Scrappin' again

At last things must be getting back to normal because I've actually managed to find the time to start scrapbooking again.

Merry Christmas!

I trust you all had a nice Christmas. Now just one more event - New Year's Eve - before it's all finally over...

Here's a quick look at our Christmas:

Christmas Eve

Mum arrived in the afternoon to spend the next three days with us and Dave was home by early arvo too.

Here we are sitting around debating the best use for Aiden's new jocks


Aiden enjoying his present from Oma & Opa
The VERY talented Vicki (aka Oma) made this fantastic cross stitch for Megan

Christmas Day

After starting the day with a mountain of presents we headed off to the beach - a first for Megan and also the first time we've been to the local beach since we moved in to our new house.

The girls ready for the beach

Megan's first paddle - she wasn't so keen on the cold water
Aiden in his funky new rashie & boardies (thanks to the Moule family)
Back home and cleaned up after the beach - Megan in her new outfit from the Kleingeld family

Megan's Christmas

What does Christmas mean to a 6 month old?

Boxing Day

Dad, Rosemary and some of Rosemary's family came over to join us for a Boxing Day brunch. I had set up the paddling pool for the kids but when it hit 41 degrees any plans we had for outside activity was abandoned. It was actually pleasant enough sitting inside with the air-conditioning though.

For the third day in a row the kids got more presents:

Megan's gift from Grandad

By about 4.30pm in the afternoon it was finally cool enough to venture outside. Since all of our guests had left Dave & I joined Aiden in the pool. Grandad bought this sandpit for Aiden (yes it's lacking the sand at the moment)

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

We finally got around to putting up the Christmas tree today. It was good that Aiden was old enough to help this year.

I put a few presents under the tree but I am anticipating that sometime in the next week I will leave the room and return to find some particular person couldn't quite contain his urge... Of course Megan got decorated too

Grandad

Grandad turned up yesterday with two new toys for Aiden. One was the tanker you can see in the photos below and the other was a tyranosaurus that walks and growls and its eyes flash red. Aiden is VERY into dinosaurs at the moment but he took one look at this moving/growling beast and absolutely freaked out. He didn't like it at all. For the rest of the day he even freaked out if we went anywhere near the dinosaur because he thought we might switch it on. I had to carefully explain and show him this morning that I had taken the batteries out so no one could switch it on anymore. It was actually a rather fortunate incident because I had planned on getting him THREE of these dinosaurs for his birthday in March - not anymore!

Nana

Nana has been an absolute godsend during this whole moving house period. She has been roped into many babysitting duties, house cleaning duties, looking after me when I am sick duties, etc. It appears that she only retired to become my full time helper!

Nana has taken it upon herself to work on Megan's sitting. In the last few days she has been able to sit on her own for up to about 30 seconds.

Nana is also the toy of choice for a small boy...
A new game of ride the horsey

A special bond

Megan is a pretty happy baby but she is at her absolute best around Aiden. We get lots of smiles and an occassional giggle but Aiden is the only one who makes her laugh raucously. He has just figured this out for himself and so plays up to her to get the reponse he wants. It makes my heart melt to see my two kids enjoying each other so much...

Another first

Megan is still sussing out the whole solid food thing. She is absolutely fascinated by anything and everything we eat yet when we give her something every night at dinnertime she sometimes eats the lot or sometimes clamps her mouth shut and wont eat anything. This is her first Milk Arrowroot biscuit (yes like any child she is already showing a preference for the sweet stuff...)

Megan eyeing off the booty

The first taste
Yeah this is alright!

A special visit

We were blessed to have a house full of visitors last week. Our sister-in-law, Amrit, and her two beautiful daughters Anjali & Kiran came all the way over to the west just to see us. Aiden instantly took a liking to his cousins and had an absolute ball playing with them all week. Megan was pretty taken too - especially with the constant kisses and cuddles lavished on her by Kiran. The house seemed empty when they left and Aiden has been asking on a regular basis if his cousins will be wherever we are going or if he can go on an aeroplane to go see them.

