11 Weeks Old Today

Our big girl is now 11 weeks old and a very happy smiley girl she is too. For the last couple of weeks she has been bathing in the big bath with Riley but sometimes when I want to give her a quick bath I just fill up the basin and away we go. The other night we just thought she looked too cute not to take photos of. Besides with all the water outages we have I managed to get a few photos of Riley in the basin so it's only fair really.... She is still very loved by her older brother and she is starting to let him know when she has had enough kisses and cuddles too. Riley still gets majorly offended if she does not look at him when he is trying to talk to her and heaven forbid she smiles at the curtains before she smiles at him (which happens most mornings.....). On Saturday I went out to the shops for a few hours leaving the kids at home with Daddy (yay for me!!). When I got home Brad advised me that Emily had been quite demanding of his time, whinging whenever he dared to put her down. This continued after I returned home but it was not my attention that she was after it was all about being Daddy's girl and so long as Daddy was either holding her, talking to her or in the very least looking at her she was happy. I think we may have a Daddy's girl on our hands.......

Just Singing In The Rain....

The weather over here is pretty unpredictable, fine & sunny not to mention stinking hot one day and overcast, raining, miserable and pretty cold the next. Over the weekend we got a lot of rain and some storms. Riley took the opportunity to take out his raincoat, gumboots and umbrella and had himself some fun in the rain. He looked so cute I couldn't help taking some pics of him to share with everyone.

My Gorgeous Family!!

These are a few photos that were taken professionally a couple of weekends ago now. Our photographer, Tiaan, came over to our house in the morning and set up a make-shift studio in our formal dining room. There were about 200 photos taken that morning and it was really hard to choose which ones to order, so i ordered most of them (photoshop is a GREAT tool)..... I have some enlargements ordered and should get them either today or Monday. Tiaan was so patient with the kids, he is South African (but we won't hold that against him - LOL) and keen to immigrate to Australia so when he gets there you will all have to look him up and get some pics done too. These are just a couple of teasers and I will show you all the rest of them when we get home.......

10 Weeks Old Today

Well ok so not today exactly but this week has just got away from me. Our angel is 10 weeks old already and getting really big too. She is getting much stronger and trying to sit up by herself. I have a feeling that she may be in a hurry to do things to keep up with her big brother. Thanks must go out to Aunty Shelley for the beautiful outfit too. Aunty Shelley went on holidays back to Miami earlier this year and couldn't help going shopping to spoil Emily even before she was born...

The Crosby Christmas Party

So on Saturday night we held our first ever Crosby Family Christmas Party. The party was totaly inspired by friends of ours in Townsville (hello to the Ellis Family) who have been doing this party for 10 years now. The highlight of the night is a game played with Christmas presents. Basically everyone brings a wrapped gift to a set value and places it on the designated table. We then gather around after dinner (and a few drinks) and take our numbers and then take turns opening or stealing gifts. The game continues until everyone has a gift. There was a lot of fun to be had and I think that a few people took the wording on my invitation of "this is an adults party so no kids please" a little too literally and so bought gifts from the adult shop, this meant that we had such gifts as a blow up sheep (that Riley thought was quite cute....), sex games and multi-flavoured lube. Luckily we saw this coming and seeing as how all our usual babysitters were already at our party and Riley had to stay we bought him his own gift to open. Both kids were such champions and really well behaved. Riley had a lot of fun playing with all the guys. He spent some time locking Jean Francois in his bedroom and then chasing him as Jean Francois escaped out of his bedroom window. Emily was passed around from one Aunty to the next and was also really good even though she should have been to bed, been up for a feed and been back to bed again by the time we put her down. They both looked really cute in their Christmas shirts that Nana bought for them too (thanks Nana).

I worked very hard in the kitchen preparing these little numbers....... ok so I worked my feet off, shopping for them that is.........

Most people got into the spirit of things. Dave, Tim & Jean Francois (or JF).

Dave & Riley. I thought this one was funny cause Dave's hat is so tiny and Riley's is so oversized...

Those that didn't 'wear' their Christmas spirit were punished......... by Riley!

Richard recieving (and wearing) his punishment....

The Dessert Tables...

The presents table - closely watched over by one keen 4 year old.....oh yes and of course his partner in crime Karine.

My little Christmas Angel..

Our Christmas Family

Even Motshabi got into the spirit of the night!

Maaik with his score of 365 days of Passionate Sex! Guess who got lucky when he got home.....

Jessie with her multi-flavoured lubes (which I think were kindly 'donated' to Richard & Isobel below).

Richard & Isobel (Who stole from Maaik, above, who then stole it back) with their gifts, Richard's is one of those that goes 'buzzzzz' in the night.......

Me with my first gift (a Jack Daniels hip flask) which was stolen by Grant & then stolen back for me by Brad!

I then stole Chris' Swear Box......

All in all it was a great night and we look forward to doing it again next year!!!

Like Father Like Daughter......

So last night I had Brad burp Emily for me whilst I took 10 minutes to myself to have a shower. I came downstairs about 20 minutes later and as I was coming down the stairs I could hear the familiar sounds of snoring (that would be Brad of course not my angel). I came around the corner and this is the sight that was awaiting me. Brad was snoring away and Emily was kind of sighing this sweet little sigh and both were so out to it that even the flash from my camera did not wake them. Very sweet to see them together like this. The images might look a bit fuzzy becuase there was no lights on and so the flash from the camera and glow from the TV was all that was lighting the shot.

