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.

Summer Continues

Well we have had a bit of rain, but the sun is back. We have been giving Charlotte a few of her Christmas presents early as we figure she knows no different (and they have proved useful). She got her Pooh Bear couch a few weeks ago when she was sick. She spent most of the day just flopped on it as she had no energy.
Today we set up her new paddling pool as the one we have is proving to be a bit too small when it comes to practicing what she has learnt at swimming lessons.

Andrew is having another busy month. He was back in court earlier this week following the depositions hearing for case of the little three year old that died, and then on Thursday night he was off to Gisborne to cover the earthquake. He got home at midnight last night having had no sleep the night before.
Late Christmas day he is off to Wanganui to film the motorbike race on boxing day and he is also booked to cover the New Year festivities in the Central Plateau. January look like it is going to be a busy month also with a few jobs already booked in.

Because it is Christmas time here are two little videos of her swimming today.

Summer Time

It looks like summer is here - yay! We have had some great weather lately and Charlotte has been enjoying some water play outside. It was so warm the other day she decided to hop into her paddling pool fully clothed. She was too impatient to wait for us to undress her.

I had Brownie camp last weekend and Charlotte came along for the Friday afternoon and some of Sunday morning. She had a ball and thought she was one of the big girls.

Here are some photos of Charlotte having outside play time.

Me and my dad

Typical isn't it. Your husband is a an electrician and your lights don't get changed, a plumber and your tap leaks, well in our case, a cameraman and the only photos we get are the ones taken by me.

Here are a few recent ones of Charlotte and Andrew.

Sorry ones a bit blurry and another is a bit dark, but it's a cool picture.

Yes that is Charlotte in her pj's and wearing her sunhat.

I'm a duck

After nights of trying we finally got a video of Charlotte making her duck noise.

Enjoy :-)

An Update

Well not much happening here over the last month. Charlotte cut her 4th molar this week, we noticed it while we were having her 15 month Plunket visit. Charlotte now weighs 10.08kgs and is 76cm tall. That is exactly the same as her little fiend Amy from coffee group.
We got a quote from Daina for our tickets to the US, we are just checking to make sure that we can't get them cheaper here in NZ and then we will email you Yvonne with the dates etc. At the moment it looks like we fly out on Friday (18th July) night our time and get to LA about lunchtime Friday.

Andrew is working today filming the motor racing at the Taupo track. He has been busy this week covering the police raids in the BOP area.

Well as I said not much happening, so here's a few pictures to finish off with:

Nope no pictures it doesn't want to let me upload them. I will put them on tickle instead.
http://www.tickle.co.nz/photos/Michelleb

Walking Video

Here is some video of Charlotte walking. Sorry but you also get to see her stuffing her face with banana. Enjoy!

Charlotte the Builder

We have been outside this afternoon in between showers doing some building. Andrew is building a shelter for the firewood and I have been planting the vege garden and my pots. It's only taken almost 18 months to getting around to doing it. We are also going to be so organised this year by buying our firewood for next year soon. That way we will have dry firewood for the whole winter.

Charlotte has had a great time following us around and assisting us.

Officially Walking

Well I told mum and dad that as soon as they went away on holiday Charlotte would start to walk and she did. She has been taking about 1/2 dozen steps for the past month, but this last week she has become a lot more confident and it walking more and more each day. She still crawls if she is in a real hurry. Otherwise she attempts to go walking. She still isn't too good at getting across the entrance way in her socks - it is a bit slippery. She is also relying less on her cart. She quite often just leaves it to walk over to something. Her new thing with the cart is to put things in it to take to another part of the house. Charlotte is also into picking things up and taking them for a walk. My shoe made it back to the bedroom the other day.

Here are a few photos from the park yesterday. She isn't too confident on uneven surfaces yet. We have video also of Charlotte going down the slide, but I have forgotten how I got video on here last time. If you are lucky Yvonne, your brother might put it onto DVD and send it over - but don't hold your breath.

I can feed myself - thank you

Charlotte has been feeding herself finger foods for quite a few months now, but we have still been feeding her foods that require a spoon such as mushed up veges, yoghurt and muesli. Last week she decided that she was a big girl and that she was going to feed herself these foods. She would let up fill the spoon, but then she would take it and put the food in her mouth. She was then very reluctant to give back the spoon for more filling so we then had two spoons.

Eating this way isn't the tidiest as you can see by the pictures.

Our next aim is to get her to eat chunks of veges. She will eat chunks of meat and fruit, but at the moment she still prefers her veges to be mashed.

1st Haircut

We took Charlotte to Mr Raymonds today to get her first haircut. Well tidy up really. not much was taken off, but the fringe and side were tidied up. She looks very smart now.

