The Bell Family

For those of you who may be unaware, I am currently in the US for work. The purpose for my travel is to attend an Access Grid Conference [http://www.accessgrid.org/retreat2007].

I don’t know if I am simply a sucker for punishment or what, but whilst attending the conference, I will be providing a presentation and a hand’s on section for the conference. I will be helping with a number of other sessions as well. So I should be kept rather busy.

I am currently sitting in LAX (Los Angeles Airport) writing this draft for a blog update and so far the trip has been quite un-eventful. Unfortunately I didn’t really get any sleep on the flight, but it was very comfortable and I ended up watching a few movies (Deja Vu and Blood Diamond).

The conference itself is held in Chicago and I am looking forward to exploring the city. A mate of mine suggested I should go to a Jerry Springer show, but I think I might pass on that suggestion.

Well, I am looking forward to getting some sleep and hopefully catching up with a couple of my Access Grid colleagues tonight for a bite to eat before hitting the bed early (with any luck).

It is now currently Friday, so I hope to do a little shopping and recover from jet lag over the weekend before the conference starts on Monday.

Anyway, I will endeavour to try and post more messages and pictures when I can.

Until next time.

Take it easy,
Jason.

Hello Everyone!

Life’s been pretty busy in the Bell Family lately… two little girls have that effect I guess!!! Laura is now 2 ½ years and Katelyn is 3 months old.

Laura’s been dubbed ‘Miss Have-a-Chat’ and nothing could be truer… she provides a running commentary of the day’s activities from getting dressed to making dinner and when there’s nothing much to talk about, she belts out a couple of tunes!!! She’s really adorable but there is never a quiet moment when she’s around! She speaks quite fluently now and some of her favourite sayings are ‘what you doing mummy’, ‘mmm, that’s yummy,’ ‘I don’t like it’ and ‘Mummy, come play with me, we’re having a tea party’!!! Laura loves to sing and dance and really enjoys being outside with nature, looking for spiders and their webs, as well as butterflies and birds. Her favourite places to visit are Nanna’s, Ma and Pa’s, the zoo, the boats on the river and the farm animals.

Laura is so proud and protective of Katelyn and can often be found smothering her in hugs and kisses!!! Katelyn is a gorgeous little baby – she’s very placid and once she catches Mummy and Daddy’s eyes, she’ll trade grins with us for ages. She’s really found her little voice now and is having a great time ‘cooing’ and ‘ahhing’.

We had a little holiday a couple of weeks back and both the girls were fabulous. They travelled well and behaved exceptionally… the fresh air and outdoors was good for us all. Here are some piccies…

We’ve also had a busy time with lots of visitors. Our good friend Ann came to visit from Sydney (thanks Annie, great to see you!) and also Davina came home in time for Easter and a big birthday bash!!! We all had a fabulous time and the girls were thoroughly spoilt with all the extra attention!

Until next we ‘blog’, best wishes and take care,

Jason, Christine, Laura and Katelyn

Apologies that we haven’t written many blogs lately (well not as many as we had with Laura) – I don’t think that it’s ‘second child syndrome’, moreover that there’s simply not enough time in the day now there’s two kids to keep us busy!!!

We can’t believe how quickly our little girls are growing up!!! Laura is now 2 ½ and Katelyn is already 6 weeks old! At her 6 week checkup, Katelyn’s latest stats were…

Weight – 4.6kg and Length – 57.5cm

… Katelyn at 6 weeks

Laura and Katelyn have their similarities but they are also their own little people, but for those interested in comparing, Katelyn’s a little lighter and a little longer than Laura was at this age!

… girls visit the zoo

Katelyn has started smiling and is working on some cheeky little grins.

..cheeky Katelyn poses for some piccies

She’s also started vocalising a little and will mimic our oohs and ahhs now which is really cute. I wasn’t sure whether the little things would be quite as exciting the second time around, but I can assure you they still are and every little smile and ‘coo’is just as special!

Katelyn’s really enjoying her baths and tummy time and enjoys sitting in on story time with her big sister as well as getting out in the pram for some fresh air and a visit to the park.

