Is it cold enough yet?

A few months ago we were given a snow suit for Gracie. It looks so cosy and i've been waiting for it to be cold enough for Gracie to wear it. The weather is just amazing at the moment and i've been out in the garden today weeding in just a vest top. Yesterday it felt a little fresh so i took the opportunity to put Gracie in her snow suit whilst we went for a bike ride. It turned out to really warm outside and we were both sweating by the time we got home! Anyway, I took a photo of her as she looked so cute and as fat as babies come in it!

Hilarious...

I want that one!

Well Laura recovered from her Bronchitis, but I've spent the weekend sick with Tonsilitis. I spent most of the weekend in bed, but today managed to squeeze in some infomercial viewing, and Neighbours (Which I haven't seen in months) and to my hilarity Lou & Andy from Little Britain were on as Extras! Possibly the funniest Neighbours scene ever!

Gracie and her friends

Here are just a few photos of Gracie hanging out with her friends over the past week.

Gracie & Amélie

Gracie & Aaron

Laura's birthday bike...

With her birthday money, Laura bought herself a new bike. We've bought both her and Gracie a helmet, and a baby seat to attach to the back. Laura just couldn't wait to try it out and has made several trips up and down the drive with Gracie in the basket!!!

A few photo's

Just to keep you updated....

I was thrown a surprise birthday party the other week by some friends! It was a great night and the cake Alana made was amazing...


I also took Gracie to the park and she had a first real go on the swing, as you can see, she loved it!

Kisses at Bedtime

Gracie just loves going to bed at the moment - the last couple of nights I've heard lots of laughter as Laura has put her to bed - tonight I got a little of it on film. Enjoy!

A Busy Week!

This week has been pretty busy. On Wednesday it was my birthday so Paul took the day off and we met friends for coffee in the morning followed by an amazing chocolate cake in the afternoon made by Paul.

On Thursday Gracie had a photo shoot! We were stopped in the mall a week or so ago by a photographer called Rachael Hale and asked if she could meet up with me about using Gracie as a model. She came by on Monday and it turns out she's published a book already and is well known in New Zealand and her work is sold around the world. In the past she's worked with animals but is now picturing babies. So anyway, we went to her studio on Thursday and she took the most gorgeous photo's of Gracie-i can't wait to get the copies!

Yesterday Paul went away for the weekend with church so i spent the afternoon with Rosie (his sister) and we took the kids swimming. It was Gracie's first time in a pool and she loved it. I then stayed over at their house which was lots of fun and we watched Will Smith's newish movie, In pursuit of happiness. It was a great film-a real eye opener-I recomend it.

Ok. so thats my busy week! I'm now looking forwards to some of the girls coming over tonight-should be lots of fun!

Congratulations Esther and Tom!

A huge congratulations to my friend Esther who gave birth to a beautiful baby girl on 9th June named Lois Ellen. I think she looks gorgeous and both mother and daughter are doing well!

Gracie looking adorable!

Here is a couple of photos hot of the press. She is wearing a gorgeous hat that Laura's mum made for up - it looks great on her. Thanks Powell Management!

What have we been up to this week?

Well this week has been another busy week. I (Paul) have been working pretty hard this week - there is plenty on at the moment to keep me busy - tonight is SOAK at church, so I'll be heading back there pretty soon to practice with the band, and get a few things set up.

Gracie has been doing really well - in the last week she has mastered sitting up, rolling over from her tummy, and has started having solid foods. She is so much fun, and we're loving every minute of her. Here are a couple of pics of her this week.

Yesterday we went to our good friends Dizz & James for Dizz's 30th - they prepared an INCREDIBLE mi winter christmas, including tree, carols, mulled wine, a huge christmas dinner, and a visit from Father Christmas - as you can see, Matilda cashed in!

Installing Husband 1.0

Dear Tech Support,

Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and noticed a distinct slow down in overall system performance particularly in the flower and jewelry applications, which operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0.

In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as Romance 9.5 and Personal Attention 6.5 and then installed undesirable programs such as NFL 5.0, NBA 3.0, Nascar 2.0 and Golf Clubs 4.1.

