Sorry folks...if there is anyone other than Nannie Carol who has been waiting for an update. This has been on my To Do list for ages...finally get to cross something off!! I can't believe my last blog was August. Better stop here....put the kettle on, find your spectacles, get a comfy chair and we'll get started! (or the faster version which most of you probably do is skip the intro and head for the pics!!).
Well....Since I last wrote lots has happened. Now here are the photo's.....
ha ha...as if you would get away that easy.
August 2007 :
We headed for the U.K for a lengthy visit. Fortunately, all people and beloved objects survived the lengthy stay at Nannie Carol's. I do believe Nannie Carol has survived physically unscathed....as did all household items...if memory serves me correctly.
On the way over, the overnight journey that is, Emma decided that her usual 12 hour sleep could be by-passed. She was amazing...at 2:00 a.m she was commando crawling up the aisle playing with as many toes as she could. You should have seen the state of her sleeper when we finally got off the plane....ugh!! She lasted with smiles until the final descent when she collapsed into the extremely overtired baby that she was and turned into a screaming banshee!! Was all fairly short lived as the airport proved to be too interesting a place to not stop and have a look around...and within about 2mins in the car both babies were fast asleep!! Ollie opted for approximately 2 hours of sleep rather than his usual 12 but, despite this he was a superstar! We are very sick of Spot books however so if we never see one again...it will be too soon!
The highlights of the trip to the U.K included: Jackie and Steve's wedding, a trip to the Zoo for Ollie with Nannie, trips to bounce and rhyme at the local library for Emma, Nannie Frances' and Grandad Bernie's 40th Wedding anniversary celebration (another story all together) and finally a day out on the Haverthwaite steam train!!!
Adam was not able to stay for the full 7 weeks....someone has to pay the bills around here...so after about 2.5 weeks we had to say good-bye to Daddy for 3 weeks. In that time Dad arranged to have the new house painted, new carpet laid upstairs, and new hardwood downstairs. It was a very busy time for Adam going to work, then coming home to move furniture. He also took advantage of the end of season outdoor plant sales and decided to take on the mammoth task of fighting the weed infested flower beds to plant his inexpensive evergreens! When we arrived home...the house was a bit topsy turvy as the painting had been done but the other two jobs were still in the works...so, for the first few days back (Adam was back to work) and Ollie, Emma and I crowded in a small nook in our kitchen surrounded by all our earthly possessions for picnics at Ollie and Emma's little table. The work has now been finished and things are slowly getting back to their usual state of disarray. Ollie loves his new green room and Emma seems quite content in her lilac room (no it is not purple). I will have to look up the Feng Shui of Emma's room as she has settled nicely...you (and your neighbours Nannie Carol) will be pleased to know that Emma now sleeps through the night MOST nights without waking the household!! Perhaps she now knows that she won't get to watch a little late night telly now that she is home so she doesn't bother! The house is looking great....there is still lots to do however, I think all major jobs are done! Now it's just organizing and picture hanging....make it more home-like.
Ollie has some major news....when we returned home to no flooring we decided, what the heck...why not add another stress and attempt toilet training. Perfect timing really...all our furniture was either in the basement or piled up in the kitchen....the flooring and carpet that was to be replaced was already pee soaked anyway (we discovered when lifting the existing flooring....another rant I will avoid) so, what harm could be done? We had a couple of days where Thomas, Percy and James (the underpants) suffered some unexpected showers and had to be sent to the washdown however, it wasn't long before Ollie had worked his way down his sticker chart winning multiple Thomas and friends books along the way....He quickly completed the sticker chart and got to go to the Thomas store to pick his engine...the grand prize! Now, if you could see the chart you would naturally assume that Emily the Engine would have been the Engine of choice (the first 8 stickers were Emily stickers at which point there were no more) however, we came home with Henry! He is quite pleased with this accomplishment however, we have had the odd setback...like the other day when asked numerous times if he needed to use the potty and adamantly denied only to have an accident seconds later....not so bad on the number one front but I must admit I was a bit miffed when I was informed that, "Mummy I had a poo-poo on Rick's new floor". (Rick by the way was the fella who laid our hardwood flooring!). Emma has been learning all sorts of new tricks...I am not sure if I had told you in the last blog that Emma was commando crawling...she developed this really interesting way of crawling which made everyone who saw it laugh....she somehow managed to pull herself along on her belly with her right arm up in the air and her left leg complete with toe pointed elevated behind her...like a rudder! Anyway, she has since graduated to the more conventional crawling style but until recently she would collapse onto her belly if she wanted to get anywhere quickly...now she has mastered crawling at a rapid pace..one can hardly keep up with her..she heads to the staircase and thinks she is very clever!!
