Jade's 2nd Happy Birthday.....

The build-up to Jade's birthday has all been her saying "Jade's happy birthday!!" and "two!!!" - and my parents have tried really hard to teach her to show "2" with her fingers.. she's almost there - but not quite - and not something we managed to photograph....

So today, a day early, we had Jade's Birthday Party... we had a few people over and spent a reasonable amount of time in the swimming pool.... (and the kids played in the sandpit and on jade's climbing gym too!)...

Everyone gave Jade the presents from them today, Frank still has to give Jade the one from him and Shayne - but that'll be tomorrow when he's home from his trials comp...

Presents to date:

From Gran and Grandpa

and to give some perspective of size

(that is a normal dining chair sitting next to them)

From GG

(and she talks and has a backpack that holds a camera)

From Grandma

From Grandad

(the bracelet that we placed around the chicken's neck has "Jade" engraved on it - it's a little big for now - but will be great in about a year or so - the hat is embroidered with "Jade")

From Mom & Dad

From Aunt Jaime, Uncle Damian & Xander

From Leeanne & Caitie

Will post birthday pics later... tired now....

Too Cute....

Jade is still unwell, I took her to the Doctors on Tuesday just to make sure it wasn't something serious, but she simply has a cold. It has affected her ears in that there is fluid behind them, she's got a slight infection in her eyes and then the congested chest etc etc.

She's grumpy at times, but all in all - she's not doing too badly...

On Wednesday morning Rob was snoring - and by 4am - I just couldn't take it anymore, so I got up - showered - got jade's lunch ready - and went to work (arriving just before 5am)..

Jade got up at 6am - walked into our room and said "where's mommy?" and Rob said "she's gone to work" so she threw herself on the floor and chucked a minor tanty then got up - walked back to her room and went back to sleep - Rob then had to wake her at 7:30 so that he could get her ready for school....

That afternoon, I was around at Mom and Dad's place picking up Jade and she heard someone enter the house... "Daddy!!!!!" she cries - goes running to see - and it's Grandpa.... so she yet again - threw herself on the floor and had a tanty....

so it doesn't seem to be a case of not liking Rob at 6am - just that he wasn't who she was expecting... was nice to feel loved for the couple of hours in between being told about the 6am tanty - and experiencing the 4pm one...

Day at Gran and Pa's again....

Mom and Dad came over this morning to fit a shelf above my desk so that I can try to be a little more organised with the Company workpapers ... hopefully now that things are slightly better arranged things will be a bit easier...

Anyway, they finished here at about 11am or 11:30... and started to leave - and Jade started walking out with them... and I said "Jade - aren't you going to stay here with Mom?" and she grabbed Mom's hand and said "no - go with Gran"...

So Jade went back to their place - had lunch and had her sleep there.....

This is now twice in two days she's chosen them over me... last night I had to come home in their volvo because Jade wanted to go with them - and got into her car seat in their car... so we simply swapped cars and I took Jade home....

There was no tricking her today though......

Not too good.....

Well - Jade has been sick pretty much all day - nose running non-stop... so instead of getting my day off tomorrow when she was supposed to go to daycare - looks like I'm going to have to try to get her into the drs to make sure she doesn't have something more serious than a simple cold...

Problem is - she still really can't tell us what's wrong - so we only know what we can work out...

Lets just hope that it is something simple and that we're worrying about nothing....

Start to another weekend....

I think I'm getting used to my weekends starting on Saturdays again - as opposed to Fridays that they were for the last year or so after coming back from having Jade... and I get Mondays off now so that I can take Jade to her swimming lessons still... so I get a day to get over the weekend... Theoretically...

Unfortunately I think Jade is the one who needs Monday to get over the weekend because we just jam them so full of things that she is totally buggered by Monday morning....

Anyway, so today started at 6am - on the dot - this kid knows how to sleep in during the week - but forgets by Saturday morning - EVERY WEEK!

We got up - had breakfast - got dressed (had to look cute today because some of Mom and Dad's friends were going to be at their place and they had to show off Jade....)

So, to pass some time before going to Gran and Pa's we did some drawing.... so I thought I'd get a picture of this as it is a new obsession for Jade... she has to draw ALL of the time now... so the book and pencils are always close at hand....

So now Jade has to show off her new tricks... she can pull faces...

"Happy"

"Sad"

And that's all she's really mastered for now.... although while Ed and Jen were over, Jen asked Jade if she knew "surprised" and Jade looked a bit confused... and Jen held her hands up beside her face and had an open mouth ... so now "surprised" equals happy face with hands....

Grandpa is convinced she's going to be an actress when she grows up.....

When she got bored with drawing she spent some time climbing the cat toy, until she realised there was a book up there, then we had to sit and read.....

