Abby Walking!

I uploaded a little video some time ago of Abby pushing the block trolley at Kim's parents' place in November, to our online photo album, but it wouldn't work - today it did! So here she is in all her toddler-y glory :)

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/kimandnikki/MyVideos/photo#5131020542763206546

She can pretty much do what you see without the trolley now, and can even push things that tip over if she leans too much weight on them like the toy pram and lawnmower.

Now I know it will work, I'll try and get some more stuff uploaded off the camera.

Love Nikki :)

Some photos

Hi all :)

Here are some great shots of our girls. Abby and Hannah love having a bath together, we always look forward to being anywhere there's a full size bath LOL!

Here is Hannah finally enjoying her first ice cream cone! Finally I found some gluten free ones, and she wouldn't even taste it, so I left them behind at Grandma's...and the first night home from holiday she wanted to try one *sigh*. Luckily I found some even nicer ones (waffle cones) in a shop in Tenterfield of all places, and she thinks they're a bit of all right!

This is the sandpit that daddy built. Abby loves it big time, and after her first big handful of sand, she hasn't eaten too much more LOL! We have regular excavation projects underway there, usually involving water ;)

And here's bubby girl in the pool on the verandah. We have had some hot days in between the jumper weather this month *roll eyes* and she has developed impressive skills at climbing in and out of the pool on her own :) We have to be very careful now as she can open both the screen door and the front door and let herself out...at least the verandah is fully fenced now so she's not going to fall overboard! I had to grab her this morning though as the cat had left the remains of last nights' hunting expedition on the verandah, and I wasn't keen on her patting the remains of a baby rabbit, no matter how soft and fluffy that piece of fur looked *puke*.

I'm hoping to blog more often now, I've found a more speedy way of uploading the photos and it's better for entering the text too, so hopefully you'll hear from us more often! I haven't really made a new year's resolution for a while, but this year it's "to blog before all my other online interests" so it will get done instead of being pushed onto the back burner :)

Love Nikki :)

Our Ballina Trip

We had a lovely time at the end of September in Ballina. Good friends were married at the lighthouse, and it was a stunning day. Abby missed the ceremony, being asleep in the car, and we didn't remember to get a good photo of her later on, but she was wearing a matching dress with Hannah, and they were absolutely gorgeous! We stayed at the Ballina Lakeside Holiday park and it was just stunning too! Very nice cabin, and the pictures of the children's water park don't do it justice, it really is a wet wonderland for the little ones :) We also visited a friend at the beach up at Ocean Shores and had a great time playing on the beach, digging holes and splashing about, despite the water being pretty cold. Abby found it a bit overwhelming but Hannah has really grown in confidence and was running about enjoying herself. Abby does like the water, loves it in fact, but the second she gets cold, she's had enough...just like her mummy!!

Anyhow, this is the first time I've used this program to post the pictures to the blog, so I'll sign off now and see if it worked, I have more pictures to post and more stuff to tell you about, so hopefully I'll be back later!

Love Nikki :)

Family Update

Wow! It's been 4 months or so, I've been neglecting the poor blog! I hardly know where to start!

Abby is crawling all over the place now, cruising around the furniture and has just cut her third tooth, with a few nights of much moaning and groaning, unfortunately! She is just starting to eat regularly, she's had rice, potato, pumpkin, carrot, broccoli, gluten free bread, and various other things. She didn't like purees very much so we pretty much skipped them and she just feeds herself from the highchair tray...dinner is much more relaxed now she's occupied! We are still going strong with the breastfeeding though, it was so much more convenient travelling recently than having to carry bottles and formula. We visited Grandma and Gra-Gra and all the family in Canberra, after a weekend stop in Sydney for me to attend a Coeliac Society function, as I'm the contact person for the area. It was a great event, lots of gluten free food everywhere, but the girls had their first bout of gastro, Abby on the Friday night, Hannah on Sunday at Mum and Dad's. It wasn't fun but it also wasn't one of the week-long chucking bugs I've heard about!

Hannah has had her 4th birthday which was very exciting for all concerned! We had a nice get together in the park on the actual day, and one of the parents works for the local paper and is a photographer, so we got a group shot published :) Between Grandma and Mummy's wrapping efforts, she had a monster pile of presents to open on the morning of the big day, and Abby was fascinated with the process, then with the wrapping paper LOL! Hannah is growing in confidence in a lot of areas, she spent a lot of time with her grandparents while we were away without any dramas, which is very nice, as 2 years ago she was not separating from her parents very well...nice to see our committment to gentle parenting bearing fruit! She is happy to be home on the farm, and Abby goes nuts every time Daddy leaves the house without her, she has missed him terribly! Here's a picture Hannah drew on her magnadoodle toy which is great for in the car, it is a horse surrounded by flowers. She has suddenly shot ahead with her drawing, she seemed to go from scribbling to drawing people complete with necks, fingers and eyes with pupils overnight!

It's Father's Day tomorrow, and I haven't wrapped Kim's present or written in his card yet, so I'd better leave it there and hope to get some more pictures off the camera and up here tomorrow.

