Well where to begin.... Life is busy I guess... yes it is. I hardly get time to sit down at the computer these days. But that's mainly due to a working from home hubbie more than anything mostly. Oh and it latter weeks I hadn't bothered that much because it was causing too much frustration. Our laptop was taking 25min just to boot up and open the internet. Anwyay those days are gone. Thanks to the Australian Tax man we managed to scrape some money together and buy a PC with enough speed and RAM and all things computerlike to keep us going at high speed for some time! woohoo and thank you once again Mr Rudd! Hence why there hasn't been any blogging of late and minimal amount of photos on FB. So here we are not with more time on our hands but with a computer that is a lot more friendly to this time constrained mum.

Abbey and Lucy continue to delight us with their antics. Lucy is 6mths old now and more and more engaging. I think she is competing with my sister Angela for the nickname Giggles as she has the most infectious gorgeous chuckle on her. Abbey has this knack (more than any of us) of having her in hysterics and it's fantastic to see.


They've both bonded really well and have a wonderful relationship growing. There's been times when I've been telling Abbey to be more gentle with Lucy when she's body slamming her but how can she take me seriously when Lucy is just cracking up and thinks it's all good fun! Ah I hear my mother's voice ringing in my ear 'Too much laughter ends in disaster' ... not alwasy but sometimes... and where there's body slamming involved... more often then not... eventually!

Lucy has a great joker grin just like Ryan and a great sparkle in her eye. She's growing well and has gorgeous baby fat stores in her thighs to see her right through winter. That's if she doesn't start crawling anytime soon and burning it all off. She certainly is getting around now and can very quickly catapillar her way across the lounge floor.


As you'll see in the video she's up on all fours all the time lunging herself forward or rocking about. I guess when you have a big sister to watch and get tips off and try and keep up with there's perhaps a greater incentive to get moving. So watch this space. It may not be long before she's well and truly on the move.

Lucy has a facination with her feet at the moment. I remember Abbey going through this stage. Last night she was even sucking her big toe in the bath! And at the end of the day we're left with soggy toed tights.Lucy is bigger than Abbey was at her age and so I'm finding we're getting through clothes a lot faster than I had anticipated. This picture is of them both wearing size 1 PJs!!! Ok so they are more like 3/4s on Abbey but still!!

We've been going along to a play group on Thursdays down at the local Uniting Church and have met some lovely mum's and their kiddies. We've become good friends with Catherine, Her husband Matthieu, and her daughter Emilie whoa are here from Belgium for a year. They only live a couple of houses down from us too which has been great for friends to go for walks with, have over for lunch and dinner and chats. Here's Ryan and Matthieu having just biked the Paekakariki Hill Rd. Great views from the top on a day like this so well worth the effort.

Abbey seems to enjoy playgroup and the abundance of different toys to play with especially the ride on trikes and pushchairs galore! She's at an interesting stage where she's quite happy to play on her own and doesn't necessarily do much interacting with other children unless it's to take their trike off them!! She's still learning about sharing...

Lucy and Emilie (a few months older than Lucy) having a play.

Abbey is good fun and a handful and the sunshine in our day before we've even opened our eyes to know that it's morning. She came into our room on monday morning and said "Hi Mum!" in the most expressive, gosh it's good to see you kinda way. Made me smile. She often does, young Abbey. She is so full of words and sentences and songs now it's amazing. I absolutely love it when I hear her say something new or catch on to something or see that she has understood very well something I've said. My latest discovery is that she knows the word 'flannel' I was serching for one I'd seen her with earlier in the evening before bed time and asked her where's the flannel? and she promptly trotted off and got it.

She sings:Twinkle Twinkle, If you're happy and you know it, Numerous Mainly Music songs. Wheels on the bus, Good Night Sleep Tight song, Shoo shoo song (a nonsense song my mum used to sing us off to sleep to. Abbey even requests it at sleep time some times "Shoo Shoo song ma?!"), Heads and Shoulders...? Red and Yellow...?

She counts to 10 and today I was trying out 'what comes after ...? and she got them all the way to 12! I was very impressed. We're trying to teach her colours at the moment. She knows that green means go and red means stop at the traffic lights but that's as far as she's got thus far.

We're simply loving this time of learning and discovery. I guess the best thing about that is that it's going to go on for the rest of her life.

Abbey and Lucy sharing a room has it's pluses and minuses and lately I've been pondering how to deal with the latter. Great part about them sharing a room is it frees up the third for the computer/office but having them in together has been a recipe for fun and antics at midday sleep time of late. Despite changing the room around Abbey has worked out yet again how to get into Lucy's cot and I find her there numerous times when she should be in her bed counting sheep. Lucy thinks it's great fun. I'm not so sure how to deal with it but am glad that at least they're enjoying themselves and not terrorising each other. Here's Abbey having fallen asleep on her 'Can you cuddle like a Koala?' bookAnd sitting on the floor with her Kitty Kat a present from Aunty Joelle, Joseph and Tane.
Joelle and Tane made a flying visit back to NZ recently. It was great to see their smiling selves and for the cousins to play. Lucy was quite taken by Tane who has got to be one of the most smiley children I've ever met All the girls together on a very cold winters day in Wellington.To me! 27years gone by. Hmm I do feel a little bit older now. 25 still felt young. 27 feels that much closer to 30 which really is all grown. I was sick with the flu on my birthday and for about 48hrs there after so the day itself I was more in survival mode with the girls to look after. Ryan had the arvo off though and made me a nice dinner. On Saturday Damian and Michelle, Sophie and the twins came over for tea and cake. The cake care of my lovely sister-in-law Michelle was divine! Then that evening we had a Monastra family gathering for my birthday but also for saying farewell to Joelle and Tane who were heading back to Brissie. Abbey has been singing "Happy Birthday you" to me at least once a day everyday this week so far. Very cute. It'll be great when it's her birthday nexty month that she'll understand what we're on about. In fact it wouldn't surprise me if she asks where the chocolate cake is, to go with the occasion. I'm still trying to decide what cake to make her for her birthday. Have got mum's Womans Weekly Birthday Cake Cook Book. Mum told me the other day she counted up one time that she's made 52 birthday cakes from it!!!