All in all, I had a good few hours at home on my own to do filing... Left Jade with Gran and Pa at about 11am - then went grocery shopping - then got home - had lunch - spent a few hours filing... got an hour or so sleep.... then went to pick up Jade.....

We're off to the beach tomorrow.....

(and Rob is currently nearly in Queanbeyan - then he's staying the night in Goulburn and then off to Sydney in the morning..... not sure if he's planning on staying tomorrow night or heading off in the afternoon.... I guess it all depends on if anything breaks up north...)

Free Weekend!?!?!

Well, it looks like I have the house to myself this weekend... Yay!!!

Rob's leaving this afternoon to travel to Queanbeyan to pick up Dad's montesa (247 - 1974 I believe - but I could be wrong) and then he's off to Sydney to pick up some stuff from his mother's place (Drier, Vintage Cash Register, Vintage typewriter and various other things).... so he wont be back until probably Monday or Tuesday...

and then....

My parents have said that they'll have Jade on Saturday and Sunday during the days so that I can get up to date with the company filing at home... and if I have any spare time after that - I guess I'll start organising downstairs again so that I can get the gym set up properly again... I also need to get Rob's new office sorted so that I can move his junk out of my areas... (basically all areas of the house are mine unless Rob needs it for work... and now that he has a new office - I'm going to jam everything in there!)

So it's all good!!! I'm really tired still - so I may use the time off to catch up on a little sleep too ... but I can't sleep when I know there are things to do... I might even mow the lawns again... our yard isn't going to know what hit it!

Last Swim for the Term.

So, it was Jade's last swim for the term today... and her last swim in the baby pool... next term she moves into the "BIG" pool and all the kids were excited about this today.... Jade, Marcus and Georgia move up and I believe that Seth is staying in the baby pool because he's not happy enough being in a class without his mother yet - so they don't want to stress him out more by putting him in a bigger pool...

The Three Musketeers - Georgia, Marcus and Jade

Jade and Georgia...

Jade being thrown in for the swim to the edge training.....

Jade "waking up".... they float on their backs and count to five and then "wake-up" - it's hard to explain - but it's really cute.....

Georgia diving for a dive stick on the bottom of the pool...

Marcus diving for a dive stick.....

You'll note there aren't any pics of Jade diving.... this is because she's still not overly happy about the whole diving process... neither is seth... although seth isn't happy about a lot of things in the class... (but he is still reasonably new to the swimming without his mother thing - he's only been in the class about half the term)....

Marcus and Georgia have had 1-2 more terms in this kind of learning than Jade... This was Jade's first term in the pool without me... so she hasn't done too badly... Also, Georgia is 2.5.. (born in March 2005 - 7 months prior to jade) and Marcus was December 2004... so they've got some age and maturity on Jade... but they are so cute! and so sure of themselves... it's great to watch....

Another week......

Ok - I'm slack, it's been another week...

There's really nothing to report though... it's been a reasonably quiet week... I went shopping for the last of Jade's birthday presents the other day... nothing overly expensive... but a few cute things in there...

Yesterday I managed to get 5 loads of washing done and hung on the line, mowed the back lawn.... Jade wasn't overly impressed with the sounds of the lawn mower but I couldn't keep putting it off - so I left her in the house whinging about it - and went about mowing.... I was nearly finished when jade decided it was ok to come outside and wave at me... she walked up - so I ended up carrying her around while I did the last two runs with the mower.... (I think my blades are in need of replacement because it didn't do that great a job... but still looks better than it did)...

I got the sprinkler out in hope that maybe I can encourage a bit of grass... I set it up and turned it on and jade ran away from it.... it's bad when your child is nearly two and has no idea what a sprinkler is..... hehe (we're not on water restrictions - but it's not worth wasting water and risking contributing to an eventual water shortage)...

I went to the local flea market this morning and picked up a Tigger toy for $5 that bounces - and the bounce still works... that surprised me... figured $5 for a tigger wasn't bad even if it didn't bounce... :)

Jade thinks it's great.... I also managed to find a "Simon Says" game on ebay that I used to play when I was in primary school - this one is noted as being a 1978 game... I'm not sure if that's when it was invented - or when this particular one was bought.... but I used to love the game so much... I played it til it died though (if I remember correctly)

Made vegemite salada for lunch - then got up and made myself a coffee - and by the time I got back to the table jade had managed to spread vegemite all over her face... unfortunately I couldn't find the camera in time - so I didn't get a photo to share.....

Jade's First Booster.....

So Jade has graduated today from her baby car seat - to a Booster Seat...

