Just the 3 of us.

We’ve had family up here for the past week or so which has been really nice. Sophie has enjoyed it too, having people other than her mummy and daddy to play with and stare at all day. I do think she misses the house being full though, as she keeps on looking around the room expecting someone other than us to be giving her big grins and goo’s and garrs. Even Dad and Marc managed to pop in today for a quick visit…

No photo's of Sophie doing anything special or pics of the garden...so here's a picture of Sophie's gorgeous mummy instead.

We’ve done quite a bit of gardening the last couple of days, a shit-load of weeding and only now starting to get our jungle around us into some sort of order. We’ve bought some fence trellis and paving stones too, so weather permitting we can get stuck in again tomorrow. Although I must admit, it’s not that simple shopping with a wee one who is only up for a couple or hours or so at a time during the day. Once you’ve feed and changed her, driven a round for a bit and grabbed a quick coffee, it’s practically time to take her home again and put back to bed! – naturally we’ve taken a number of trips back and forth to Mitre 10 and various garden centers recently, but thankfully only one more trip tomorrow to pick up some final bits and pieces. Sophie’s enjoyed getting out the house lots though and just between us, we both love taking her out and walking around shops with such a little cutie who gives everybody that walks past huge smiles and gummy grins.

We’ll slap a couple of photos of the garden up in the next day or two when we’ve finished.

Brad

Grantz comes to stay.

Sophie posing for the camera...again!

Grantz trying to feed Sophie...but then Sophie spots the camera!

I am loving being here with Sophie and getting those glorious smiles for the greater part of the day. Her little chuckle is adorable too. She has got two teeth now and has been very good while they have been coming through.

We watched her own special Baby Mozart DVD yesterday and it is truly gorgeous and little Sophie just loves it ----so does Grantz!!!!

Sophie is fascinated by Charlie the cat!

Grantz

Sophie's first Christmas

Sophie had an action packed first Xmas. She was spoilt rotten obviously with lots of cool presents from everybody, but what she really loved, was being the center of attention all day long…she absolutely lapped it up.

Sophie's groovy Xmas outfit

We started preparing Xmas lunch a day or two out which was great thinking too I might add, so Xmas morning we pretty much chilled out with the family and watched Sophie get all excited with unwrapping all her presents.

Xmas lunch on the Deck, Nana, Aunty Nicki, Mummy, Uncle Steve, Aunty Maria and Daddy

For lunch I cheated a bit and didn’t make my normal roast chickens…I shot down to KFC and grabbed a bucket of the stuff instead! Sounds naf, but went down a treat with everything else we had. Ingrid and Sister Nicki made some damn fine salads and deserts too to go along with the chicken and Xmas ham.

Sophie even gave us all a present by sleeping right through lunch so we could all enjoy a nice chilled out lunch outside on the deck on a stunning day.

A cracker of a day.

She was more interested in the box's and paper than the bloody contents!

Enjoying Xmas morning

Brad

A Nightmare before Xmas

Poor little Sophie woke up with a hell of a fright at 2am this morning…a scary monster had crept into her room…Sophie normally doesn’t wake when Ingrid creeps in there put her blankets back on her, but this morning Sophie's night-light had gone out in her room and Ingrid accidentally grabbed Sophie’s face instead of the blankets!...poor thing, I’ve seen Ingrid at 2am in the morning and I would shit myself too!

"Is Santa really coming tonight?"

We’ve had a pretty relaxing day today getting things organized for Sophie’s first Christmas tomorrow, Nana (no longer calling herself Grandma) and Aunty Nicki have come up from the Naki too and have helped do the cooking and stuff as well. Steve and Maria (Ingrid’s bro and his girlie) are joining us tomorrow to bring the total to 7. It should be a nice day, I’m sure Sophie will let you know all about her first Xmas in the next couple of days.

Sohie checking herself out on video with Aunty Nicki...

Brad

Run-out without facing a ball...

We played in the Grand final tonight for our Twilight business cricket tournament.
Look at the picture and guess if we won or not...try and guess who also got a duck without even facing a single ball...

Sophie heard what happened in the cricket match and tried to fight back the tears for her daddy...she was clearly distraught by it too.

Brad

From Angel to Anti-christ

Look at this shot..butter couldn't melt in Sophie's mouth...

