George - July 09

As Dan mentioned, we've had to move to monthly posts...this post is a selection of photos documenting George's month of July. He had a late arriving present from Aunty Kate in Bristol...a hand knitted dinosaur made by Harry's teacher's Mum!

At the end of July, we headed off to sunny Brisbane for two weeks holiday. Here is George having a great time at Aunty Di's and Uncle Ben's..he really made short work of getting the scarves out of the drawer! This is a skill he has transferred to Auckland as I often find my clothes all over the bedroom after being pulled out of the wardrobe.

George loved the beach at Noosa. He he is at Tea Tree Beach in the National Park. This is one of the first beaches we took Joseph to as well. Unfortunately, on this trip, Joseph didn't want a bar of the beach, sand or sea.

George has been standing for ages now and has also been toddling around holding onto to us and pieces of furniture. He also loves climbing stairs. Here he is at Main Beach, Noosa. From memory, George and I had just polished off a gelato from Maximos! George was a bit sick on this trip with an ear infection and he also had his two top eye teeth coming through. He didn't sleep very well at night - neither did we!!!

June 2009

We've given up on the weekly posts - life is too hectic now George is no longer a baby but an on-the-go toddler - but more details on that later. Right now we 'll just try to get the best part of 3 months of news updated, so back to June...

A long running story on this blog has been Joseph's haircuts. But every time he gets one he is a little bit better (starting from a very low base!). You can see from the pic below he's still a bit tense sitting in the chair as his regular stylist Cham does his work, but he knows there's a treat from the bakery across the road straight afterwards.
I've got some serious competition for the bowl nowadays when Sophia is baking and when there's more than one around I just give up. Lizzie's helping out but Joe seems to be making sure he's controllong things.
The biggest news we've left to last was of course George's 1st birthday on June 30. We had a family morning tea party with Grandma & Grandad BQ, Aunty Dorothy & Uncle Bruce and Aunty Aida the Sunday before. Joseph was happy to be on hand to assist with opening presents and playing with them as well.
Sophia made a cake for George's birthday at Bear Park. Here is the morning tea crew (extremely well behaved at daycare!)
And here is a cute one of George with his cake.

30th May - 1st June

And now the final post to bring us completely up to date!

On Saturday, Joseph chose to wear shorts...so here he is looking quite like Billy Elliott! This is just before we went to the supermarket for the weekly shop. He was very good at the shop until he saw the mega chocolate display and then starting whining about wanting chocolate. I made him eat an apple before I gave him some chocolate!

George met another milestone on Saturday when he climbed up the stairs for the very first time...in very quick time too. Joseph is not happy about this development and keeps telling us to "get him and take him away". As soon as George hears the door being opened he is quick to see if he can slip out and get up those stairs.

We participate in a med school study and have two med students visit us (well, George really) every six weeks or so. They have been following George's progress for about a year now (before he was born) and come to make sure he is meeting his milestones. Ru and Madeline came on Saturday afternoon to put George through his paces. Here is a picture of Ru and George. I'll try and get one of Madeline at the next visit.

George is still working the camera (unlike Joseph who has not taken a lovely photo for months!!!)...look at those teeth!

Finally, Dan was keen to watch the Warriors on Sunday afternoon, unfortunately both boys wanted Dan's attention. Here is Dan watching the TV and helping the boys read at the same time!

23rd - 29th May

I took George to visit Grandma and GRandad BQ over an extended weekend on Fri 22nd - Mon 25th May. Aunty Kate was also there having come down from Bristol for a week. We got to see Grandma and Grandad BQ's new house and check out all the lovely cafes and shop in Bulimba.

Unfortunately George only started to warm to Kate, Grandma and Grandad on the Sunday afternoon...he was Master Clingy for most of the time. He wouldn't let me out of his sight so all my plans of leaving him to spend quality time with his grandparents didn't come to fruition!!!

George did have a lovely time playing with all the toys by himself with no interuptions from Joseph and he also had a very special treat of being able to play with the TV and DVD remotes (something we don't encourage at home!).


