Today I had my first bath with Gracie and it was really amazing. She just loved being in the bath with me, and almost fell asleep on my chest. Like her parents, she seems to be very confident in the water!
Ok, you may have noticed that there are photos down the side of the blog. This is because I have set up a flickr account to host the countless photos we'll be putting up on the web. Rather than posting lots of photos on the blog the whole time, I thought it would be easier to have some albums online.
So visit http://flickr.com/photos/thekingsleysmiths/ to look at our albums. Don't worry - we'll still add photos here too.
Well, having a baby really is the most amazing experience! I am absolutely besotted with my little Gracie, and love every minute with her.
The 3 of us are staying in Birthcare at the moment which is a private hospital especially for new mums and their babies. The New Zealand system for having babies is absolutely incredible! We are waited on 24-7 and have midwives there to check that Gracie is feeding well; Laura had a massage from the physio this morning - it really is fab.
Laura has been an absolute star - the birth went amazingly, and she has made an excellent recovery, although I always knew she would.
We're staying in Birthcare until tomorrow, when we will return home to Point Chev to introduce Gracie to our house and her new room.
Thank you all for your comments and messages - it's great to hear from you; We feel very loved and valued.
Well, Gracie had her first visit from one of our great friends Lani. Lani currently holds the record for the most visits - i think she has been in 6 times now, and is visiting again twice today. Her and Gracie seem to get along just fine which is SO sweet!
Gracie met Amélie Rose Johnson for the first time yesterday afternoon and they got on like a house on fire. Amélie was born at 11:59pm on Monday 11th December. How cute is that!
Here we are... our first photo as a family. I'm sure there will be plenty more of these!! Watch this space!
Gracie was born at 9:48 on the 10th December (her due date). She was 7lbs 10oz and is absolutely gorgeous. Both Gracie and Laura are doing really well.
Here are a few photos, ranging from 5 minutes after the birth, to 3 hours after.
Well as you will see by the counter below - today is the due date of the baby.... while these dates don't really mean anything, we're hoping that ours will be on time - with the powell military genes you would hope it may happen, but perhaps the kingsley-smith genes wipe that out!!
Last night we went to the CocaCola Christmas in the Park - if you'll remember, last year we were sat in the boiling heat; this year, we had a cold southerly wind, and plenty of rain but none-the-less we braved it with a few friends and had plenty of fun dancing along with some classic New Zealand D-list celebs! The photo above was Laura trying to keep warm last night!
Congratulations Lucy & Al (Laura's sister & brother in-law) for pipping us to the post and giving birth this morning to Andrew Callum Gregory!
We were very excited to hear the news, and can only get more excited about our own iminent arrival! Let's hope it comes soon.
Our blog is moving... the new address is http://www.thekingsleysmiths.blogspot.com
The new RSS feed is http://thekingsleysmiths.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
Please bear with us as we make the transition - it may be a little bit messy for a while, but will be worth it in the end, as we couldn't continue paying to use an english Internet host. We are using the new Blogger Beta, which has some great new features.
Thanks
This weekend has been gorgeous, Paul and I have had such a lovely time together watching DVD's and catching up on lost sleep. We even got to the beach yesterday - my first trip of the season - which was beautiful even though it was a bit windy!
We also discovered some of the highlights of our local area purely by chance really. On the way back from the beach we spotted some kite and windsurfers right on the water next to our house; o we went and found where they launched their kit from and found that the windsurfers base themselves only 5 minutes walk from our house! Paul couldn't believe it and now hopes that by this time next year he will have some kit to do this himself.
Our front yard
The study/music room
and again!!!
Our lovely lounge
More of the lounge!
The lounge from the kitchen
Our Kitchen
Well we are into the final countdown - Laura is now due in under 2 weeks. Aparently in the last week the baby has had a significant growth spurt - it wasn't small before, but i guess it definately isn't now. The baby is progressing well into position, and so hopefully i'll get to catch the bundle of joy within the next few weeks! I thought i'd put up a couple of photos of the babies room so you can see where it will be living.
Also - should update you on some of our most recent 'in womb' baby nicknames. Our good friend Rachel has named it Mrs Goggins, after my teady bear that was orginally named after the lovely Mrs Goggins in Postman Pat!!! I have been recently calling the baby bubbles - not sure why!!!
Well U2 was absolutely awesome on Friday night - we had an incredible time; loved singing along with the timeless classics. I spoke on Sunday night at church, and talked a little about our experience at U2 - you can download it here. It's a pretty good talk even if i do say so myself.
