Weekend in the Naki

We took Sophie to the place of her parent’s roots during the weekend (that’s up-bringing obviously, get your mind out of the gutter!)

We were a little concerned that the trip to New Plymouth would be tough on her during the drive, so we decided to leave around her normal bed time on Friday night (6pm)…along with half of Auckland leaving for the long weekend! So after an hour + on the motorway, Sophie finally drifted off to sleep and stayed that way for the next 4 hours!

We certainly miss this. The veiw taken from mums place.

We stayed at mums for the 3 days which was great and Sophie got to spend lots of time with Nana, Grantz and both Aunties. She slept better in her porta-cot than she does back here!

The weather was superb and New Plymouth was great, Ingrid and I both wondered why we left the place in the first place.

Sophie traveled even better on the way back last night, falling asleep within 10 minutes of leaving and only woke when we were 5 minutes from home – quick cuddle and change of nappy and she went down for the rest of the night…you little beauty! At least now, we know she can handle it so we’re hoping to get down a couple more times this year.

Sophie with Nana and Aunty Nicki

Sophie and Grantz...and a couple of tigers

I took an extra day off today so we could look at a couple more Day-Care places and I finally got round to shaving my holiday beard off (a mate saw me in New Plymouth in the weekend and thought maybe I’d hooked up with the 'Al Kieda'!, so yes, it was time to go), but when I went to pick up Sophie from her afternoon nap, the poor thing was scared shiltess and looked utterly confused. She wasn’t totally convinced I was her real daddy until I started singing to her!

Aunty Rochelle and Sophie

Great Grandma Nan and Sophie

Sophie and Bob the dog at Dad and Marc's place

Nana and Sophie going for a walk along the new sea-side walkway.

Brad

Sophie's Storybook

Click the link here to read Sophie's Story Book

Sophie..the bird whisperer.

Yeah yeah, I know no updates for a while, apologies.

First week back at work last week, can’t say its great going back after 3 weeks off either. It’s taken most of the bloody week to get back into work mode too! I certainly missed Sophie this week, especially now that she’s constantly on the move and crawling around. She’s now at that age where she’s saying Mumma and Dadda and doing some pretty cool things every day and she’s only going down for two sleeps a day now too, around 9am, then again about 1pm.

We popped around to see Uncle Steve and Aunty Maria today – pretty slack it’s taken us this long…they brought their new place about 3 months ago!...shocker. Sophie was on form and both Steve and Maria were amazed at how much she has grown since Xmas time.

We took Sophie down to a lake last weekend to feed the ducks - there were a number of different birds there and most of them came right up to Sophie and she even managed to stroke one on the back!. Sophie was besotted with them and made the cutest squeals.

ps. A new video of Sophie on "Sophie's Videos" page too.

Brad

Jolly Jumper

Check out Sophie's new Jolly Jumper - There's a video of her too under Sophie's Video playing on it.

Sophie's first day of Crawling

Quick post - I can't put any video's on here, so I've set up a temporary My Space page for Sophie - if you go to the right of the blog where it says "Links Brad and Ingrid Like" - hit the bottom link "Video's of Sophie" which should take you through to some real footage (not great footage...but footage all the same) of Sophie crawling. These were pretty much her first real crawls, but since taking the video, she has been crawling loads around the floor...you beauty Sophie! And the best thing is - we both got to see her do it together too.

Sophie tormenting poor Charlie from inside the house!...She knows he's out there somewhere!

Brad

She just smiled so I gave her a vegemite sandwich...

For the musically challenged: Today’s title stolen from a ‘Men at Work’ classic entitled: "Down Under"

I lost the battle...I wanted her to eat Marmite but Ingrid has turned her to the dark side and infected her with Vegemite!

It’s been great having the past 3 weeks off work. I can’t say I’m looking forward to going back next week either, as Sophie is practically doing something new every day now. She’s been on the cusp of crawling for the past few weeks, but today she made a lot of progress and moved forward a couple of paces! She’s also learnt to sit back up when she falls over too which is great, I think that was actaully putting her off trying to crawl before.

I popped her on the mat this morning, then ran upstairs for a sec and when I returned, I couldn’t see her...Sophie had moved herself half way round the lounge and ended up hiding behind the coffee table!

Doesn't she look happy now she can pretty much crawl aye?

We took Sophie for a HUGE walk in the stroller this afternoon. Ingrid is looking at returning to work part-time in April so we’re checking out a few day care places. The first place we looked at today, we thought wasn’t far at all, as it turned out we had the address completely wrong and pretty much walked a half marathon to get there!

Sophie loves the stroller (just as well then) and today she was talking to herself the entire time “Da da dad dadda dada” I think Ingrid is a wee bit pissed she’s saying dadda before mumma though... a couple of times during our marathon walk Ingrid would stop in mid stride and say “Shhh - I think she was saying Mumma then!”…Of course all I heard was ‘dadda dada” – but chances are Sophie’s more likely trying to say Charlie and not mumma or dadda!

Brad

My cool day at the Zoo!

Mummy and Daddy made me eat my lunch really fast today...then they squirted this sun screen stuff all over me and packed me up in the car...they mentioned something about going to see lots of BIG Charlie’s and things...sweet as!

Crikey! This massive thing looks nothing like Charlie?...and secondly, what happens if it wants to go the toilet?...I'm in serious trouble then...look where they bloody left me!

These funny things don't look like Charlie either?...I decided to start sqeeling at them real loudly anyway, but then they all ran off!...jeez, they are more scared of me than the real Charlie is!