Mum and Dad's new home doesn't have a bath so we used the laundry tub to keep George clean. To be honest, he didn't really relax into it but was fascinate by the hose from the washing machine and kept trying to pull it out.

16th - 22nd May

Only a couple of pictures from this week.

Joseph went for his six weekly haircut down at the BHC in Onehunga (Brother's Hair Cuts!). He is getting better at sitting still and actually let the haircut happen rather than try and stop it wherever possible. I will try and get some shots of the actual event the next time we go. As usual, Joseph's reward was a finger bun from Baker's Delight - this time with sprinkles. He wanted it cut up and placed on a plate so he could eat it on his bed (I was finding 100s and 1000s in his bed for days!).


George loves getting out amongst it outside these days and like, Joseph, he has discovered the little raised bed outside the back door. It got a good turning over by George.

9th May - 15th May

Dan and I went out for dinner on Saturday 10th May Great Aunt Aida came over to babysit...here they are just before we left...watching "Thomas the Tank Engine" (that DVD is still going strong - thanks Godmother Vikki!).

George has had a few tumbles of late as he keeps exploring. Here he is sporting a good red mark/bruise under his left eye after he pulled a dining room chair down onto himself on Mother's Day.


We had a lovely Mother's Day...I made french toast for us for second breakfast and could hardly keep up the production line as Joseph was devouring it as fast as I could make it. I got a lovely card and two instant scratchies (we won $5 on one of them) and I got to have a very nice afternoon sleep. I also made the first crock pot of the winter season and here is George sampling the magic ingredient.

George has been very interested in the cupboards this week and will take any opportunity to come over the investigate.
Finally, a picture of number one son, Joseph. He, too, is keen to get involved and learn new things so here we are ironing my shirt (a very tricky cotton number (ie requiring the iron to be on "hot") with bell sleeves!). He loved the water squirter and was a bit over zealous in applying excess water to the shirt - luckily the iron was set to hot!!!

29th April - 8th May

We're still trying to squeeze in posts to get up to date! I am going to try and get three up tonight taking us to mid-May. This one is primarily about George (I feel this is ok since Joseph had weeks and weeks of posts about him before George arrived!).

George is really changing quickly, every day he does new things, makes new noises, learns more about winding Joseph up! Here is George "getting on the tools"...a skill Joseph also mastered early on.

He is continuing developing his ability to stand but we are not seeing any standing on his own nor any "cruising" along the furniture. He loves to crawl and then climb up onto you.


George loves to be involved with whatever is going on and we are finding it hard to get things done as he is always wanting to see what you're doing. Here we resorted to locking him into position using the chair and a drawer full of plastic ware. It did work - but only for five minutes and then he started slipping off the chair!
We got the wooden trolley out of the cupboard and George is learning how to walk with that. He starts off quite quickly and can go quite fast. We have to use the telephone books as ballast otherwise it tips over and gives everyone a fright!

20th April - 28th April

Glen, our next door neighbour, is rebuilding his garage and a concrete mixer arrived to fill in some trenches. Joseph was beside himself with excitement! Dan said he was a bit scared a first but then got more confident - to the point where he wanted to help get the concrete out of the chute!

I arrived back on the 23d and Dan and I both picked the boys up from their respective Bear Parks in the afternoon. George gave me a lovely smile but wasn't too sure of me...when he saw Dan he got really excited and scooted over quickly to see him. Joseph was very happy to see me and became my little limpet for a few days. He was also very concerned to receive his present and was a bit underwhelmed with his tshirt and book!!

Here is a very cute photo of George in the bath...you can get a good view of his teeth. He has the largest top teeth gap of all three Warren boys!

Dan took Joseph into his work for an excursion - they went in on a train which was very exciting for Joseph.

Unfortunately, he fell asleep in the car on the way home from the station and was very, very cranky when we had to wake him up. He was extremely distressed to find that the train had gone!

10th April - 18th April

I (Sophia) was actually away this week as I went to Cambodia to visit my cousin, Rebecca. Dan and the boys had a great but very busy time without me!

Joseph was very lucky to have his Godmother, Vikki, come and visit from Brisbane for a couple of days. The four of them went to Cornwall Park for a kick around of the ball and here are Joseph and Vikki having some rough and tumble time.