How cool is this - the hairdresser that did her first haircut was the same hairdresser that did my first haircut.



Here's some piccies:

First Steps

Charlotte took her first steps last Monday 30 July. She did it while we were watching Andrew's live feed to the news. He didn't get to see her take any steps until the next morning. She isn't walking just yet. She prefers to take three or four steps and then dive into the arms of the persons he is walking towards or dive on top of the cat.

We have a had an up and down couple of weeks since Charlotte's birthday. We had dad's 60th on the 28th. He had a party down at the Spa which was great. He had an awesome band that formed just for the party. We got home at 1am and the band played another set after we left.

For dad's birthday we got him a framed family protrait. We had some professional photos taken. I have scanned a few for you to look at.

Between Charlotte and Dad's birthday we attended a funeral of a very close family friend.

Last weekend we had the Vester's come and stay. I think Ollie and Charlotte liked each other. I know that they liked each others toys.

Charlotte and I have both had a tummy bug this week which hasn't been that great. Not much fun being sick and trying to look after a sick child as well.

Andrew had a good a couple of weeks work. He spent four days this week and three days last week covering an abuse story for the news. The little girl died last Friday so he has been covering her funeral as well. It has meant that he has been crossing live to the news which has been exciting for us to watch.

Here are the photos that we got taken - if you would like copies of some of them Yvonne let us know and we can get some for you. They haven't scanned that well.

Charlotte's 1st Birthday

Friday was Charlotte's 1st birthday. She had a great day - she went to daycare as normal and they made a huge fuss of her. They made her a card and a birthday crown which she got to wear at mealtimes. They also did a collage of photos to put in her profile book.

Sam, Brooke and their flatmate Dean came around after work and they gave Charlotte a TMX tickle me Elmo. She was scared of it on Friday, but now loves it. She laughs back at Elmo.

On Sunday she had her birthday party with the other coffee group babies. Aeriell made an awesome train cake for the babies.

Here are a few photos from her birthday:

Reading her birthday card from Mike and Ange

Playing with bubbles at the birthday party

The awesome birthday cake

Blowing out the candles

Opening Presents

Playing on her swing (birthday present from us)

A busy few weeks

Well what a busy few weeks we have had. We had our holiday in Auckland a few weeks ago. We took Charlotte to the Zoo and Kelly Traltons. She loved the zoo, but at Kelly Traltons she was more interested in running her hand along the carpet on the wall than looking at the fish. We had to come home earlier than expected as Charlotte got sick again! This time she had a chest infection and ear infections. So we didn't get to catch up with anyone sorry.
She has a bad mummy her took her to watch uncle Sam race at the track. It was a miserable day and She hadn't quite gotten over her Croup - bad mummy.

Last weekend we went up to Waiuku for Alia's 21st on Saturday night. I think Charlotte really enjoyed herself. It was really good to catch up with Warwick and Katrina also. Unfortunately Charlotte started vomiting, so at 3am when we had run out of spare bedding and were onto the last set of clothes we packed and drove home. June wasn't a good month health wise for Charlotte.

On a more exciting note - Andrew has had some work recently including shooting a story about the boyracers in Taupo. His brief was to film the public meeting and then interview the organisers and a boy and girl racer. He interviewed Sam for the boy racer and it made it onto the news on Saturday night.

Here is the link to the story: http://tvnz.co.nz/view/video_popup_windows_skin/1210430?bandwidth=128k

We also got a new digital camera about a week ago. I have put some of my favourites up on our tickle website.

Only 16 more days until someone turns 1.

What Dad and Daughter get up to while Mum is at work

This is what I cam home to yesterday afternoon. What the photo doesn't show very clearly is that Charlotte is very orange around the mouth from the flavouring of the twisties she was helping her dad eat.

And this is a picture of Charlotte and Andrew sleeping last Friday morning after a long night of coughing.

Croup

Charlotte's virus turned into Croup on Thursday night. She had an ok sleep on Thursday night, but by Friday it was terrible. She was prescribed some steroids form the doctor to help keep her throat open and she spent Friday afternoon and night sleeping on us as she cried as soon as she was put down to bed.

She was starting to feel a bit better by Saturday afternoon and then on Saturday nights he lost her voice. It was soo cute as she knew that she sounded funny so she kept making hissing noises.

She is a lot better now, just has a bit of a croaky voice. She went back to daycare on Monday and had a blast. She was very happy to be back after a week away.

Well I can hear her stirring, so had better go.

More teeth

I just had a look in Charlotte's mouth while putting her down to bed and yet another tooth has popped through. That makes 6 now. Three on the top and three on the bottom.

