Icecream is in

I posted last weekend describing Aiden's first icecream experience and it seems that we've created a monster - an icecream monster! We were at the shopping centre on Thursday night so we thought we would try the icecream thing again... sure enough he ate all his cone then asked for more. Then late this afternoon we were driving in the car and from the back seat I hear, "Icecream?". Believe it or not it's nice that he is eating something else besides fruit.
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I visited the doctor yesterday for a regular prenatal check-up and all is normal, normal, normal. It is the one time in your life that you strive for normality... The baby is head down, bum up so I am crossing my fingers that it stays that way now in preparation for the birth. Less than 8 weeks to go and having a really tough time physically - am constantly tired and sore - not sure how I am going to make it through to the end.
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I have been doing a fair bit of scrapbooking lately. I have had a nice big chunk of free time tonight to do some pages as Dave is out with the boys. He scored himself a free ticket in a corporate box at the rugby (Western Force) so Aiden & I dropped him off at the bus station earlier on.
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Aiden painting - April 2007
Easter egg hunt - April 2007
Aiden with Grandad - February 2007

More scrapbook pages

X Dresser photos taken January, 2007

Biker Boys pics taken July, 2006. Journalling reads: "Aiden's first ride on a motorbike and Daddy's last ride before we sold the bikes".

Icecream

Many, many months ago the three of us were down at the foreshore and we decided to give Aiden a treat: his first icecream cone. Well, the event turned out to be a disaster. Aiden took one look at the icecream and clamped his mouth shut refusing to even try it. Ever since then he has shown absolutely no interest in eating icecream... until now. We were down at the foreshore yesterday having some lunch when a young girl walked past with a cone. Aiden saw her then turned to us and actually asked for some icecream! Being the kind parents that we are we obliged and believe it or not he sat and ate his icecream cone (after some demonstrating from us on how to lick an icecream). Of course I didn't have my camera with me to record this monumentous event but luckily I had my new mobile phone that takes photos. The only problem is that I have no idea how to get the photos off the phone and into my computer??? Any suggestions?

Daddy's Shoes

Photos taken Januray, 2007

This week

This week has been a quiet one. It's school holidays so we haven't had any of our organised activities on (such as swimming, playgroup, etc). Aiden's talking is still blowing us away - he seems to be saying new stuff every day. I have discovered why Charlotte's talking is so much more advanced than Aiden's - Aiden & I spent the day shopping with Cassie & Charlotte and it seems that Charlotte never stops talking!! She's obviously getting in far more practice than him!
Dave is slowly getting back into the groove of work now that the shutdown is over. I have just over 8 weeks to go until I pop. I can't wait to not be pregnant anymore - everything hurts all the time and the heartburn is driving me nuts.
You are all aware now of how much Aiden loves his cars and trucks. We've been thinking about getting one of these mats for him for a while so he would have somewhere to play with them all.
Apparently big kids like playing with cars too...

Water Boy

Photos taken January, 2007.

Catching butterflies

Shake your groove thing

Photos of Aiden dancing taken in October last year.

We're going to the zoo, zoo, zoo

How about you, you, you
You can come too, too, too
We're going to the zoo, zoo, zoo.
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I'm not sure the song actually goes anything like that but you get my drift... we went to the zoo today. It was an organised outing by Dave's work as a thankyou for the recent shutdown so we got free entry, lunch and most importantly a free icecream. The weather forecast was for rain so we thought we were doing well not getting wet all morning but sure enough when we sat down for lunch in the open picnic area the heavens opened. Unfortunately it then continued to rain heavier and heavier over the next couple of hours. Some bright spark (me) decided to leave the umbrella in the car so we all got rather wet. However, our spirits weren't dampened and we still had a great day.
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The rhinos were a hit...

Dave's work had organised a couple of girls to do face painting. Some kids had cool butterflies or tigers on their faces but not our boy... he wouldn't let the girl near him and freaked out at the paintbrush. We finally coaxed him into getting this spider.

Don't stop me now...

... I'm on a roll! The scrapbooking bug has hit and I have to say I am enjoying it again. I am quite happy how this page turned out. If you've been checking my blog then you have already seen this photo - I will try to scrap some pics that I haven't posted yet. **If you are a keen scrapper then check out Cassie's blog because she's broken her drought and has done a few pages too.

