9 Months Old!!

YO YO YO MAMMA..... (note the bruised left cheek)

Gosh it has been so long since my last blog. Emily has grown so much and has now hit the 9 Month milestone. 9 Months sees her crawling properly now on hands and knees (and quite fast too I might add) she is also pulling herself up on anything and everything that she can and she is starting to try her hand at cruising as well. I think she has her brother's adventurous spirit and no fear attitude which means that mixed with all this increased mobility means that we have a lot more bumped heads, bruises and tears too. Although Emily is in no way the talker that Riley was at the same age she sure can put her point across. She has a few words in her repertoire including, Bub, Dad, Ri Ri (for Riley), Hello, Bye and I am quite sure that Riley and I heard her say Bec the other day. Still waiting for Mum of course which is an endless source of amusement for my two boys. She is waving hello and good bye, clapping and this past few days when you ask her where her head is she touches her head with both her hands and she can do the same when you ask where her ears are too, we are working on eyes, nose and mouth. She is slowly getting her appetite back after being sick with an ear infection and she is now cutting 3 teeth (to add to the 3 that she already has) she is enjoying a much wider range of food now too, in particular she is loving rice cakes, cauliflower, banana, cucumber and pasta and as always her vegemite sangas of course. She has also started to have some diluted apple juice and i think has yet to spill a drop, water on the other hand..........I have had to buy her a bib that wears pretty much like a dress to cover as much of her as I can in an effort to preserve her clothes and keep her clean whilst still allowing her to exoplore different foods and work out how to feed herself. Fun times. Lately she has been enjoying watching herself on webcam too I think she gets a kick out of seeing herself on the screen and as most of you already know she loves the winks on the chat window too. She really is a bundle of fun and personality and we are all really enjoying the joy that she brings to our family.

Chilling out watching some Hi-5 with big bro.

Going for a ride on the vaccum cleaner.

YUP sure is Daddy's girl hey....

Enjoying a slide with big bro - he really does look after Em so well.

Random Stuff

Last week at dinner time we decided to let Emily sit up at the table with us (as opposed to sitting in her highchair beside the table). She really enjoyed the change of scenery and even though it wasn't her dinner time she enjoyed chewing on a rusk and just generally interacting with all of us.

A few weeks ago, after many months of gold star earning, Riley finally earned the fish in a fish tank (if you look closely in the pic above you will see one in the tank behind him) that he had been working towards. Unfortunately we got somewhat of a bum-steer from the pet shop and did not prepare our tank properly and the first two fish died two weeks later. Riley was sad but handled it really well - I actually think he kinda enjoyed the novelty of flushing them down the loo..............hmmmm. So we cleaned out the tank, replaced the water and went back to the pet shop to get him some more fish, we got 4 smaller fish this time and this time they only lasted a number of hours. I have since found out that we were supposed to have oxygenated the water for a few days before putting any fish in there. Leave it to me to 'drown' fish. So with our impending move we decided not to buy any more fish and this is what upset Riley as he had worked so hard to earn them. Long story short (well shorter anyways) we decided to compensate him by giving him the next item in his wish list that he was earning - which is a golf bag for his golf clubs. Yesterday afternoon after Brad finished work the two of them got their clubs (in their bags of course) and headed across the road to the driving range for a hit.

Riley & Emily at Play

This is a cute little clip of Riley and Emily playing together the other night. It was so sweet to see, I hope you enjoy it too.

Young Love

This is Riley and his wife Nassia. Nassia was over on Friday for Hip Hop and whilst we were waiting for the instructor to arrive Riley and Nassia sniggled up on the couch and watched Hannah Montana together. I thought it was just too cute not to take a picture of. They really are very sweet together and I think that they will both be heartbroken when we move.

Caged Animals???

Since Emily has been mobile we have had to put in place some safety measures (powerpoint plugs, safety gates etc) including a play pen (again kindly donated for temporary use by the lovely Michelle). I was online to Mum & Bec the other day when Emily was doing her best to run amok and chew her way through the numerous cords around the computer table so I said to both of them "Just hang on I am going to put Emily in her cage......" Hmmmm probably could have worded that better I guess LOL. Riley also enjoys getting in there with her and just sitting and playing with her (he really is a great big brother). I thought I would take a couple of pics of them together so that everyone could see what I mean when I say I am putting Emily in her cage.

