Sophie's photos from the Naki

Arhhhhh it's taken me over an hour loading these photo's!!! - so no long winded update sorry.

Sophie smiling at Auntie Rochelle

Grandma King and Sophie

Sophie's great grandma Nan

Bloody Computers...

My sisters in Taranaki sent through some pics of Sophie, when her and Ingrid were dowen there last week...but for some stupid reason they won't load on the blogsite?

I'll have a play around tomorrow and try and get them on.

Sophie is having some much needed sleep at the mo, she was awake for close to 4 hours today!!!...we took her for a drive and cruise around the shops (whch normally puts her to sleep), but nothing worked this arvo....the funny thing was you could tell she was knackered and wanted to sleep, but she kept on cracking smiles between yawns and waking herself up again!

Brad

Home with daddy

It was the daddy and Sophie show today. I’ve been away quite a bit recently with work so Ingrid spent the day Sophie-less, shopping and getting her hair done. I gotta say Sophie was a little angle and gave me loads of smiles and giggles and slept in between feeds without a hitch.

Sophie goes in next week to get a couple more jabs and a standard check up with the Doc, it will be interesting to see how much weight she’s put on over the past few weeks too. She's growing more and more and developing new Sophie-isms daily too! Her latest is blowing bubbles and squealing when she gets excited, and she even hums along with a big a grin on her face when you sing to her too...Sophie is the bomb.

Brad

The new chair

Whoops...what was that!

Spot the difference...freaky.

Sophie around six weeks old

Brad around six weeks old

Sophie wears the boots in this family

Sophie taking a walk in mummys shoes

Poser Sophie is the only one looking at the camera

We went out again today to see how Sophie would behave, luckily she was great and only grizzled right at the end, although we have noticed that the car and pram don't seem to automatically make her sleep anymore as she stayed awake l0oking around her for most of the trip, which resulted in a very tired baby. However after a big feed and bath (and some rocking of her bassinet) she went off to sleep - lets hope she stays that way for a while, and continues sleeping overnight.

Brad is away on his market tour again tomorrow for a couple of days - must admit that I am a little nervous about being the sole parent in the house while he is away! Lets hope we can all get some good sleep and Sophie doesn't play up to me being home alone with her. Will keep you posted.

Ingrid

Taranaki Trip

I spent last week in Taranaki visiting the family while Brad was on his market tour. I was really looking forward to getting out of Auckland for a bit and showing Sophie off to everyone. We left on a beautiful sunny Monday morning and arrived in Stratford late afternoon to a bitterly cold day – I guess that is to be expected when my mum lives under the mountain! However she had the house all nice and cozy and toasty warm for her girls. It was a bit of a loooooong trip and I don’t think Sophie was overly happy to be stuck in the car for so long, but she handled it like a trooper (the trip back was a different story, read about that further on).

It was fantastic to see everyone, and we were very well looked after at mums. I got some much needed rest and a couple of really good nights sleep and of course Sophie just fitted in perfectly, in fact she was even better behaved at mums than she is at home! Every time I put her down to sleep at mums she would just go straight off to sleep without a murmur and wake with coos and smiles – at home, she has to make a big drama out her of bed time, just to keep us on our toes! The weather turned to custard on the second day, so we just stayed indoors for the next day and then went into New Plymouth town to visit friends and family (and of course I left the camera behind again). But Brad’s sister Rochelle took some great photos while visiting us out in Stratford and I will put them up on the blog soon.

As mentioned above the trip back to Auckland was just horrid. The weather was dreadful so of course I had to drive slowly with my precious cargo and came back via Hamilton (which adds about half and hour to the journey), so I could stop and feed Sophie in the parents room of the mall where we would be nice and dry. Typically the weather turned worse and I hit a thunderstorm 20 minutes outside Hamilton and could hardly see the road in front of me, so that slowed us down even more. By the time we hit Hamilton Sophie was stirring and making it known that she was hungry, luckily we got to the mall pretty quickly and before she knew it she was changed and fed and having a bit of play time before being bundled back into the car. Due to the weather conditions and the slow trip we hit the Auckland motorway at dead on 5pm and hit the traffic not long after. By this stage Sophie had had enough and just started screaming – not nice little cry’s, but full on heart breaking screams, and of course I was in the fast lane of the motorway with bumper to bumper traffic…I managed to get off at Greenlane and stop at the Foodtown where I got Sophie out of her car seat and gave her a big hug and managed to calm her down. But of course we couldn’t stay there forever, so back onto the motorway we went and Sophie went back to screaming. By the time we got home, Sophie hated me and I couldn’t wait to get out of the car and hug her. She managed to calm down when she saw Brad and then had a big feed, play and then sleep. Whew, I don’t think I will be doing that again in a hurry – six hours cooped up in the car is far too long.

