just plodding along

31122009

i will be welcoming in the new year in my sleep.

happy new year everyone!

last full day

howie eating by new BBQ light

oscar and grandmama practicing walking

oscar and his grandpa

howie got his helicopter going. it is great fun!

oscar's developing his cheesy camera smile

kluger

this afternoon, we visited harvey norman. i drove the in-laws kluger. big isn't it. i was very scared. not of driving it. but if accidentally bumping into anything because i wasn't as spatially aware in it. thankfully we were incident free.

piccies

Father and Son

Oscar checking out Lilly

The creek through town flooded

Mary opened her birthday presents early, the naughty girl

Howie and I had some time to ourselves this afternoon, so we headed into town for some wandering and shopping. In the ABC section of Dymocks we spotted these... Go Ty!

Howie got his helicopter ready to go, complete with homemade helipad

But there was a fair bit of chinglish to sift through

27th

our time in armidale tends to be pretty laid back. cricket is on. the occasional wander into town. a lot of sitting around. as a holiday should be. and yesterday was just that. the weather is helping with showers and rain meaning indoors is the place to be. for the most part.

oscar and his grandmama in the garden

oscar checking out some photos of his daddy as a little person

howie practicing his "old man on a porch in a rocking chair with a shot gun" pose

the park across the road has swings. winner!

howie and his dad had some of their own fun

new england

after a pretty patchy sleep, we got ourselves organised to press on from maitland to armidale today.

i made the most of our money spent on our night at the motel, in milk!

And then we were off. Doesn't Oscar look excited to be back in the car

We stopped off in Wallabadah for Oscar to have some lunch. Nothing was open, but thankfully there was a table outside the shop with an awning to protect us from the rain. Oscar had a great time watching all the cars go past

Once we arrived in Armidale (after another stop in Tamworth for Oscar's milk and our lunch), it was eventually present time.

Oscar playing with his new blocks that Grandpa made

Grandmama and Grandpa seemed to like their other present. We sure do!

Later on, Oscar got to use one of his presents in the big bath

Looking forward to bed tonight. Oh yeh.

chrissie day

oscar woke bright and early for christmas - 5:30am.

once we were all dressed and breakfasted, it was present time. oscar had a nice little pile to open

and only one of them was from us (and cost less than $10!)! so thank you to the frenchs, carltons, novaks and julian for making us look less stingy. oscar enjoyed all your gifts, including the pig from julian

after 8am church and a brief stop at nana and poppy's it was back into the car and off to The Oaks for Gower family Christmas. thankfully oscar had a nap in the car as he'd been awake for 5 hours already!

not long after arriving it was present time, combined with lunch time for Oscar

followed by lunch time for us! oh the christmas cheer.

oscar had fun with his various relatives. including great grandma and great uncle milton

he also had a LOT of fun with the duplo, i mean, elyse

he seems to be thinking "who is this crazy girl!"

and before long we were back on the road, heading to maitland for the night. after a half hour sleep (damn you pennant hills road with your stop/start), and a bit of food, howie joined oscar in the back

it was a quick job as we took the peats ridge exit to find somewhere to stop and move things in the rain. the resulting front seat!

we got to the motel by 7:30pm, and oscar was fed and bedded, and eventually asleep by 8:30pm. a late night for him. and an early night for us, in bed within 45 mins of that!

so a happy, busy, love-filled christmas. tick.

Oscar is one.

This is how he celebrated.

He opened some presents.

He liked the noisy bells from the Colquhouns

A truck from Mummy and Daddy - "broooom"

Remember it's double demerits

We visited the post office - there was no mail. How disappointing.

Andy, Penny and Miki visited

Then it was off to Mothers Group - there were only four mums and their bubs, but there was still lots of fun to be had

There was a pretend nap on the couch

Lots of people to speak to on the phone, including Joshy

And after dinner we brought out Valentina's cake

Oscar liked the look of it but he wasn't offered any to eat.

And that was Oscar's day. There were also visits to Westfield and the petrol station. What a celebration!

