Two!

Favourite TV watching position.

What?

Never in the same position he's left in.

Thanks Unckle Munkle, Yan & Ayisha.

Slide of death! Mummy thinks so anyway.

Vegemite on the veranda

Favourite place.

Doing this all the time now.

Another favourite thing to do.

"Sharing" our bed.

Swimming

Dad's uggs.

TV time.

Stacking in colour.

Jack & his baby.

"You looking at me?"

This one is odd!

Who needs a spoon?

Cutie.

Piggy.

Queen Armidala!

Dear Jack,


My gorgeous, funny, cheeky, much better-sleeping little chicken! What a year we've had.
We celebrated your first birthday with a picnic in the Royal National Park & have just celebrated your second with a picnic in Cooper St Park. Picnics are fun & this way we can invite all the people who love you & not go broke doing it!
This year we had a Thomas tent & balloon - that blew away! A gorgeous Thomas cake & Caterpillar cakes that Grandma made for you, music, bubbles & lots of fun.

Since your last birthday we moved from Grandma & Poppy's house to our new house at Heathcote. We all love it. You went into your own bedroom for the first time & amazingly within about 2 weeks you were mostly sleeping through the night!! This is good for all of us! Even when you do wake now we just bring you into our bed for a little while then pop you back in yours about ten minutes later & you settle quite easily. The bad nights are justified because you are sick, those nights we just leave you in with us.

You have a lovely blue mat in your bedroom & up until recently (cause the trains took over!) would drag everyone into your room to sit & lay down on your mat. It was quite funny sometimes to have all the visitors in your room, on the floor & not allowed to leave!

We have a lovely big veranda at the new house & you love riding bikes out there and pushing the very noisy lawnmower that Uncle Michael, Aunty Yan & Ayisha sent you for your birthday! We also got you a slide & ball pit that you immediately loved - scaring Mummy with your daring! And annoying Daddy by throwing all the balls off the veranda. We have playgroup at home every week & you play with all your friends & so far are very good at sharing your toys - but I fear this might start changing soon.

You used to love pulling out all the pots & pans & kids cups & bowls in the kitchen & making a giant mess, but were always happy to put them all back too - luckily! We discovered swings this year & you love them! Even falling asleep in your one on the veranda.
But your favourite thing by far this year & I think in the years to come is Thomas the Tank Engine. You love him. I got you about 10 trains to start with & you quickly learnt all their names & would bring them to me when I asked for them, you love to line them all up as one big train. And you drove us all crazy with battery operated Percy & Thomas forever having to be retrieved from under the TV cabinet with the very long tongs! You love having Poppy, Daddy or Myself (or anyone really) sit down at your train table with you & just play.

You still love books & have started "reading" them back to us now, especially the ones we have read to you since birth, like Where is the Green Sheep? & Ten Little Fingers & Ten Little Toes but any book will do.

You also love the iPad & will play games happily on it - luckily because we are going on a big flight to Hawaii & I'm hoping it will keep you occupied!

You started swimming this last year also. You do a half hour lesson every Saturday morning & it wasn't until the twelfth lesson that you finally stopped crying! It was very hard to listen to you & I really wanted to "rescue" you, but I knew it was best for you to learn. You are so good at it now & we watched you swim unaided to the ladder at about week 10, we were very proud.

You are asserting your own will more then ever & started saying "more" & "no" & recently "I don't want it!" you will come & talk at me about things & I don't understand most of it but you persist until we seem to give you the right answer! You are still a genius & pick up things very quickly - sometimes too quickly! It was very funny to hear "bugger, bugger, oh bugger" coming from the back seat one day. You are now counting pretty much up to 10 with not much help. Daddy has taught you to say "love ya mate" & it's very funny.

You still love a cuddle & when I ask you "are you my big boy or my baby?" you always say "baby", not sure how I'm going to feel the day you say "big boy". And any time I am nursing a baby you always have to be on my lap as well pretending to cry & needing cuddles too.

You are funny & I think you truly understand the humour in things. One day in the bath I was asking you what all the animals say & at the end I said "what does Daddy say?" & you made a fluffing noise - I laughed so hard.

So another year older my little chicken. I still have moments of shock that you are here & belong to us. We are so blessed.

Love, love, love,
Mummy & Daddy

What?

Ok - I know it's been forever and I mean FOREVER!!! since I last posted.
Sometimes I just completely forget about this Blog.

Once again it's time to commit.

So starting this week I will commit (once again) to updating more - particularly since Jack is changing so much all the time - my idea to have this blog become a timeline/diary of his life is sadly not happening.

Oh well - stay tuned.

Ho!

Ho! Ho!

We have had a great Xmas this year. It was so much fun watching Jack actually opening stuff this year, instead of just sucking on the wrapping paper & falling asleep in my lap.
He of course was totally spoilt. I can't help myself.

Mum got back from USA, bringing us some lovely memories of Aunty Aileen & a little tractor trailer from Pam for Jack - which he loves.

Here are some catch-up photos...


Jack enjoying his bath.


Muuuum!


His hair was too long to even stand up with the soap!