We have had a bumper crop of monarch butterfly chrysallii and Joseph and Dan have been closely following their progress. Here is Joseph seeing one of the last hatches off on their journey.

As I mentioned in the last post, George is loving being able to stand and he loves to cause havoc at the bookshelf. Here is he is in action...

And then leaving the scene of the crime!

1st April - 8th April

We are making a concerted effort to get back on track...bear with us! The reason why we are taking so long to keep things current is that I (Sophia) have been working full time pretty much since I went back to work in January.

Joseph is still getting used to George and now that George is on the move, Joseph gets quite distressed when George touches his stuff. Here is a picture of Joseph giving George a "hug" but it is really about Joseph stopping George from getting anywhere anything vaguely exciting!

In the lead up to Easter, Joseph had his face painted by HJ (a teacher at Patey Street) - here he is an Easter chicken. He was loving himself sick looking in the mirror at Patey Street and then in the car but as soon as we got home, he couldn't wait to wash it off!

George is rapidly making gains in the crawling department and has also added standing to his repertoire. Here he is at William's 3rd birthday party down in Karaka. He also enjoyed his first taste of chocolate cake which Dan graciously shared with him.

You don't usually see pictures of me with the boys so here's a shot of me with George.

And then with Joseph (we were hiding from the bears in the spare bedroom).

22 - 29 March

We are having some nice autumn weather so went down to the park on Sunday. George really likes getting out on the grass and Joseph has a park routine which includes going down his favourite track complete with an imaginary railway crossing, going to the information centre (which was also popular with cuzzie Harry over Christmas), sitting on the porch of John Logan Campbell's house usually to eat a muesli bar. But today he focused on riding his running bike down the hill and managed some impressive speeds. Then there was the obligatory wrestling match, which George is keen to join in nowadays.

And here is George starting to make the transition to big people's food.


Saturday morning was annual car wash day and Joseph was a big help



On Wednesday 25th George was off to Plunket for his 9 month visit. I can't remember the details but everything is going fine. ...OK, I could get in trouble with Sophia for not putting in some detail so I've gone and found George's Plunket book. He weighed in at 8.86kg (just below 5oth percentile), height 73.5cm (2'5", just below 75th percentile). His fontanelle has closed, his eyesight and hearing are fine and we should be cleaning his teeth with toothpaste twice a day. Here is the weight comparison chart for the whole family, which hasn't made an appearance on the blog for ages. Spot the outlier, Joseph, still in the twilight zone beyond the 97th percentile, so a good bet to continue front row traditions for both the Quilian and Warren sides of the family.


Some updates on George's milestones. He's been working hard to get mobile for a few weeks now and we agreed this weekend (28-29th) that he should be offically classified as crawling. Some photos to follow soon. And the elusive 8th tooth has appeared, so now George has a balanced set of 4 on the top and 4 on the bottom.


On Monday afternoon Gerry dropped us at the airport and we flew back to (warm) Auckland. Joseph enjoyed the flight again. Here he is at the airport playground.


On Sunday afternoon Joseph and I went on the tram. Last time we were in Christchurch (15 months ago) Joseph wouldn't get on the tram - this time it was the opposite and getting off was the problem! We also managed to squeeze in a quick circuit the next day to get full value from our 48 hour ticket.

George's Baptism

George was baptised on 22 March. I decided the occasion deserved a post of its own - so here it is four weeks late. George was mostly his usual angelic self. Francis Fitgerald (Fitz) is George's godfather and Tracey Fullerton is George's godmother - but she couldn't make it down from Hawkes Bay with three boys of her own and Brett her husband getting pretty busy with wine vintage. So we'll have to make sure we get some good photos of George & Tracey next time we catch up!

Father Schmack officiated as he did for Joseph's baptism.



Here's a photo of Jospeh and Grandad Terry.

Note Joseph being in his Sunday best (boys' shirts made by Grandma Millie). Joe even wore his shoes for a bit if Crocs count, but that might have been to so with how cold it was in Christchurch.