We’ve had a busyish week again this week.  And I have some very cute photos (or I think so) of the boys for you all to enjoy. 

Last Wednesday Dale and I shared our very first strawberry. We had half each.  There is another one on the plant just about ready to eat.  On Saturday we also had a cherry tomato each off our very own plants.  There are flowers on the grosse lisse plant so hopefully we wil have some lovely big tomatoes off these plants soon too. 

Our butternut pumpkin plants are going brilliantly too.  They have lots of little runners coming off everywhere and lots of flowers too.  I think the boys will be eating a lot of pumpkin some time soon.

 Unfortunately our chooks, Charlotte, Mary Shelley and Jane haven’t given us any eggs yet.  They are providing Molli with lots of play time though as she runs up to the pen and scares them. 

For mum’s group on Friday we went to the park for lunch.  It was really nice.  The boys had a great time rolling around on the picnic blankets and trying to eat the leaves and dirt.  Anyway, after they had such fun on Friday I put them out on a blanket on Saturday afternoon. 

Here are some of the photos from Saturday. 

On Monday we had a big excursion and went up to Joondalup on the train with Auntie Leonie.  The boys were brilliant and although they didn’t sleep much during the day (about 20 minutes each way on the train) were very well behaved for the whole day.  I think we will go out on the train again when Grandma (mum) is here next week for a visit.

We’ve also started being a little bit more adventurous with food.  Both boys are now eating mash and are having finger food.  Here they are with there very first vegemite sandwiches.   

And have a look at this photo of Zac.  He has taken to rolling himself up in the sheet that I put down on the floor for them to play on.  Only problem is he hasn’t worked out how to get himself out and gets a bit upset when he can’t. 

 D & E & B & Z  

So, to give you a bit of history about how it all came about.  We had some friends from Canberra staying with us in September.  Sue and I were talking (and complaining a little) about how we had never received flowers from our respective partners.  Dale’s comeback was that at least when I got flowers I would know it was significant and would mean more.  Anyway, they left on the Friday morning and on Friday afternoon the doorbell rings and the florist is standing there with a delivery of flowers for me.  They were absolutely gorgeous with lilliums (my favourite) and some roses (see the photo). 

 I was a little confused about who they could be from (silly me) and so had a read of the card.  It said “ Saturday 18th October at sunset, I have booked the celebrant.  Will you and the boys be there?  Love you TTMAB” and so I rang Dale straight away and said yes, we would definitely all be there. 

Then came the major operation of getting it all organised, telling family and keeping it secret from the rest of the world.   The keeping it secret was actually the hardest part.  We made up a number of reasons, fibs, about why Cameron, Robyn and my folks were coming over and how it managed to coincide with our pizza night/housewarming.  It got a bit complicated a few times but we got there. 

So, when most people had got to the house, for the housewarming, Dale got everybody’s attention, and let everybody know what was happening before handing out some maps.  Those that weren’t there yet very quickly knew where they had to go due to the magic of mobile phones.  Everybody headed up to the beach carpark and we locked up the house and hopped in the car to head up as well.  Well, we tried to head up to our wedding, but somebody had parked us in in the driveway (thanks Keith).  After a 100 point turn, and few nudges of the van on the wall of the garage and Keiths car (we think) we managed to get out of the garage and up to our venue.  What a drama, late to our own wedding, I thought that was only meant to be the bride not the whole wedding party. 

Dale’s best friend, Cheralee guessed what was going on, whcih was kind of handy cos she was Dale’s witness and a few people said they thought something was going on, after we made the announcement.  Hindsight is a wonderful thing.  Cameron isn’t actually old enough to be a legal witness but we asked the celebrant to include him and she was able to make us up a separate certificate for him to sign.  The celebrant was great and very helpful and accommodating the whole way through. 

We had a great service and if it was a bit cold and windy I think everybody coped.  We both had the opportunity to say some special words to the other and both of got a bit emotional.  I did mine off the cuff and so forgot half of what I wanted to say but Dale was organised and had his written out. 

All in all a great evening and night and thank you to everybody who was part of it. 

So, that was our big surprise.  Here are a few photos of the event and also some of the boys with there big brother and Grandma (my mum) and Grandad (my dad). 

Enjoy. 

 Here are a couple of photos of the girls. 

 :)

 To tell you the truth a lot has happened and I can’t remember all the little bits and pieces (another reason why I should do this more regularly). 

Both boys are now rolling all the time, including when you put them in there cot to go to sleep.  Zac is sleeping on his tummy quite a lot cos that’s where he falls asleep after rolling all around the cot.  Brock is still sleeping on his back but does enjoy a good roll as well. 

Oh, before I forget, the boys vital statistics are:   Brock is 7.525 kg (16lb 9 oz), 69.7cm long and his head circumference is 47.2 cm.  Zac is 7.220 kg (15lb 14 oz), 68.4cm long and his head circumference is 47.1 cm. 

We all went down to the Rockingham Spring Festival a few weekends ago.  It’s starting to get warm over here so we have bought the boys some hats. 

How cute do they look here!! 

And this was them at the end of walk around. 

