Brotherly Love

MWAH!

This was cute, Riley was coming in with his tickling fingers saying "I'm gunna get you Emily" and she was putting her hands up to his to stop him, they did it a number of times it was really very sweet.

Early morning cuddles in our pj's are the best.....

Riley is still totally in love with his sister which is just beautiful to watch. He loves to lay next to her on her play mat and play with her and her toys, teaching her how to do what the toy is meant to do etc. Em is becomming much more tolerant of his cuddles now too which is nice for me, perhaps because she is a bit bigger and older and not feeling so vulnerable. She likes to watch him from afar and beam lovely big smiles at him too. I am thinking that in another few months she will be his little shadow and he will be loving every minute of it, until she gets to the cruising and walking stages and decides that her new hobby will be to seek out and destroy any leggo creations that is.

17 Weeks Old (not today exaclty but hey.....)

Pretty in pink.

Smile for the camera!!

Ok so I have been a bit slack in getting this done but in my defence I have had challenges in the last week including power outages, flues and bee stings but here I am now. So 17 weeks old and just 4 months now too. Emily is really developing fast she loves to smile at people especially those closest to her. This week her favourite person to smile at has been my friend Michelle. Michelle is American and whenever she speaks, no matter who to, Emily always likes to look up and beam a big beautiful smile at her. Emily spent a couple of hours with Michelle at a local shopping mall whilst I attended an appointment baby-freeand the both of them had a lovely time. Michelle did tell me though that people were telling her what a beautiful daughter she had and her response? "I know!" she cracks me up. Emily has been practicing her rolling over this week also and at the start of the week if you were not in the room watching what she was doing you would swear someone was trying to pull her finger nails out with all the carrying on but eventually she made it over and after a couple of days of screaming her way from back to tummy she now does it with far more ease (thank goodness!). She really likes to be sitting up and being invovled in EVERYTHING going on around the place now too. When I take Riley to school she stays home with Motshabi and is usually in her highchair being wheeled from room to room whilst Motshabi cleans and they both love it.

Australia Day!!

Hard at work in the kitchen. Notice the tatt??

The finished product (about 6 hours before we actually finished....) Riley was a great help at covering the lamingtons with coconut and then stacking them in the container for me.

Lamington anybody??

Well we couldn't let Australia Day go by uncelebrated so Riley and I decided to make some lamingtons for some of our ex-pat friends and also for the lucky aussie guys at Brad's work. I ordered a slab from the local supermarket bakery and with my gift for being able to grasp the concept of space and quantity I ordered a 40x40 cake. Well I can honestly say I didn't really realise exactly how BIG that would be and it made 42 rather large lamingtons. The manager at the bakery was a little put out that I was making my own and not ordering from him but he was still nice enough to carry the rather large box with the slab inside out to my car for me. As much as we bag South Africa (and quite rightly so too) you really cannot beat the service here, Aussies could really learn a thing or two about hospitalilty from the South Africans.

Some Holiday Pics......

Em & Daddy at the beach.

Em & Mummy at the beach.

Daddy & the kids at the beach.

The Crosby boys and the Lynch boys.

Catching up on some reading....

This really is a good read, I just can't seem to put it down....

Very thought provoking indeed.....

SCORE!! Riley just loved bowling with his Uncle Dave & Aunty Mandy.

Em's Christening.

A couple of black & whites courtesy of Aunty Little Bec.

Riley & Alex clowing around on Christmas Day.

Emily & Uncle Boof catching up on some sleep on Boxing Day........

The Holiday is over!

Riley and Ethan re-united for a play date at our house.

Riley and Ethan joined by Ethan's older sister Cailyn.

Riley and Ellie (old kindy friends) re-unite over a milkshake at a play date at Lollipops in Brisbane.

Riley and Ellie at Garden City after having their faces painted at the shop 'n' drop.

Well the holiday is well and truly over now. We have been home for just over one week now and we have been without electricity for every single day since. Mostly the power goes out once or twice a day for two hours at a time but on Wednesday it was out for a total of 7hrs and 50minutes and they say that this is not a 3rd world coutnry. The reason is something they call "loadshedding" it is what happens when there is not enough electricity to meet demand and so the power company, Eskom, has to cut a certain amount of power to certain areas. They try to rotate around all the suburbs but it is hard not to feel like the only one affected when it is your time. They even cut power to their own office building last week. So this is the reason why I have not been able to update the blog until now, it's kinda hard to do with no power....... So our holiday was fun and it was really great to see everyone again and it was much harder to leave this time but at least we know that we will be back in just a few short months for Brookie's wedding which makes things easier. Riley was a bit torn when we got home as he really misses everyone from home (especially his cousin Alex) but he also missed a lot of his friends from here too. I think it will be really great for the kids when we return to have so much extended family around. I am looking forward to them growing up with their cousins too, as much as Riley and Alex fight we know that they love each other just as much and I think that when they are not both living in the same house in each other's personal space they will get along famously. Chloe was fascinated with Emily and I think the fascination was mutual, I am looking forward to seeing how they relate in April when we are back becasue Emily will be much older and more aware of the people around her.

16 Weeks Today!!

Em has turned into quite the thumb sucker since she started teething, yes she is really teething, I even took her to our GP to be sure it wasn't an ear infection or anything and she confirmed that it is teething.

Whilst we were on holidays Emily grew so much and became so much stronger, she now really enjoys sitting up whenever she can so this little seat (called a Bumbo) is really good for her now. It is a loaner from my friend Carolyn. I wasn't sure I would use it at first but now I am glad that I have it. She still gets plenty of mat time and tummy time as well.

This is Emily with Mousey (one of Em's Christmas presents from Uncle Dave & Aunty Mandy) he has turned into her toy of choice these days, I personally think that it is becasue the tip of his nose resembles a nipple and she loves to suck and chew on it.

Well I guess it's true what they say about time flying when you're having fun. Emily is now 16 weeks old and a great ball of fun too. Over the last week she has really started to find her voice and is not afriad to use it. She chats away to her toys and her playmat and enjoys having nice chats with us as well. She travelled really well on the way back from Australia too and just as she did on the way over at Christmas time she took 4 days to get her body clock back on track and is now once again sleeping through the night; she actually slept 13hrs straight with no stirring during the night last night. On Jan 12 (Uncle Dave's Birthday) Emily rolled for the 1st time and has done so a few times since then also. Riley also travelled really well on the way home and managed to have a couple of good sleeps. We arrived home (to our house) at around 6pm on Wednesday night and Riley was up at 3am Thursday morning; at around 7:15am he asked me if he could please go to school. So after much discussion I allowed him to go to school, I told his teacher that he would be really tired and that she was to call me when he started to fade. I didn't get any calls and when I came to collec him at lunch time he was still going strong. Rliey has fitted straight in nicely to his new class and really likes his new teacher, Samia. He even has a grilfriend already (not surprising at all considering he is obessessed with girls), her name is Kelly and she was one of his girlfreinds last year too, Kelly and Riley also share a birthday which is nice so they are exactly the same age. This year Riley is continuing with his computer class at school as he really seems to enjoy what he is learning there and he has also started Speech and Drama classes which I really think should be a good outlet for his imagination. He is also going to continue with his horseriding lessons this year as well which he is looking forward to starting this week. My friend Carolyn is trying to organise violin lessons for the boys also but i am not sure, I really think that he would enjoy music lessons but just not necessarily violin.

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.......