This post is for w/e Sunday 28th September.

Another week that flew by...so quickly in fact that is quite hard to remember what actually happened! George had his 12 week check with Plunket. He's doing well - average weight (50th percentile) and meeting his milestones. His weight is 6.19kg (13lb 10oz) - at the same age, Joseph was 7.3kg! As you can see from the chart, George is gradually catching up to Dan...we'll keep an eye on how he goes catching up to Joseph.

In terms of milestones, George has been waving his hands around in the air for a few weeks now and in the last week has started to connect with objects. While the angle doesn't show it, George actually has the ring in his hand having grabbed it himself.

Joseph helped Dan finish off the gate for our deck on Sunday...he loved banging with the hammer and playing with all the equipment (usually when Dan needed it!). As you can see, we actually had some sun and it made us all feel very happy that summer is on the way (especially since we have just moved to daylight savings time).

Monday is usually hair washing night for Joseph and we have to bribe him with some kind of special treat in order to get the job done! At the moment, we're using chocolate paddle pops which I have to take off the stick and put into a bowl! Joseph is off for a haircut on Saturday 4th October - sure to be another stressful experience!

The final snap for this post is actually from this morning (Tue 30th)...George had his 3 month injections yesterday and here he is sleeping peacefully after a very long night for Dan and I (we were both up cuddling him during the night - I even had to watch a movie as I couldn't get him to settle).

This post is for w/c Sunday 21st September 2008.

This week I ended up with more photos of Joseph so he's going to feature more heavily!

Joseph continues to receive far too many presents...this week Aunty Kate very kindly sent some presents for George and popped in a special treat for Joseph. She sent him "Byron the Bulldozer" from the Thomas the Tank Engine family. He's a bright yellow bulldozer and a welcome addition to Joseph's collections of 1) earth moving equipment and 2) Thomas trains/road vehicles. Byron has been such a bit hit that he's been to Bear Park for the day (although hidden in J's bag once the realisation that sharing would need to occur) and also been taken to bed and slept on. Aunty Kate has become one of Joseph's favourite people this week I think.

(he slipped on the floorboards onto his bike - resulting in the scratch on his nose)

Dan took Joseph to the library and we now have about 20 books out. A favourite from this visit is Richard Scarry's "What Do People Do All Day" - we thought this might be a bit too "advanced" for Joseph but he loves looking at the pictures and talking about them - it features many of his favourite things - trains, tools, ships etc. Luckily, I have a copy from my childhood so we'll be sorted once the library's one needs to be returned.

Last week we featured Great Aunty Aida with George, this week I managed to snap Joseph and Aida (reading Richard Scarry!!).

George has had another good week - taking a bottle each day and sleeping well. He's talking a lot more, smiling (very cute but hard to photograph), kicking his legs up and down, poking out his tongue and batting the toys hanging above him on the activity mat.

Joseph wanted to hold George a lot over the weekend - usually at the most inconvenient times (ie when I'm feeding). George actually looks like he's enjoying this cuddle!!

This post is for w/e Sunday 14th September.

I seem to have more photos of George this week so this post will be more about him I think! He has been doing lots of growing - hair, length and even chubbing up a bit on the old legs. The growth has been assisted by formula I think! I have been trying to get George to take a bottle using expressed breast milk but that has been problematic. I decided to try him on formula last week and he's much keener on that from a bottle. So, everyday, at the 1/2pm feed he has a good formula bottle feed!

We've got ourselves into quite a good/established routine and George has been enjoying tummy time, being read to, playing on the activty mat and discovering his hands.

I am also convinced he's starting to roll from his back to his right side - here's photographic evidence.

We only started using the activity mat this week and Joseph has had lots of fun playing with it too and showing George how it works.

Joseph had Lizzie over to stay on Saturday night...they both love their bottles and here's a picture of them both before they went to bed. They were both very good although Lizzie freaked out a little once the lights went out and she realised that she was stuck at our place.

The final picture for the week is of Great Aunty Aida with George - we couldn't get Joseph to join in!

This post is for w/c Sunday 7th September 2008.

The weather in Auckland FINALLY cleared up and the sun shone - perfect timing for the start of spring. Joseph has been able to run around at Bear Park, George and I were able to go for some walks in the park and Dan was able to get into his Ironman training.

First up in terms of cuteness this week is George - he is a lovely baby, very calm (except when he is hungry) and is nice and smiley and is starting to "talk" (a key skill he'll need to develop if he's to get a word in with Dan and Joseph!). Here are my two favourite pictures from last week - one of George sleeping in his capsule in the supermarket trolley and the second smiling just before we went to pick up Joseph from Bear Park.


I seem to have captured a couple of shots of Joseph actually looking at the camera this week - a miracle. His vocabulary continues to improve in its range and his speech has become much clearer. His sentences are also getting longer and more detailed (along the lines of "I want to go downstairs and have some milk from the fridge"). We went to Bear Park on Thursday night for a Father's Day dinner of fish and chips - there were about 50 people there (all the parents, teachers and children)...it was really nice to see all the kids present their Dads with their Father's Day paintings. Here's Joseph perched on one of the rocks in the Bear Park garden.


Uncle Gerry was here on the weekend and somehow Joseph learnt to climb the tree...I blame that on Gerry. Here's Joseph "swing-ging" on the tree being a monkey. I am sure this is the start of his climbing career!

Finally, it was Father's Day on Sunday...Dan didn't get a sleep in (we had a bit of a rough night with both boys!) but he did get pancakes, chocolates and Instant Kiwi tickets. We also went out for dinner with our friends, Jo and Phil and their two daughters, Lizzie and Charlotte, to a family friendly cafe (it has a great play area). Here's a lovely picture of Dan and his two boys.