Online Babyhunt!

Hi! You know these sayings –

“The best laid plans of mice and men…” and “Spoke too soon.”

Well, they’ve been flung around here a bit the last few weeks LOL! We thought our family was complete, but it seems You Know Who thinks otherwise! We are expecting another baby to be birthed at home in October :)

Not something we were expecting or planning, I’m still struggling to get my head around the idea of having 2 under two, 2 in nappies, breastfeeding 2, not to mention how to get 3 carseats in the back of our car LOL!

So I’ve decided to make a fun online game out of the pregnancy announcement. It will also be interesting for me to see who reads my blog, as I have no idea! Once you’ve read this, if you’re a member of one of my online parenting forums, please put the following in your signature. (If you’re not, feel free to email or call us, or just leave a nice comment)

Here’s what to put (adding appropriate emoticons if you wish)

The great [insert forum initials here] Babyhunt – I found the secret pregnant member!

Don’t tell anyone who PM’s you asking, reply with appropriate emoticons LOL! Someone will eventually start a thread demanding to know who it is. I’ll post clues if necessary, I’ll put it in my sig too so it’s not too obvious that it’s me LOL! I’ll drop some hints around the boards too…it’s been really hard not to say anything so far, although I have told a couple of people.

Thanks for playing with me!

Love Nikki :)

Summer Fun

Here are the gorgeous girlies :)

Hannah and Abby love to share bath time, although they're quickly outgrowing this tub! They both enjoy showers now though, so it's no big deal, somehow the 3 of them fit in there and shower together!

Abby can also climb in and out of the tub and shower by herself, which is a little hair raising when it's so wet and slippery. Occasionally she gets dunked for a second but no harm done and there's always someone close by to grab her. Bother, I accidentally deleted the photo :(

We have been to the pool twice and are going again today as soon as we've had morning tea, so I'd better get on with it! They both absolutely LOVE the water and Hannah is growing in confidence each time.

Abby absolutely loves being outside, and she can open the front door and screen to get out onto the verandah now. She can't get back in the screen door, so that's a bit frustrating for her, but she'll work it out pretty soon. The verandah is all fully fenced now and she's not showing any tendency to climb yet, she toddles around pushing toys or looking at the animals and feeling the wind on her face :)

Our little pool is also out there some of the time, Daddy carefully leaves the hoses in the sun so by afternoon, the water is quite hot, and they can have a play in comfortable temperature water.

We do have a latch on the screen door, so if the water hasn't been emptied out of the pool, I can lock her inside, thank goodness! She loves her little watering can which you can see in the picture, and Hannah's old purple mower is also a hit!


Hannah is developing a real sense of humour and loves to make faces for the camera ;) She's holding a plastic fish in case you were wondering LOL! We bought her several sets of food and kitchen stuff from Target last year, so we have everything from sausages to salmon to spatulas lurking around the house!

We measured Hannah the other day, she's over 110cm tall now, still growing about 1cm a month which she has been doing for the last year. Very, very long legs, just like Mummy :) She's looking forward to going back to the preschool program at daycare this year and catching up with her friends. She may have some new friends as she's going on a different day this year. I'm hoping to take her back to Physie, seeing as ballet didn't come off last year...waiting to hear whether they have a teacher for the little ones...hopefully I won't have to volunteer!

Kim's Leg Brace

Here's a quick shot of Kim a few weeks ago in his leg brace. It was a little too long and dug into him in a few places, luckily now he doesn't need it much if at all. He's playing a tiny game of catch with the girls with a soft ball, sorry it's a bit small, I'll pick medium next time :) He's going really well now, you can hardly see a limp, and except that he moves a lot slower than his customary light-speed, you wouldn't know anything was wrong. We're seeing the GP today just for a bit of reassurance as it has been a bit sore, probably from overdoing it, but he expects that if he takes it "really easy" for a "whole day" after overdoing it for several days, then it goes back to normal immediately *big sigh*.

Baby girl has gone to sleep in the current best-for-going-to-sleep carrier so I'd better go put her down and get onto things. Part of the dishwasher broke yesterday, which Kim is trying to fix, but if he can't, I've got to put away the drainer full of stuff and wash all the plates and bowls and stuff...I hate washing by hand :(

I've found the drop-down list on this page where I can choose which blog I post to, so hopefully things will land in the right place from now on LOL!

The Man with a Horse Magnet in his Bum!

Here's hubby working on Louie. I swear the man has a horse magnet in his bum! He assures me that he used to, it's nowhere near as good now as it used to be LOL! I have a few small videos of him doing groundwork and a very little riding, I'll try and get them uploaded to youtube so you can see him in action! I think he's just gorgeous ;) Hubby and the horse ROFL!

He's started him reasonably calmly like I asked, there were a few battles of wills along the way as there always are. Louie's not a young horse, he's big and strong, he's had to be very careful to make sure he's not going to run over the top of me, as he's always been prone to a bit of pushing people around, Kim noticed it when he was a tiny foal even.

He's going really well under (treeless) saddle. I also bought a bitless bridle but got the wrong size, and by the time the right one came, hubby had already had his operation so riding is out of the question for now. I don't have the skill to get him accustomed to it...it kind of felt like trying to learn to drive a car on those stupid Playstation machines, when I grew up playing Outrunner on Sega LOL! I'm certain that once hubby is up and riding, it will be a great success though :) Or maybe I'll try it on one of the other horses if I ever get the energy, right now I'm flat out getting even some of the work that Louie needs done *sigh*

It's cold and wet here, yesterday was filthy, blowing a gale and sideways rain, I didn't even attempt to ride. I went out in hubby's wet weather gear to feed the calf and check a trough, Louie thought the swish-swish of the WWG was a bit scary and that I might eat him up LOL! We had a bit of a 'chat' about it and I rubbed him over so he could see it was just 'clothes'.

Better get out there, it's not raining right now but it looks like it could come in filthy again soon...oh well, even if it's not really raining, at least it's not drying out like it was a few days ago. I have to try and get some mowing done today too - thank heavens for ride-ons!

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 :)