Liam's 2nd Birthday Party

Showing Grandma my new train set

Opening my pressies!

I LOVE my new Thomas scooter

Cutting the cake

My new keyboard from Grandad and Chae!!

It was Liam's birthday party on the weekend and we all had a fabulous time. There ended up being 32 people there!!! That child has more friends than I do... We were a bit worried about where everyone would go but it all seemed to work out really well, not too crowded. Liam had a great day - not one single meltdown! I was a bit worried that it all might be a bit too much for him but he proved me wrong.

The Masons brought over a Thomas the Tank Engine scooter - Liam couldn't believe his luck. I haven't been able to leave the house without putting it in the back seat of the car!! I am sure he would sleep with it if I let him. Luckily he has a new teddy bear called Oscar for that which would be a bit more comfortable to snuggle up to!

We also had the mother's group joint birthday party for all the kids yesterday at a play centre. So much junk food, so little time. It got quite manic there for a while! Once again Liam did me proud. He is becoming quite the party veteran.

Liam's 2nd Birthday - the day of

Brekky time!

Helping Mummy make the birthday cake

Hey Mum ... I think you need to come and see this ..... there's a big box with trains on it!!

Are you kidding me??!! This is A-MAZING!!

Well I don't know what you're doing for the rest of the day - but I'm sorted!

Weekend at Twin Waters

We had a fabulous long weekend up at Twin Waters. Zane was in Sydney for all of last week, so Liam and I packed up the car on Friday morning and picked him up from the airport on Friday afternoon, then we drove directly up to the villa for some long awaited R&R.


The weather was glorious. About 25 degrees with a light breeze and loads of gorgeous sunshine. It just made us feel happy to be alive!


We did lots of relaxing on our deck, watching the more active holiday-makers navigating the lagoon in their catamarans ....




... meanwhile we did what we do best ..... you guessed it ....




We also caught up with our friends Jason and Juanita for dinner at their local pub .....


and we also went to our local Surf Club for dinner. Here are the boys enjoying a cold bevvie before dinner.


We also did a bit of castle building at home.


On Sunday we headed down to the beach and spent the morning enjoying the balmy sea breezes and building more castles.


Check it out ... does it get any better than this??

Looking north ...

Looking south to Maroochydore ...

Mummy, Liam and bump...

Check out my fort - that'll stop that pesky ocean!

Business as usual

Well the countdown is on ... in just four weeks or so our little family of three will become a family of four! My obstetrician visit last week was all good and the baby has moved out of the breech position so I am back in the running to have a natural labour and delivery (hooray!). I have now finished work and am enjoying being a 'lady of leisure'. Liam is going to school on Thursdays and Fridays giving me some much needed (and enjoyed) time to indulge in some nesting behaviour which I understand is quite normal in the late stages of pregnancy! ... I have overhauled the pantry, the kitchen cupboards, all wardrobes .... and am sorting out clothes, toys etc in anticipation of the new baby's arrival. Fun fun!


I have managed to squeeze in some R&R between all that activity, though. The Friday before last Liam and I went to the museum with Kerrie, Sophie and Toby, and last Friday we met at Chermy for coffee and a chat at my favourite store, Borders.

Mum and Dad might recall the decadent morning we spent there together in April!!! We were a bit more restrained this time.

On Saturday night we had dinner at the Mason's house. Rick made a fabulous roast pork. We pulled the cards out and played gin rummy until very late ... it got quite messy towards the end (for everyone except the pregnant lady, that is). I lost spectacularly (my final score was -99). It appears that I need to be sozzled to succeed at gin rummy. Unfortunately (but lucky for some) I don't have any pictures to embarrass the others in this public domain.


Then on Sunday I met up with my friends Kerryn, Jenni, Rachel, Rachel and Shellea for lunch at Tomato Brothers in Wilston. It was great to catch up with everyone (might be the last time for a while!!).


Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Zane was in the clutches of a near-death hangover experience ... and he had to look after Liam for the afternoon while I enjoyed lunch with my friends! Bad planning, no?


This week Zane is in Sydney and it has been raining on and off all week so our activities have been mostly indoors. We caught up with our mother's group friends at the Everton Park Hotel on Tuesday, and this morning we went to Tiny Tots kinder-gym with Tracey and Samuel. Zane gets back on Friday afternoon and we are going to pick him up from the airport and head directly up the coast to Twin Waters for a long weekend.

