Dinner party

Last night Dad & Rosemary (Grandad & Grandma) came over for dinner to catch up with Hank & Vicki (Opa & Oma). Aiden took one look at the dining table all set with plates, glasses and serviettes then made the logical assumption that we were having a party. Of course a little boy's entire experience of anything to do with the word party is a gathering where there are a few essentials: cake, candles and presents. We managed to avoid any questions about presents but of course the whole cake & candle thing came up so we obliged by letting him blow out a candle before dinner...

Today's page

Journalling strips read: Aiden's new bike courtesy of the Chivers family. September 2006.

It's all fun and games until...

What a day we've had! It all started nicely when I dragged Hank & Vicki to our local coffee haunt for morning tea. After a pleasant enough round of coffees we decided to take Aiden for a walk along the foreshore. We walked to our usual spot where Aiden likes to run up and down (and fall down) the hills. Of course Opa was required to join in the fun: Once we had sufficiently tired out one little boy we turned for home - walking back along the waterfront to the car. Along the way we spotted a school of small fish and all four of us were peering over the edge watching the fish. It was then that I heard a yell from Opa and I turned to see Aiden plunging into the water below... having not seen him actually fall I am assuming he over balanced and fell in. Of course the mother's instinct kicked in pretty quick and I jumped in to the rescue. Luckily the water was only waist deep on me so it wasn't too dramatic a rescue. I am VERY grateful for the swimming lessons we have done for the last 18 months because Aiden didn't really panic, he knew to kick to come to the surface and he hadn't swallowed any water. The next problem however was how to get me out of the water. With a giant belly out front and no stomach muscles whatsoever I couldn't just climb out and to make it all the more difficult there were no ladders or stairs anywhere nearby. I ended up having to wade in the water for about 100m until we came to a spot where I could get out. When I finally managed to crawl out it didn't seem too bad a rescue and we could see the funny side. Here are some pics of a wet me and Aiden wearing Opa's vest with some keys on a string tied around his waist as a belt:

They're here

At last Hank & Vicki arrived safely on Wednesday.
Aiden acted coy/shy for about 15 minutes before he warmed up to Oma & Opa and when Opa started playing in the sandpit with him he won a friend for life. All I have heard since is, "Opa this", "Opa that", "Where's Opa?".

I'm engaged!

But not to be married... At my last visit to the doctor he told me the baby had engaged which means it has moved down low into my cervix ready for the birth. This is a good thing because we know the baby is the right way up - head down, bum up. I officially have 4 weeks left to go but I have had two occasions where I have had contractions for about an hour so I am convinced I won't go to full term (perhaps it's just wishful thinking).

Scrapbook Pages

You can't blame a mother for being biased but I thought Aiden looked rather gorgeous in his funky denim jacket & jeans and trendy boots. The journalling in blue strips are just the words to the song "I'm gonna be a supermodel" and the labels next to the arrows at the bottom left say 'The catwalk look' for the big photo and 'The sexy, smouldering look' for the smaller cut out photo. Pics taken way back in August last year.
Photos from our recent trip to the zoo

Happy Mother's Day...

... for yesterday of course. We had a pretty quiet day that started with breakfast down at the marina then was followed by nothing but relaxing.

All three of us piled into the car and made the trek to Perth on Saturday to spend some Mother's Day time with my mum. We went out for some coffee then went for a walk/play at the fantastic foreshore area on the Swan River.

Aiden had a great time and was utterly exhausted by the time we left - as you can see in the pic below he crashed as soon as we got in the car to go home.

New bloggers on the block!