… bath time for Katelyn

She’s just starting to make more deliberate movements now, swiping at the dangling toys on her mobile to see what happens or pushing at her dummy to flick it out! Her sleep patterns are becoming a little more regular now too… she is wide awake in the evening (often until 11 or 12) but then sleeps well between about midnight and 5 or 6am (which is just heaven for Mummy). She then naps for around 2 hours between feeds during the day. She is feeding well and as you can see from the stats, growing steadily.

… Chrissy and Katelyn

Laura’s learning how to hold Katelyn now she’s getting a little bigger (with Mummy and Daddy’s help and permission of course) and loves giving Katelyn cuddles and kisses!

Some of Laura’s favourite sayings at the moment are “I lubbb it” (usually directed at some sort of animal) and “I don’t liiike it” (usually some sort of new food which she then proceeds to demolish once she’s given it a few prods)! Laura can be a bit of a tom-boy at times, but she’s now got a fetish for all things pink and generally demands a ‘pretty dress or pretty skirt’ to wear for the day. She’s developing a good imagination and often grabs a blanket or a towel, lays it carefully on the floor then jumps on shouting “I’m going to the beach on my flying carpet”… and when she’s finished at the beach, it’s generally an imaginary trip to the zoo or the farm to “see the animals”. Her other favourites at the moment are making lines out of anything (from toys and books, to a congo line of teddy bears) and on one occasion collected upto 100 different things for her line (whilst she was meant to be having a nap). When I went to investigate a few noises, Laura simply looked up and said “Look Mummy, I made a train ride. Want to come on my train?”

… Laura and Mumbles (from Happy Feet, Laura’s favourite movie)

… garden girl hangs out amongst the flowers

Anyway, never a dull moment around here… kids sure are great! We wouldn’t swap them for the world!!! Hope you all have a great day and until next we ‘blog’, best wishes and take care.

Cheers,

Jason, Chrissy, Laura and Katelyn

Well, we can’t believe it, but Katelyn has just turned one month old!!! Time does fly when you’re having fun! The latest update on Katelyn’s stats are:

Weight: 4.360 kg and Length: 56cm

That means, she’s put on 700 grams and grown 5cm in a month! Wow, no wonder she’s hungry all the time!!!

We’re all doing really well and have adjusted quickly to being a family of four! Laura dotes on her little sister and is always eager to help out – getting new nappies, bringing towels and blankets as required and even interpreting Katelyn’s cries for us… “Mummy, Katelyn needs more milk”!!!

She’s happy to share story time with Katelyn (well for now, so we’ll all enjoy that whilst the going’s good), but she’s a little too keen to play… often piling teddy bears on top of Katelyn’s rocker, adding Katelyn to her snaking ‘train ride’ of toys in the loungeroom and even climbing under her musical mobile to join in with Katelyn! At this stage, Katelyn doesn’t seem to mind the sloppy kisses and squeezy cuddles too much, so she should grow up to be a tough kid!

With a new baby in the house and a two year old undergoing toilet training, Mummy’s getting a little sick of all the feeding and cleaning at the moment and sleep deprivation has definitely kicked in! I’m looking forward to that wonderful new dawn when Katelyn ‘sleeps through’, but for now I’m just enjoying my two beautiful girls!!!

Daddy’s doing well and back at work now – kind of like a holiday for him after a very hectic couple of weeks at home, but I think he’s missing us!!! We did lots of fun stuff together like picnics and drive’s to the beach, and even had fun at home cooking and building blocks and cubby houses with Laura He’s been a great help around the house and just adores his little Princesses!!!

Well, what blog would be complete without a few piccies… so here goes!!!

Hope this finds you all well and don’t forget to tune in for another update next month!!!

Cheers,

Jason, Chrissy, Laura and Katelyn

G’day all. Thought I would give a quick update. After 48 hours of having Katelyn, Chrissy and Katelyn are now back home. They are doing extremely well and we all feel extremely lucky. Chrissy is happy to be back home in a familiar environment.

We will now try to get into some sort of routine, and therefore we would like to ask that from the times 12 – 3pm, that we have no visitors or phone calls, as we will try and make this rest time. Though of course you are welcome to visit or call outside these times.