20 minutes later after squeeling non-stop (her exciting new trick) and playing with her food...she turns to the dark side...she may be trouble this kid.

Week ending Sunday 10th December

It’s been a pretty full on week with Xmas parties and other events, so we haven’t updated for the past week…oops!

Sophie has been pretty good for the last week apart from a screaming match on Monday night when I put her to bed! So for the next six nights I have got Brad to put her to bed for her last sleep of the day and wonders of wonders she has gone straight to sleep – what a daddy’s girl! For the past week she has had red rosy checks and a cut gum where it seems a tooth is trying to sprout – but everyday we check and it still hasn’t come through, so she’s been a bit grizzly, but gorgeous all the same.

Wednesday night was Brads work dinner and drinks, so of course he let his hair down and stumbled in the door at 1.30am a bit the worse for wear! I think it was a very slow day for him at work the next day, but at least everyone else he works with was in the same boat. My work had their Xmas party on the Thursday day/night and very kindly invited me even though I am on maternity leave. Brad came home from work early for me so I could get there at 4pm – but as all my work mates had started the party at midday they were all pretty drunk by the time I arrived, so of course I had some catching up to do! It didn’t take me long and I was ready to come home by 10pm but am happy to report that I was the last one standing! Friday for me was a pretty slow day and of course Sophie was full of beans and ready to go at 6am.

Saturday we went out and bought our Xmas tree. Usually we don’t bother with all the palaver of Xmas, but now that Sophie is here it’s all the more exciting. It took us most of the day driving out to the middle of nowhere to pick the perfect living tree and then buying the decorations that we didn’t have time to actually get any presents to put under it - leaving it a bit late I know, but we spent Sunday at a great toy shop looking around at all the educational toys that will turn our Sophie into a top notch surgeon (a plastic surgeon would be good cause then mummy could get free facelifts when she gets older!). So without going overboard, we purchased a few good gifts for her that we will probably play with more than her, while she finds the wrapping paper and boxes much more fun.

So while we have had a lovely week and the weather in Auckland has been beautiful, proving that summer is slowly on its way, I can’t same the same for our bloody car. Today I was invited to go to a baby shower and got all organized and ready to go and hello the alarm on the car wouldn’t turn off! After half an hour of pulling the alarm apart and swearing at the car we found out that the bloody thing is all computer chipped and doesn’t work on batteries, so off to the local key cutting place only to be told they would need to reprogramme it at a cost of $100 and that we then need to follow these very specific instructions to ‘introduce’ the new key to the car. So to cut a long story short (as it is confusing and goes on for a while) we can’t use the new key without using the old key but we can’t use the old key because its broken and so is the only lock into the car! Bloody technology!

Ingrid (pics will be posted soon)

Great Weekend Away

We had a wicked time in Tutakaka these past few days. Sophie absolutely loved it and was a little darling the entire time. She slept all the way up in the car (around 2:30 hour drive) and settled in her port-a-cot really well.

The views from our apartment we stayed at were amazing (as the photos below show) but even they were eclipsed by the stunning location of Mark and Trudi’s wedding we went to. (couple of friends from work). They got married on their front lawn which overlooks a breathtaking harbour. The wedding was great and little Sophie sat quietly on the grass playing with her toys during the whole ceremony and seemed to enjoy all the other people and children around her.

We didn’t end up getting a baby sitter for the reception which was a bit of a bugger, so we did a split shift after the ceremony. Ingrid went to the formal part of the night around 6:30pm, dinner, speeches etc – then we swapped around 9:30 and I went along for the booze up…I planned that well.

Sophie lapping up the view from our deck.
Veiw from outside our bedroom

Mark and Trudi's wedding..the front lawn of their batch

The Northland weather was great, a little cold and windy at times but when you’re surrounded by Blue Ocean and white beaches you don’t seem to mind a bit of chill. We took Sophie down to a couple of remote Northland beaches where she had heaps of fun running her fingers through the sand and even managing to take half the beach back home with her too!

We stopped off in Whangarei for an hour or so on the way back to see Kaye, Jonesy and their lovely kids Cassidy and Ryan too.

All and all, our first holiday away together was perfect. Bring on the next time.

Mother and Daughter enjoying thier day at the beach

Am I supposed to have all this sand up my bum?...

A shot taken from our apartment deck...what a stunner!

Brad