Apparently some new laws are coming in to say that kids have to have a harness rather than using the adult seat belt, I was wanting to get a harness belt to go with the seat - but it hooks into the seat clip on the back of the chair - where the chair would usually clip in.... and I wasn't happy with the idea of using the harness clip on the back of the chair for the harness and not harnessing the chair... which meant that if there was an accident (touch wood) her chair wouldn't be held in place - which would increase her weight as such... I may have understood that incorrectly... but I didn't like the idea of her not being held in place.... (I hope that made sense.... it does in my head - but that doesn't say a lot!)

So this was a slightly more expensive option than a simple booster chair - but at least Jade is safe... and she loves it... I think she likes being in a "big girl" chair ....

either way... I'm happy with this option and it'll apparently carry her to 26kgs - which is 11kgs away.... so that's all good....

There is still one set of holes above with the seatbelt goes for now... but her shoulders aren't being wedged... and with the amount of travelling we do, it's best that she's comfortable and not trying to remove the seatbelts....

OH - you'll also notice in the photo - she has her "Jeff" purple balloon... she knows her colours... but Purple, Yellow, Red and Blue are all - Jeff, Greg, Murray and Anthony..... and then if you ask "what colour is Murray" then she says "Red.... means stop!" (cause she understands traffic lights too.....)

Rob's a nerd.

I don't know what's sadder - I actually DID the test, or that I did it and then I want to share the results.

Trials....

Yay, another trials event, this time Rob was able to ride.... so was I - technically... however, a guy turned up to the event and forgot his boots... so I lent him mine - and I spent the day running around with the camera.... and I got to spend the day with Jade... and she loves the trials events because she can just run around as much as she likes....

Did I mention that Jade appears to be a nail biter?

Dad

Mom & Jade concentrating

Enjoying doing nothing....

(At this point of the trial - Dad was only beating Rob by "ONE" point - this was only the first lap - things went downhill fast after that!)

Frank and Shayne

(in their flashy Repsol Montesa gear - they like to couple dress!)

Cutlery Queen!

Knife & Fork

Knife = Spoon.... right?!?!

So, Jade is now no longer willing to use simply a fork or a spoon... she now needs whatever everyone else is using... so we've had to pull out the knives too....



She hasn't totally grasped the concept of cutting with it, as opposed to "using it like a spoon" which she feels is the correct procedure...



But we'll get there.... (and that last tooth is DEFINITELY there.... Yay Teeth!!! Yay for a pleasant baby... Yay us!!! (Can you tell it's been a very long 5-6 weeks of hell teething?)).

Another week......

Spider Jade, spider jade.... does whatever a spider jade does... can she swing from a web? no she can't - she's a Jade! Look out!!! she's a spider Jade!!!

(BAD BAD SIMPSONS!)

Cheryl, Greg & Jade

Mat & Jade

The Siblings!

Too Cool!!!

Well, it's been another week... the boys fly home in the morning (flying out of Rockhampton at 6:30am means they have to be up and out of this house by 4am.... bwahahahah!!!)....

luckily because of Jade... I get to sleep in.... I can't get her up at 3am so that she's ready to leave by 4am - she'd be a nightmare for the entire weekend because her sleep would be ruined.... so I'm staying here and I've said good-bye tonight...



Can't believe it's been four weeks already... time has literally flown by....



Jade has really opened up to the boys in the last couple of days.... but she's also been a very different child the last few days.... she seems to have all of her molars now... I can feel something on the right hand side, but it's not as pointy as the bit on the left... so it must have only cut in the last day or so....



It's so nice having a great child back again... I was starting to think that Nice Jade was a thing of the past....



Oooooh - and in the last four weeks - we managed to teach the boys all about doing laundry... as well as washing dishes!!! Miracles never cease.... :)



Oh, and I'm proud to say that Greg eats all kinds of vegies!

Damian & Jaime's Wedding....

Well the build up to the wedding wasn't fantastic for us here, with Jade teething and being extra moody all week, we were very nervous for what was ahead of us.

We left for the wedding on Saturday morning at 7:30 and started our drive to Gympie... Jade was in a reasonably good mood... but we thought that wasn't going to last....

We were wrong... she was PERFECT all day.... well - when I say perfect... she did get cranky at one point - but it was 8:30 at night - and she'd just had enough I think... she only got a bit of sleep in the car on the way to the wedding and then nothing until we left... so all in all - she was a perfect child.... got home at 12:30 or so.... and she's been reasonably good today - although you can tell that she's lacking in sleep......

Jade & Ashleigh

Damian & Xander..

Ashleigh & Daryl

Kim & Jenna

Frank, Shayne, Dad & Mom

Me, Jade & Aunty Eileen

Christy, Gran, Aunty Pam & Uncle Andy

Charming Grant!

Uncle Gerry

Aunty Lyn (Mother of the Bride)

Uncle Barry (Father of the Bride)