Happy birthday little choomphead!

one year on

it's pretty surreal that around about now a year ago i was getting an epidural after many hours of labour.

milco

it might be a bit late for this year, but if you're interested in environmentally friendly wrapping paper and like a sale, then you should visit milco paper. it's a fairly new company, so the range is a little small at the moment, but the website says they are going to branch out in the new year.

each product has an "environmental paper profile" that tells you all kinds of things, so you know what you're getting. for example.

usually i'm not into wrapping paper (we love just plain brown paper for wrapping), but i was curious and bought some last week and received it today, and it's great.

does this sound like cash for comment? well, it's not. i just think it's a great idea.

non-party

this afternoon we had oscar's first birthday non-party. it was just my mum's side of the family. we didn't want to have a big bash as howie's parents wouldn't have been able to come, and i didn't want them to miss out! so we just had a little afternoon tea.

i made a cake. it's a turtle, with a barry. i sure am not valentina!

here's me and the boy before others arrived

once people had arrived we got the 'formalities' done first up.

cake time. oscar was a bit stunned from everyone singing 'Happy Birthday' so he momentarily forgot how to blow. so i did it for him

then it was present time. oscar was very blessed by his family. there were books, cash monies, more books, rattles and clothes

and an awesome trike from the noobs!

then it was time to sample the cake

someone was the centre of attention

on behalf of oscar i think i can say that he had a good time. thank you family.

kiddie chrissie

we had kidd family christmas lunch yesterday.

there must have been some subconscious memo that a few of us received

after a yummy lunch it was soon present time.

the noobs are away at christmas, so we exchanged presents then. we have a three present rule. this is the reaction to one of their presents

a worthy reaction for such an awesome present

oscar did pretty well for such a little guy

howie and i also got to exchange one present each a bit early, as one of his presents was relevant to the noobs. again a worthy reaction

howie gave me a 'selphy' - a little photo printer. it's pretty damn good. this is the first photo ever printed on it

oscar and his grayma had some play time too.

all in all it was a lovely time. missed grandpa though.

festive

who says we aren't festive.

you saw our tree.

here are the cards.

and here are some lights.

amazing.

summer nights

it sounds like it's hailing, but it's dark so i can't tell.

i hope this southerly is a good one.

from tonight

we have dinner once a fortnight at my parents.

since howie got his iPhone, this is pretty much what the boys look like when it's not eating time.

and xander's eye, or non-eye i should say, has healed up well. poor thing, but he seems to be coping fine.

my parents have put up their Christmas tree so i thought i should take a photo of Oscar with a real tree, as awesome as our one is

it's my parents 31st wedding anniversary today, and they celebrated it with all of us over for dinner. how romantic. but well done you two!

silly season

Things are ramping up in the celebration department.

Tomorrow is Howie's work Christmas party. Fortunately it's family friendly with a picnic lunch. Saturday we have my Mum's family Christmas. Sunday is a little family afternoon tea for Oscar's birthday. Then we have a bit of a break until Thursday with Oscar's actual birthday, and then Christmas on Friday out past Camden with my Dad's family. Christmas evening we drive up to Maitland for the night before continuing on to Armidale on Boxing Day for more Christmas and birthday celebrations and hopefully a nice break. Then back in time for Jo and Victor's happy party!

It's almost non-stop family, friends and fun. Hopefully a good dose of sleep as well.

disaster!

mcdonald's has started phasing out the lean beef burger.

this is terrible news, since it's the only thing i'll eat there.

christmas around the corner

put the christmas tree up today.

i went up into the roof to get it. that was an effort. putting the tree up wasn't. find a spot, plug it in, done.

and then i wrapped presents. all christmas shopping has been done, which feels fantastic.

mission complete.

gender

i'd like to think that if guido had been a girl, we would have been just as enthusiastic about trains and diggers and lions and tractors and the like.

that's a pretty awesome outfit. but rather boyly.

