Tooth #8

I forgot to put a post in to say that Blake got tooth #8.... it was either Friday night (30th) - or Saturday morning... it was definitely through by lunch on Saturday.... but more than likely it was the reason for the lack of sleep on Friday night....

Either way, he has 8 teeth now..... and he's getting grumpy again - which could be due to a really strange week we've had with birthdays and all things getting in the way of a normal sleep pattern - or it could be another tooth... I'll keep an eye out...

Happy Birthday Blake - Grandma Arrives.....

So, as I said - we made it to the airport just in time.... we saw Angela's plane land and then just waited for her to disembark.... Jade was so excited to see her again - she was getting ready to run to nearly every person who came through the door - I think she started getting a bit worried after having waited a while... but then she finally saw Angela and went running.....

After picking up Angela, we headed back to the photo studio to go and pick the photos that we wanted printed up to be framed... Angela and I went and did this - and rob took the kids to get some food into them to keep them going until we could get out to lunch...

We ended up having lunch at Maccas... and only because of the play area and Jade badly needed a run about... so we let her go....

Rob and Angela...

Blake sat quite happily eating his happy meal...

After we'd finished having lunch, we loaded the kids into the car and headed home.. Blake took about 15mins to fall asleep and then managed to sleep the rest of the trip... Jade fell asleep when we were only 20mins away from home... so she didn't get a really good sleep in...

When we got home we put Jade in our Bed with "My Little Pony Tales" on the tv - so she happily watched that and just had some quiet time so that she had the energy to run around after Xander that evening......

Angela brought Blake's present upstairs... he loved the box... but not in the typical "baby loves a box" way... it was more a case of rip the paper off the top of the box and then climb all over the box.... it's all about climbing at the moment...

blake got a Sand and Water activity table.... his favourite part of it is the 4 bucket type shapes on each corner to put the toys in.... it's taking up our lounge at the moment - but it keeps Blake quiet with putting things into the buckets and then taking them back out again - cycle repeat!

Happy Birthday Blake - Photo Shoot.....

We got up to Rocky 10mins early for the photo shoot... there was a family in there... photo sessions are supposed to be 15mins each - so we figured it would all be good... unfortunately - the family in there ran 25mins past the end of their session time - which meant that Blake was getting fidgety by the time we managed to get in for photos... I was a bit worried that we'd end up not having any good photos.... again - i was wrong!

While we waited the kids mucked around a bit....

Jade showing off her funky dance moves....

Blake showing off his funky walking moves.....

and again - incase you missed it....

Blake's photos were taken first as he was going to be the first to get to the point of having had enough.... so he did all of his photos - and with various props - but at least they weren't as over the top as the props for Jade's first birthday photo shoot.....

After we'd finished with Blake's photo shoot - I wanted to get the sibling photo... now I had planned on only getting a photo of the two kids... nothing more - we already have too many photos - my house isn't big enough for all the photos I would have liked.....

Blake didn't want to sit on Jade's lap... if the photographer had let me position the kids in a way that I believe would have worked - she may have succeeded in getting a decent photo - but they know best.... Anyway, so we gave up on the sibling photo - and Jade just posed her little heart out... and OMG she can pose.... she had a great time.... (I haven't edited any of these pics - I wasn't trying to do anything arty with them - was just a case of getting pics of the photo shoot to blog... will leave these photographers to get their photos)

By the time we'd finished - because we were started 25mins late - we didn't have time to hang around to chose pics - we had to head to the Airport to pick up Angela.... and we made it just in time :)

(as opposed to last trip where Angela landed 10mins early and when we arrived she was already waiting outside with her baggage)

Happy Birthday Blake - Early Morning.....

Blake was up at 5am... how unusual... and not just because he wanted to open presents... ok - he didn't want to open presents... and once he got the first toy - he didn't really care too much about the rest of the presents - just wanted to play with the toy... but we managed to get through the presents in the morning....

Book from Aunty Bethia, Uncle Mark, Tom & William....

he liked the red page..... (so did Jade)

a shape sorter ball from Grandad...

Thomas Clothes from Mum, Dad & Jade....

Tractor from Mum, Dad & Jade....

and a fishing boat (that can go in the bath - but we haven't pointed that out to the kids - they've got enough bath toys for now....

