The Bell Family

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

As you have probably read from previous blog entries, we’ve been doing some substantial renovations to the backyard. So I thought I would give you guys an update.

As you know, we have put up a garden shed and also laid some concrete edging for the gardens.

Over the Xmas holidays, we managed to dig out all of the weeds and rubbish from the yard (with many thanks to Dan, Mum, Dave and Kerrie for their help). We then filled the garden beds with 3 big truck loads of garden mix soil.

We then went to the Sunday Markets and also a few nurseries and ended up buying 23 palms to plant into the gardens. These included:

• 4 triangle palms
• 4 alexanders palms
• 7 foxtail palms
• 2 bottle palms
• 6 golden cane palms

As you can see from the picture, there was a few of them to plant. We now have them all planted into the garden and as you can see from the picture below, it doesn’t look that bad.

All we need to do now is to place some sugarcane mulch on top and plant a few crotons and golden-sheena’s and the garden will be finished.

We’ll post another blog entry when it is all finished to show you what it looks like. As you can probably tell, I will be glad to head back to work so I can take it easy!!?!

Take it easy,
Jason.

Hi Everyone!

Time for a quick update on the Bell Family antics over the last couple of weeks. We’ve had a lovely holiday season, spending lots of time together just relaxing and having fun.

Christmas was fantastic. On Christmas morning, Laura couldn’t wait to get outside and onto her new swing set (which Santa and Santa’s helper worked on assembling late Christmas Eve and into the wee hours of the morning)! Laura’s a bit of a thrill seeker and isn’t shy about nodding her head rigorously and squealing ‘more’ as she holds on for dear life and we push her higher and higher!

She loves the swings so much, that when she wants to have a go, she runs around the house collecting everyone’s hat for them, then runs to the back door to get your attention yelling ‘wing, wing’! Once the ‘present opening’ ritual was over, it was time to head out for Christmas lunch at Nanna’s. It was just a quiet family day, but Laura was full of energy and abuzz with excitement (I think it was a combination of all the attention, new toys, pretty paper to rip and of course, great food to eat)!!! All in all, it was a lovely day and we were all thoroughly spoilt.

Once we recovered from Christmas, it was time to catch up with a few jobs around the house. We’ve done a heap of gardening and have finally moved all the soil into the backyard and planted out our new palm tree garden. We’ve organised our new shed and moved all the tools and we’ve also cleaned out the garage (which was quite an effort – I can’t believe how much junk you can collect in such a short amount of time)! We’ve also redone the back ramp and done some general work around the house.

For New Year’s Eve, we enjoyed a great party at a friends house. All of the kids kicked on until about 9pm, then finally crashed out, which allowed us all to let our hair down! We can’t believe it’s now 2006 – where do the years go???

After New Year’s, we headed down to the beach for a few days to relax. We did lots of swimming, played golf, slept a lot and of course enjoyed lots of yummy food. Laura’s at a great age now, she can walk around, paddle a little (however her favourite was the water slide), and eat pretty much whatever we’re having. She’s added a few new words to her vocab (we’ve counted about 50 in total now, including giving a few three syllable words a go) and pretty much knows all the basic parts of her body now (head, nose, eyes, ears, mouth, shoulders, hands, tummy, knees, toes).

Anyway, it’s back to work for us soon and we’ve still got so much we want to do, so we better leave it there for now! Have a good one and we’ll write again soon!

Cheers,
Jason, Chrissy and Laura

Hi Everyone!

Well, it’s the right time of year for a cyclone in the tropics, but this time, she’s pint sized and called Laura!!! We’ve borrowed a term from some friends of ours and affectionately dubbed her ‘Cyclone Laura’ after the path of devastation she leaves behind her!!! Now she’s up and walking, there’s no stopping her!!!

Her latest stats are:
Age – 15 months
Weight – around 12 kg
Height – 80 cm tall and
Teeth – 12 carnivorous little pearly whites (and another 4 on the way)!

Laura is now fairly steady on her feet and gets around the entire house in the blink of an eye. She’s also a proficient climber (she turfs her teddies out of their rocking chair and jumps into their place to have a go – when she’s finished, she sometimes remembers to put them back)!