Ciao!

Big Catch Up!

Phew it's been a while since I updated things, we've had a busy time of it lately.

Abby is just crawling, she's been trying to for several weeks, and has just worked out what to do with her hands the last couple of days, hooray! She was getting very frustrated :) Her first 2 teeth are visible in her lower gum too. They don't seem to be giving her too much trouble, a bit of teething gel helps though. And today she started saying "bwah bwah bwah!" - loudly! It's been mostly vowel sounds until now, so we're well on the way to "mum mum mum" hopefully LOL! She will be 6 months old on 4th June!

Hannah is growing and growing. She can dress herself now if she really wants to, right down to socks, although if she's tired she has trouble with it still. She had a patch of not speaking very clearly for a while, partly due to a cold, and partly imitating a new friend, I think. We are very greatful this has passed, it just took a few weeks of deliberately misunderstanding her to make her think about how she was speaking! She is doing a lot of writing at present, and with direction, can write the 3 letters in her name from scratch and it's obvious enough that it's her name! Her mousing skills are also improving, she has taken to answering the telephone and is learning to operate the remote controls - she'll be better at that than Daddy in no time at all LOL! She will be 4 on 29th July.

Kim is still hard at work. He's had some bleeding noses the last week and gets very tired, but still enjoying the farm work. We're looking at knee surgery at the end of the year, the specialist has identified the weakness in the left knee as the anterior cruciate ligament being gone, probably when Abby was a week old and he jumped off the horse a bit awkwardly. So he'll be at home recuperating all of December and January at this stage. We have a holiday on the Gold Coast booked for the last week of January at a very nice resort, one of those cheap deals, and we're very much looking forward to that. Abby should be walking and Hannah will be 4 and a half so it should be a pleasant trip. Here is the site if you'd like to have a look: www.grandefloridaresort.com.au

I am floundering along, learning to manage life with 2 children :) Sometimes I am on top of everything, other times not, but such is life with small children! Abby had some unsettled nights a couple of weeks ago, and I was starting to think that this co-sleeping wasn't all it cracked up to be, and maybe we would all get more sleep if the cot was in another room...then I remembered how sad I was when Hannah moved to her own room and started sleeping all night, so I stroked her head and decided I'd just enjoy the baby snuggles, they don't last forever *sniff sniff*! I have been doing some knitting, some sewing, lots of cleaning and organising (it never ends, does it!). I sort of have my cloth nappy designs worked out, and now have to find some time to sew some "testers" and get them sent off to my volunteers who will try them on a range of different sized babies :)

OK time to upload some photos and get back into it!

Love Nikki xo

Rock and Roll!

Hi everyone :) Yesterday we took the girls to the creek and scampered about there for a while, enjoying the warm sun and cool water, climbing on the rocks and feeling the sand between our toes. Abby seemed to enjoy having her toes dabbled in the water, despite the look of grim concentration while it was happening! She is still getting used to the bright light of outside I think. The other part of the title is roll - which is exactly what she is doing now! She can quite easily roll from her back to her front, not quite so good at turning back over when she's tired though :) She is making serious attempts at getting mobile already, it's making my hair stand on end, the thought of having a mobile baby within a month LOL! Hoping she takes a little longer than that ;)

You'll find a picture of some craft that Hannah and I made on Friday at the end of this post, we had a lot of fun making a zoo :) She cut out the baby animals by herself and did quite well, only the giraffe got cut in half, and only the joey lost his head ROFL! The matchsticks are fences and the glitter is the path.



I went to a fundraising lunch for our ABA group today, it was a fun afternoon and I had a nice time chatting with several mum's who had the same midwife attend their homebirths as I had. I wore my new top, and I'll upload a photo of it, although we didn't get to it until tonight so my hair is all messed up and the light isn't good :) Abby had a lovely time watching all the new faces or sleeping in the Ergo carrier, but by the time we got home she was very keen to just 'kick back', literally, she spent the first hour rolling around on the floor with her nappy off. She was also very keen to see Daddy. When he came in she was just about ready to sleep but she stayed awake for half an hour to talk to him before dropping off...4 hours later she is still asleep and looks to be settled for the night! Now the challenge will be to get a night nappy on her without waking her too much when she wakes to feed LOL!





I don't have too much more to add...I asked Kim if he had any particular news to share but he couldn't think of anything LOL. He has been spending a fair bit of time arranging Diana's 21st birthday and also a weekend away in April around his birthday, as he has been asked to work the long weekend, which is usual, there is always a big job with the cattle those holidays that must be done while the owner is visiting and there are extra hands on duty!





Much love to all,


Shalom!


Nikki

Phew! Weird Weather!

Hi everyone :) Just quickly popping in to say hello. We have been having some strange weather around here. All through summer we had days which were rediculously cool, not getting over 20 degrees all day, along with some stinkers, but February has been mostly reasonable. Yet today we were back to 30 degrees! I drove around town admiring the real estate and visiting streets I'd not been down to get the air conditioning going before picking the girls up from daycare.

