So, according to Google analytics (I mean, what would *that* know?!) our website wasn’t mobile friendly. So I’ve changed the theme. Does it work? There’s probably a bit more work needed, but as I’m updating this from my phone I guess it works well enough.

So … where to begin? Over three years have passed since the last post and what’s happened in that time? Oh, not much really. We’ve had no more children – at least, none that I’m aware of. That’s because the ones we’ve got already are such darlings. Most of the time anyway.

I am rubbish.

There, I said it – I know that I have totally failed in my mission to post regular blog updates, but I’m beginning to wonder if anyone actually reads it anymore anyway, mainly thanks to the invention of Facebook!!!

I’m also not convinced that much has gone on in the world of the Winchursts to warrant us telling the world – life ticks along, much the same as usual on a day to day basis! Boring…………..

The Girls have gotten bigger, as has the dog, and we are about to embark on the big adventure of School – Isabels first day is monday next week although, annoyingly, she will only be doing mornings until after half term!!!
Molly has gone back to pre-school and it seems a little as though she has never been away – 2 days in and we’ve already managed to “lose” 2 cardigans (there’ll be there somewhere!) and are inundated with various artistic offerings………most of which, sadly, will probably end up in the recycling but rest assured we’ll hunt out any future fortune makers first!!

For anyone who doesn’t know (which would be quite unlikely at this point!), I too have grown – rather dramatically, mainly round the waist and in a general outwards direction – I haven’t become a pie eating champion (sadly), I am in fact 33 weeks pregnant with Winchurst number 3 and am busy attempting to make sure we are ready for the new arrival, expected sometime at the end of October! Getting my head round having a newborn in the house is proving to be quite odd, given how used I am to having 2 fairly self sufficient small people around the majority of the time – once the moses basket comes out of the loft and I’ve finished packing my hospital bag I’m sure the reality will hit home………..and then I will be found waddling at top speed (ie, not very fast at all….) into the sunset!! The Girls seem pretty excited about having a Baby in the house although Isabel did come across 3 week old Baby Violet, who lives next door, screaming her head off in her pram this afternoon and asked me “Will ours do that Mummy?” with a distinct look of concern on her face!!! She has no idea whats coming……………

The dog continues to have boundless amounts of energy and enjoys joining in with any wrestling matches that might be going on on the rug or jumping around the garden like a fairy/mermaid/Kung fu Panda – thankfully, the cries of “No bum licking Tana!!!” have all but disappeared but I do, very occaisionally, get reports of him eating poo that has come from someones bottom………..my general tactic is to gloss over these reports very quickly and make a concious decision not to investigate the matter further, whilst hoping with every inch of my being (which, at the minute, is a lot of inches…..) that it won’t result in a trip to the Vets – don’t much fancy having to explain his odd choice in dietary supplements…………

So, that’s where we are at the minute – hopefully we’ll get some pictures of Isabels first day at school posted up here and we’ll be sure to do our best to get pictures of Number 3 once that happy day arrives!!! I wouldn’t hold your breath though………………

Kate has added a new gallery of photos. They are just a selection of the girls and the latest addition to the family … Tana, a cocker spaniel. As always, click the photo below to go straight to the gallery.

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Kate has added a new gallery of photos. They are just a selection of the more recent photos Kate has taken, including some of Isabel wearing the previously mentioned swimming costume. We hope you enjoy them. As always, click the photo below to go straight to the gallery.

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In case you hadn’t noticed (and those of you in NZ etc probably won’t have!), the temperature has dropped considerably since the start of November……….and I think it’s great! We even had to put the heating on for the first time last week (which was an adventure in itself given this is a new house and we hadn’t thought to test it before!) – we only had it on for an hour, after which time I was seeking the cooler climes of the hall and kitchen as the lounge was a bit warm for my liking! (special thanks to my personal thermostat!)

We had a very nice week off, and enjoyed catching up with the families. Isabel was particularly pleased that, whilst staying at Hotel Winchurst, she got to share her cot with a “Mioaw” – all her Christmases had come at once! Charlie (said furry friend) seemed to think that the fluffy blanket in the cot was specifically for sharing – and, much to our surprise, refused to budge when Isabel appeared! Luckily, he also resisted the urge to extend his claws otherwise it would have been tears before bedtime!

Last weekend we had a lovely visit from Ruth & Andrew and, being Bonfire time, we ventured out to a Fireworks display on Saturday night – this year, Isabel actually made an effort to watch the display though we weren’t sure at some points if she might cry! Last year we took her to see the Fireworks in Wellington Harbour but she was more interested in the people than anything exploding in the sky!

This week, I was due to have an appointment with my new Midwife as my original one has moved back to working in the Hospital rather than being in the community – unfortunately, she was running so far behind that I ended up being seen by another woman who appeared to have come along for moral support! Having been told that I would now be into fortnightly visits, I was slightly surprised to find that it would be another 5 weeks before my next appointment! We have also worked out that it might actually be my last visit with the midwife – once you start to figure trivial things like Christmas and New Year into the proceedings, it leaves very little time before we hit the magic 38 week mark and therefore C-section time! We shall have to wait and see……..

This weekend we have Aunty Hannah coming to stay whilst Dan and I head out to the Fortis Dinner Dance on Saturday night – this seemed like a splendid idea until I started to ponder the “What am I going to wear?” question………….evening wear for people in my “condition” is one of those things that it is a little bit like gold dust! I did consider a trip to my local Outdoor Store to peruse their Tent collections but luckily I have now found something that will hopefully do……….it’s a bit late now if it won’t!