Some nice person put a little video on youtube of them playing One Tree Hill on Friday night; aren't mobile phones great! Hope you enjoy it!
On Sunday I had my baby shower organised by my friend Anna. It was a lovely afternoon and very relaxed which i loved as I felt a little nervous and strange about people coming over to give me presents!
We played a couple of games-the first was to melt a tiny plastic baby out of an ice cube-the first won a prize! The second was to cut a piece of string, guessing how big i am- I then measured the string around myself (as in the photo!) -this was hysterical as most guessed massively bigger than I am.
There was so much yummy food and I revieved so many lovely cards and presents- i felt very spoilt and loved! Thanks to everyone who came!
Well today is my first day off when I would have been working normally and it feels very strange! I love my job, so its been quite hard to finish, however i'm lucky enough to have a few extra hours here and there for as long as I want them. Today Paul has taken the car to the garage for a service (I dread the cost!) so i'm stuck at home all day- its good preparation for having a new baby i guess, but I strugglewith having no choice but to stop and slow down.
Tuesday was my last playgroup with Jack and the other nannies; there are a few of us leaving or changing jobs so it really felt like goodbye - its all very sad but I am excited that i'm moving on to something that is far more exciting and challenging. The baby's room is really taking shape and i just can't wait to have a baby to put in there!
This weekend we've had Mike & Sally with us from Phoenix - Mike spoke brilliantly at church yesterday, and inducted Laura and I into the Order Of Mission this morning. You can download the talks from the St Paul's website.
Well.... I've heard that expectant mothers get baby brain during pregnancy, and forget stuff the whole time, but i'm wondering if fathers get it too? Now I know there is probably no scientific evidence to prove this, but i think we may; let me give you an example.
This afternoon we've been out for a fantastic afternoon with Mike & Sally - we popped into Newmarket at about 1pm to pick up a few bits and bobs before picking them up from the airport at 3pm. We picked them up, checked them into their hotel 'The Quadrant' which looks lovely. We then went down to the Viaduct, and then on to Mission Bay.
We finally arrived back to find our front door wide open - I have to say my heart sank as I prepared myself to find our computer gone, and all our other posessions gone. The strange thing though was that everything was exactly as I had left it 7 hours earlier. It was then that I realised that I had just gone out and left the front door wide open for anyone to walk in.
Praise God nothing got stolen - that could have been a tragedy!
Well last night U2 played in Brisbane last night, finally kicking off their tour again after a break for a couple of months. We're so excited that we'll be going to see them on Friday 24th November - let's hope the baby doesn't come that day... that would be tragic!
This weekend we had a giggle with our cluster watching the fireworks over the city from the top of Mount Eden. The evening started with 'fush and chups' in the park where we had fun eating and playing!
We then climbed Mount Eden-a fair old hike for someone being 35 weeks pregnant! It was great to see the fireworks all over the city, however Paul was less than impressed and said they compared to a school display back in the UK.
After this we went to a cafe to warm up with hot chocolate and cake- a rather splendid evening really!
Well, some great news to start the week. There has been much speculation in NZ about IKEA coming, but the NZ Herald seem to think that it will be here in 2008 - this is great news, as NZ currently has nothing like it.
In other news, also according to the NZ Herald, this summer is set to be the hottest in 10 years thanks to El Nino. Last summer was awesome, so who knows what this year will be like!
Well, it feels like the summer is well and truly here; This morning i left the house at 7am for an early surf - went to a great beach just north of Muriwai and had clean mid to head height waves. Sadly I tweaked my ankle and didn't catch too many waves becuase of it. Had a good couple of hours in the water though and it was bliss.
We followed that with an awesome brunch with our friends Cam & Michelle - Cam cooked us pancakes and we ate them on their deck with wonderful fresh fruit.
This evening we are heading to Mount Eden for fish and chips with our cluster, followed by a walk up the Mount to watch the fireworks around the city (Mount Eden has awesome panoramic views of the city)
Our baby is expected somewhere in the region of 5 weeks, so really life couldn't get much better than this! I love life!
Hey guys... sorry i've not posted for a little while; i've been pretty slack. Let me bring you up to speed with some great photo's from last nights thank you cruise - a chance to thank all the people who help out at St Paul's (about 150 in total!)
Posts
All Comments
Unique Visitors
