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.

16 - 21 March

The big thing this week was of course Joseph's 3rd birthday on Tuesday (also St Patrick's Day). He's such a big boy now and seems to be growing up faster than ever these last few weeks. He is definitely tuned in to the present concept now. Here he is opening a good practical present from Grandma & Grandad BQ - some earmuffs so we can both preserve our hearing when we're doing the hedge trimming etc.

The next day was Joseph's three year and last Plunket visit. He did the usual weigh-in (19kg) and height (101cm) measures (updated chart to follow next week after George's Plunket visit booked in for 25 March) but also an eye test, which he did well.

Saturday morning was gymnastics as usual for Joe and afterwards a haircut back to the grown-up's barber in Onehunga. Here he is in the car on the way home having his finger bun reward. Sophia reported another successful haircut - those days of trauma seem well behind us.

On Saturday afternoon we headed out to the airport for a much-anticipated by Joseph flight to Christchurch. We've abandoned the birthday party idea for Joseph - I think the fire engine last week at Cole's would be too tough to trump, so we've been selling the Christchurch trip as Joe's birthday holiday - but a big event for the weekend is George's baptism on Sunday. Here are the boys up in the air; note I now have competition for the window seat now.

You could see Joseph really processing being up in the air after we took off and he was a bit apprehensive for a while but he really enjoyed coming down to land, pointing everything out and wasn't scared at all. George by the way was really good on the flight, by memory much easier to manage than Joseph was around that age, although the most disturbing memories are once he could walk and on longer flights to Australia, so we'll see how things go on our planned trip to Queensland around July...

We also talked up staying in a hotel and here is Joe relaxing and taking in a bit of motorsport, which he is quite partial too - to my bemusement and my friends' amusement.

We'll finish off the Christchurch trip in next week's blog, including George's baptism, but in the meantime here he is looking cute as usual in his Christmas present t-shirt from Uncle Matty.

9 - 15 March

Matt & Roslyn went over to Piha for a few days but Joseph took every opportunity to exploit new story readers in the house.

He picked straight up again with his godfather Matt despite not seeing him for a year and also hit it off with Roslyn. They picked Joe up from daycare on Thursday and took him on an excursion to the museum (or as Joseph was calling it the "New Zealand") and the Domain on Friday too.

Sophia had a Black Friday theme at work on the 13th and her horns were a hit with both the boys (well mostly Joe to be honest, but here is a shot of George before he quickly pulled them off his head and started chewing them).

Saturday March 14 was Joseph's friend from Bear Park Cole's 3rd birthday party. Cole lives "in the country" near Whenuapai and Joe got into the rural spirit for a bit having a ride on Cole's tractor.

But even though there were farm animals at the party as well, Joseph decided the majority of his time was best spent playing with Cole's toys inside. However, there is a decommissioned fire engine on Cole's farm as well so when his Dad Toby got the keys out Joes was keen to be onboard (you might be able to see him in the back seat).

And there was the obligatory work on the food as well. Here are Cole and Joseph collaborating (Joseph's t-shirt was his Christmas present from Matty).

On Sunday med students Ru and Madeline came to visit George and put him through his paces. Sophia signed her and George up to a med school programme which is part of their Ethics/Human Development training and it was good to see them after they have been away for the summer holidays but are now back in Auckland studying flat out.

2 - 8 March

It was a busy week for Sophia with Dan down in Taupo for most of the week for the Ironman on 7 March. For the record I had a good (but tough!) day in the race and managed to sneak in under 12 hours (11:58:59), which I was very happy with.

George is threatening to get more mobile and can now rock on his hands and knees and is trying to his clap hands. As with the other week when Sophia was in Sydney, the camera doesn't get much work when it's a one-parent household but here is a very cute photo of George on Monday morning (wearing a top from Chris, Irene, Niamh & Liam).

Matt and Roslyn were over on holiday and spent a few days in Auckland after the Ironman. There were presents for the boys! These trucks, tanks etc are part of Joe's Christmas present which went MIA courtesy of NZ Post but at least got back to Sydney for hand delivery. Joseph is demonstrating a very common concentration stance he assumes when playing with his transport fleet.

23 February - 1 March

Thursday was the first parent-teacher interview for George. For the record we can report he likes textures and food and is smiley and happy.

Joseph is back doing gymnastics on Saturday mornings, this block running until Easter or so. Here he is on the... well I don't know what they're called but you get the idea - you have to coordinate your arms and legs to make yourself go forward and Joe is pretty good at it - I think easily on the same level as me!

We might have written about the magic ice pack in the past (it used to be the frozen peas but they started to smell pretty bad after going in and out of the freezer on a regular basis, so we upgraded to the ice pack thanks to Jeya from Parnell Bear Park who bought an extra one for Joe when she was at the shop a few weeks back). Anyway it is indispensable to Joseph as his full-on days include lots of accidents and the ice pack gets him back on the horse in record time.

Saturday was Taylor's 3rd birthday. Taylor is the oldest of the babies from our antenatal group and so signals the start of party season. But we left the camera behind, so no pics...

George didn't manage to get himself in front of the camera much this week so we'll have to settle for a close up of the teeth after his bath.

16 - 22 February

Saturday was Charlotte's 1st birthday party (Lizzie's sister, our goddaughter) and the boys stepped out in coordinated clothing. I couldn't decide on a single picture so here's two.