Isabel is fine and her language skills improve on a daily basis – though her favourite word appears to be “NO” she will also now say “Bye Bye, See You” which is quite amusing!

I’ve heard little rumours of people being a bit miffed that we haven’t been updating our blog much recently – not surprisingly, we mostly have been doing very boring and mundane things like cleaning, washing, changing stinky nappies, removing things that Isabel has found and shouldn’t have etc, and I wasn’t sure that would make very riveting reading! (Feel free to correct me if this isn’t the case!)

We have had the minor adventure of suffering our 1st puncture in one of our buggy wheels – having never fixed a puncture, and therefore not owning a repair kit, this was going to be an interesting experience! The first hurdle we had to over come was actually getting the repair kit. No buggy meant finding an alternative way of transporting Isabel into town – having quickly discovered that putting her in the rucksack was no longer an option (the fact that I couldn’t even lift it onto my shoulders was a bit of a give away!) meant there was only one thing for it……..we would have to WALK! So, we put Isabels new shoes on and strapped her into the reigns and away we went – you would have been forgiven for thinking that we never released her from the confines of the house…….she literally ran all the way to town, shrieking with delight and trying to trample through every puddle available! She was a bit slower on the way home (which was unfortunate given that the heavens opened about half way back!) but all in all, it was a great success – I don’t think we will be doing it too much just yet mind……..given that once we got home she grabbed her bottle, collapsed into her bean bag and didn’t move for the next 30 minutes it was pretty safe to say that she was exhausted!

You’ll also be pleased to know that we are making sure that we are educating her in all aspects of life – if you now ask her “What noise does your bottom make?” she will reply by blowing a raspberry with great enthusiasm! (It’s much better than the original response of “Miaow” which we were slightly worried about!)

Well, it would be sunny if it wasn’t 8.30 at night and pitch black (not to mention it being 30 degrees (86 in old money))!! We have successfully made it through the first two of our flights, with just the minor matter of a 14-hour or so flight from here to London still to go!!

The day started early with us getting up at just after 5am to do the final bits and pieces of packing before our lift arrived to take us to the airport. (Very big ‘thank you’s to Uncle Paul and Auntie Rachel who got up at stupid-o’clock in the morning to come and get us!)

Air New Zealand were their usual unhelpful selves. In order to make sure everything was going to work smoothly Kate had specifically checked with both the Air New Zealand travel centre and the Air New Zealand call centre that we would be able to take the car seat onto the plane with us for Isabel (that is, after all, why we paid extra for a child ticket) and she also had some pages from the Air NZ web-site clearly stating that if you were taking an infant on an Air NZ flight you were welcome to take a car seat on with you. However, the lady at the check-in desk had other ideas and refused not only to let us take the car seat on the plane with us, but also made us check in the baby rucksack meaning we had to carry Isabel to the departure gate. Luckily this isn’t very far, and we didn’t have to wait long to board.

Fortunately, the Singapore airlines people could not have been more helpful when we checked in at Auckland. They said that of course we could take the car seat on the plane with us and that, although we would need to check-in the rucksack, we could take this up to the gate and hand it in as we boarded the plane. Hoorah!

So here we are in Singapore airport at 8.45pm local time awaiting our 11.20pm flight on to London. We’re all a bit tired, and very hot and sweaty, and it looks like the girls are both developing a fine line in snotty noses!

For those of you in the UK see you soon. For those of you elsewhere in the world see you next time.

PS the Hurricanes have won both their last games, so are still well placed in second place on the table. I don’t want to jinx them, but it’s looking good for a semi-final place at this stage. Fingers crossed.

Today is moving day – although actually that’s not strictly true……….today is moving day for our belongings and we will follow in a couple of days!

This morning, Dan delivered the Munchkin to Jodys house (where she is apparently having a lovely time having “who can shout the loudest” contests with Madeleine!) on his way to work and I waited for the movers.

At 9.30am, 2 chaps and a VERY small van arrived – I did panic momentarily and say feebly “I don’t think everything will fit in your van” which they found very amusing and went on to point out that there was, in fact, another van coming and they were just going to be doing the packing part!

All was going swimmingly even though we had already established that the previous days estimate that they would be “done in a couple of hours” was not quite true, and we were eagerly awaiting the BIG van at about 1pm.

That was until the phone went.

A few people hadn’t turned up today and would I mind if the 2 current chaps finished what they were doing and buggered off and could I wait in for a couple of hours till the big van arrived…..hmmmmm, not quite the speedy turn around we had hoped for but what can you do!?

So, here I sit, in amongst a mountain of boxes and packing equipment waiting for the reinforcements – and if they aren’t here by 3.30, I’m going to unroll all of their bubble wrap and roll around on it!! (that’ll teach ’em!)

You may have already noticed, but we have updated the photo in the top left hand corner of the screen. As Catherine noted while she was here, we don’t have many photos of the three of us. In fact, looking through the hundreds of photos on the computer, we couldn’t find a single one! We therefore decided to take one for the website, and as it is bright and sunny outside (despite the fact the weather for Wellington on our website is currently saying it’s “mostly cloudy” at Wellington airport) went out onto the balcony to see if we could get a decent photo.

We quickly abandoned the timer approach as Isabel initially laughed whenever Mummy came out to join her and Daddy on the balcony, but then lost interest and looked away before the photo itself was taken! We therefore decided to go for the arm’s length self portrait approach, which seems to have worked fairly well. (Judge for yourselves in the top corner).