Her brain is like a big sponge at the moment, so we’ve also nick-named her ‘the Little Scientist’. She just loves to pull things apart, to find out how they work or what they’re made of, and then attempt (only sometimes successfully) to put them back together again!!!

Laura’s latest craze is naming all the decorations on the Christmas Tree. She points to, and names, the ‘baubles (ball-balls), teddy bears (ted-ja’s) and star and can also point out her head, nose, tummy and feet!

She’s also taken a liking to the Tupperware ‘Shape-O’ and can put the whole 10 shapes into there holes in only a couple of minutes (sometimes with a distraction or two).

So things are really starting to come together for her and she surprises us with a new ability almost daily now!!!

It’s a beautiful age and she’s really great fun to be around!!! Oh to be a kid again (but then again, who said big kids can’t have fun)!!!

Merry Christmas Everyone! Have a safe and happy holiday season!

Cheers,
Jason, Chrissy and Laura

As you can see from the “Blog” entry below, we were kept rather busy with a number of things over the weekend. But what really made our weekend was the fact that Laura started walking to us in the open and took a couple of steps by herself unaided.

As you might already be aware, Laura has been walking around the furniture and walls for some time now. But the last few days I have been trying very hard to get her to walk by herself. I found that if I leant her up against the wall and “coached” her to come to me she would stumble a few steps. At first she would lean forward, stumble a few steps and then I’d catch her and praise her. But with more practice runs, she was walking from the fireplace to the lounge, this would be around 2 meters (about 14 Laura steps .

But in the past couple of days, she has grown enough confidence that you can stand her up in the middle of a room and she will walk to you, as well as move from a piece of furniture or wall to somewhere else. It is amazing how fast the transition is and I wouldn’t be surprised if she is up and running around the house in a couple of weeks.

So she is definitely keeping us on our toes.

Will keep you posted again shortly.

Take it easy,
Jason.

Well, last Saturday we all got in and built the Bell’s Garden Shed. The shed was one of those “ABSCO Regent” Garden Sheds, that comes in a flat pack with a hundred or so screws and pot-rivets and a number of colour-bond sheets that some how goes together to make a shed.

With the awesome help from my in-laws, we managed to put together all the sheets to form the various panels for the shed, as some of the panels can be seen in the photo below.

After lunch my brother finished work and came around to give us a helping hand as well, which was greatly appreciated. After a few more hours things started to take shape and actually looked like a shed. Of course when things got shady, Laura also got in to the action and helped as well.

We got the bulk of the shed done on the Saturday only a few fixing points to the cement fitted and latches to mount, which was completed on the Sunday. I am very grateful for the help Dave and Kerrie (in-laws), Dan (Brother) and Chrissy provided and as they say, many hands make light work. Even though we were out in the Sun all day, it was gratifying to see it take shape and to have it actually finished.

You may have noticed that I wasn’t in any of the photo’s, well someone had to take them . But to prove that I actually did some work, here I am helping out.

Unfortunately I don’t have any photos of the shed in its completed form, but I am sure you will see some photo’s of it when some more work has been completed on the back yard.

Until then,
Take it easy,
Jason.

Well, we have just got back from a lovely holiday in Sydney. I must admit that I enjoyed my time there a lot more than I had expected! There were so many things to do and so many sights to see.

The reason for travelling down to Sydney was to attend the Wedding of some friends, Justin and Sarah. But with the Grandparents looking after Laura, we thought we would make the most out of the trip and spend some quality time together. The flight down to Sydney was uneventful and included a quick change over flight in Brisbane. We arrived at Sydney late Thursday morning, located our bags and grabbed a shuttle bus to our Motel. We couldn’t check in until 2pm, so we left our bags there and headed towards Darling Harbour. It was raining so we decided to see some of the indoor sights!

First stop was the Aquarium… and I must say it was awesome! If you enjoy looking at platypuses, turtles, all types of fresh and salt water fish, seals, sea horses, sting rays and, of course, sharks, then it is definitely the place to be!

Next, we visited the Maritime Museum, which had various historical displays including artefacts from early Australian exploration and the old whaling days. It also had a fair few Navy relics and some old pieces from historical boats and war ships.