Oh there's Charlie over there!...Oh hold on a sec, no it's not...they were just cute little chickens and ducks walking past me...But I did get really excited when I saw them though...they were way cool!

Are they big Charlie's over there Mummy?...they look a bit like him don't they?...they were white...and furry...and didn't do much apart from lay down and sleep...

This horrible looking creature looks as scary as Charlie does...but I'm pretty sure Charlie has bigger teeth than him though...

I can't read yet, but judging from mummy and daddy's silly giggling...it must have been pretty funny. Oh I want to be able to read too!

Mummy got a bit too close to this big bird...and then she got really scared...daddy got annoyed because he was too slow taking the photo when he said mummy was squeeling like a bi-arch ...I must admit, she did look funny...and she nearlly fell over!

So there we go, that was my very exciting day at the Auckland Zoo today. There were lots more photo's ,but this blog thing won't let me put anymore on! Oh, I never ended up seeing Charlie or anything than even looked like him either...Mummy and Daddy told me all the BIG Charlie's were fast asleep so couldn't come out to see me today...Oh well, I'll just have to make them take me back another day when I CAN see them then!

But before we go back, mummy and daddy said they were going to take me to a place under the water where I can look at lots of big fishies and other cool stuff first...I wonder If I'll see Charlie there?

Sophiexx

Nana comes to baby-sit

Well I’m back off home shortly after spending a couple of nights here. I had the privilege and pleasure of baby-sitting my gorgeous grand-daughter on Friday night and again for a couple of hours on Saturday. Sophie had been ‘schooled up’ by Mummy and Daddy to be a real angel for Nana, so of course she was. Friday night she just slept, but Saturday we had a lovely time together , playing with her toys, giggling, talking (Da Da mostly), feeding, filling her naps (not so lovely) but on the whole she was just delightful. I am already looking forward to doing it again soon.

Sophie’s Daddy got a wee bit tipsy on Saturday night and is not feeling the best today. Maybe it is a virus he has picked up, one that gives him a headache and a seedy tummy. Not sure on that one. Sophie’s Mummy is going out today, so I hope she doesn’t pick up the same thing.

Don't I look cute on the swing aye?

This doesn't taste too good!

Showing my angel face with nana

From Nana King xxx

Beach time

It was a cracker day in Auckland today. Ingrid and I still needed to do a spot of painting and cleaning up, but as soon as we finished it (actually the paint ran out so we had to go and get some more) – we bundled up Sophie and headed for the beach.

We picked up a small sun shelter thing on the way and boy did we need it…it was a scorcher! The tide was out so the beach didn’t look that great, but I took Sophie down to the rocks to have a bit of a paddle all the same…she loved it, giggling and splashing around and completely drenching herself inn the process.

Mummy and Sophie chilling in the Sun tent thingy

Sophie enjoying the warm water with daddy

Back home, Sophie went straight to sleep after all her excitement so mummy and daddy could do some more painting... (oh joy) We decided to paint the fence and the fence trellis’s - silly move though; the trellis has a million little criss-cross’s in it, which makes it particularly nasty to paint. Oh well, more painting tomorrow then...(more joy)

I’ve gotta pop into work for a couple of hours to finish of some things so Ingrid and Sophie are going to have a couple of the coffee group girls around tomorrow morning, then Friday night Nana is coming up to baby-sit and Ingrid and I are off to Cirque Du Soleil which should be great…a night out together is long overdue.

Brad

Below are a few photo's of our handywork these past few days in the garden.

Almost done!

We've spent a bit of time working in the garden recently (or jungle as we refer to it). We popped along to a garden centre today to pick up some potting mix and things where Sophie was greeted by an old chap with a friendly dog, she was besotted with the thing and she even managed a couple of pats in between her ecstatic screams of joy! It did look very cute; the dog even licked her hand a couple of times too which was very cool.

Hopefully we can finish off the fence and painting tomorrow and we might even squeeze in a quick picnic down the beach since the weather is looking great again.

Must admit, its pretty tough trying to get work done around the home now that Sophie only has a couple of small sleeps through the daytime and has more energy to burn than the Ingrid and I combined! But I did find time to take Sophie for a run in her new push-chair tonight to a small park down the road, she was on cloud nine playing on the swings and even went for down the slide (don't tell Ingrid but I almost didn't catch her at the bottom!)

Completely shagged from lifting paving stones and bloody digging!

Brad

Sophie's New Year Eve (In Photo's)

"I woke up at 6am( far too early apparently) so daddy made me do 20 press up's as punishment"

"A quick shot of me looking all cute for the camera before I have breakfast "

"If you look real close you can see my two bottom teeth coming through...pretty clever aye!"

"Me showing how proud I am for getting two teeth!"

"Charlie the cat hates me, so mummy and daddy try and keep us seperated...I still managed to taunt him through the glass though"

"I'm sure Charlie's out there somewhere?...come on Let Me Out!!!!"

"My special New Years Eve treat...1 whole strawberrry!!...wow, thanks guys...I saw the piss you guys had stashed away for tonight and this is all I get??"

MUMMY AND DADDY: "Right, time for bed now Sophie, it's 6 O' Clock" SOPHIE: No!...I want to stay up till midnight and see the new year in like you both...It sucks sometimes being a baby!"

...and here's Mumy and Daddy enjoying a bottle of wine outside while I cry and try and make them feel bad for not keeping me awake...I don't think it worked though, they look like they're enjoying themselves...oh well there's always next year!

Sophiexx