They are both being very vocal with a lot of sounds ranging from high pitched squeals and dadada to blah blah and lots of others that are too hard to try and write down. 

We have also tried some finger foods a couple of times.  Zac eats his milk arrowroot biscuits really well but Brock is not so sure about this chewing business.  We have also tried toast with varying success.

We have moved the occasional bath to the big bath.  They love there bath seats (Thank you Nan (Dale’s mum)) and here are a couple of photos of them in there.  I think they love it so much cos they get to sit up and have some support around them.  Yup, they are also both sitting up and staying there when I put them there, for a little while anyway

There is probably loads more but I can’t remember so will just put in some more photos for you all to enjoy.

 And yet again I will try to do this more frequently. 

D & E & B & Z

Well its taken a while to get around to updating the blog but as you would all understand we’ve had quite a it on the last few months.

Since we moved in on 16 August we have gotten so much done around the place but still have so much to do.  The one thing that we still haven’t finished and it seems as though it will take at least six months more - is the unpacking …… where did we get all of this stuff from ??!!

Ther must be still at least a dozen removal boxes in the shed to unpack and heaps of other stuff laying around that we need to find a place for.  Time is the biggest thing that we don’t have, what with the boys and all.

We did sell a bit of stuff on ebay last month which got rid of some gear that we would never use and we really wondered why we had in the first place.  That was good and the few hundred dollars came in very handy as it seems as though we are at Bunnings every weekend buying something else for the yard or the house (we actually refer to Bunnings as ‘church’ because we are there every weekend).

We finished rebuilding the pizza oven and decided that Saturday the 18th of October was a good date to get everyone around for a house warming ………. and wedding.  Yep that’s right we got everyone around thinking that they were coming to a simple house warming and then sprung it on them out of the blue that it was actually a wedding.  The look on peoples faces was priceless - we would be able to relive that moment over and over again, but the person operating the video camera forgot to take the lense cap off …. no names … onya Robyn.   It all went really well.  It was  nothing formal, just some good friends and family, our boys (including Cameron who flew over from Burnie for the weekend) and a celebrant at Warnbro Beach at Sunset.   I know that Enid wants to do a Wedding update so I wont say much more other the night was perfect and I consider myself to be blessed to have three great kids and such a gorgeous wife.

Well back to the house …..

You might recall from a previous update that we bought some floor to ceiling wardrobe doors off ebay a few months ago, well we finally got those installed the weekend before the wedding thanks to the help of Bronko. We have also put up one side of the patio covering the deck and we’ve had a couple of good storms which has tested out our patio building skills out. We have also built the large raised planter boxes which will be Enids vegie gardens and this weekend we have started to build the enclosure for the chooks that Enid wants to get.

There is still heaps to do both inside and out so there will still be a need for quite a few more ‘House’ updates yet …. so stay tuned and thanks for those still interested enough to keep reading.

Cheers

D, E, B & Z     

Again, long time no update, but I seem to be a bit busy these days and it’s not that easy to get on the puter for extended periods anymore.

We had our 8 month check up on Tuesday and the boys current weights etc are Brock 6.7kg (14lb 13 oz), length 68cm and head circumference 45cm.  Zac is 6.5kg, length 66.3cm and head circumference 45.8cm.  They are doing very well.  We are now into 00 for there body suits (but these are always smaller sizes) but still 000 for there normal clothes. 

Dale’s mum came to visit for a couple of weeks and we think we heard Zac say da-da-da.  He has said the same thing a few more times but we are still not 100% sure that that is what he is saying.  Both boys are starting to string syllables together and making more noises than just squealing which is great. 

It seems that we have also managed to drop the dream feed.  The boys are now going to bed about 8pm and sleeping through til about 6ish which is great. Brock seems to have developed a bit of a wind problem again so I am still getting up a few times a night to manage that but we seem to be getting there. 

After seeing the CHN on Tuesday we have also changed the sequence with feeding.  The boys now get solids before the bottle for lunch and dinner.  They both seem to love food, although Brock more so. 

We’ve also got the boys in there car seats and facing forwards.  They seem to really like it and look out the windows as we are driving along.  It does make the loading and unloading of the car process take a bit longer but it feels good to have them sitting up like that. 

Not much else happening but Dale will update you on the house.   

Hope you all enjoy the photos.

 D & E and the boys

I realise that since you all know that we have have moved into the new house that you have all been waiting patiently for this update …. well here it is.

 After an extremely busy two weeks leading up to the move and with the help of some good friends we finally moved in on Saturday 16 August.  Handover was at 11am on Friday 1 August and took place at the offices of Ultimate Homes in Osbourne Park - we are not sure why handover does not take place at the house so that we can check that all of the things that were picked up at the practical completion inspection had been done (some of which were not) - but that is where were told that we had to be.  So we paid the final payment and was handed the keys to our new home.  We did plan to get a photo of the “official handover of the keys” but we all got talking about the boys and forgot - but the following photo is Enid unlocking the front door for the first time as an owner.

The plan was that the painting would take a week, but Kevin and Chris were painting machines and it was all finished by Saturday afternoon.   Being the generous site supervisor that I am, I let Chris and Kevin take Sunday off and they caught the train into Perth and did the touristy thing around town and Kings Park etc.