Conversation 8.0 no longer runs, and Housecleaning 2.6 simply crashes thesystem. I've tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, but to noavail. What can I do?
Signed, Desperate

Dear Desperate:

First keep in mind, Boyfriend 5.0 is an Entertainment Package, while Husband 1.0 is an Operating System.

Please enter the command: "http: I Thought You Loved Me.html" and try to download Tears 6.2 and don't forget to install the Guilt 3.0 update. If that application works as designed, Husband 1.0 should then automatically run the applications Jewelry 2.0 and Flowers 3.5.

But remember, overuse of the above application can cause Husband 1.0 to default to Grumpy Silence 2.5, Happy Hour 7.0 or Beer 6.1. Beer 6.1 is a very bad program that will download the Snoring Loudly Beta.

Whatever you do, DO NOT install Mother-in-law 1.0 (it runs a virus in the background that will eventually seize control of all your system resources).

Also, do not attempt to reinstall the Boyfriend 5.0 program.

These are unsupported applications and will crash Husband 1.0.

In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program but it does have limited memory and cannot learn new applications quickly. You might consider buying additional software to improve memory and performance. We recommend Food 3.0 and Hot Lingerie 7.7.

Good Luck,

Tech Support

Sitting Up

This last week has been a week of firsts for Gracie. Paul spent alot of time with her over the weekend which she loved and has learnt how to sit! At first it was for just a minute but she can now sit for quite a while unaided. I've also been encouraging her to roll which has been successful twice but she hasn't done it since - I blame the huge cloth nappies as she was in disposables when she rolled!
Gracie has also become a lot more interested in books in the past few days. I went out for coffee this morning and she sat in her pushchair looking at a book for ages-it was bliss as I sat there with earache relaxing in the chair.

Coffee Group

I love being a mother because I spend a lot of my mornings going to various coffee groups! Its such a great place to be with other mums where we can take and share advice as wells as talk about our babies nonstop!

Since moving to New Zealand I have found it hard to make friends outside of the church because I had nowhere to meet them. Apart from a couple of nanny friends i've made over the past 2 years my friendships consist of only church people-don't get me wrong, i really, really love my friends-yet i find it suffocating and boring to only be around those who think in simular ways to me.

Thats why i love my coffee groups- its somewhere where i can be challenged, engaged with the 'real' world and make a difference. I don't suggest i have the answers and others don't, its just that i hope the way i live and love, will challenge my friends in a simular way they challenge me.

Gracie is below with her friends from our anti-natal group.

Photos of Gracie's room...

City Lights, selling the house and more...

We've had a lot of complaints recently about our lack of blogging so i thought i'd write a little update on our lives.

A couple of weekends ago some of our small group/cluster spent the day at a foster home in south Auckland as part of the City Lights outreach project, which is run by YWAM and some of the churches here. The day was so much fun, starting with a time of worship and teaching then out to the many projects they support. About 7 of us spent the afternoon playing games with the children, weeding the garden, washing the van, fixing bikes, and doing a BBQ. Gracie was a great hit and a couple of the older children took it in turns to push her around the garden in her buggy and make her smile!

I've been spending alot of time keeping our house tidy as our landlords decided to sell. Things move quickly here as they told us on Good Friday that they we're thinking of selling and they are settling the deal today-crazy!
Although this was very stressful and unsettling at first, it turns out that the lady who has bought it wants us to stay here and will even do some 'touch ups' in the house to make it even better.

After a really busy couple of weeks, seeing friends etc. we had a relaxing quiet weekend at home. It was so nice just to be a family together and relax. Our neighbours gave us an old chest of drawers they didn't need any more so we've sanded and painted them for Gracie's room and did a few finishing touches so her bedroom is now complete. Photos will follow soon....

Face book

Have you noticed recently that our blog posts are becoming infrequent? I blame face book and myspace! Ever since my dear husband has joined these new technological diary's our blogspot has been neglected.

However much i complain, i must confess i have been sucked in by face book and now have my own page; yet i'm already over it-what purose does it serve? I still can't get my head around e-mail and texting. I think i was meant to be born 100 years ago!

On other news, we've had James and Dawn Wilson with us in Auckland for the weekend which has been lovely. We've taken them to St Hellier's beach for brunch and up One Tree Hill for the sights. They are off exploring this week before continuing on their world adventure on Friday.