To top it all off, she used to love her car seat and go to sleep easily every time we went out in it but today we decided to go out for a coffee and to do the grocery shopping as a family for the first time and it turned into a disaster – I ended up having to take her out of the car seat and carry her around the supermarket, every time I put her back in it she would cry – sigh, I hope this isn’t a sign of what’s to come as I am going to need to go out in the future and if she’s now got a phobia about it then outings by myself are going to become impossible! Will try again tomorrow and see what happen, hopefully she was just hungry…

Ingrid

Cheeky Bedtime Smiles

Sophie is now greeting us with cheeky little smiles when she wakes...

Ingrid or Sophie?

Ingrid found a picture of her as a baby...It's confirmation that Ingrid is indeed Sophie's mum!
Spooky...

Sophie last week

Ingrid as a baby a few months old

Home alone...

I’m home a day earlier than planned, a couple of flights got cancelled in the South Island and we had to re-gig things around a bit. I was looking forward to coming home a day early, but of course the girls are still New Plymouth for another night so I don’t get to see them!!!…I did spend a 20 minutes watching a few little videos and checking out photo’s of little Sophie on line though…had to get my fix somewhere!

Ingrid said Sophie has been extremely well behaved in New Plymouth and the ‘relies’ are all flocking to see them both. Ingrid can let you know how it all went anyhow.

I had to leave a couple of pictures up from my trip to Queenstown…I’ve only been there once before and forgot how incredibly wicked that place is…it had absolutely nothing to do with the large night of dinner and drinks we had there either…

View from outide my hotel room!

Brad

Sophie tries to crawl

Sophie flirting with the camera, looking oh so cute

Sophie has a mischievous look on her face, just like her mum when she was little

Nah not really trying to crawl, but certainly showing how strong she is growing on a daily basis. Sophie has inherited some traits from both of us, but unfortunately they aren't the good traits we would have liked - from me she has inherited my fiery nature, getting angry at the slightest thing, you know, milk not coming out quick enough, and from Brad, his love of the TV! Even at this young age she stares at the TV when being fed and will almost break her neck trying to peer at it if we move her out of viewing site...I am trying to break the addiction by turning the TV off as much as possible when she is in the room, but Brad keeps turning it back on...oh well, maybe I should sell the TV while Brad is away. Speaking of which, Brad is away for the week in the South Island for work and I am taking Sophie down to our home town (New Plymouth) so she can be cuddled and loved from her extended family, so we probably won't get the chance to update for a few days, so keep posted from Thursday onwards and hopefully I will remember to take the camera and get some photos!

Ingrid

Pot Luck Lunch

Today our antenatal group all got together, girls, guys and babies, for a pot luck lunch, as usually it’s the girls who get together on a Tuesday for Coffee group and the guys on the same night for beer group. So since the actual antenatal classes, this is the first time we have all been in a room together, thanks a bunch to Marta and Peter (and their beautiful boy Kuba) who opened their home to us all today.

It was a really nice way to spend a couple of hours and for everyone to admire everyone else’s babies and see how much they are all growing. I am pleased to say that Sophie behaved very well and even gave a big gummy grin and a wee chat to Marta. Once again I was in charge of the camera and forgot to take a photo for the blog! Jeez I am an idiot….so above is a picture of Sophie grinning from this morning.

Ingrid

Daddy got Staind...

Daddy and the Staind guys

Hi

Daddy met the guys from the Rock band 'Staind' today. Mummy told me they went along to his work to do a talky thing on the radio and play some songs on their guitars.

I was a little bit upset with him, because he didn’t come home after work to see me…mummy said he mumbled something about having to go along and watch them play a giggy or something like that.

Daddy was making so much noise when he came home tonight, he was dropping the keys at the door and I could smell this horrible, yucky smell coming from downstairs too…Mummy told me later on that he had been drinking lots and lots while he was out, and just like me, he had burped up all his drinks…bit silly daddy wasn’t wearing his bib and some of his burp went all over him!

Anyway, mummy whispered in my ear just before I went to sleep that I should do the biggest number 2’s ever!, because it’s daddy’s turn to wake me up and change me in the morning…she said to me daddy wouldn’t be feeling very well in the morning and changing me will make him feel a lot better.