Yep that's right - Hank & Vicki (Dave's mum & dad) have started their own blog. Hank & Vicki retired a couple of years ago and now spend their time in Melbourne in the sunny part of the year then they take their trusty old caravan travelling for the winter months. In fact, they are on their way to WA right now... last report is they are at Port Lincoln in South Australia. They started a blog to keep us (family & friends) up to date with their travels...
Here is the link : http://kleingeld-hvnews.blogspot.com/
(I will also put the link on the right hand side of my blog page under Web Pages)
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Here is a pic of Hank & Vicki (middle front) with their family (sons, daughter, significant others & grandchildren)

More pages

March 2007 These photos aren't so good (blurry and the little ones are taken through the windscreen) but I wanted to remember how much Aiden loved playing in the car. The journalling reads: For a while Aiden's favourite toy outside was the family car. He would happily spend up to an hour sitting in the driver's seat, pushing all the buttons on the dash or exploring the backseat. October 2006. 18mths.

Toilet training one day, shaving the next!

This morning Aiden went racing off to find daddy in the bathroom and when he returned to me this is what he looked like: We thought Aiden was a grown up boy sitting on the toilet but that pales into comparison with him now shaving!
(For those of you gasping in horror at the thought of shaving a two year old's face - the razor is the wrong way round so there was no actual shaving taking place)
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Today's page is another old photo taken in July last year

Another page...

This is an old photo taken WAY BACK in July last year Journalling reads: Mummy had drink bottle envy every time she saw the other kids with these cool bottles so she went out and bought Aiden one.
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Aiden playing in the sand September, 2006

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Pics you've already seen of when we first introduced Rosie to Molly

Giddyup Horsey

Interesting fact about Aiden #57: Aiden inherited from his father a rather unfortunate condition whereby he dislikes/is afraid of any amusement rides. This affliction means that he has never liked any equipment at the playground that moves under him (like a seesaw, bouncing horse, etc), he won't go near those kiddy carousel rides you see at the shopping centre where there are cars/boats/animals that simply go round in a circle or buck up and down and he certainly would never sit on a living creature...
So you can imagine how excited we were this morning when we came across some pony rides and when we asked Aiden if he would like a ride he said... (drum roll please)... "yes, please". Our confidence in him at this point was pretty low I must admit and we refused to pay the massive sum of $2 for the ride until we knew he would actually sit and stay on the horse. We were utterly blown away when he did in fact enjoy the full two laps of the pony ride. And to top it off you can see in the picture below that he had the biggest grin from ear to ear (although he did have a death grip on daddy's t-shirt for most of the ride). It was soooooooooo cool.

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Our exciting day didn't finish with the pony rides...
Interesting fact about Aiden #68: he has so far shown absolutely no interest in toilet training and we are certainly not in any hurry to make him. However, he went looking for daddy in the toilet (who wasn't actually in there) and of course got side tracked playing with something in there (don't ask I'd rather not know what it was). I did my usual yell from a distant part of the house for him to get out of the toilet and when he did emerge he actually said that he wanted to do a wee in the toilet. When I recovered from the shock I confirmed this was exactly what he was trying to say then sent daddy off in a mad panic to find the special kiddy seat. Of course when I sat him on the toilet there wasn't actually any wee in sight but still it was one of those proud parent moments...

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Another page - pics from when we first got Molly. It's great having two girls in the house now (the guinea pigs) because I can now use lots of flowers & butterflies on my scrapbook pages without feeling guilty about it.

May Scrapjack

This page is for a competition on another blog site where they post a layout and we have to scraplift the design to create our own page. Photo taken September, 2006.

Something fun to try

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

If you click on the link that says 'Get your own VisualDNA' it takes you to a site where you select what picture best describes your choice of art, drink, holiday, etc, than gives you a little write up on your personality. The widget above is my VisualDNA. Go on, try it, just for fun...

A social life?

Yep, that's what we had on the weekend. It seems that Dave and I get an opportunity about every six months to go out and guess where our big night out was? The bowls club! Regardless of the fact that we brought the average age in the room down by about 20 years we both actually had a really good time. The special occasion at the bowls club was a presentation dinner for the recent club championships in which Dave became the 'Novice Champion' so we had an added reason to go. Thanks to Nana & Peter for coming down from Perth to babysit. Now we just have to sit and wait for our next six monthly outing...
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Every time I pull the camera out Aiden seems obsessed with shoving something down the lens... in this case it is his hammer.