How can I be expected to work under these conditions?

When I asked Aiden if I could change his nappy this was his response:

10 weeks to go...

...and it feels like an eternity. Due to public demand here is a pic of me and my pregnant belly. Babywise all is going well it's just me who is big and uncomfortable and tired.

Never work with animals or children...

...that's what they say. I have to admit that I agree! Dave and I had just started our photo shoot to get some pics of my pregnant belly when along came Aiden. For some reason he was being VERY persistent about a sultana and it's need to be jammed into the camera lens.

When I tried to 'shoo' him away he insisted on kissing the baby
Outcome: photo shoot unsuccessful!

I scrapped!

Most of you know I am a keen scrapper and up until several months ago I was churning out a page a day. This all stopped when... (queue Jaws like scary music) the pregnancy struck! I felt so miserable at the start that my creativity flew straight out the window... and I've had a hard time getting it back. I managed a page back in January so at least I can say I am producing one page every 3 months! Anyway, with a little challenging from Cassie (who's also a scrapper in the midst of a drought) we have both managed to do a page. Here's hoping my beloved creativity has returned home and you will see more pages in the very near future.

Technophobes no more

What is the world coming to? There are some things you think will never change and then BAM... out of the blue something happens...

What I am so mysteriously alluding to is the progression of two people into the world of mobile phones. Yep that's right, my DAD and my HUSBAND are now both mobile phone carriers... who'd have thought it could happen?

1...2...3...Jump!

Today's family activity was a trip to the local swimming pool (indoor & heated of course). As most of you know I take Aiden to swimming lessons every week but unfortunately Dave works during the week so he doesn't get a chance to see how Aiden's swimming is progressing. So today was a chance to show Daddy how far Aiden has come as well as have fun playing with Daddy in the water in ways that only a daddy can do.
One of the latest tricks is jumping in from the side of the pool:
1...2...3...
...Jump!
Aiden's best buddy Charlotte gave him this cool towel for his birthday.

Blog This!

I just wanted to point out a couple of other blog pages you might want to check out. The first is the "Happy Hunters" page created by my good friend Cassie. Her page is similar to mine in that it gives you a glimpse into the lives of the Hunter family and the things they get up to. Of course I have to mention it is so similar to mine because Cassie in fact started blogging quite some time ago and I was so impressed with what she was doing I copied her idea... The following photo is of the Hunter family: Brett, Charlotte and Cassie (yes THE Charlotte that Aiden thinks the world of and asks quite frequently if we are going to see her). Since Aiden & I spend a lot of time with Cassie & Charlotte you will find Cassie's page has a few photos of Aiden too (like I have some shots of Charlotte). The link to Cassie's blog is: http://happyhunters.blogspot.com/ and you can also find this link in the 'Web Pages' section on the right hand side of my blog page (down under the pics of Aiden, Dave & I).
The next page of interest is the "Moule Family Update" blog. For those not in the know the Moules are related to us since Annemarie is Dave's sister (so all these kids are Aiden's cousins) but they live over in Melbourne along with the rest of Dave's immediate family. I would like to take my small amount of credit for this one... After sending me an email about my blog page I suggested that the Moules should have one too...and this is the result! The link can also be found on my blog page or click on: http://mfamilyupdate.blogspot.com/

One final thing: I would like to thank everyone who has left comments on my blog. It is nice to get some immediate feedback that you are interested in our lives. And it is also a spin out when I get comments from people I didn't expect - thankyou Willy & Chris all the way on the other side of the world in the Netherlands!

Miami Vice shoes alert

Yes this is my handsome husband all dolled up in his bowling whites - Miami Vice shoes and all! After winning the Novice Championship at his local club there was a competition between all the Mandurah clubs but unfortunately Dave missed that one as it happened smack bang in the middle of his shutdown at work. The next competition in the sequence (and the one he is all dressed up for here) is the Novice Championship between all the Perth & Mandurah clubs. He had two pool games where the winner of the pool proceeded to the elimination rounds. Dave won his first game convincingly 21-14 and was feeling quite good about his prospects. In his second game the score got to 12-12 and apparently it was turning into a good tussle. BUT then his opponent bowled a short end which is unfortunately Dave's weakness and to make it worse the opponent caught on real quick that this was not to his liking and so continued to play this way. I think Dave felt a bit cheated about losing this way... There is an upside to the story however, in that it meant Dave didn't have to drive to Perth to play bowls today so we got another family day together (a valuable commodity at the moment).