We would like to thank all of those who have posted well wishes and feel free to post any more if you wish. Also I would like to thank all of those who have given generously, visited and wished us well.

Of course I cannot have a blog entry without posting any pictures, so here is a picture of Laura with Katelyn.

Until next time, time it easy,
Jason.

It is my great pleasure to announce the Arrival of Katelyn Lee Bell.

Katelyn Arrived 10:15am on Thursday the 18th of January, 2007.

Some initial details are:

* 50cm (19.5 inches)
* 3.670kg (8.1 pounds)
* Born on her actual due date!!!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone! Hope you’ve had a safe and happy festive season.

We’ve had a busy couple of months so really enjoyed a nice quiet break at home! Did a few jobs around the house and yard and caught up with lots of socialising which was nice.

Laura enjoyed helping with all the Christmas cheer – putting the Christmas tree up, looking at the Christmas lights and of course, getting presents from Santa! She was thoroughly spoilt! Here’s a few piccies…

…family piccie
… present time!
We decided to have a quiet New Year’s at home this year – watched the early fireworks on TV together as a family (Laura loves the pretty colours and the music) and then headed to bed.

… Happy N.Y!
The last few weeks we’ve been playing the waiting game – we’re all very excited and we can’t wait to meet our new little baby… expected any day now!

Anyway, signing out until we have some more news to share…

Cheers,

Jason, Chrissy and Laura

It’s been a busy time in the Bell household… lots of work, lots of functions to attend and lots of work around the house to keep us all busy!

We’ve had our good friend Ann visit from Sydney. It was lovely to catch up with her and a good excuse to go out to dinner and take lots of drives! Laura loved the added attention and all the reading! She also loved our trip to the beach.

…at the beach
Laura has become quite the little helper lately and has switched from exclaiming ‘Mummy cleanup’ at the first sight of a mess to ‘time to cleanup, Laura do it” at which she runs to the cupboard to grab either the paper towel or the dustpan and brush! She even gets in and helps with the vacuuming now! Come dinner time, she sets the table with the cutlery, cups, cold water and salt and pepper and then asks for more jobs (her favourite is watering the plants in the courtyard)!

She’s getting excited about the arrival of her new little brother or sister (due in mid January) and often talks to the tummy… ‘baby growing, baby moving’ and asks when she can play with Baby. I don’t think she realises what will hit her just yet!

Laura’s still having a cup of milk at bedtime which we put in the microwave for 30 seconds to take the chill off it… she still says ‘time for milk, put milk in the milk-wave’ and counts down the last 10 seconds!!!

Laura had pink day at daycare to support breast cancer awareness and got all dressup up as part of the action… she thought it was a wonderful opportunity to wear her ‘butt-by wings’ and bangles!

… dress-ups
Apart from that, we’ve been spending lots of time with friends and family. Here’s a piccie of Laura feeding her little friend ‘Tyger’ the dog.

… feeding Tyger

Until we write again, best wishes and take care,

Jason, Chrissy and Laura

Well Everyone!

We can’t believe it, but our little lady has just turned 2!

It’s time for potty training, big beds and plenty of tantrums! Laura’s becoming very independent these days and is coming out with all sort of little person treasures – like ‘stay back, very very dangerous’ (in response to Jason and my efforts to put her bed together), ‘Mummy too big, need new pants’ (as I attempted to pack my bag for another work trip and my normal clothes fail to accommodate my exanding waistline), ‘Tyger come here, Tyger sit’ (directions to the dog) and in response to what’s your name ‘Laura Bell… happy birthday to me’.

She’s certainly taking it all in and it’s amazing what she comes out with at times!!!

We celebrated with a lovely quiet day – the morning at the gardens and zoo with Nanna, the afternoon at home and a nice dinner with Ma and Pa. We also had a great party with all her little friends over the weekend and all the kids enjoyed the jumping castle and playing in the coloured balls. The little Princess has been spoilt rotten and has lapped it all up! Thanks to everyone for sharing this special occasion with us and for all your wonderful birthday wishes!
Here are some piccies…

… the new bed
… time for presents
… time for cake
… family piccie
… boing boing, jumping castle (Laura’s words of course)!
Cheers,

Jason, Chrissy and Laura

Laura’s also had another visit to the farm recently. Nanna took her along for a little ‘excursion’ and the two of them had a great time…

Laura saw a cow being milked, patted a goat, watched a chicken laying eggs, rode a pony and saw lots of other farm animals. She had a wonderful time and especially liked the pony and the feeding the goats… she’s been singing ‘Old McDonald’ ever since!