Gracie is as gorgeous as ever! She has been a bit unsettled over the past few days and seems to be chewing on her fingers all the time, so i'm guessing those teeth are starting to make their long, slow and painful way through the gums. I'll leave you with a photo of us snuggling after our nap time!

Holiday with the K-S's

For the past month Paul's parents have been in New Zealand. Its been lots of fun showing them our lives and introducing Gracie to Granny and Pops. Here are just a few of many photos taken during their time with us; there will be some more posts giving some more detail over the coming days!

Gracie in the hot tub!

Gracie and Matilda

Gracie with Granny & Pops

The whole family

Gracie Giggling

Some cute photos!

Gracie Chatting!

Gracie's recent adventures

A little update on gracie's social events...


This week we spent time with Rachael...Gracie and Rachael were hanging pretending to be 'barry boys' in her car!

This is just Gracie looking very cute!

Then Amélie and Gracie spent the afternoon playing together-so cute!

We have Emma and Dan with us today up from Christchurch which is lovely, They are just off to the beach whilst Gracie and I have a sleep.
Tomorrow is the day Paul's parents arrive-we are very excited that they will meet Gracie at last....what a busy time of year!

Funny Video

Matilda, Harry & Gracie

An update on Gracie

Gracie has been on great form recently - she is now at large, sleeping through from 10-7 which is bliss!!! We're loving watching her grow and see her discover new things everyday. She's now well over 13lbs which is fab - as Matilda says, she is very chumpy!!!


Today we took Gracie to the zoo again which she wasn't too fussed about, but we did buy her a bouncy chair which she loved. She has already figured out how to bounce herself using her feet - what a clever little girl!

Made me laugh!

We've been to the Zoo!

Well, today was my day off so we all went to the Auckland zoo, which is just a couple of minutes by car from our house... we had a great fun day...

Matilda met a giant elephant!

We saw some penguins

And some giraffes

And our firm favorite - the Seals; they just swim around and around in circles - it's so coo. Video below!

And of course Gracie was there - the cutest mamal of the lot!

Gracie Talking!

This evening Gracie was sitting with Rosie, and she just started babbling in a way that she hasn't done before - it was utterly gorgeous; we managed to get some of it on film - hope you enjoy!

What we've been up to

Hi - sorry it's been a long time again... we seem to have been on overdrive the last couple of weeks, have been very busy. So what have we been up to?

Well of course we've got Rosie, Pete, Harry & Matilda staying with us at the moment, although they have been away for the week with Rich, Kath & Amelie to the Coromandel which is the sticky out bit of the North Island, east of Auckland - it's stunning there.

We had a fantastic weekend on our own, mainly watching the conclusion of 24 series 5 which was really good. On Saturday we went down to the city center at the crack of dawn to join thousands of other Aucklanders to welcome the Queen Mary 2 - it is a beautiful and impressive 'Ocean Liner' and there was definitely a sense of grandeur as it sailed past.

Last night we had a cluster surf / BBQ night out at the Life Saving Club at North Piha, which is out on the West Coast - we had great fun surfing, eating, and chatting and we watched a stunning sunset - the sky was literally bright pink; my photo doesn't do it much justice I'm afraid, but it's not a bad one!


Gracie is absolutely thriving - she is now over 10 weeks old, and is an absolute Angel; in the last week she has really taken to sleeping through the night which is a fantastic - On Saturday night Laura had 7 hours of continuous sleep for the 1st time in ages. While sleeping through the night isn't everything, it is nice to know that when we put her down at night she'll sleep until the morning.

She's getting bigger every day it seems - she really is putting on heaps of weight which is fantastic; we have absolutely no idea what she weighs, but our Plunket Nurse will be coming Monday so we'll find out then. Here's a cute photo from yesterday - Laura spent most of the day with Nicole & Hugh who is very cute; Gracie seemed to enjoy the hammock at their house.


I'm pretty busy at work at the moment - I'm speaking on Sunday night, so beavering away this week writing a talk on 'A life of worship'... any suggestions?!!! I think it will be fine! Anyhow, enough of the babble! Will get back into the swing of blogging once life fully returns back to normal.

Funny

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