Christmas trip - Part VI

And finally, the last installment of the Christmas trip posts! Yay! And I am still 3 months behind with this blog. Better get cracking!

Anyway, the last part of the Christmas trip was a few days in Melbourne. We stayed at Steve and Jo's. Nicky proved to be a very good little safety auditor for them. He showed them exactly what they needed to do to babyproof their place! We had a lovely time with Steve and Jo. It was probably the most relaxing part of the trip. Because their place was so babyproofed we didn't need to constantly watch Nicky and he could wander around at his own will. We also caught up with Peter and Clare. I gave Kristian a "leave pass" (so generous!) so he and Peter were able to go out and have drinks and dinner together. We also had a lovely lunch with Bill and Chris, Kristian's uncle & aunt. We planned it well because we brought the portacot with us, and Nicky actually slept for a couple of hours so we had a nice long leisurely lunch.

It was a great trip but it was also lovely to arrive home. The poodles were naturally overjoyed! Cely was also very happy to see Nicky. I think the poodles were a little happy to see him too!

Christmas trip Part V

After the Grampians we drove to Stawell where we stopped by and visited Kristian's Great Uncle and Aunt, June and Stan. Stan is Kristian's Grandpa Eric's older brother. Kristian had a great time catching up with him. Stan is the spitting image of his brother Eric. Meanwhile, Nicky ran amok in Stan & June's house, which was, shall we say, full of bric-a-brac. A dream come true for Nicky! But a little bit of a nightmare for me, as I chased Nicky around trying to prevent him from causing too much damage. Amazingly we left the place without any breakages!

Christmas trip - Part VI: "I'm the King of the Castle"

On our holiday Nicky discovered something new which he absolutely loved. Being carried on Daddy's shoulders...although Kristian wasn't so fond of the hair pulling by Nicky which accompanied this!

Christmas trip - Part V

Part V of the Christmas trip - and we are only half way through! We did pack rather a lot into the trip so it was a rather tiring holiday. Not exactly a relaxing by the pool with a pina colada type holiday. Nevertheless it was a lot of fun. Anyway, from Mt Gambier we drove to the Grampians, a few hours a way. We stayed at a wonderful place called South Mokanger Cottages (check out their website if you are interested in a holiday in the Grampians: http://www.smfarmcottages.com.au/)

The countryside was gorgeous, even in drought time. South Mokanger Cottages are on a working farm, so we got to check out a bit of action in the cattleyards. I had my first experience of watching sheep being draughted (i.e separated into boy and girl sheep). We were standing in the pen where the girl sheep were being draughted into. Kristian kept reassuring me that the sheep were a lot more scared of me, than I was on them. I had Nicky in the Baby Bjorn, and he took it all in his stride.

Christmas trip - Part IV

We arrived in Mount Gambier on 30 December and we spent a few days there, including New Years Eve 2006. I must come clean here and admit that I was in bed when the clock struck 12. Unfortunately Nicky kept on waking up during the night all through the trip, sometimes a few times, and was difficult to settle...hence Kristian and my sleep suffered somewhat. The poor little poppet was out of his routine and kept being carted around to all these different places. He was brilliant during the day (most of the time anyway!) but not so great at night. It all caught up by NY eve and I just crashed. We had a lovely few days in Mt Gambier and I learnt something new about my Dad...he is kinda fascinated by "sinkholes" - a wonderful geographic phenomenon...google it if you don't know what they are and are at all interested. Luckily for my Dad, Mt Gambier has quite a few sinkholes so he was stoked!