Christmas Morning..

Looking a little dazed..


Jack & Darren in the new cubby house..I missed the photo - but Jack was kissing his house!





Darren's side came for lunch at our place.


My fantastic table setting skills


We went to the tram museum - I figured I might as well feed Jack's obsession...


At least Dad was looking at the camera!


I have no idea why Jack was pulling this face - funny though.


And someone got there first official haircut - thanks Grandma!

We bribed him with chocolate covered sultanas...hey - whatever works!

34

Ha ha I did not break my 80 day record.......

But I won't make any promises for the next few months - my calendar is filling up pretty quickly & my computer is dying at the same rate - time to get a new one. So getting motivated to even turn the thing on, is quite hard.

In the last month we - 

Went to the Grand Designs Australia Show - thanks Jess for the tickets.

Attended the Grand Opening of my cousin Kellie's beautiful new interiors store - Pad Interiors. (so proud of you girl!).

I hosted a jewelry party, a book party & a BBQ for 10.

I held a guess the smell quiz with products from Airwick - supplied from a great site called www.thesoup.com.au - check it out.

Jack learnt to climb on & off the lounge, to drag us to the fridge 28 times a day, to make us read the same truck book 57 times a day, to put things in the toilet, to place puzzle pieces in the right holes & to scare the heck out of us with a mystery rash, vomiting & 4 straight days of fever!

In other news..............

I want one of these...

We had some professional photos taken of the kid - lucky enough to get them for FREE!!! Thanks Cassie at Bedford Photography..

I grew these in my garden - OK fine - they grew themselves, cause God knows I'm no gardener!

Hmmmm the truck book - again!

So do I just let him have our bed & move us into the 3rd bedroom??

I got jack this book - it plays Xmas songs & has the words - he really likes it (and the truck book)

Best bargain ever.

RIP to my beautiful, inside & out, Great Aunt Aileen. Love you lots.

80!

Yep - that's correct, it's been 80 days since my last blog. And I can't even say that I've been that busy that in those 80 days I didn't have a spare minute to Blog - I've been a little busy, a little sick, had a family crisis, Jack's been sick - but I could have had time to blog. I blame it on Foxtel.

Jack's sick, whiny, snot nosed kid look....

I surprised Darren with Jace Everett tickets at the Brass Monkey - he was fantastic. If you don't know him - he sings the True Blood theme - Bad Things. 

We had a front row table. And he spoke directly to us a couple of times.

I found all these dummies stuck between the wall & Jacks cot! Now I pull out the cot & make him retrieve them.

As promised last blog - Jack got his own swing & was absolutely loving it - one day he would not let me get him out & he went to sleep in it. Unfortunately the rope wore a bit so it's down for the moment, but Daddy will fix it soon, right Daddy? Daddy??? Daaaaddddddyyyyy????

We got 2 of these units from Ikea & Jack helped put them together.

Jack is obsessed with the vacuum cleaner! Thank God - now I'll have 2 people in the house to do it..he follows Darren around & one time was in the bath when Darren started it up & we had a major tantrum until I got him out to chase it!

Any swing will do - he laughs & giggles like a mad man.

Jack got this bike for his birthday off some very dear neighbours at Loftus. He loves it.

Dad has been such a big help doing lots of handyman things that I would have paid someone to do. Here he is putting in the new range hood. He's already put in the new oven. And we replaced the dishwasher too. It was amazing how by just replacing those appliances the kitchen looked 100% better.

Darren, his dad & a mate replaced some tiles on the laundry & outside toilet. So now it doesn't leak, there was supposed to be some painting done - but I'm still waiting for that.

Jack & a book - I'm not kidding, we read about 15 books a day when we are at home. I'm so glad he is interested & that he brings them to me all the time. I love watching him learn. Every cow gets a "mmmmmooooo" now.

"Little ditty about Jack & Roxanne - two dirty kids gettin' as clean as they can" - hehe..
Jack loves, loves, loves the bath - it's my "go to" thing when he is driving me nuts.

He will spend absolutely ages sticking those letter things on the tiles (thanks Louise!) & if I'm in the bath with him, he sticks them all over me too.

Since July---

We moved completely into the house (5th August).

Had a massive housewarming party. 

We've been to Jace Everett, 1927, Meatloaf & Chris Isaak - loved all of them.

Spent time at the hospital with Darren's mum - turns out her vertigo was a brain tumor. She is having chemo now.

Jack has now got 10 teeth.

Jack had hand, foot & mouth disease - mild case luckily.

I've had heaps of time off work with an upper respiratory tract infection.

I've a few fights with telstra.

Darren & I had our very first out alone, just the 2 of us dinner since Jack was born! I got smashed on 2 glasses of wine - good night!

I saw a psychic & grandma came to visit me.

I attended a great talk by Maggie Dent on the importance of play & building resilience in our kids.

Darren took me to Ikea for my birthday (my request).

I found out I'm going to be an auntie again.

I was in a fashion parade!

But the most important thing of all - WE PAID OUR CRUISE DEPOSITS!!!!! WOOOHOOOO!

326 sleeps to go.