Jade was all dressed up in her dora outfit... she does love this outfit and we thought we'd have a problem getting her into her dress for photos... but we were wrong! :)

We left Mom and Dad's place just after 8:30 ... and headed to Rocky to get Blake's first year photos taken.....

Oh - and this...

I also did Blake's first year poster which I put up... but i'd forgotten to take a photo of it... so I've done that now....

Setting up for Blake's birthday......

Monday night was a busy night for me, I had to get Blake's sign up - as well as blow up all the balloons and get the streamers up and happening.... as well as wrapping presents.... I managed to have it all done by 10:30... so i got some sleep :)

Only the four presents on the right hand side were from us, the three at the back on the left were from Rob's Dad - and the soccer wrapping paper present was from Rob's sister and her family....

I was just glad when I got it all done... :)

Conondale Weekend - Day 3

We got up Sunday morning, it'd been raining during the night - so the ground was wet... so Blake was kept in the pram for a little while to try to avoid having a completely muddy puggle.... (this didn't last long as he is much happier being set loose on the world...

We had to head over to register early... so we did that - and while we were there - we put Blake with all the motorbikes for sale and put a for sale sign on him to see if there were any takers.... I think the price was too high....

Blake lined up for sale....

Staring off to see if there's some dry ground he is allowed to play on...

We ended up getting Frank to move his car out from under his cover area so that we had dry ground to let the kids play on... so he was happy then - and he and his apprentice mechanic set to work on his bicycle again...

He then decided to upgrade to a Montesa... (good choice!!)

Rob finally made it back.... both kids were very excited to see him again....

We got in early for Scrutineering, my bike was in 2nd and Dad's 3rd.. then we just got to sit back under the riders briefing..... and boy were we glad we did.... (even got Rob to get through early too - I think he was only one or two bikes behind us....) If you notice the top right of the photo.... DARK CLOUDS... bwahahhaa

Oh, there they are... nasty rain clouds!!!

Jade was happily playing under cover....

Then it started to rain.....

.... and the rain got heavier....

(Dad and I were laughing quite hard at this point at all the poor suckers who had to stand out in the rain waiting to get their bikes through scrutineering while we happily sat under covers...)

What was even funnier was when Rob realised that he'd left his helmet on his bike - so he had to run over to save it from filling with water (of course he hung it upside down... bwahahhaa)

Unfortunately, Rob didn't manage to complete more than half a lap before he'd got sand in the brakes and they weren't working anymore.... so he had to pull out... but that did mean that we had a photographer for the afternoon... and Jade loved bushwalking with Rob... so it turned out ok...

This is John - I was riding around with him and his son Connor....

This is Connor....

Dad's riding Terry Telfer's "1956 Villiers" for the weekend... he had a ball... you'll have to keep an eye out for future posts that include Dad buying a "Classic" trials bike now.. he had a ball...

Check out this technique.... people who don't like logs come straight down off them.... there's no fun here....

People who like Logs - JUMP!!!!!!

(note - the back wheel isn't touching the log either!)

Blake riding his bike and singing..... (well - being pushed - and singing)

Wheelie!!!!

(and yes, he pulls himself into the correct position to balance)

It was a great trial... I've never ridden a major comp before.. just local comps... but this was great... my first lap I dropped 22 points (which - theoretically isn't bad for 15 sections.... not at my level anyway) - - and 15 points of those would have been avoided if i'd spent more time on the bike as they were due to the bike stalling from lack of clutch control... and a front wheel slide out.....

My second lap - i dropped 4 points.... so I was much happier with that lap.... and my third lap cost me 9.... but I'd only dropped one point - then got to a section that I'd happily cleaned all day - and I ran out of fuel.... (r00kie mistake - shoulda checked the tank after each lap).... so, after that - I'd dropped 6 points in total - but I was so disappointed with myself after that - that I made 3 more stupid mistakes costing me an additional 3 points.... oh well... better luck next time!

Once i'd finished riding - we loaded up the kids and the caravan and we took off... we weren't more than 10km from the competition before we noticed this:

Yup... both asleep!!

4.5hrs Jade slept..... which wasn't bad out of a 5.5hr trip.....

Blake woke happy as a pig in mud after 3.5hrs... and it was only in the last 20mins of the trip that he really started to get niggly.... but we made it home with no dramas...