Christmas trip - Part III

On 27 December we set off for Penola in Coonwarra (wine region in South Australia, for those of you who don't know it). There we met up with my Uncle Graham & Auntie Rosemary. We had a lovely few days exploring the vineyards of the area, drinking a drop or three of Coonwarra's finest Cabernets, having some wonderful food and indulging in more Haighs Chocolates (I stocked up when we were in Adelaide). Penola is a lovely little town with some cute shops, great restaurants and quite a few places to get a decent cup of coffee. What more could you want. And it's where Mary MacKillop set up her first school. Mary MacKillop founded the Sisters of St Joseph, a Catholic order of nuns, which my Auntie Marie (who is my Great Aunt) is a member of. There is a lovely little museum which tells you all about the life and times of Mary MacKillop.

Christmas trip Part II

Here's some more photos from the Adelaide leg of the Christmas trip.

Christmas trip - Part I

On 21 December we got a Mercedes cab to Changi Airport (ooh la la!) and set out on a much anticipated trip back to Australia. The flight went very well. Of course Nicky was a seasoned veteran traveller by then, this being his third trip to Australia no less. We left at about midnight and Nicky fell asleep less than an hour into the trip and didn't wake up until we had nearly touched down at Adelaide Airport.

The first part of the Christmas trip was spent in Adelaide. We stayed at our dear friends Cheryll and Brad's place. As it turned out, Chez and Brad left the day we arrived to go to Batemans Bay where they spent Christmas with Chez's parents. So they kindly let us stay at their place, together with Steve, Jo, their daughter Caitlin (who I met for the first time..very exciting) and Mike. It was pretty cosy, shall we say...two babies and five adults in a two bedroom place. But it was a blast.

Highlights included watching Deliverance (for those of you who don't know it, it's a 1970s classic with Burt Reynolds and others about a canoeing trip and some rather disturbing hillbillies) which became a bit of a theme for the rest of the weekend (let's just say there was lots of air-banjoing...an in joke sorry..you had to be there), Mike's cooking (yo Dog...your cooking is the Bomb!), seeing Brad, Cheryll and Dexter (albeit all too briefly), seeing Caitlin (aka the Empress..what a cutie), hanging out with my very cool brothers and my sis-in-law Jo, spending time with Mum, Dad, Grandma & Auntie Marie and of course spending time with lil Nick and Kristian....oh yeah...and Haighs Chocolates...they rock!!

Update...at last!!! Sam n John's visit Dec 2006

Oh dear....it was such a promising start...this blog that is. And now there has been a woeful break in blogging. An embarrassingly long amount of time has last past since I updated this blog. So guess I better start blogging and fill you in on the last couple of months.

Well, as the title of this blog suggests, our friends Sam and John came to visit in December 2006. This visit marked the first time Nicky had an attack of stranger anxiety. It was kinda funny because I was sitting with Sam in our living room and Nicky was moseying around and I was remarking how Nicky had never experienced stranger anxiety, which is common with babies at his age. Then John walked in the room and Nicky turned around, took one look at him and started howling! Sure, John was kinda unshaven, but he wasn't really that scary!! Anyway, every time Nicky looked at him for the next half an hour or so, he was freaked out! However over the course of the day Nicky got used to John and the two became buddies.

Sam was most complimentary, as she said that Nicky was extremely cute and was a very good advertisement for people thinking of having kids. Well I must say that I can see her point. Not that I am biased. We had a lovely weekend with Sam and John, which included a trip to the Orchid Garden at the Botanic Gardens, a spot of shopping on Orchard Rd and lots of curry puffs (Sam and John developed a slight addiction whilst they were here).

Nicky on 3 December 2006

Just to bring this blog right up to date, here's a photo of Nicky which we took today. I should also add that today happens to be Kristian's birthday - 33 years young!

Nicky's trail of destruction

You can always tell if Nicky has been in a room. These snaps were taken of him when he was with us in the study one day, like he happens to be at this very moment in time. When he is in this room his usual activities involve pulling books off the shelves, pulling the papers out of the bin, trying to turn the computer off, pulling all our camera, USB cords etc out of the box we keep them in etc etc. After he has been in the room for about 5 minutes it looks like a warzone! This morning after he had had his breakfast he was playing around in the loungeroom. He managed to pull over our shoe rack, leaving shoes scattered everywhere, empty his toy box and leave toys all around the room...pretty soon it was looking like a bomb had hit it too! Hmmm...I have heard that in the toddler years lots of kiddies actually enjoy household tasks such as tidying up...bring it on I say!!