Anyway, here’s the best bit, a few piccies thanks to Nanna!

Cheers,

Jason, Chrissy and Laura

Hi Everyone!

It’s been a while since we last ‘blogged’, so there’s lots to talk about!

Father’s Day this year was wonderful… In the morning, we all had a sleep in and then spent some quality time with family. Laura enjoyed handing out the presents (and helping to unwrap them of course). We then had a nice lunch and a nap. In the afternoon we went for a drive to the beach. Jason and Laura enjoyed collecting shells, building (and demolishing) sand castles and also getting wet in the waves. We then had some dinner and icecream and returned home.

Here’s a few piccies of our day.

Cheers,

Jason, Chrissy and Laura

For those who know nothing about WWDC, it is the yearly developer’s conference for Apple computer hardware. The keynote presentation, given by Steve Job,s CEO of apple, is usually very entertaining and quite crowded. I would estimate that there would have been almost 5000 people at the keynote presentation. During the keynote, information on apple’s new operating system, hardware releases and general Apple background info was given. For those who are interested, you can view the presentation stream by visiting (http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/aug_2006/event/index.html). I should warn you that it goes for an hour and a half and requires a bit to download. Though, if you have an interest in computers and have at least a broadband connection, I would recommend watching it.

I have attached another photo to give you an idea what the keynote presentation is like.

To be honest, the keynote has a bit of a concert sort of feel to it.

After the keynote, I had some lunch and attended some of the other presentations. Due to confidentiality, I cannot divulge much, other than that apple is producing some really cool stuff and makes me want to get one 

Due to getting a very poor sleep again, I was happy to leave the conference around 5 and get back to my room. Not much else exciting happen, other than I caught up on some email and work.

After waking up early, I ended up watching a movie on the TV here. I had some breakfast and with a couple of my colleagues, we headed out to the downtown bay area to do some more site-seeing and browsing through the shops.

First stop was to head to the Moscone centre to register for the conference. This saved us from having to do it on the Monday, which saved us a lot of time.

We grabbed something to eat for lunch and headed back to our rooms for a break. Over the past few days, I would have walked more than in the previous month and my feet were telling me so. After giving my feet some rest, I headed out with a mate towards the water again to take some photo’s and check out the place in the daytime.

Above is a picture of me with the Bay Bridge in the background.

Also, here is another picture with cupid’s bow and arrow in the back ground. I think because San Francisco is the city of love, or something like that, it is reason for its significance.

Again, it was quite a walk back to our rooms and by the time we got back it was time to attend the AUC pre-wwdc gathering in which people from Australia and New Zealand was in attendance. With nibbles and free drinks provided, it was good to meet similar people attending the conference and network with them. I also caught up with an old work colleague who has moved on. It’s a small world isn’t it?

After a few drinks, the gathering was finishing up and some of us headed to the motel’s bar for some more food and drinks. I ended up meeting a number of new people and a good night was had.

Saturday (4th of August US Time)

Once I arrived in San Francisco, which was around 5pm, got to our motel, had some dinner and quickly visited a couple of stores. It’s weird, but it doesn’t really get dark here until around 9pm. Also a lot of the shops and stuff are still open till around then.

My first initial impression of the motel is that it a significantly better than the place I stayed at last time… The location is a lot better and I feel quite safe and comfortable to walk around the place.

We only had a quick look around, and given that we were quite tired, wanted to get back and hit the sack early.

I found that I got to sleep quite reasonable well, but woke up a couple of times and around 5am woke up staving and had to grab something to eat. Unfortunately I couldn’t get back to sleep and just watched some TV and stuff.