After a couple of hours walking, our feet were really feeling it, so we decided to head back to our Motel to check in and take it easy for a while. After a bit of a rest, we headed into The Rocks to catch up with the Bride and Groom and a few friends for dinner. We went to a nice Italian place where we shared a pizza. It was nice to catch up with some of Chrissy’s old school friends and after dinner we went to a pub for a few drinks and generally had a good time.

By Friday morning, it was time for more sight seeing, so after a great breakfast we headed towards some of the major shopping areas. We walked through the Queen Victoria Building which contains shops well out of reach of our price range, but it was interesting to look at! We also looked at Centrepoint Tower shopping centre, but decided to pass on the $200+ ‘tower walk’! After that, the weather started to fine up so we headed towards Circular Quay. We visited the Sydney Opera House and the Botanical Gardens and could see the Harbour Bridge and Luna Park. As the sun started to set, we headed back to the Motel to prepare for another night out on the town.

We decided to try the “Star City” Casino and had a great time. Best of all, we had some luck on both Blackjack and Roulette, which payed for dinner and a few drinks! We visited one of the restaurants and a few of the bars, as well as the night club where we went for a dance, getting back at around 3am in the morning!

After a bit of a sleep in (naturally) on Saturday morning, we had some breakfast and then headed to Paddy’s markets. We couldn’t help ourselves, so we bought Laura a few t-shirts including an ‘Aussie’ shirt, which looks like an Australian cricket shirt (poor girl)! If you like looking at knick-nacks, cheap clothes and various electric gadgets then this was a great place to visit. As you can imagine, this consumed a number of hours!

We then headed back to our Motel, which wasn’t that far away, where we grabbed a bite to eat and got ready for the Wedding. The ceremony was held at The Garrison Church which was built around the early 1800’s. After some photo’s, we then headed to the “Lord Nelson” pub for a few drinks and Chrissy got to catch up with all her old school friends which was great. The cricket was on the TV at the pub, however the funny thing was that no-one seemed interested in watching it, until I realised that the game was between Queensland and Tasmania and I was in New South Wales

After a couple of hours had passed we then headed to the reception which was held at the Waters Edge. Talk about location…. This place had an awesome view of the harbour, Luna Park, Harbour Bridge and the city. It was an awesome sight to simply see, let alone have dinner and attend a reception at a place like this, so we lapped up every minute! The only downer was that it was $8 for a bourbon and coke, but other than that, the meals were awesome and some of the best we’ve ever had! Even though there was around 170 guests at the Wedding, it was still really intimate and lots of fun, so we really enjoyed ourselves.

Sunday and it was my Birthday. After a bit of a sleep in (again, got to get our money’s worth), we headed down to Circular Quay again and jumped on the Manly Ferry. The ferry was pretty cool and arrived at Manly Beach around lunch time. We went for a walk and grabbed some fish and chips. We then went for a walk along the beach front, around to Shelly Beach. Talk about busy, there were people everywhere! Though the weather was perfect for the beach and I didn’t mind seeing lots of girls wearing bikini’s either

After the walk, it was time for us to head back to the mainland and then to our Motel. Again after a bit of a rest, we headed out to a very nice restaurant called “I’m Angus” where I had one of the best steaks I have ever had. The meal, though expensive, was awesome… We then went for a great walk and then headed to the Casino again where we were lucky enough to win some more money, which capped off my Birthday quite well!

On Monday, we headed to the Powerhouse Museum. There was everything from science and technology to space, to sustainable communities and computers! I must admit I enjoyed it a lot more than the Maritime Museum, but, if anything, there was almost too much to look at and it was quite easy to get lost, but definitely worth the trip.

We had some lunch and then checked out of the Motel and headed to the airport, which was where the real fun began. To cut a long story short, our flight from Sydney left around 5pm and it was one of the roughest flights I have ever been on and we landed in Brisbane around 20-30 minutes late. But that was nothing, we then sat at Brisbane airport for another 5 hours as our connecting flight had been delayed because of bad weather and storms… we were due back in Rocky at 8pm, however we didn’t arrive until 2am!!!
Oh well, we had a fantastic time anyway and we’re looking forward to another trip sometime soon which will take us into the Suburbs to catch up with friends and family!!!

Cheers,
Jason and Chrissy

Well Laura thought that she would help me with shovelling sand into the wheelbarrow by climbing the sand mountain and of course pushing it down to make it easily for me!!!

