Week 101 saw Dan and I head to Melbourne for five days while Joseph stayed in Auckland with Grandma Milly and Grandad BQ. Dan and I had a great time - having no responsibilities was very refreshing!

Joseph also seemed to have a great time...still alternating between the cot and bed and eating lots of toast, dry cornflakes and frozen fruit + yoghurt.

On Sunday, Aunty Dorothy and Uncle Bruce came down from Warkworth for morning tea...bearing baking for Dan and presents for Joseph. Here's a picture of Joseph commanding Uncle Bruce to read one of the three Thomas books (Edward, Percy and Henry).

Aunty Dorothy and Grandma Milly were very encouraging of Joseph to eat...here he is tucking into the cream sponge!

Dan and I bought Joseph a bike seat in Melbourne and we tried it out on Sunday afternoon. Joseph was very sceptical at first but he seemed to warm to it by the end of the ride. We're going to get a helmet for him and then head off to the park.

Grandma and Grandad took Joseph to get fish and chips for dinner on Sunday night and here's a shot of Grandma and Joseph enjoying some chips and sauce. The greasy fingers covered in sauce ended up over Grandma's tshirt after Joseph gave her a nice cuddle.

And finally, some happy news from us...we're having another baby! Due mid-July...we had our 20 week anatomy scan today and all looks good - healthy and growing well.

Week 100 - yippee, triple figures and today (17th Feb) Joseph is 23 months old (I need to get organised for his party!).

It has been another busy week for the Warren family with lots of ...Uncle Gerry arrived on Wednesday afternoon and Dan and Joseph headed out to the airport for a pick up.

Grandma Milly arrived on Thursday afternoon and Joseph was excited to see her after a big day at Bear Park. Finally on Saturday night, Grandad BQ arrived.


At my work on Valentine's Day, we all got red heart helium balloons...I brought a couple home for Joseph to play with....he had a great time although it took awhile to work out that they stay stuck to ceiling unless you pull them down by the string!

Joseph loves the story of "The Little Engine that Could" (thanks Frank and Debra) and we have converted the CD to play through the ipod...here's a picture of Joseph enjoying the story sung by James Reyne. The only downside is that the entire story is sung in 2.5 minutes so we have to keep going up and restarting it!

On Sunday night, Grandma and Grandad took Joseph up to the shop to check their Lotto ticket (no winnings unfortunately!) and here's a picture of Joseph's face after he'd polished off a Jellytip Trumpet. He's also trying to make a funny face by putting his hands in his ears and wiggling his hands!

Week 99 with Joseph was busy as usual - can't believe we're going to go in triple figures next week!

As promised, here's the picture of the five mums and our kids from our visit to Kelly's the week before. (left to right: Kelly and William; Chantell and Sarah; Anne and Taylor; me and J; Jo with Charlotte and Lizzie).

Joseph had some really big sleeps at Bear Park during the week - most unusual for him! Unfortunately for us it meant that he wasn't ready to go to sleep at home until after 8.30pm. He just wanted to play in his bedroom and run around upstairs. So, after a week of this monkey business, Dan and I have decided to forget about the bed (he's been alternating between the cot and bed each night - driving us mad!) and we'll implement bed boot camp in a couple of weeks once Dan and I have been to Melbourne and Dan's back from Taupo. This timing coincides with Joseph's second birthday so we're going to start doing lots of "you're a big boy now" priming from now on!

Trains and tracks are BIG in our house...we decided to get Joseph a track set for his birthday. I ended up buying and giving it to him on Saturday as I was sick of "fixing" the track we had built out of blocks all the time.
Here's a picture of Joseph with the old version:

and the new one (he's still bossing us around, this time telling Dan where to drive the train!).

If you are wondering what to get Joseph for his birthday (or indeed Christmas) then pieces of track, trains/carriages or any other railway accessory will be mighty welcome!


I took Joseph down to have to haircut on Saturday afternoon, quite a performance (especially with no afternoon sleep!)...it's probably not as short as it could be but I think Lisa did a great job considering the wriggling and crying that went on! However, I think next time, we'll head to the specialist kid salon with the TV screen right in front of them!

Finally, I've been doing some baking the past few weekends...Joseph likes to lick the bowl too...much to Dan's consternation that he now has to share! Here's Joseph lining up eating the icing to the ginger crunch.

Week 98 was another stunning summer week - La Nina weather patterns definitely favour us here in Auckland.

On Friday, Joseph and I made the trip down to Karaka (about 15km south of us) for a "Mother's Group" gathering. Kelly and Cam moved down there last year and this was the first time we had all visited. There were five (of the six) regulars there - Chantell and Sarah, Anne and Taylor, Kelly and William and Jo and Lizzie (+ Charlotte, 3 weeks old and the first of the second babies!). It was great to catch up with everyone and see how all the kids have changed/what their little personalities are.

We got Kelly's Mum to take a picture of all of us so once that gets emailed through I'll post that as well!

Here's a selection of pics:

1) Sarah and Joseph

2) Taylor and Joseph fighting over the tunnel

3) William, Joseph, Taylor and Sarah (left to right) playing in the sandpit (plus Kelly and Lev the dog)

Over the weekend, Joseph did a lot of manual labour helping Dan finish off some important outside jobs. They washed down the house (lots of water play) and on Sunday Dan reattached the spouting - Joseph proved quite handy on the screwdriver.

Joseph's speech is coming along and becoming clearer and clearer - he is enunciating the end of his words much better now. He LOVES trains and we will probably get him a train set for his birthday. He is still alternating between the cot and the bed - there doesn't seem to be any pattern to it so am not sure what to do about that at the moment! He is learning to jump and hop which is very funny as it generally results in a big "crash landing" on his bottom. And his second bottom right molar is on it's way through (joining the second bottom left one that came through a couple of weeks ago!). Only two more teeth to come!