As the work programme was now a few days ahead of time, we decided to get stuck into building the deck on the Monday and knocked it over in what was a VERY long day.   The deck is 7m x 5m and runs off the back of the house outside bed 1. The photos below are from the start of the day with Kevin doing the setting out, near the end of the day and the following day when it was all finished.  On the Sunday in preparation for the deck going down Dale cement rendered the planter box which the deck butts up too.

The last time that Dale built a deck he nailed it down by hand and it just about killed him (that one was only 5m x 5m).  So this time he invested in hiring a nail gun from Anytime Sales & Hire (Port Kennedy) and was most definitely the best $70 that he had spent in a long time.  Chris took charge of the nail gun like he owned it and kept up an awesome pace (he actually said that he was enjoying using the gun) and we got it all down by sunset.

The floor layers were not due to start until Wednesday but we still had a day up our sleeve and they were able to start on Tuesday.  The following photo’s are of the wood floor finished and the carpet nearly finished in bed 1.  We had the whole house except for bed 1 and the home theatre done in the wood and it looks fantastic.  The guy doing the skirting was very particular as you can see from the detail around the base of the laundry sink.

As we said, we moved in on Saturday 16 August and have spent pretty well every spare moment unpacking and moving things around again and again.  It was only today that we started to unpack the shed (the only thing left from the old house where we stored two thirds of everything that we owned during the build). To give you an idea of how much stuff we had packed in there - there shed is a 7m x 6m double garage and there was only a 50cm wide gap left down the centre of the shed to access things stored at the back. After today, we can now get in there and ’swing a cat’ so to speak.

We don’t want to cut this update short, but we will let the following photo’s show you how much we have done since we moved in.

Note for Dad (Kevin) - we took your advice and planted some lawn rather than geting turf.  You can see in one of the photo’s below that it is starting to come on well.   Also the large sleeper thing in the background of the lawn shot is the bench that the pizza oven will be rebuilt on.

In closing (for now) we would like to thank the following people (and we apologise if we have missed anyone):

Boris & Leonie, The Jones’s, Keith, The Chase’s, The Ogrizeks, Grant (for giving us somewhere to live), Robyn,  Dad Tomes, Chris and our neighbours for their patience.  We are bound to have missed someone and if we have THANKYOU !!!

This update is dedicated to our Sammi who we lost last week.   She was 15 years old and our hope was that she got to move into the new house which she did …… we miss her.  Below is the last photo we have of Sammi (Sammi is the four legged one in the middle) which was taken on the morning that she died.

Cheers

D, E, the Boys, Molli & Rusty (Enid’s dog)

The boys had a bit of a rough last week down at Golden Bay.  We needed to move there cot into our room and they really didn’t like the disturbance.  The first night Dale and I were both up about every hour and after them normally having a dream feed at 10pm and sleeping through til about 6.30 they both had a feed at 3am.  Yup, 3am after being awake, or not settling from about 11.00pm.  Not a fun night.   

After moving into the new house we have put the boys in there own cots.  They have adapted to this remarkably well.  Admittedly I was a bit hesitant to do it but hey have done wonderfully.  In fact they both seem to be sleeping a lot better. 

I haven’t been to weigh the boys for a few weeks but will try to get there soon to update you all.  They have both put on a bit of weight, I’m sure, just not sure how much.  We have continued with trying solids and both boys are getting better at taking them.  The nappies are proof of that!  They both like sweet potato, don’t really like pears and I won’t be giving them banana any time soon again cos the end result was not pretty this afternoon. 

The boys have also started doing more things.  They are sitting up when they are supported and seem to be quite enjoying tummy time now.  Zac is playing with his knees and is almost playing with his toes and both are just about read to roll over from the back to the front. 

Not a very big update but lots of photos for you all to enjoy. 

Just a quick update today.  We had our 4 month follow up appointment at KEMH last Thursday (yes, I know, I’m very slack).  The boys are continuing to grow and they were happy with the progress they have been making noting that even though they are six months old, there corrected age is 4 1/2 months due to them being premature.  I am booked in for some physio appointments up there to help with the physical stuff which is great. 

 So, to update you, Brock is now 6.11 kg (13lb 7 oz) and Zac is now 5.935 kg (13lb 1 oz).  Brock’s length is 61.3cm and Zac’s is 62cm.  And there head circumferences are 44.1cm and 44.6cm respectively.

 We have continued on the yoghurt once a day to try and introduce them to solids.  They are not too crash hot on it but are getting more used to it and eating more each day.  Here’s a couple of photos of each of them after trying it. 

 I have also included a photo I got with them both on the playmat and holding hands.  It’s great to see them finally noticing each other and looking and smiling at things that they do. 

Brock is really pushing himself up using his legs when he’s on his back.  He gets quite frustrated when you belt him in to the bouncer.  It is actually quite hard to belt them up when they are in there sleeping bags so I haven’t been.  Have a look at Mr Houdini (Brock) worming his way out of the bouncer.  And to keep it even I have put a photo in of Zac in the bouncer too. 

Ciao for now

D & E and the boys