As you can see, she had a ball and she even climbed to the top of the sand all by herself… Giving that it was almost time for a bath for her anyway, we didn’t think that if would hurt for her to have some fun and that is exactly what she did.

Take it easy,
Jason.

Well the back yard blitz is still going strong and we now have a slab down for the shed and the edging down for the gardens.

Still got a lot more to do, but it is slowly getting there.

Will try and keep everything updated so you can see all is going on.

Takes it easy,
Jas.

Well the demolition has begun!!! I have taken this week off work to begin the renovation of the backyard.

This morning we had a bobcat come in and remove a lot of the grass, rocks and roots from around the fence line where we wish to install a new garden edge. We also got the bobcat to level the rest of the backyard and lay the foundation for a slab for the shed.

We’re also going to install a new in-ground sprinkler system, fill the gardens with new garden soil, plant some palms and then mulch the new gardens.

So over the coming weeks and following weekends we will be kept very busy.

Will endeavour to keep the Blog up to date to keep you informed on how it is all going.

Take it easy,
Jas.

Party Girl

It’s time to party! The little Princess has just celebrated her first birthday!

We celebrated with a couple of different parties and Laura has lapped up all the attention! She received some beautiful cards, along with some wonderful toys, clothes and books!

It took her a little while to get the hang of opening the presents, but once she did, there was no stopping her! She couldn’t believe that they were all for her!

Laura loved all the party food and couldn’t resist the pink cake – she’s becoming quite a little sweet tooth and just loved the special treats! She also enjoyed all the music and by the end of the weekend, was thoroughly worn out by all the action!

Laura’s little personality is really beginning to shine through now – she’s so interested in everything that’s going on around her and she’s a really happy little girl, but oh so cheeky! Check out the photo’s for yourselves!

Cheers,
Jason and Chrissy

I apologise for not writing sooner, but as you can imagine we have been kept rather busy.

Well anyway, I experienced my first father’s day and it was rather special. I got a couple of presents and a hand drawing by Laura which was cute. We even spend time down at the beach where we had some fish and chips and Laura had her first experience with the ocean.

Because it was in the middle of the day, we only spent a minute or too on the beach itself, but Laura enjoyed walking on the sand and got excited every time a wave came up to her feet. She even stomped in the water when the levels rosed. I think she enjoyed her first time at the beach and will have to take her there again, but at a better time during the day so that she won’t get burnt.

Overall, it was a great day and of course no blog entry would be right without a photo, so here one taken on the day at the Yeppoon Beach Front.

Take it easy,
Jason.

Laura had a dress-up day at daycare last week, so Jason and I mustered some creative flair and put a little costume together using various things from around the house.

We found a cute little dress, shoes and bonnet and combined these with a lovely set of wings which Jason made!!! Laura was more interested in eating the wings of course, but she did look pretty cute and she loved the biscuits with pink icing which they served at morning tea. Here’s a couple of photo’s…

Laura appears to be having a great time at daycare lately. She has lots of little friends and loves scaling the ‘fort’ and playing in the sandpit. She’s a bit of a rough and tumble adventure chick, who just loves to have fun!!!

Anyway, all the best and we’ll write again soon…

Cheers,
Jason, Chrissy and Laura

Wow! What a wild child we’ve got on our hands! She’s gorgeous, cheeky, mischievous and clever, all in one package!

Laura’s latest stats are:
* Height – 75 cm
* Weight – 9.7 kg
* Hair – Finally growing!

Laura’s been busy exploring the house and yard – still crawling, but she can sit and stand by herself and manages a few little steps along the edge of furniture and when you hold her hand. She’s becoming a bit of a sticky beak and just loves looking at people whenever we’re out and about!

Teeth number 7, 8, 9 and 10 are all on their way through at the same time, so that’s causing Laura a little trouble at the moment, combined with one of the nasty flu’s that appears to be doing the rounds!

All the action hasn’t put her off her food though – she’s prone to give anything and everything a go these days – every conceivable fruit, vegetable and meat, plus a good selection of breads, cereals, cakes and bikkies! We thought we’d kicked the whole dairy intolerance thing and tried a few yoghurts and cheeses again, but it appears that a decent serving of dairy still doesn’t agree with her (yet she can get away with small amounts used in cooking, thankfully and loves soy formula and soy yoghurt).