Emma has started talking as well!! We all knew it wouldn't be long! Most of the time she is having a proper conversation and gets most upset when you answer her gibberish with an inappropriate response..however, she is becoming slightly easier to understand as a few real words are thrown in every now and then. Her repertoire includes: bye bye, baby, boo, roar (she doesn't say roar she just roars like a lion...it is one of two universal animal sounds for Emma woof being the other), car, Ollie, Hello, Hiya, Mum and Da Da of course. She has mastered the art of winking, at least in her estimation, as she leans her head back and closes both her eyes with a goofy grin on her face.
Emma of course celebrated her first birthday. We had a lovely ice-cream cake after dinner on her birthday, November 20th. Nannie Carol was here as were Nannie and Grandad Halligan, Uncle Mike, Auntie Liz and Uncle Carl, Dad, Mum and Ollie. Ollie was very helpful blowing out the candle and singing happy birthday..he also helped Emma eat some of her ice cream cake...that did not go over very well with Emma. One does not touch Emma's food without her having something to say about it!!
Ollie and Emma have started to go to daycare. They go to Teresa's house every tuesday, wednesday and Thursday. At first there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth on the part of both Ollie and Emma, it broke Mum and Dad's heart having to extricate ourselves from their desperate grasp. Now, Ollie says, "Bye Mum" and closes the door on me before I am ready to go!! In fact, today is Monday and Ollie was all excited about going to Teresa's house and was actually disappointed when I informed him that it was only Monday and that he would be staying home with me!! He has all sorts of new friends there. Teresa takes care of two other brothers (Conner and Zach) in the mornings as well as Dillon and then in the afternoon Dillon's older brother Jack gets picked up from school to join the gang. Emma is a firm favourite with all the men. In fact, when I go to pick them up Emma is desperate to get to me to get away from the kisses from all her young admirers!! I must admit though, she is a great kisser. I often get greeted with repeated wide open mouthed snotty kisses upon my return!! The other day Adam had been working all weekend and when he was home on Monday morning he brought Emma into bed with us and lay her on his chest where she just kept kissing him over and over!! She is very lovey dovey!! She has a baby (in fact it happens to be the one she gave Ollie when she was born as a big brother gift) and she slathers baby in kisses. She keeps repeating "Baby" and "Eye" as she pokes and goobs on the baby's eye. While on the subject of anatomy I think it is safe to say that Emma will not be following in Mum's footsteps. Whenever you ask her to points to her nose she points to her ear and says, "beep beep" or pats her head. Her ear is her eye etc...anatomy seems not to be a strong point!! Emma is not walking yet..but it won't be long!! She pulls to stand on everything and often uses the chairs or any other piece of furniture (since everything has those floor protecting pads on them and are therefore easily pushed about) to practice ambulation. We do have a toy designed specifically for this purpose which Ollie used to love however, every time we bring it upstairs for Emma's use Ollie decides that he too needs to use it to "crash and bash" as he puts it so poor old Emms misses out again in the name of wall and floor and furnishings protection.
We have had lots of snow around here...thank goodness we have Ollie and his snow shovel. He refers to himself as the snow plow and spends ages outside with us shovelling. His favourite thing to do is follow along behind you and generally get in the way but, I don't really expect to get the shovelling done when I have "help" anyway. It gives the neighbours lots of entertainment seeing him out there anyway. Emma has proven to be a snow bunny. In Ollie's first year he didn't like the snow on his boots so, it was difficult to actually play out in the snow with him..Emma on the other hand loves it (unless her mitten falls off in which case she screams blue murder when she discovers that snow is actually quite cold). After one day of fairly heavy snow fall we went down the school down the road with our one sled. I went down with Ollie and then came back up for Emma. Well that was it...I wasnt allowed to take Ollie down again. Emma refused to get out...she would have to be lifted out kicking and screaming and trying to crawl back in if we didn't get down the hill fast enough. She eventually decided to forget about the sled as she would crawl down the hill face first until she got to a steep enough part where she would then slide down the hill spread eagle on her tummy...laughing all the way of course.
Anyway, here are a few photos of some of the recent events.
Sorry it took so long to update everyone!!
Take care,
Rach
