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