Saturday (5th of August)

Saturday we spent looking around San Francisco. We visited the Virgin Mega Store which is pretty cool and not only contains music, but DVD’s, books and other Virgin items. We also visited the Apple store ( http://www.apple.com/retail/sanfrancisco/) which is pretty cool. Had a look at the various equipment and checked out the Mac mini’s ( http://www.apple.com/macmini/) .

We also checked out the Comp USA store, which is like a huge computer store in which we nicknamed it the Bunnings computer store 

We checked out a fair few other shops. Some of the initial things that I noticed was that the computer equipments wasn’t that cheap in which I could purchase similar things in Australia as cheap, or in most cases, even cheaper. Food over here is also a lot more expensive and the only thing that appeared cheaper, was clothes.

After walking around a fair bit, I headed back to the room to take it easy.

When I got back, I did some research in finding a casino and to my amazement, they don’t have any casinos in San Francisco, or even in the state of California. Since there were no casinos, A colleague from where I work and I headed out towards the water for dinner. It was around 8pm and we were surprised how many places were shutting up and no longer serving. I think we would have walked well over 5 kay’s and along the piers until we found somewhere to eat. The place we ended eating at, remaindered me of a place from the movies. All we were chasing was some basic fish and chips. We ended up having fish and chips, but it was an interestingly chilli batter and was something completely different. After a long walk back, I crashed out quite quickly.

Well some of you might be aware that I am currently in the U.S. for WWDC (http://developer.apple.com/wwdc/index.html?homepage). So I thought I would write a couple of posts to the blog on my travels and happenings.

I’m currently sitting in Los Angeles (LA) International Airport waiting for my flight to San Francisco. Like all of my other international flights, this one had a little bit of drama. There was stormy weather on departure from Sydney Airport, so that delayed us around two and a half hours. This of course meant that we would miss our connecting flight to San Francisco.

As a result, my travelling colleague Dave and I had a little trouble getting through Customs and getting a rescheduled flight.

The international flight was pretty good but I would have liked to get more than 2 hours sleep (I find it extremely difficult to sleep on planes). Not much else exciting to comment on with the trip so far… plane food is still like plain food, thirteen and a half hours is a long time to spend sitting down in one spot and jet lag sucks!!!! But other than that, I’m in good spirits and looking forward to some exploring in San Francisco and then onto the Conference.

I plan on updating the blog very frequently whilst in the US, so watch this space!!!!

Until next time.

Take it easy,
Jason.

Well, this is the first that we’ve attended the local show as a “family”… I must confess, I’ve been looking forward to taking Laura on some rides, visiting the animal displays and generally being a “big” kid myself.

So with Laura, Chrissy and my Mum (Nanna) in tow, we all headed to the show. After grabbing a bite to eat, we took Laura on a pony ride. At first she was a bit hesitant, although she wasn’t as scared as she was a few months ago when we first introduced her to ponies at the farm, and by the end of it, I think she actually enjoyed the ride! See obligatory photo below.

After the pony ride, we had a look at animal display and saw a variety of snakes. I picked Laura up so that she could see what was going on. She said the word “snake” pretty well straight away and when I asked her what sound they make, she said “ssssssssss”!

After a quick look at the snakes, we visited farm animal display and Laura got to see and pat some: pigs; goats; ducks; sheep; guinea pigs and many other animals. She thought it was great!

After leaving the animal display, we went past a huge multi-coloured slide which I thought would be fun for Laura, but they wanted $5 for three slides and if I wanted to take Laura, I would have to pay for two people. Therefore I decided against the idea. But a little while later, I saw another “huge” slide which Laura and I could ride together and we got five slides for the price of three… It was pretty big, so initially I was a little concerned about what Laura’s reaction would be, so I used my shoes to slow the pace down a little so that Laura wouldn’t be scared…. She loved it of course and in no time was shouting the words of encouragement – “more, more”!!! So we had a lot more fun on the slide and here’s some photo’s Laura and Daddy having fun!!!