Aunty Amrit catching up on her quota of cuddles
Aiden & Kiran (these two are a similar age)
Kiran, Aiden & Anjali

Thanks Michelle

Megan's very talented cousin, Michelle (who lives way across the other side of the country in Victoria), made her this gorgeous beaded jewellery set. I definitely think Megan is going to be a girl that likes her 'bling'. Michelle didn't forget about Aiden either - he received this cool Tigger.

That's my boy

Even though we've been busy over the past month I have still managed to snap some photos here and there. I am going to do one massively long blog to get you all back up to date... so strap yourself in and enjoy the ride...
What happens when you cross a small boy and a hose with a trigger handle?

I'm back in bloggerland...

It has been a VERY hectic month since I last posted. We are now all moved into our new home and as of today we no longer own our old home. Yep - we couldn't believe our luck. We have a friend in real estate who was telling us that absolutely nothing was selling inside three months but we managed to sell ours in 4 weeks! We are very grateful.
Of course we didn't quite get away without one tiny drama. Dave & I were doing the final clean up of the house and while Dave was cleaning the shower he stood up and broke the soap dish. Lucky Aiden wasn't around at the time because he would have learned some choice new words... So of course we had to run around and find a new tile and sure enough they don't make that colour any more. Then to top it all off Dave glued in the tile then went out to mow the lawn before doing the final grouting and when he returned... the new soap dish had fallen off the wall and smashed into several pieces. Once again it was fortunate that Aiden wasn't around! Anyway, after a quick trip to Bunnings and armed with a new tile and an entire roll of gaffer tape Dave finally managed to install a new soap dish (which actually stayed stuck to the wall). Small dilemma aside the whole transition between houses has actually been quite smooth.

One week to go!

We carried out the final inspection on the new house yesterday. It's only one more week before we get the keys...

UNDER OFFER!

I'm not allowed to write SOLD in the heading because apparently that might jinx it... Anyway, last weekend an offer was put on the house and we have accepted. So as soon as their finance is approved then I'm allowed to report that our house has been sold. It's such a relief for two reasons: 1) We don't have to pay two mortgages and most importantly from my point of view 2) I don't have to clean anymore! I can honestly say that one of the worst things you can put yourself through is to sell your home when you've got babies and/or toddlers in the house. But in the end it has been worth it. We just can't believe we only had it on the market for 4 weeks. We can now concentrate on the joy of moving into our new house in two weeks time.

Floor time

Megan is getting stronger and happier with tummy time and general floor time.
Megan's favourite pastime is watching her maniacal brother galavanting all over the place. She spends most of the time smiling and even giggling at him and of course he is oblivious to most of her attention. Because he never sits still she contorts herself into all sorts of positions just so she can see what's going on.
Just this week she has discovered her feet.

She's Back!

Last weekend Mum made the big move back to Mandurah. She has finally resigned from her job (something she has been talking and dreaming about for quite some time) and will become a lady of leisure at the end of next week. She is planning on selling her house and moving into a 'lifestyle village' here in Mandurah. It goes without saying that we are pretty happy to have her back. Aiden has already sussed out her willingness to play in the sandpit with him and watch Dora... I think in her retirement she may be busier than ever!
Nana & Aiden celebrating her return:

One for Daddy

I put this old t-shirt of Aiden's on Megan today just to put a smile on Dave's face...
Aiden helping out by pointing out the important words on Megan's shirt.

Little boys that can't sit still...

It has come to my attention that I'm posting more and more photos of Megan and less of Aiden. There is a very good reason for this. I am taking just as many photos of him but they all look like this:
Even this one is slightly blurry: I don't know if he has ants in his pants or what... but this little boy just cannot sit still for any period of time - especially for something as mundane as me taking photos (again)... So while Megan lays relatively still in the one spot happily smiling at me I will continue to snap away so expect an overload of photos of her.