Here is one of Liam's creations from a morning of play-doh sculpting ... he's incredibly gifted for his age, don't you think?
OK OK, so maybe I did that one ...... Liam had just as much fun though creating his four-headed monster!
Here's a snap of Liam after getting off the phone from Daddy tonight and getting ready for bed.
Taking Patrick for a burn up the hallway. He's a bit of a rev-head (like father, like son).

So I think we are now all up to date!

Ange xx

Sam's birthday party

Liam and I went to his friend Sam's birthday party last weekend and had a great time (you might remember Sam from previous blogs).

After the party we met up with Brent and Penny and Ann and Ian for lunch at The Norman. They have the best steaks in Brisbane (supposedly). Mine was pretty darn good. Liam spent some much needed quality time catching up with his Grandma, who he doesn't get to see very often.

And Poppy didn't miss out either.

Rockhampton

A couple of weekends ago we went up to Rockhampton to celebrate Mavis (Zane's Grandma's) 90th birthday. There were about 20 who made the trip.

We decided to drive up and make a long weekend of it as Zane was keen to test out his new Hummer on the open road. It's great to travel in, very comfortable.

This is the only photo I have of the Hummer unfortunately (pity about the rubbish bin!)

On our way up we stopped at Moura where Zane's Mum is currently based while her partner Ian drives the big rigs in the mines. We had a lovely afternoon tea at her place and then went to the nearest town, Biloela, and checked into The Palms Motel and had a fantastic dinner there with Ann (Ian had to sleep as he had an early shift).

We hit the road early the next day and arrived in Rocky mid-morning. Unfortunately Liam had picked up a virus and had taken a turn for the worse over night so we were very battle-weary after a long unsettled night (all in the same room). Luckily all that car travel forced him to relax and sleep it off. It was a very nasty bug though and both Zane and I came down with it after we got home. At least that's out of the way before number two arrives!!!

Anyhoo, the lunch was a great success. Mavis is very sharp for her 90 years and still has a wonderful sense of humour. She had the table laughing merrily with her antics. Liam slept through it all in the corner, doped up on a cocktail of Demazin, nurofen and panadol ........

Me, Penny (Brent's g'friend), Lorraine (Zane's aunt), Sarah (cousin), Jacki (step-MIL) and Chae (sister).



Zane put together a really nice photo album for Mavis and she loved it.

We were planning on stopping in Hervey Bay for a night on the way home to do some whale-watching, but with Liam's condition we decided it would be best to drive directly home on the Sunday morning. It was an 8 hour drive but with the Hummer to travel in it was very pleasant. I even got behind the wheel for 3 hours! We stopped for the world-famous crab sandwiches in Miriamvale (highly recommended) and had a quick lunch in Gympie followed by a play at the duck pond park (Zane fondly reminisced about happy childhood afternoons spent there). All in all it was a great weekend.

Lone Pine Sanctuary

We recently visited the Lone Pine Sanctuary which is situated in Brisbane's western suburbs. It was a really good day out. They have loads of wildlife including koalas, kangaroos, various birds, turtles, farmyard animals, etc. It's like Australia Zoo without the "gloss". I would definitely recommend it.


Liam absolutely loved getting up close and personal with the animals.

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Zane's birthday

We had a fairly low-key day for Zane's 34th birthday - unfortunately it fell on a week day so it was business as usual. We did go out for a lovely dinner to Rhubarb Rhubarb, a french restaurant in Wooloowin on the Sat night though (thanks Kez for babysitting). I didn't get any birthday pics but here are a couple of Liam and Daddy reading a bed time book. They love their bed time ritual and it is always a great opportunity to get lots of lovely cuddles from Liam, who won't sit still for five seconds any other time of the day! That pink teddy next to Liam is called Patrick - he is SpongeBob Square Pants' friend. Liam met him for the first time at Dreamworld and they have been best friends ever since. Patrick goes everywhere with us, and does everything with us. He even has to be strapped in when we go for a drive in the car! So I have had lots of practice having two kids already. I must say Patrick is much easier to look after than Liam.

Getting up to mischief

We hosted Mother's Group a couple of weeks ago and the kids discovered the simple delights of a good session of jumping on the bed ... much hilarity and a great workout for all followed!

Sophie and Chae's birthdays

On 9th June Sophie celebrated her 8th birthday and Chae turned 7. We had a lovely morning in the park with Chae and her friends. It rained a bit but it didn't put too much of a damper on things. There was a magic show and some farm yard animals. And of course lots of party food and cake.

Then we headed over to the Masons and had fish'n'chips for lunch. Sophie got loads of fabulous presents including a bike, lucky girl. Kerrie made a very stylish cake. It was a very pleasant afternoon.