Because I love my dad lots, I’ve had heaps of feeds tonight and I will make sure I do loads of BIG number 2’s in my sleep. I do hope it will make him feel better in the morning…

See ya.
Sophiexx

A picture of me looking all cute

No Car Thursday

"What do you mean you don't like cricket Sophie!"

Sophie has continued to sleep really well this week, let’s hope the weekend proves better than last weeks though!

I took the car into work today so one of the IT dudes could install a new CD player in. Ingrid will need something to listen to on the way down to New Plymouth next week. So the girls ended up going for a huge walk down to the Mall today (and this time Ingrid didn’t lock herself out!)

Brad

Meeting up with friends

Sophie on her way to meet her new playmates
As you can see they are all ecstatic to meet each other (Sophie, Ollie and Daniel)
Mums and bubs (front - Suzanne and Matthew, back right to left, Me and Sophie, Joanne and Rhian, Sharon and Ollie, Sarah and Daniel)

Today Sophie and I met up with a group of girls that I met while pregnant. We all joined up for various exercise classes through the hospital and kept in contact afterwards. We haven’t managed to get together for the last couple of months as we were all busy giving birth and getting into the routine of being new mums, so it was nice to finally catch up again and discuss what is happening in our lives with our bubs.

Sophie is enjoying more ‘awake’ time during the day now, which has its good and bad points. Good because its lovely to see her developing and interacting with me more and because I love to see her face. Bad because I get nothing done! The washing has piled up and lunch is taken usually at about 3pm! But the other good point is that it makes her tired for nighttime and I hope will help her continue to sleep overnight – although I do still wake up every hour! Bad habit to break now I guess.

Ingrid

Shit oh mighty they grow quickly...

My god Sophie has grown!

Obviously when you are with someone every day, it's hard to get a clear perspective on how much one changes, but after looking through some baby photos tonight, it's become abundantly clear...It was Sophie who ate all the pies!

Sophie weighed a touch over 3KG when she was born and her latest weigh-in (10 days ago) put her around 5 ½ KG – I reckon she must be at least twice her birth weight now.

These two photos were taken 9 weeks apart to the day.

And to continue the good news from yesterday…Sophie had another great sleep overnight….you little ripper.

Brad

The weekend game

Ingrid mentioned Sophie hasn’t slept very well lately, that’s true, but I think Sophie knows it’s the weekend and plays up intentionally to grab the extra attention from the both of us!

The good news is - she slept well overnight and only grizzled a little around 4am this morning - but not enough to warrant a feed so pretty good start to the week. I should take this time to mention that I’m a little more relaxed about her not sleeping the night through...It’s not me getting up at these horrendous hours and trying to get her back to sleep! So massive ups to Ingrid doing this night after night.

I know I don’t tell her nearly enough, but Ingrid is doing a sensational job and our little one is pretty damn lucky having her as a mum.

Daddy's new improved baby-wrap technique...try getting out that Sophie!

Look closely...notice the small ripples in the water and the stunned look on her face?

Brad

Sigh...

Well it was definitely too good to be true, Sophie no longer sleeps overnight anymore. We seem to have taken a BIG step backwards and she has been a total horror for the last few days and no amount of book reading from so called ‘experts’ is helping, I guess we will just have to muddle through and hope its just an ‘unsettled’ patch, as I am planning on taking her down to New Plymouth for a few days in a weeks time while Brad is off on his ‘market tour’ and would like her to be on her best behaviour otherwise it could be a veeeeery long drive.

Today we took a drive out to the new mall that has opened in Auckland called Sylvia Park. A huge amount of marketing was put into the opening and all the news stories on TV and radio went on about the traffic jams because of the people rushing to the ‘Grand Opening’ well, what a disappointment it turned out to be – the Glenfield Mall is bigger! The complex is only half finished by the looks of it and there were no high street fashion stores that we could see – unless we missed half the bloody thing, probably did knowing us, here we are moaning and groaning about what a waste of a journey and in our sleepless haze probably didn’t notice the walkway to the other half of the shops! Maybe we will go out again in a couple of months when we are less tired and see if we missed out anything.

Ingrid

Sophie's first birthday party

We took Sophie along to her first birthday party this afternoon, Jordan (the daughter of friends of ours Aaron and Mel) tuned 1 today. Ironically enough, the birthday party was the only time Sophie actually slept today…the combined noise of a bunch of kids aged 1 through 5 must be comforting for babies!

I hate to say all the good work Soph has done recently, sleeping the entire night through, has completely come undone these past 24 hours. She woke up 3 times overnight and refused to sleep most of today...until we arrived at the birthday party around 3pm!