Too cute not to.........

These pics I took this afternoon were just too cute not to share with you all on here. I found a baby sized Santa hat this morning at the shops and I just couldn't resist buying it for Em. She looks so cute in it, I also bought Riley a Santa hat so I will try to get some pics of them together when they are both in agreeable moods at the same time..........good luck to me!

Eating Out

The proud little chef (the shirt buttons done all the way up to the top was his idea by the way....)

OK Mate now I'm done you can cook it now.

Careful now, I put a lot of work into that pizza so take good care of it.....

Ooooh looks pretty good eh!

Oh no! BRAIN FREEZE!!!

One thing that we have really enjoyed since moving here has been eating out. With the exchange rate in our favour it is quite affordable, the food is usually of excellent quality and, seeing as how the staff wages are largely made up of tips, the service is usually top notch with nothing being too much trouble. Just outside the gate to our estate is a small shopping complex called The Fern, it is here that we have our GP, DVD shop and supermarket and also a restaurant called Celestinos. At Celestinos they have a special bench for their "Chefs in Training" (ie their junior patrons), it is here that the kids get to make their own pizzas. The staff that are making the ordered pizzas are on hand to provide pretty well any topping requested and they then come around and take the pizza to the pizza oven where the kids can see it being cooked, once it is cooked they then bring it over to the table to be eaten. Riley just loves going there and making his own pizzas and he usually eats a lot better than he would had he just ordered off the menu. Last night we went to Celestinos (becuase Mummy was too lazy to cook and it is cheap and easy and etc etc etc), Riley made his own pizza and it was ready before Brad and I had even ordered so he got his dinner, ate most of it and then ordered himself some dessert (which he also finished before we finished our mains). Riley's dessert was little serves of ice-cream coated with white chocolate and he really did get a brain freeze as he was piling far too much in his mouth and then trying hard to eat it quickly so as not to make a mess. I hadn't really thought too much about including pics of places that we frequent but I promise to make more of an effort in the next week or so to get some pics and post them on here for you all to see.

9 Weeks Old Today!!

Well Little Miss Emily is now 9 Weeks old today (oopsie I forgot to do the 9 Weeks Old Today sign....... ah well you will just have to take my word for it). Today we spent a good part of the day driving to the Australian High Commission in Pretoria to collect her passport so now we can actually bring her home for Christmas. She is becoming more and more vocal and now when she is laying on her change table if I go around beside her head she will nearly always flash me a smile and tell me a little story. It is really sweet and it certainly makes changing her nappy a more pleasurable experience I would just really love to know what it is that she is thinking and telling me about.

This is a quick little clip of Emily playing on her play mat. She is becomming much more aware of her surroundings and is attempting to interact with both us and her toys. She loves the bright colours on her mat and she was actually smiling up at a bunch of flashing lights that were hanging over her on the frame of her play mat. One day I will actually capture a smile and maybe one of our chats too, I'll keep working on it but in the meantime we will keep on counting down until we can bring her home for all of you to see for yourselves!

Christmas Colouring-In

Today Riley was home sick and so rather than sit in front of the TV all day we made a concious effort to do some other activities. Yesterday I had a quick meeting with his teacher for next year, Samia, she is a lovely lovely lady and tells me that she is really excited to have Riley in her class next year (I bet she says that to all the mums.....). Anyway she was telling me what sorts of things he will be learning next year (a much more structured learning syllabus) and I noticed on her wall some Christmas art that her class had done during the week (these are all 5 year olds). It is a colour by numbers activity so it reinforces number recognition (this is something that he will be learning next year). She told me that she had a spare copy of the santa if I wanted to take one for Riley to do, so I did. He was so excited and I think he did such a wonderful job too that we both thought we should post it here. This is the colouring-in that he was doing when he was talking to Uncle Dave, Aunty Mandy and Aunty Little Bec this afternoon. Watch out for more Christmas art here.......

8 Weeks Old Today!!

Our little girl is now 2 months old! What a milestone (not that each week is not a milestone in itself). She has been a little bit unwell the last couple of weeks following her 6 week vaccinations she has a nasty rash all over her pretty little face and on the back of her neck but she has been a real trooper and not let it get her down too much. I had her back and forth to the GP and then eventually to the Pediatrician who tells me that the rash is not contagious and 'should' go in another week or so. Emily has become quite the little chatter when she gets going, I think that I might be in for another early talker. I suppose with a big brother talking to her all day she really is going to have no choice but to talk back. We are getting so excited about bringing her home to meet all of you, we have been telling her (and warning her LOL) about all of you and showing her pictures (of course she understands fully what she is looking at - LOL). Not long now only about 22 more sleeps (as of writing this) or thereabouts, c'mon it's not like we're counting down or anything........

Birthday Thank - Yous

Thank you Granpa and Nana Yvonne for my motor bike. Mummy and I put some Spiderman stickers on it and so now we call it the Spider Bike. We put stickers on it so that we can tell which bike is mine when I take it out with me and there are lots of them around.

Thank you Uncle Dave and Aunty Mandy for my new threads! Mummy and I found a really nice kids clothing shop in a new shopping mall close to home today. We have been saving my birthday money from you so that we could find some nice clothes that I am not allowed to wear to school. I think that I look pretty cool in my new clothes but Mummy and Daddy think that I look far too old and that makes them feel old. Ha Ha Ha........