Nanna had to leave for work, but we met up with Uncle Dan shortly after. The lucky “son-of-a” won a huge “Winnie-the-Pooh” teddy and “Fish” just by playing two, $2 games. Of course, Uncle Dan gave these to Laura, which she thought was awesome…

Later on in the night we took a ride on the Merry-Go-Round. Some of my mate’s reckon that I was using Laura as an excuse, because I really wanted to go on the ride myself

After that, Chrissy and Laura went to centre ring to watch some more action and I went on a couple more rides with a mate. After the rides, I met back up with Chrissy and Laura just in time to watch the Holden Stormrider Ute precision driving display and we then saw the fireworks. Laura was quite scared initially, but once we held her close and covered her ears, she didn’t seem to mind as much. This year’s fireworks display was one of the best we’ve seen at the show for quite some time and we really enjoyed it.

So after many rides, the compulsory dose of ‘show food’ and lots of displays, a fun time was had by everyone.

Until next time…

Take it easy,
Jason.

One of the jobs that I have been involved with lately is the installation of a “pool” style security fence in the court yard. The old fence we had (as can be seen from the image below) was too dangerous because Laura could easily fall through, so we decided to remove it and install a new fence.

I initially thought that this would be a simple job (as usual, famous last words)…
• Remove old fence.
• Use the holes from the old fence post and pour new concrete footings to which the new fence would “dyna-bolt”.
• Install new fence.

Now it sounded simple, but let me tell you, it is never the case!!!

Removing the old fence was pretty harmless… The problem arose when I tried to bolt the new fence to the newly poured concrete footings… I bolted the first post to the concrete and it looked okay…. but when I tested the strength of the structure, the post moved quite a bit which was due to the fact that about 2 meters of the old brick capping was moving with the post!

This was way too dangerous because if Laura or another kid hit the fence at speed, the entire fence would topple over! With the spate of accidents involving fences, I didn’t want to be another statistic!

Of course by this time, I wasn’t too impressed as the simple job had turned into a very time-consuming and expensive one!!! I would have been happy to get a professional in to install the fence, as I didn’t really have that much time on my hands anyway. But after getting a few people to quote on installing the fence properly, and once we actually got a few tradespeople to return our calls), the price was astronomical and the methods suggested were pretty dodgy. So I decided to do it myself (with a bit of help of course).

What we decided to do was:
• Remove the entire brick capping and lay a concrete slab across the length of the brick retaining wall that separates the courtyard and the backyard
• Then bolt the fence to the concrete using dyna-bolts.

Now, special thanks must go to my father-in-law “Dave”, who at the time had some time off and spent a day removing the brick capping and “forming up” ready for the concrete. Thankyou very much Dave for this!!!!

Then on then following weekend, we got in a concrete truck and poured some concrete and smoothed it all out. On the following weekend, we got a friend of Dave’s who does some brick laying part-time to help place a “half” a brick run beside the concrete (which made the entire thing look like it had always been there).

Then, on the following weekend, Dave and I (with the help of Laura, Chrissy, Kerrie and Susie) installed the fence. As you can see from the results below, it looks pretty good, and is much more secure than it would have been if we had stuck with the previous method of installing the fence.

As you can see, we have Laura’s swing set (that she got from Santa) and a “see-saw” and slide (which Laura got for Easter, instead of chocolate). Of course now that Laura is getting a lot more active she just loves to play out in the new courtyard area.

I have also just installed (about an hour ago) a security door leading into the garage which now makes the entire courtyard secure.

Until next time, take it easy,
Jason.

Hi Everyone!

Time for another update! We’ve had a busy couple of months. At Easter time we spent a couple of days away at some local cabins with friends and family and had a great time enjoying the company and our very relaxing surrounds! Laura loved watching all the animals and being spoilt rotten with attention.

For Mother’s Day, we went on a family picnic and had a wonderful time. We had a BBQ lunch and then went for a walk – here’s a piccie.

Laura is growing up so quickly. She’s getting another couple of teeth through (back molars) and is more active than ever at the moment – running, jumping, sliding, boucing, ‘falling down’, rolling around, singing and dancing!!! Her favourite songs at the moment are ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ (which she can almost sing from start to finish with a little pause in between verses), ‘Ring a Ring a Rosie’ and also ’1, 2 Buckle My Shoe’. She sounds a bit like a broken record at the moment, but we must admit, she’s extremely cute and we never grow tired of hearing her constant chatter!