Charlotte got a fever on Monday and at 11pm we ended up in the emergency room of the hospital because it had gotten to almost 40 and wasn't coming down. There wasn't much they could do for her, so after a thorough examination we were sent home and just told to watch her. We gave her a sponge bath and let her crawl around without her nappy on and eventually it started to drop. We finally get her to sleep at 2am. I must say it was a very long day at work yesterday with only 5 hours sleep. I was very pleased that today was my day off.
She had a great sleep after finally getting to sleep and her and Andrew didn't get out of bed until 9.30am. She was a bit unsettled yesterday, but today she is bright as a button.

We have just come home from feeding the ducks down by the lake. We have found a nice little bay over by Acacia Bay where the Ducks aren't too evil.

Only two more weeks until our holiday in Auckland. We are planning on taking Charlotte back to the zoo. Hopefully she will be awake this time. We thought that we would also take her to Kelly Tarltons.

Biker Chick

This was one of the toys we bought with the voucher I won last year and it has been sitting in Charlottes wardrobe waiting for her to be big enough for it. Andrew decided to try her out on it today. She thinks it is great but can only go backwards at the moment. No doubt she will master going forwards soon.

An obsession with fire

Charlotte just loves to watch us light the fire. She looks around us to see the flames. So it is a good thing her Poppa made her a fort knox fire guard to go around the fire. The touched the gas fire at Granny and Poppa's the other day while it was going and she hasn't been near it again. it didn't burn her, but I think it was hot enough to give her a fright.

Well it was back to the doctors today for her last Menz B jab. She was great. Screamed as it went it, but got over that very quickly. She had great fun entertaining the oldies in the waiting room afterwards. We had to stay for 10 minutes after just to make sure that she had no reaction. She doesn't need jabs again until October and then none until she she is four - YAY.



Charlotte is having great week and has been in the best mood. When we got to daycare on Monday to pick her up, she was sitting with the other children on the mat watching the very hungry caterpillar being read to them. She looked so cute.

Not a good week

Poor Charlotte is teething and this time they are actually popping through. She is getting her top middle teeth, but the eye tooth on the right has made an appearance under her gum as well and I am sure that is the tooth that is giving her grief.



We ended up at the doctors on Wednesday afternoon (after I had spent an hour at the dentist getting fillings). Charlotte also has a cold and we thought that we should also get her ears checked out. They were a bit pink, but not infected.



Sam was going to babysit for us last night, while we went to see a play that the local production group put on. But as Charlotte had been having a bad week and not settling well, Andrew stayed home with her and Laurie my pregnant friend from work came instead. Murphy's law Charlotte was an angel and went to sleep easily and slept until 7.30 this morning. Sam would have been able to handle it.



Charlotte made me a mothers day card at Daycare yesterday - I will try to scan it and post a picture of it for you to see. We are having the big extended family lunch at mum and dads tomorrow for mothers day. It will be the first mothers day without Nana.



Andrew had a job in Reporoa yesterday filming the Prime Minister opening the new canteen at their school. His footage made two news items as they got him to interview her about another current issue in New Zealand at the same time. He has had a bit of work the last couple of weeks. Last week he attended another fatal accident and then he had two days filming at Wairakei International Golf course for a golf show.



Next weekend I am off to Wellington for Guides. It's going to be my first time away from Charlotte. I am really not looking forward to leaving Charlotte.



Here a few photo of Charlotte coming back in the front door this morning:

Charlotte pulling herself up - take 2

Here is another go at putting it on this site:

Charlotte pulling herself up

I haven't quite got this video clip thing worked out yet - but here is a link to the movie of Charlotte pulling herself up onto the coffee table:

http://s194.photobucket.com/albums/z271/mbleakley/?action=view&current=MOV01549-1.flv

We have a new toy and it was FREE

Now that Charlotte is crawling very confidently, she has started to explore. Andrew was doing the dishes on Thursday and he hadn't heard in a while. He called out 'Charlotte' and up popped this head outside the kitchen window. Yes she has managed to crawl right out the front door.

So with Charlotte going through this exploring stage we decided she needed a toy that would help. So we got her a box. Gizmo fell in love with it right away, it took Charlotte a few minutes to decide whether she liked it or not.

For more pictures of Charlotte in her box see the tickle website:

http://www.tickle.co.nz/photos/Michelleb

A photo

Woohoo - now I've worked out how to put a photo on as well.

My First Entry

Well, this is my first attempt at this so I will make it short just in case I lose it. We (I) have decided to start this Blog so that we can keep Yvonne updated on how Charlotte is doing and put some narration to the photos that we post.