Hannah is learning to write her name, they have laminated cards in her preschool room and they trace over their letters with whiteboard markers...I'm sure she loves that because I won't let her have big textas at home LOL! She is really enjoying new challenges like that, and has stopped asking to go outside all the time - no doubt as soon as the filthy winter weather kicks in that will change! She loves to dance, I got some great shots of her like the one above...can't wait until the girls are a little older and I can do some scrapbooking!

Abby rolled from her back to her front today :) She can just wriggle her arm out from under herself into a comfy position most of the time, and she thinks she's so clever :) In the picture she's wearing my latest knitting project, quite a triumph actually :) We use cloth nappies, and a knitted wool cover treated with lanolin keeps most moisture in, allows some to evaporate while neutralising the wee smell and is very cool for bottoms, meaning with a good nappy underneath, I don't have to get up and change it during the night! I'll try and post some more pictures tomorrow, but all female members of the family have had a nasty cold in the last fortnight, so I am going to have to do some serious housework now I'm almost well again. Fortunately the MOTH doesn't seem to be coming down with it, all that lovely fresh farm air and immune-stimulating germs are doing the trick!

So I shall say goodnight and love to all :)

Mummy's Turn!

Hi all! It's been a busy week! We went to Inverell and stayed Friday night with Kim's younger daughter and met her boyfriend who is very nice, then we drove to Narrabri to see Kim's parents, Kim's older daughter came down from Moree to stay as well, then on Sunday we drove her home and saw her new flat, visited in Inverell again then got home about 9.30pm! It was quite hot, very glad the airconditioning in this car works and doesn't break down all the time like our 2 previous vehicles! So Abby has met her grandparents and sisters and had a wonderful time, except she has Hannah's cold and is quite snuffly. Fine during the day but worse at night, of course LOL! She had a 2.5 hour sleep today, so hopefully lots of healing went on there :) Kim's boss is visiting for the week so they have been doing the big jobs together like weighing cattle and such. We had some rain last night and a few showers today, so that was nice...I'm glad most of the washing went on the verandah clothesline this morning LOL! Hannah is coming along in leaps and bounds with learning to write and read, she is very good at sound recognition and can write 'H' without assistance! I'll put up a picture of her with some worksheets we did last week, lots of colouring, cutting and glueing :) I am hoping to weigh Abby tomorrow, she is growing out of some of her nappies so I'll have to get sewing and make some more. I've learned how to knit, I'll also put up a pic of my latest triumph! And one of Abby enjoying the shower with Daddy :) Must go to bed, it's quite late. Love to you all, from Nikki xoxo

My big day

Hi! I had a big day today, just thought I'd tell you about it :) Daddy cooked me 2 fried eggs for breakfast, and I ate all of them. We went for a drive in the ute to check something on the farm, and by the time we got home for morning tea at 11, I was so tired I went to bed for a rest! I jumped out again pretty quickly when Daddy said he'd take me down to muster the sheep and pick one to butcher later today! That was great fun, but I was so tired after that I couldn't finish my yummy animal pasta for lunch, I just had to sleep. I even took myself to bed, coz I couldn't wait for Mummy or Daddy. Had a nice big sleep, got up and ate some junk food with Mummy and Daddy, our weekend treat. Then Daddy took me out for a swim in the new dam (the one that isn't very deep, only up to Daddy's chest) and back down to butcher the sheep. We got home about 6.45, Mummy helped Daddy hang up the sheep in the meathouse while I listened out for Abby in case she woke up (she didn't, she's a good little sleeper!). We finally had dinner, a bath and got to bed, I was so tired I didn't even want good night kisses. I think I'll have a big sleep in tomorrow and take it a bit easier! Mummy was so impressed, even though I was so tired, I didn't throw any tantrums today! OK, talk to you again soon! Love Hannah PS In the picture I'm trying out Mummy's new phone headset, it's really handy for walking around the house when I'm talking to you!

First Entry!

My very first blog entry! Hmm, what to say? Welcome and thanks for coming to catch up with what's going on around here!

Poor Daddy was just about to finish work when a neighbour's bull came rampaging after our cows again (he's going to market on Monday, not a moment too soon), so there was extra work to put him back...at least he only smashed ONE gate this time ;)

I went to ABA in town and had a nice time...just remembered that Hannah had lots of sand in her undies from the sandpit which went all over the bathroom floor, and Mummy forgot to mention it...I hope they vacuumed in there! Hannah also did some great drawings and played with dinosours. All I could do was watch, which was enough really. Mummy gave me a nice feed and I drifted off to sleep all by myself lying on my blankie on the floor near Mummy - she was so proud! She sat there and made sure none of the crawling babies climbed on me, and Hannah helped with that too.

I am putting a lot of my energy into smiles and learning to talk at the moment. My favourite sounds are "oh" and "ow", it's really fun to say them as long as I can, as loud as I can, especially when Mummy joins in, although sometimes she makes such funny faces I just have to laugh...and sometimes she just plain cheats and tickles me!

I'd better let Hannah write the next entry, sisters must share...we'd better share with Mummy too, it is her computer after all :)

Love from Abby xoxo