Yesterday while Dave was at bowls Aiden & I had a nice visit from Nana and Peter. They got us out of the house for a coffee & walk down at the foreshore. Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera and so missed the opportunity to get some photos of Aiden chasing Nana around the trees.
(For those of you that don't know Mum managed to get a transfer with work and has moved back up to Perth.)

I hope you have all had a great Easter and can still stand the sight of chocolate!

Easter egg hunt

Yes I know you're not supposed to do the Easter egg hunt thing until Easter Sunday BUT Dave is playing in a bowls tournament on Saturday and if he does well he will also be expected to play on Sunday. So, our guaranteed family time is today so we decided to get the hunt over and done with. Aiden of course got right into it but I think the highlight was eating the chocolate rather than the searching and finding. We made him return each egg as he found them to me, but this degraded into find an egg, rip the wrapper off as soon as you get your hands on it and stuff as much into your mouth before mummy or daddy takes the egg away...

The box of eggs looked a little worse for wear by the time we had finished

Artist at work

So far Aiden's only exposure to arts and crafts has been at playgroup. This is mainly because they tend to make a terrible mess and being a mean mummy that I am, I would prefer this happen somewhere else other than at home (where I have to do all the cleaning up). Mother guilt finally took hold so Aiden and I went out this morning and bought a whole heap of craft stuff including of course, some paint. As it turns out it wasn't too bad and didn't take too long to clean up the mess or clean up Aiden! (Am still VERY nervous about giving him the glitter to play with though...) Anyway, here is the budding artist at work:


Aiden's "I'm concentrating" face
The reason why I stripped him down to his nappy before we began

Happy Birthday!

Best wishes to Tim today for his birthday. Hope you have a great day.

Love from Sara, Dave & Aiden

Play date

Aiden's best friend Charlotte came over today for a play date. They get soooooo excited when they first see each other - both making lots of noise and generally going berserk.... Thankfully Cassie (Charlotte's mum) and I also get on pretty well so we get together quite often. Here are some pics of the two munchkins:

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Charlotte having her first cuddle with Molly the guinea pig (while Aiden went feral in the background jumping on the lounge and generally NOT sitting still and quiet)

Aiden and I went for a play date yesterday to another friend's house where he received this late birthday present. It is an elephant with a 4ft trunk which blows butterflies out the top of its trunk. The idea is for the kids to catch the butterflies as they fall with their special nets. Of course the photos are way blurry because the kids are jumping up and down shouting "Catch, catch" (but not actually catching anything!).

"Yes mummy we're behaving"....

Aiden is now asleep... I put him to bed as soon as Cassie & Charlotte left and he was so tuckered out I didn't hear a single peep out of him before he fell asleep. This is one of the many reasons why these play dates are good...

Hairy McLary from Donaldson's Dairy

Dave has FINALLY finished with the shutdown at work. He worked 8 days straight (all very long days) since the last single day off and finally got to spend some time back home with us from Saturday. Most of the weekend has been spent just bumming around although we did go out and buy Dave a new toy - the lawn edger he has been wanting. Will wait until he actually tries out the edger then will post pics of the new look garden (mainly for the Eastern relies who haven't seen it since we ripped everything up).

Aiden of course is much happier having daddy at home - he sleeps better and even just plays on his own better?? He is blowing us away with his talking at the moment. He is going through a spurt where he is learning new words daily and is gaining the confidence to parrot new words back to us.

Just took these pics of Aiden watching Hairy McLary (a favourite DVD sent by Oma & Opa for his 1st b'day). Dave said yesterday in the car Aiden spotted a dog then proceeded to say, "McLary, bone, Morse, Potts" which translates to "Hairy McLary, bone, Hercules Morse, Bottomly Potts" - all characters we have come to know and love!