Her favourite games at the moment are climbing over Daddy Mountain and Mount Mummy, as well as listening to music and playing with musical toys, familiar faces and animals!

Have a great month and we’ll be sure to write again soon!

Cheers,
Jason, Chrissy and Laura

It’s been a while, but we have started doing some home improvements again. With Laura growing very quickly and soon to be walking, we thought it was critical to repair the back ramp as the decking boards be starting to rot and crack.

So on the weekend, I removed all the old decking boards, sanded the main structural frames and we applied 3 coats of paint to the frame to make it a bit more weatherproof.

I then cut the new timber decking boards and have started to apply decking oil to the new timber. It is hoped that I can start nailing down the new boards to the ramp this weekend.

I will post another entry as soon as the back ramp has been completed.

Cheers,
Jason.

G’day Everyone

Sorry it has taken us so long to write another blog entry, but as you can imagine we have been kept rather busy. Believe it or not, Laura is now 10 months old. She now stands up by herself (since 8 months), and with a little bit of help, she can walk along the edge of furniture.

She eats mostly what we do, but toast and meat are her favourites. Though she also enjoys her fruit and vege’s as long as she can hold them (no more mashed varieties for her anymore)!!!

She seems to be enjoying daycare, but has been having trouble with teeth # 7 and 8 – but thankfully they are almost through.

She has been growing fast and has been putting on lots of weight.

She is definitely very cheeky and has developed a contagious laugh, though she can be a little terror sometimes and can even be a little naughty! But mostly I reckon she is a little cutie, especially when she waves hello and bye bye, or when she is laughing because you are tickling her! She seems to enjoy playing games like give and take (sharing) , peekaboo and 1, 2, 3!

As always, no blog update is complete without a picture, so here is a picture of Laura and Chrissy taken only a week or so ago.

Until next time…

Cheers,
Jason.

I just thought I would post a picture of my workplace, as many people don’t believe that someone can use as many computers as I have.

For those of you who are a little technological, I have a few Linux boxes (RedHat Fedora Core 3), an Imac and of course a Windows XP machine.

As you can see they keep me busy.

Cheers,
Jason.

Well g’day everyone.

Sorry it has taken us so long to produce a blog update, but as you can imagine, we have been kept very busy.

Milestones –

• If you didn’t already know, Laura has 6 teeth with another couple on the way;
• She has been crawling all over the floor and getting around quite well now;
• Eating solids and loves dry toast;
• Manages to wave goodbye to people sometimes; and
• Mimics the sound of laughs and words you make.

Laura is now 73 cm tall and weighs 8.2kg.

As you can see, she is growing up very very fast and it is amazing how time flies, I cannot even believe that she is 9 months old, let alone see that she can crawl and eat some of the foods we eat!

As always, I have attached another photo so you all can see what she looks like these days.

Don’t forget to leave comments.

Thanks and take it easy,
Jason.

G’Day All!

Hope everyone is doing well out there! The Bell Family is loving life at the moment! Laura is doing wonderfully well – her beautiful little personality is really shining through and she makes life so much fun!!!

Laura has 6 teeth now and loves whatever food she can get her hands on. She’s eating a wide variety of fruit and vegetables and she also tried chicken for the first time the other night and didn’t seem to have any complaints (carnivore Jason is of course, very proud)!

After several trips to the Dr for her eczema, we decided to try the Naturopath. He suggested that we exclude dairy and wheat products for a little while and see what happens. We’ve also been trying a new cream and her skin seems to be on the improve, which is great. Surprisingly enough, she doesn’t seem to mind soy formula and yogurt and we even made some creamy banana rice for her on soy milk, which she loves.

Laura has settled into daycare really well and went for three short days last week and another three days this week and then I’m back to work next week! Laura’s sitting up by herself now and her little voice is developing well. Her chatter is becoming much clearer now and she seems pretty keen to talk about Dad all day long!

She’s starting to get pretty mobile now, and although she’s not crawling yet, she still makes her way around the lounge room via a series of rolls and shuffles!

So as you can see, everything’s going wonderfully here and we’re really enjoying our ‘Little Princess’.

Cheers,
Jason and Chrissy