I go on market tour Monday week, it's an annual pilgrimage visiting most of the Radioworks markets across the country. (Why I pick winter to travel the entire country, god only knows!) Ingrid's gonna head back to the Naki for a few days while I’m away. It's a comforting thought knowing the girls will have friends and family around them while I'm away from home, and I’m sure a number of them are absolutely gagging at the bit to see Sophie again!..and Ingrid of course!

Jordan turns 1 year old

Brad

Our two cry babies

Sophie setting Charlie off...

Charlie setting Sophie off...

Wet Thursday

The Holden had to go in to get serviced today so Brad took it to work and dropped it off, which made me carless today, so I decided to take a walk with Sophie to the Glenfield mall. Of course I get about a minute down the road and it starts pouring down with rain, luckily I had a nasty old raincoat that I had the sense to take with me, definitely not a fashion statement and I still managed to get pretty wet too, but at least Sophie remained completely warm and dry in her buggy – gosh I wish I was a baby again - oh to be fed, bathed, cuddled and rocked to sleep; babies have no idea how easy they have it! Anyway, on the way back from the mall and in the pouring rain I realized I had locked myself out of the house! What a complete idiot, honestly sleep deprivation has turned me into a dumbo, so I had to ring Brad and get him to come home and let us in! Just as he pulled up Sophie awoke from a deep sleep and made it known to me that she wanted to fed – NOW. Thank god Brad got home when he did. To top off the day, the car needed lots of work done and cost $1500 and Sophie didn’t sleep through the night. Lets hope Friday is a bit better.

Ingrid

Wednesday Cricket Final

We were major arse tonight and lost the Grand Final of our Indoor Cricket comp...nothing more needs to be said really...


ps: Sophie is still sleeping through the night and doing extremely well.
Brad

4th July

Today is American Independence day and Sophies’ two month mark, it's also the title of a very good book by one of my favourite authors, James Patterson, not that I have had any time to read since Sophie was born. I stocked up on novels before I finished up at work thinking I would have many hours to read each day, and just like not getting time to do my hair or put make up on daily, so too has the time disappeared to rest and read! Although now that Sophie is sleeping through the night (another 11pm-7am last night) and I am finally getting some decent sleep myself, maybe I can find some time to read.

Coffee group has moved from Thursday to Tuesday as another group of new mothers started up their coffee group and took over 'our' table! Not that Tuesday was much better, we turn up and the place was packed already with mums and bubs - the staff at these cafes must hate coffee groups, as all we do is order one coffee and maybe a muffin and then take up their tables and seats for two hours while we catch up on what everyone has done that week! Still it stops us mums from going insane with cabin fever!

Ingrid

Sophie continues her MASSIVE overnight sleeps!

I'm happy to report that Sophie slept overnight again last till around 7am this morning! She hasn’t quite mastered sleeping through the entire night without waking yet, she grizzled and cried for small periods, so Ingrid had to get up and rock her a couple of times, but at least she’s not needing to feed in the middle of the night. Ingrid will be well impressed though when they both get full nights sleep that’s for sure!

She is making up for long sleeps overnight by not wanting to sleep much during the day-time, but at least it’s a little better than the other way around. The little one is still really enjoying bath and shower time and is now cracking smiles constantly...she’s a little cutie.

My old office a few weeks ago

My office now - amazing what a wall or two and new coat of paint does!

Brad

Great Weekend

Late post for Sunday.

Sophie has been a little angle all weekend and has slept 3 nights in a row OVERNIGHT

From 11pm-7am!!! - You little beauty Sophie.

Chilling out during bath-time

Chilling out with her old man

Sophie's BIG smiles

The weather in Auckland has just been amazing the last week and today was no exception, so we packed the family of three up and went for a drive into Brads work to check out his new big ‘I am the boss’ office and revamped studios, then off for a walk around Ponsonby and a bite to eat at one of the local cafes that Brad visits on a very regular basis during working hours. Sophie was very good and just chilled out in her buggy, talking to herself when she awoke from deep sleep. When we got home she rewarded us with the biggest smiles yet and an almost giggle. It is just amazing how much she has grown and developed in just the last week or two, its so cool to watch this little human being growing so much. She even had the biggest sleep yet last night, from 11pm until 7am this morning! More of that please young girl…

After such a big day we all needed to have a rest, except for Brad who’s a hardman and doesn’t need much sleep. To top off the best day, Brad cooked a fantastic roast dinner which we got to enjoy at the table with a candle and beautiful bottle of wine while Sophie crashed out. What a great day.

Ingrid