Emily Grace Barnett

Emily made a quick entry into the world on Tuesday 10 February 2009. I went into labour at 5pm that evening and she was born at 7.30pm weighing 4070g (9lbs).

Since we knew Charlotte would still be awake mum and dad were the first people that we rang and they brought Charlotte up to Taupo hospital so that she could meet her new sister.

After they had left we were transferred to our room for the next three nights. Next door was a friend who had been in hospital with me when Charlotte was born. Her first son is 4 days older than Charlotte and this son is 2 days older than Emily.

We brought Emily home on Friday 13 and on Saturday 14 we took her to her first wedding. Craig and Tessa got married at Waikato River lodge and Emily came along with us. She was so good and people couldn't believe she was only 4 days old.

Emily is a very good baby (though I think it helps that mum knows what she is doing this time). She feeds and sleeps well and is already 300g above her birth weight at 2 weeks old.

Big Sister Charlotte is in love with her and always wants to give her kisses and pat her head. Next week we are taking Emily into Charlotte's daycare to give her a bath as the kids there are baby crazy. We were swarmed when we took Emily in last week to show her to the teachers.

Going on a Frog Hunt

Last week Andrew did a news story covering the new monitoring buoy that was about to be put in Lake Taupo. He was out at five mile bay shooting footage of the technicians hooking it up to the helicopter. He could hear lots of frogs, so on Thursday him and Charlotte went on a frog hunt. They stopped first at the toy shop to buy a net and then it was off on the adventure.

They spent over an hour hunting out frogs and tadpoles. Charlotte had a great time.

After they got home they rang me at work to tell me all about it. When I asked Charlotte if she had seen any frogs she told me that she tickled their bottoms. Andrew had to explain that they used pieces of grass to tickle to the frogs to make them jump.

We went back as a family on Saturday after swimming lessons to hunt down some more frogs. The pictures were taken then.

Off to search the swamp

Looking at the tadpoles

A frog

I'm Back

Well after 8 months of not writing I thought I should start again. I will not bore you with what we have been doing for the last months, but in case you have missed out on the news we are expecting baby number two. Jellybean as it has been nicknamed is due in 7 weeks time.

Charlotte has been a bit unwell over the past month and a half. She has had two seizures, one of which ended in an overnight hospital stay and she has also had the chicken pox. We are off to the hospital tomorrow for a follow up visit on the seizures.

Not long now until the big man dressed in red comes to visit. Charlotte isn't that keen on him in person, but points out all the pictures of him the junk mail. She started calling him Christmas, but has learnt that his name is Santa. Santa is bringing her a bike (shh don't her).

Well I don't want you getting too excited that I am back posting again. But I promise it won't be 8 months before the next post.

Talking and Reading

Charlotte's favourite things to do at the moment are talk, read, feed the ducks and go to the park. She goes non-stop all day and chats away to herself. Her talking is becoming much better and we can understand a whole lot more. She also has bionic ears and we have started to spell out certain words so that she doesn't know what we are talking about eg duck, bubbles, banana.




Here are some pictures of her and her dad playing and two videos. The first is of her doing her duck impression and the second is of her talking.

This weekend we went to Celeste's and Jared's wedding. Her are some pictures of us before we went. We had an awesome time there and it was great to sleep in this morning. Mum and dad had Charlotte for the night and she chose to get up 6.15am - lucky them. Charlotte hasn't been getting up before 7.15 in weeks, so who knows what was different about being at Granny's house. By the time we picked her up at 10am they had been to feed the duck, played at the park and eaten a lot of breakfast.

The last two months

Opps i have been a bit slack at updating this - sorry. Well as you know Andrew turned 30 in February and we had a great weekend with our friends coming down. They went out fishing in the afternoon and then that evening we played poker.

Mum had a birthday on Friday - doesn't have another one for four years. She had a great day and we had the usual drinks on Friday night.

Charlotte is doing well - her speech is developing quickly and she can be a bit of a parrot at times. We are really having to watch what we say now.
She still can't say Granny or Sam, but Poppa is one of her favourite words and people. Some words are very similar sounding and it can take a while to work out which one she is saying (eg bottle, bubble and Bumble).

Charlotte can also do animal noises and actions. We are just trying to get her doing the duck on video. It is so cute she tucks her hands under her armpits and flaps her wings while saying duck duck duck.

All baths now have to have bubbles in them. We have used all the little miss bubble baths that Yvonne gave us and have moved onto some bright blue stuff form the supermarket.
Here is a wee video of her in the bath last night - if you listen carefully you can hear her saying bubbles right at the beginning. I pushed record a second too late or it would have been a lot clearer.

Not much else has been happening here. Work has been a bit slow for Andrew, but the fishing has been good. He had his dad over for a few days a couple of weeks ago and they did quite a bit of fishing. Work is going well for me - we are at a very busy time of the year trying to get all of our tax returns filed by 31 March, but I am sure we will get there.

We are looking forward to our holiday in July. It finally seems to be getting a bit closer. We have our e-tickets, but our real ones will come back with my Uncle Michael when he comes back from visiting Daina this month.

Our Little Artist

Some pictures of Charlotte doing her artwork this afternoon.

Charlotte was given the cute apron as a Christmas present form Michael and Sharon.

Christmas

We got what every parent wants for Christmas - a sleep in. Charlotte has been getting up at 6.30am lately and on both Christmas and boxing days she didn't wake until almost 8am. It was great.

We started off Christmas morning by opening a few presents at home and then it was off to mum and dads for breakfast. Everyone had thought Charlotte would be up early so they were just finishing their breakfast as we arrived.

Opening Presents

Lauri, Jim and Kate were at mum and dads as well as Sam. We did present opening there and then it was back home to finish cooking the roast pork for lunch and to open the rest of our presents. We gave Charlotte an early lunch and put her down for a half hour nap before we went to Michael and Sharon's for lunch.

Dancing To Baby Tad

Charlotte was great with only a half hours sleep and was very social. She did have her dummy in mouth most of the afternoon, but we decided it was better than having her grizzle.

Christmas Lunch (with Sam)

Andrew left lunch just after two so that he could travel to Wanganui for work and we left at about three thirty. Charlotte had another power nap of about 45minutes and then it was off to Rob and Ann's for Christmas dinner. Again Charlotte did extremely well and managed to stay up until 8pm (her normal bedtime is 6.30). At Rob and Ann's was us their three kids and John their grandson. Charlotte really liked John and John really liked the fake toast that came with the tea set Ann and Rob bought her for Christmas.



Boxing day was spent relaxing and cleaning up after Christmas day. Charlotte was so shattered that she went for her day sleep two hours early and slept for three hours. She was then a ball of energy for the afternoon. An interesting thing happened while Andrew was away - she realised he wasn't there and spent most of yesterday and this morning saying "Dadda" and looking for him every now and then. She has been quite attached to him since he got home as well.



You would have thought that after getting so many presents Charlotte would now have a new favourite - but no the motorbike is still her favourite toy. On Sunday she learnt to go down the little hill at mum and dads and then today she found the hill between us and the neighbours - here is a video of her going down it.