A visit from the Godfather

Peter, our dear friend and Nicky's Godfather, came to visit us recently after attending a conference in Japan. We had a blast hanging out with him (although his Borat impersonation leaves something to be desired!)

Nicky & his Daddy in sepia

Nicky looks rather good in sepia. What do you think?? Oh, and Kristian looks mighty fine too!

Nicky's war face

We call this expression Nicky's "war face". It's hilarious. We like it so much that we've used this photo as the wallpaper on our PC.

Nicky & Cely

Here's some cute snaps of Nicky and Cely taken a few weeks ago.

Raphael's First Birthday Party!

It's been a while since I have put anything on this blog - very remiss of me! I know all you Nicky fans out there must be hanging out for more Nicky news - so here goes! Well, on Sunday 12 November we went to Raphael's First Birthday party. Raphael is Kristian's godson, Nicky's good buddy and the son of our good friends Michael & Virginia. It was a lovely afternoon. Nicky had a ball cruising around and charming people with his winning smile (& personality of course). Suffice to say, he absolutely conked out on the car trip on the way home. It was a big day!

Digitally enhanced Nicky photo

I think that this is a rather sweet photo of Nicky. However, I must admit, it is somewhat digitally enhanced using some very nifty software - ie I have fiddled around with the lighting, skin tones etc. But hey, but do you think that the images of all those top baby models who you see in those glossy mags are completely au naturalle and unadulterated. No, of course they get the benefit of a bit of "digital work"!!

Standing tall

Nicky is becoming rather good at standing, if I do say so myself. His balance is getting better and better. He has even started being brave enough to let go of whatever he is holding on to for support. He can stand for 10 or so seconds at a time unsupported. He has also started "cruising" as they call it, i.e stepping around furniture. Our little man is growing up! These photos show Nicky in his favorite place in the world, our front garden/courtyard. He is quite keen on our bbq...dare I say it, an Aussie bloke in the making??! Perish the thought.

Bathtime antics

Nicky doesn't have baths. What I hear you say??? Could we really be such neglectful parents?? No, the fact is that he's way too mature for baths, but instead is more at home in the shower.

Well, actually, as a matter of practicality we decided to start putting Nicky in the shower and following him around with the hose. Because he is constantly on the move, the bath was becoming a tad dangerous. So instead we have laid bathmats on the shower floor, and he is pretty content to crawl around in the shower, watch the water running down the drain, play with his bath toys, play with the shower hose etc etc.

Dressing Nicky for bed after his bath is rather challenging to say the least. Again, this boy just never sits still!! Putting a sleepsuit on him involves trying to distract him sufficiently so he will stay still enough to put the sleepsuit on. Generally we end up following him around. It can be a time consuming process!! One of the photos is an action shot showing me trying to get Nicky's sleepsuit on.

Blowing Bubbles

I created this little slideshow using a very groovy programme which I discovered we had on our computer. It's called a "muvee" according to the nomenclature used in the programme. Unfortunately the quality of the video images is not too flash but I thought I would upload it in any event because I went to the trouble of making the muvee. Anyways, the muvee consists of a series of photos taken when we went to visit our friend Rachel and her son James the other weekend. I think Rachel enjoyed the bubble blowing as much as Nicky!

Nicky at 5 months

OK, I'm backtracking now. I just downloaded all the footage which was on our video camera and came across some cute footage of Nicky taken when he was about 5 months old. At this age he just loved being on his tummy, kicking around and playing with his toys. He couldn't move backwards or forwards in any purposeful way, but did somehow manage to move around, but generally not in the direction that he wanted to go. This would really bug him! But in this footage he's in a very jolly mood.