Week 88 marked the start of some beautiful spring weather - Joseph is sporting the start of a good tan - very brown arms, brown neck and feet! He wore polo shirts to Bear Park all week with the collar turned up to protect his neck! No biting incidents this week so hopefully that has passed.

Dan went to Taupo on Friday afternoon to ride in the 160km Round Taupo bike race...he had to have one of his wheels fixed during the week and Joseph helped him put the bike back together on Thursday night. He is such a good helper!

On Saturday, Joseph and I went over to Mission Bay for fish and chips on the beach. Joseph ate a few chips with lots of tomato sauce and then had a great time running around.

He also enjoyed my jellytip trumpet ice cream - I ended up with two bites and he scoffed the rest!

While Joseph and I were waiting for Dan to come back from Taupo on Sunday morning, we read lots of stories and Joseph made a lot of noise on the xylophone. Sometimes he likes to spend time by himself and this morning he laydown on the floor with the "Peepo" book and said "night night, Jo Jo" and then covered himself with the blanket. He looked through the pictures and had a bit of quiet time.

On Sunday afternoon, Dan and I took Joseph to the zoo...we had a good view of the five giraffes and spent most of our time watching Oz the tiger. Joseph got a bit scared of the zoo volunteer who turned up at Oz's enclosure with serious tiger face painting - he wanted a big cuddle!

Week 87 (and we're up to date!)...one bite this week - a ripper under the right shoulder blade that broke the skin and left a good bruise. The two of them (Joseph and the biter) were on the slide and Joseph wouldn't get off so the biter went to work!

We had Suzi, Coen and Johan to stay this weekend...Joseph enjoyed playing with the activity mat and rocker chair that I got out of the cupboard for Johan. There was a bit of jealously on Joseph's part but he didn't hurt Johan in any way!!

Joseph did use his word "baby" a lot over the weekend and also today when I dropped him off at Bear Park this morning. He went and got a doll and said "baby, night night". When Jeya asked Joseph to get some clothes for the baby he said "no" and threw the doll to the floor.

It was a lovely sunny day and Joseph went off to daycare wearing his new pink polo shirt (courtesy of Grandma Milly) and brown shorts.

And a bit of a comedy photo of Joseph wearing my sunglasses eating his dinner snack!

Week 86 saw us back in Auckland and rushing around like crazy. Joseph has been waking up at 3.30am/4am for quite a few weeks now and we decided to do “sleep bootcamp” this week. Unfortunately, Dan’s Nana (his father’s mother) died this week and Dan had to travel to Christchurch for the funeral. This meant I did bootcamp by myself (sleeping downstairs in the spare room with the door shut whilst Joseph cried for 20 mins!).

The highlight of the weekend was when Dan got back on Saturday night and we went to the zoo on Sunday afternoon with three other couples from Mother’s Group (Matt and Anne with Taylor; Phil and Jo with Lizzie; Cameron and Kelly with William). We all had such a great time – the animals were cool and the kids really funny. Joseph did lots of roaring and we saw the tiger, the lions, the cheetah, the sea lion and a few hippos. No elephants though which was a bit of a disaapointment. Both Dan and I joined “Friends of the Zoo” so expect lots of zoo photos over the next year!!




Joseph continued his hardwork by helping Dan mow the lawns and water the garden. He really loved to help out (he doesn’t mind a bit of sweeping or doing the dishes either!).

Week 85 (and I'm three weeks behind with the blog - we have been flat out since we got back from Brisbane) saw us head off to Brisbane on the Thursday to celebrate Di and Ben's (Dan's Aunt and Uncle) combined 60th and also have an early Christmas with Mum and Dad.

However, the week did start with a rather big right forearm bite for Joseph that resulted in a very bad looking bruise!

It was super hot weather in Brisbane and the three of use wilted in the heat of the day. The three hour time difference did us no favours either as Joseph was up and ready to go at 4am (7am NZ time)!!! Joseph came back from Brisbane with four new words - baby, tree, dirt and cake. Here he is enjoying the carrot cake that Mum made for Dan's birthday (he also enjoyed Vikki's chocolate raspberry cake she made for Jules's birthday).

We also saw Teresa (Dan's sister) and her son Tyler - they've just moved back to Brisbane. Joseph loved playing with all of Tyler's trucks and trains (I’m not sure Tyler enjoying sharing them!!).

Here's a pic of Mum and Dan with Joseph after our early-Christmas brunch in Bulimba.