By the end of the weekend Joseph (or Joefish as he calls himself now) is often wiped out as there is never any planned daytime sleeping. Here is the situation at around 4pm on Sunday afternoon.

Joseph has made huge progress on toilet training and insists on not wearing nappies at night but we were putting a nappy on him once he is asleep, then changed to pull-ups because ordinary nappies were so hard to get on him. Anyway they have been dry every morning so we stopped doing that as well this week and he hasn't wet the bed once - what a grown up boy - no more nappies for Joe!

8 - 15 February

As some of you will have noticed our blog has got badly out of date over the last few weeks - about 8 weeks actually... Anyway here goes a start at getting some pics and news uploaded, starting with the week ending Sunday 15 February.

Mowing the lawns has become another of Joseph's favourite house jobs. I'm already thinking of when I can start outsourcing this job for a gold coin donation to Joe's finances.

Here's a cute picture of George just after his bath that shows off his two bottom teeth.

Steve & Val were over from England for a couple of weeks for a tiki-tour around the North Island and came round for dinner on Saturday night. Joseph was having a great time getting tickled etc by Val - a remarkable comeback after falling asleep in the car when we went into the city to pick them up and then woke up after a micro-nap on the wrong side of the carseat, refusing to get out of the car. But no photos on our camera, and it's so long ago we can't remember if Val & Steve took some photos that night either...

This post is for the w/e Sat 7th February 2009. A bit of a short post really. I went to Sydney for a couple of days and left Dan with the boys - apparently there wasn't much time for photo taking!

George loves his bath (splashes water everywhere) and Joseph quite likes to help...although Joseph now believes that baths are for babies as he now likes to have a shower with "My Dan". I think this is a lovely picture of my boys!

And ofcourse, another super cute one of George.

And one of me and Joseph...I was keeping Joseph occupied while Dan finished off the bath.

This post is for the w/e Saturday 31st January 2009.

This is a bit of a Joseph post this week...I seem to have more photos of him than George!

Joseph entered his second week at Patey Street, he was a bit hesitant at first and the drop offs took a bit longer than usual but by the end of the week he was going really well. The most amazing thing is that by the end of the week Joseph was pretty much toilet trained! We are so proud of him!

He has picked up a few funny phrases already...my favourite one is that he prefaces everything with "shall we" as in "shall we have a drink" or "shall we go downstairs". They obviously get a lot of positive reinforcement as well as he has been giving Dan lots of praise when they play "cricket" after dinner. He says "good hit, Dan" everytime it is Dan's turn. He has also taken to calling Dan "Dan" or "My Dan" as opposed to "Dad" or "My Dad".

Joseph was desperate for a haircut and I was in a bit of dilemma as Kids R Hair where we had been going has shut up shop and moved over the bridge...for us, it is just a bridge too far! So I took a punt and took him down to "Brothers Hair Company Barber" in Onehunga - $15 for a very quick haircut. The promise of a finger bun also helped but we'll be back for another trim soon enough!

To give you an idea of how big Joseph has got,check him out in the Mountain Buggy. There is no way we could use it for him now!

Here is George will Great Aunty Aida...he continued with his giftedness in the tooth department by cutting his top left front tooth. That's five teeth for seven months of age!

We've got some of Joseph's baby toys out for George to play with...Joseph is having a bit of rediscovery period!

This post is for w/e Tuesday 27th January 2009.

A couple of big milestones this week - one for each boy.

George started sitting up...he really seems to be enjoying this new perspective on the world. Here he is at Bear Park with his friend, Carter.

And looking super cute in his high chair.

He LOVES his food and will try anything...he especially loves sitting at the table with us when we eat. The teachers at Bear Park have been commenting on George's appetite. Apparently he was complaining so much when the older Fantails got toast for morning tea and crackers for afternoon tea that they had to give him some too!

Joseph's milestone was that he finished up at Bear Park Parnell on Friday 23rd January...a place came up at "big" Bear Park Patey Street for Joseph a month earlier than expected. It was quite sad for me and the teachers but Joseph was well and truly over Parnell...it became too small and not challenging enough for him. Here is is with Jeya reading the special book she bought for him.

The reading theme continued at home...here's a picture of Dan and Joseph on the couch. Joseph is reading his "paper" which is actually a Playmobil catalogue!

Finally, here is a picture of Joseph wearing his piece of greenstone - a bit of an action shot!

I am about four weeks behind on the blog! I have returned to work and we have all been adjusting to our busy lives...Dan is training for the Taupo Ironman race (March 7th), Joseph has started back at Bear Park and George has commenced his Bear Park career. It has been a shock to the system!

However, I'm putting in a big effort this weekend to get the blog back up to date.

This post is for w/e Tuesday 19th January 2009.

I went back to work on Monday 11th January and left the boys at home with Dan. I thought I might need a day to adjust to work without the added stress of the day care drop off and pick up too!

On Tuesday 12th, we loaded up the car with three bags and three passengers. Here we are as we left for the day!

George and Joseph both enjoyed their first week at Bear Park. Joseph required a bit more coaxing but jet plane lollies have an amazing effect! George ate and slept really well at Bear Park which was a great relief. Joseph has pretty much been refusing to wear nappies or undies which is slightly problematic when he won't use the loo either!!!

Here is George with Jeya on his first day.

He also got two of his top teeth, the ones on either side of his front teeth...they just popped down - a lot of dribbling but no grouchiness!

Joseph has developed a fascination for rockets and here is a tower we built, nb hand in pocket!