Riley's Sports Day 2008

Today was the annual seniors sports day (and no Dad don't get excited it was not 'grab-a-granny day....) at Riley's school. Each year at this time (and don't ask me why they choose such a cold bloody time of the year to do this!) they run a sports day. Each of the senior classes has a country that they represent and the weeks leading up to the sports day the class will learn all about that country. During the week Riley came home telling me all about Mt Vesuvius, I was very impressed. Last year his class represented Australia and marched onto the field under a New Zealand flag and this year the same class was Australia again but a different class chose to represent Tasmania.......go figure! I couldn't help but to go up to the principal and ensure that they were indeed aware that Tasmania was not actually a separate country. The principal advised me that they were aware of this but this particular teacher has a habit of choosing places that are not actual stand-alone countries to represent - last year she was the Cook Islands...... With Brad having left for Chile yesterday morning I was a single mum today and I must say with the help of two very well behaved children I did an outstanding job, well if you put aside losing Riley for about 40mins that is. I couldn't find him anywhere I had parents and teachers looking for him, he ran off (with my consent) to play footy with a couple of his mates but I didn't see where he ended up, turns out he was in the barn the whole time with the mates and some mums and I had walked past a number of times before finding him. DOH!!

Emily waiting with Por Por (Carolyn's mum) for the kids to march on to the field.
Riley and his class, the Giraffes representing Italy, marching on to the sports field.
Riley sporting his Italian flag, the kids were supposed to paint them on to their shirts but quite a few of the kids did not bring in their shirts to class in time enough for them to do this. Pretty sad effort really. Maybe we could do this at home as a project......
Riley competing in the sack race. He did very well and did not fall over or stumble once!
ACTION SHOT!! Riley in the relay race, I love this pic as you can see that neither of his feet are even on the ground!

Riley with his 'gold medal' all of the kids recieved a medal for participating in the events. The medals are handed out by Phedre (the principal) and are gold foil covered chocolate. The medal didn't make it home this year.....

Emily all rugged up she had on a singlet and two long suits as well as her mittens this morning (it was 8degrees at 8:15am when we arrived for the event) and enjoying a swing alongside Riley.
Riley going up as high as he could go on the swing beside Emily.

Riley had his hair spray painted blue at the fete after the sports day. The fete was to raise money for the school and I am happy to say we surely made our contribution...... LOL

This is teacher Wendy who was manning the fairy floss stall. By the end of the morning she was covered in sprays of fairy floss (looks kinda like spider webs). I like this shot because you can see all the sprays of fairy floss in the air around her as well.

Riley's girlfriend, Nassia, enjoying her first ever ride on a horse. Nassia's mum, Calypso, tells me that before today Nassia was not such a fan of horses, by the look of that sweet smile I think she is over that. Look out Harmon and Calypso I think someone may be asking 'Santa' for a pony for Christmas.........LOL

All in all it was a great way to spend the morning with my kids.

8 Months Old Today & Sensorial Baby Class

Today Emily started her first ever baby class. I have been feeling somewhat guilty as by this age Riley had been doing Gymbaroo for like 6 months and so far all Emily has had is her swimming lessons (which she is still loving by the way). It is a sensorial baby class which means that the activities are changed every 10minutes or so to allow exposure to more experiences. We started off with some free play and Emily quickly honed in on the balls and especially the little play tent and tunnel set up (I am happy about this as I have been thinking of getting her one and now I have an excellent argument to do it). Then we moved on to some puzzles, Emily is obviously still a bit young to do them but give her a week or so and I am sure she would have mastered the 5 piece LOL she did however give them the good old 'taste test' and seemed happy enough with that. After that it was time for some 'music' now I of course use the term 'music' lightly as a bunch of 8 month old babies make some interesting tunes.......sounds a little like noise to the untrained ear LOL. Then came Emily's favourite part of the morning the FOOD!! Jen gave each of the babies a bowl with some different foods in there to play with (hence the sensorial side of things) and then taste test if they wished, well no-one had to tell Emily twice, she was right in there, seems she quite likes jelly too. We ended the morning with a little more free-play where Emily again honed in on the balls. There were 5 of us for most of the morning and we were a mix of different cultures also which was lovely, all the babies were aged within weeks of each other which was the best part for me as I have been feeling that Emily has had very little interaction with babies her own age. Overall it was a lovely morning and I really feel that Emily got a lot out of it and I am looking forward to next week also.