Monday, December 14, 2009

hellos and goodbyes...

It has been a long time between posts, for sure. More on that in coming days, with lots of things to keep everyone up to speed with my life in Seattle, but today I wanted to post about two things...


Firstly, I want to thank my Grandma for helping to look after me these past few weeks. See you in January Grandma!













And secondly, I would like to proudly introduce you to my second cousin. Nobody has ever been more loved than this little person...






Friday, June 26, 2009

Birthdays...





























What love has love brought to this world?
What joy has pleasure wrought?
For this, our celebration, sings
Of far more than we sought.







A special call also goes out to my Uncle Grant who will be 31 years young on Tuesday and to Charlie "I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse" G
who is 21 today! (or so he told me...)

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Happy Father's Day - thank you all.



















Today is a special day for dads, and I want to say to these people- I love it when you take me for early morning hikes in my backpack, read stories to me, hold my hand when I learn to walk while mommy and daddy are away and catch me in your arms when I stumble into them.

I can't wait for when you can teach me about the planets and the stars, pick apples with me and take the dogs for a walk, run 10km races with me or teach me to hit a cover drive and kick a drop punt like a true-blue Aussie. For now I'll settle for a steady hand to hold.










Saturday, June 20, 2009

Check out what I just learned to do...

Hello all,

Sorry I have been a little incommunicado lately. All is well, I have had a wonderful few weeks with visits from my AWESOME Godparents, my beloved Uncle Rocky, and some special time with Grandma and Grandpa. We are moving to some place called Seattle next week so things are kinda crazy- and I have just spent a week up in the mountains with mom, dad and Grandma. I cheered mom on as she did "Ride the Rockies". I shall post some pics of my awesome mom soon (or you can check out daddy's FB page), but for now I wanted to share something with you that I learnt to do this week...

All I can say is check me out!


Sunday, April 12, 2009

Easter


Happy Easter everybody! I spent mine wondering what an egg hunt is, and why the eggs aren't all chocolate. (actually, no, that was dad who wondered that).






Because I thought it was all a bit strange (and
what was with that huge fluffy white thing with big ears that everyone wanted to say hello to?), I decided to just play in the grass and pull faces...






In other news, I have become very mobile in an awful hurry, and so
mom and dad have decided that for some reason I need to be contained.
Not sure what the big deal is down there, but those stairs on the other side of the gate seem easy to negotiate to me. Nonetheless, here is what they put in my way.

As soon as I work out the way to climb out of my crib
(and believe me, I'm tryin'), I'll be over that gate and off!

See you soon.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Allow me to introduce...



Hello all,

I have some special people to introduce y'all (I just got back from the South and still have the vernacular down) to.

I just got back to snowy Denver from Washington DC and North Carolina where mom and dad strapped me into a car seat for what seemed like 10 days straight... and when I wasn't in a car seat I was in a plane. That makes 12 separate flights already- at more than 1 flight per month of my life I should have Premier Elite frequent flyer status in no time. Pity the airline won't let me sit in business class... something about my penchant for screaming and squirming while people in suits are trying to read something important in the newspaper. The good news is that I am now, officially, an Aussie. Now for mom... she sat her Aussie citizenship exam at the embassy in DC last week and when the results come back we shall find out if she knows how to crack open a tinny, kick a drop punt and play a cover drive. That, and something about a decision to do with someone called Mabo came up in the test- I told mommy that if she just remembered that "It's the constitution. It's MABO. It's just... the vibe" then she'd be fine.








So, anyhoo, I have some very important people for you to meet. The first person I caught up with is someone you have met before. You may remember her- she was there when I was born and in fact laid eyes upon me before even mom or dad (or at least the top of my head... I'll stop there). It was great to see her again- I am A LOT bigger than when I last saw her.
She has a doggy who loves to give me kisses and who protectively watched over me - she got very worried when I emptied the entire contents of my stomach after dinner onto mommy and cried a lot in the bath.

I love my Auntie Adrianne- she is a very special person.





Now, as many of you know, I met my first great grandparent in Australia when I was 2 months old. Here is a reminder- I had a lot less hair then than now (for daddy it's the reverse). Well, last week I got to meet with my other great grandmother who is nearly 94 years old! She has a nice chair on which she let me snuggle in next to her, and we had a great time. I visited her every day for a week.












And, then, I got to meet two wonderful and very important people - Kelly and Charlton, who are very special to me and who I have been waiting to meet. I already miss them a lot, and unfortunately they live a long way away (like so many people in my life do). Here is my Godmother; Kelly. She is sweet and kind and gave me so many hugs. She introduced me to her 2 very friendly dogs, sat with me at the window, fed me my favorite food (which is sweet potato) and played with all my toys with me on the floor. She always looks cool too, which is great because my dad routinely looks like a dag (the definition of which, surprisingly, came up in mom's Aussie citizenship test). I was worried that I wouldn't have anyone to help me look good - all I seem to wear are sleep suits with dinosaurs on them. Another reason why I love Kelly is that she can speak "Strine"! All of you Aussies (like me) out there know how bad those attempted Aussie accents are. When mom tries hers she sounds like a member of the British royal family. But Kelly nails it! It must be the talented thespian in her. I think my time snuggling with her made us both feel, well, better.

Here I am with Mr C (as he is known in some places) - he has a comfy lap as you can see, and he went running with daddy where daddy made him talk on the uphill bits, making daddy seem fitter than he really is. He puts lots of cool videos on Facebook like this one... for all you Facebook freaks out there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrlSkU0TFLs






So, we had a fantastic time with the family. I can't wait to see them all again soon. Mommy and daddy's favorite part of the week was going out to Barley's tap room in Asheville with Kelly and Charlton for dinner - sans infant. First time in 9 months - thank you all!

Seriously. Thank you.

Monday, March 9, 2009

I'm just cruisin'




So, I'm 8 1/2 months old now and mom and dad think I might walk before I crawl (they hope this is not a metaphor for my whole life). I still don't really like being on my tummy, and would much prefer to hang out on 2 feet. I worked out that if I just hang on to this couch, I can streeeetttcchhh and stumble and get stuff.

My favourite thing to say- Dadadadadadadada (not purposeful... we think) and blowing big spraying raspberries.
My favourite toy- it changes every day but anything that can be banged together is good
My favourite place- in bed between mommy and daddy at 5am
My least favourite place- my own crib at 5am

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Photos from Grandma's December visit




When Heather decided that being back at work was not playing out as we had hoped, she made the decision to be at home with Patrick, where she is now. He is infinitely happier with this situation, and we are too.

Through the month of December, friends and family really came to our side in caring for him while Heather finished up at school. Patrick spent time with Auntie Terry, but decided that was his week to just scream all morning. Jocelyn (Nanna) pitched in too, and then came back again with Richard for Thanksgiving- no small travel in the depth of winter coming from a record snowy winter in the Northwest. But perhaps most special was Grandma, who dropped everything in Adelaide and jumped on a plane (well 3 actually, each way) to spend 3 weeks in December with us looking after Patrick all day during a very cold and snowy December which included a record low temperature on December 15th of -19 degrees. (That's -19 Fahrenheit for our Aussie readers, or -28 degrees Celsius. Don't ever tell me again Sydney gets nippy in the winter- it doesn't.)

He's cute, I know, but 3 weeks cooped up inside with any infant (who would rather you never put him down) when it's too cold to go for even a 15 minute walk, was a lot to ask. Thanks Grandma!

Monday, January 5, 2009

I love my Uncle Rocky


We have had a precious
several weeks
with help from
almost the whole family
on both sides.