i don't think we are too gender specific with oscar. sure he doesn't have a dolly, but he does have a pink bratz lanyard. most of his toys are gender neutral. his clothes started off that way too, although they are tending to lean a little more to the blues and khakis. i don't want him to feel confined to the stereotype. i don't care if he likes teddies and bunnies and cats (and he does), or even dolls and fairies and dressups. go for it child!

but it is scary how gender specific everything is for little people.

eating

i'm thankful that oscar has started eating more. seems cutting back his milk is working. mostly. not always. and he's figuring out how to chew better, so there is less gagging, and little to no vomiting. winner!

but this also means i've had to start thinking more about what to cook. doh.

the other night i made rissoles for him. he liked them. good. tonight i made vegetable and tuna patties. he liked them too. good. need to get more veggies into him. which is hard when i don't really get many veggies into myself. or into howie.

he is still having problems with his gut though, which isn't very exciting. and i do wonder if that will affect his eating as the days go by. shall have to ask AGAIN at the doctors on monday about it, and see if there's a more surefire way forward with it all.

nice

i wish all days were like today. oscar was so good - happy, funny, cute, napped, ate. all of those things.

days like these i can count on one hand.

or three fingers.

that's a pretty poor strike rate for a baby who's 350 days old (that was quick maths knowing that there's 365 days in a year and oscar's birthday is in two weeks tomorrow - i haven't been counting the days since he was born).

it's ok, his next round of vaccinations are on monday. that could mix things up a bit. have every other time.

or should i just think positive. hmmm...

addicted

i'm now using howie's old iPod touch, since he has his iPhone. and if i hook up to internet sharing on my MacBook Pro i can play "Words With Friends" with everyone in the iPhone world. it's great fun. and highly addictive. and often frustrating. and sometimes satisfying. but good for your brain.

for example

fuze

soft drink that's good for you!

i'm not sure that i quite believe it as whole heartedly as they are selling it. but it's still yummy. and i do like P&N.

keen as mustard

the keens are up in sydney at the moment, so we took advantage of that and told them to catch the train up our way for a picnic. they kindly obliged.

after some catching up over some ice cold cokes at home, we piled into the car and headed to Bobbin Head. we found a nice spot and set ourselves up with a couple of picnic rugs and a stack of food.

the boys managed to open the beers without the use of a bottle opener. the gutter didn't work. but the picnic table nearby did.

we had a very nice lunch, besides the ants. i took no photos of our picnic. error.

the little buddy was good and left his hat on the whole time.

the boys played some frisbee

what a good looking trio

then we went for a walk on the boardwalk

there were LOTS of crabs in the mangroves with the tide going out.

howies and keens

there were a bunch of young males and fancy or fancyish cars nearby. the males didn't look particularly cool. perhaps it was a church car club.

we headed back home - oscar wasn't tall enough to be in this photo

after some more chatting, ben and erica headed off on the train back to the city for some busking.

thanks for visiting us keens. it's always lovely to see you!

drowning in dvds

Yesterday we hit our maximum capacity for our DVD shelves.

Must admit that some are Tom's as well. But there are also some of our DVDs lent out at the moment. Oh dear!

So the plan is for music DVDs to get shafted to elsewhere.

We might need to think about some new shelving in the future as well.

We love DVDs

Who's governing?

I'm not terribly into politics, but I do tend to be aware of what's going on and who is who. And currently I do think that Australian politics seems to be going to the dogs more than it normally is.

Firstly all the hoo-hah with the Federal Opposition.

And now today, the new NSW Premier. I've never heard of her before. I'm not very excited that she's from the Right. But who knows.

There doesn't seem anyone really capable of running NSW. The Labor party is falling apart. But the Opposition doesn't really inspire confidence.

Isn't great to have great leaders.

feet

what are the chances

our evenings are usually filled with DVDs. that's just how life is at the moment. and today we've re-started las vegas. ah it's a gooden.

i just looked up wiki to see when season 5 FINALLY will come out on region 4 DVD. and it's TOMORROW!!! oh my goodness. that is mega exciting. we haven't seen any of those episodes. the only bummer is that it was cancelled at the end of season 5, so everything is left hanging. i hate that!