short of 12 hours!

Luckily, everything seems to be where we left it – aside from the stuff that Nigel decided to tip on the floor but there’s nothing unusual about that!

Needless to say, we’ll be sitting in the car, on the drive and watching the door shut completely from now on, just to be sure………

Lions go out with a win

Well, the last game of the season for the Lions was a game only for pride and a chance to show the All Blacks and Hurricanes selectors what they can do. They played Taranaki on a wet and blustery Friday evening in New Plymouth. The Lions’ All Blacks players made the difference on the night and helped the team to a 31-17 win. Each side scored three tries, but it was the kicking of the Lions (first of all from Jimmy Gopperth (playing at an unfamiliar full-back position) then scrum half Piri Weepu once Gopperth was substituted) that made the difference. Four penalties and one extra conversion being the margin at the end.

So the Lions’ have a break now and can only sit back and watch the semis and final on TV. Hopefully, though, a number of them will be picked for the All Blacks Grand Slam tour of the UK which kicks off in four weeks’ time against the Welsh at the Millennium Stadium.

A Date at last…….

Today we have had a date through for Isabel’s operation.

After a pre-op appointment on Daddy’s birthday, the operation itself is scheduled for 22nd November – we aren’t entirely sure what time the great event will take place, but our admission time is 7.15am………which will involve leaving our house at about 6.45am at the latest! (more like 6.30am Daddy says!)

We are still none the wiser as to how long we will have to stay in hospital etc so will probably go to our 1st appointment with a GIANT list of questions but that’s ok as the letter says we should feel free to ask questions at any point.

Once we know some more, we’ll let you know!

The tooth, the whole tooth and nothing but the tooth!

After being some what grumpy and EXTREMELY dribbly, Isabel had finally graced us with the beginnings of a tooth! We haven’t actually managed to see it yet but we know its there thanks to the razor like bump in her gum! It’s on the bottom which surprised us slightly – with help and encouragement from Granny, we thought it was coming at the top ……..we’ll probably get one there soon enough as well but one is quite enough for the time being!

Somebody told me that when their small person got teeth the dribbling relented a bit – I am hopeful that this will be the case with Miss Winchurst so that we might go a whole day without her being completely drenched from the neck down!