Lucky for us, she still loves her books, yet she also has lots of fun outdoors on her slippery slide, see-saw (marjorie-daw) and swings!

Hope you enjoy the piccies half as much as we enjoy sharing these precious moments with you!

Anyway all the best and have a great month,
Jason, Chrissy and Laura

Sorry it’s taken a while to update the blog… time has just been flying and the events of the last few months have just overcome us!!!

Life has been fairly hectic for us all between work commitments, more work around the house and of course entertaining the little lady!

Laura is sooo active these days – she can walk, run, climb, throw a ball and even dances around the lounge room with Mummy! She just loves her music CDs and is always bopping around (at home, in the car and even in the shopping trolley when you walk past a shop with good music)! Here’s a piccie of her all dressed up for a visit to Ma and Pa’s place…

Laura’s talking so much more every day now and she’s starting to say all sorts of little sentences in amongst her parrot talk – throw the ball, catch the ball, shut the door, cup of tea, night night bed time, more food please etc. She’s getting quite good with her alphabet and counting now too and has also picked up a few bad habits from her father when watching the footy, with the two of them chorusing ‘go, go’!!!

She’s a little sponge for information at the moment and is copying almost everything we say, some of which she understands and the rest of the time we figure it’s just ‘practice’!!! We can see it all coming together for her now, in her own little way of course, and it’s wonderful!!!

Laura now weighs a little over 13kg and her hair is starting to thicken up. It’s still a lovely sandy-blond colour and it is now just long enough to tie in two tiny little pigtails (very cute)!!!

Laura’s been helping us with all sorts of things around the house (well she’s trying to anyway) – cleaning, putting things away, sweeping and vacuuming. Outside in the courtyard, we’ve been working hard to finish her little play area, complete with safety fence, garden and swing set! She thinks it’s brilliant!

Visited a farm the other day (for a little friends birthday)… the kids (both big and little) had a great day, although Laura was a little surprised that all the farm animals seemed so much bigger, louder and scarier than what she’d imagined in her books!!! When asked if she wanted to pat the pony and go for a ride, the response was a very clear and determined “NO!”, although she did soften towards the goats and had good fun throwing the grain all over the paddock amongst squeals of delight!

Cheers and thanks for tuning in,
Jason, Christine and Laura

Well, it’s time for another update on the little lady! Laura’s doing wonderfully and having lots of fun learning about the big wide world! We’ve given her a new nickname, ‘book worm’, based on her insatiable desire for reading!!! She just can’t get enough of it and she’s putting everything she learns to good practice by naming things as she goes (door, flower, bird, ‘but-by’, ‘pibbow’, doll). The newest additions to her vocabulary are ‘barbeque’, ‘tea-towel’, ‘happy’, ‘monkey’ and ‘dinosaur’. She has started counting (she pipes in with the 2, 5 and 8 ) and also knows some of the alphabet… her favourite bit is when we say ‘r, s, t’ she repeats the letters back and then says ‘Laura’ when we say ‘u’! We’ve counted several hundred words now, however she’s pretty shy in public and rarely says anything in front of a group at all, at least initially, except perhaps ‘up’ (code for help me, I’m being mobbed by strangers)!

Laura’s now around 81cm tall and weighs 13.5kg. She has 14 teeth (all the better for eating anything she can get her hands on, and especially for crunching ice – which definitely rates as one of her favourite past times, closely behind reading)!

Laura’s pretty active now and loves to walk, climb, run and dance! No matter what the music is, she’ll bop up and down, nod her head or swing her arms and turn around! For Valentine’s Day, it was ‘Red Day’ at daycare, so Laura got dressed up in her favourite teddy bear shirt and we added a little label to the bear ‘Be My Valentine’ – she was too cute!!! Here’s a piccie of Laura on the swings at home.

She’s also a bit partial to swimming pools (especially when she’s being spoilt at Nanna’s or Ma and Pa’s). We had a group function at the Rock Pool a couple of weeks ago and we all had a wonderful time (see piccie).

Anyway, cheers and have a good one!

Until next time,
Jason, Chrissy and Laura