December plods on...

We have entered a new stage with our lil girl. One where she no longer stays in the same place you leave her in. In her crib/cot, she is put to bed with her feet touching the end of the cot nicely tucked under her covers; in the morning, she is usually squished up on her side or tummy against the crib bars on the other side of the bed. What she must get up to in the middle of the night would be interesting to watch!
Here is a picture we took of a cute outfit we bought to give to a friend's newborn. Unfortunately, it is even too big for Emily so a newborn would be swimming in it. Good halloween costume, I guess.


This is our 8 1/2 month old daughter playing with matches. We don't see any problem with this.

(just kidding)

Bryce had his big bad birthday (they seem to feel bigger and badder for him as the years keep accumulating) last weekend. Kim and John brought over yummy sangrias to enjoy and make him feel like a young man! Great company and a great night!

8 months old

Emily is 8 months old and has two little buds for teeth on the bottom. They have been buds for about 2 weeks now and we are awaiting the tooth breakthrough where she begins to look like a old bag woman. She is mastering the backwards commando crawl, and can spin 360 degrees on her tummy to get at the toys in her vicinity. Anything outside of that and she just looks at the toy and then looks at you and then looks at the toy, until you can't bear to keep it away from that cute face any longer. She is definitely getting stronger on her legs and just loves standing whenever we hold her.

This is Emily with her friend Mia. Emily really enjoys spending time in the water, whether it is the bath, the pool or the ocean. Anything she can splash in is fine for Em. She is getting more adventurous as well and is keen to move forward onto her tummy to get at things in the water, not realising the implications of going face first into the water. This is still a lesson she has yet to learn. We have had many face first episodes in the water so far, but it's all gonna help her get used to it, I guess. Lots of swallowing water then gasping and choking for a few seconds afterwards.

This pic is of a diaper box we got that has pieces you can punch out to make a car. She likes sitting in it and getting pushed around the lounge. Emily just puts her hands in her lap, like a civilised living room commuter, and just sits back and checks out the scene. No squeals of excitement, no flapping of arms or reaching out for things. It's like she imposes her own "seatbelt rule" and does what every roller coaster operator at Canada's Wonderland implanted into my young teenaged brain - "Keep your head, arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times....and enjoooooy the riiiiiide!"

Daddy-Daughter time

Em and Bryce chilling out

Emily and her friend Mia (right after Mia stopped trying to eat Emily's hair and Emily stopped trying to hit Mia in the head with a tambourine)

Holly and Emily

Holly's Daddy Mark and Holly enjoying the rocking 'elephant'

Clare and Emily after a fun afternoon sampling the food and wine at the local Food Fair

Emily especially enjoyed the white bread pieces that are used for taste testing dips. At least we thought she enjoyed them. About 10 minutes later, she sneezed and several small pieces she ate flew out of her mouth that I thought had been swallowed. Kind of gross, but I seem to be getting over my grossness of fluids that come from my child!

Emily and Bryce cooling off in the river near our house. It has been so hot here lately and just overall beautiful summer weather! A big change from the December's I am used to in Toronto!


And finally, a sequence of photos from Daddy/Emily cuddle time.



I love this shot!

When finger painting goes bad

The sun is shining!

We are really enjoying the spring and it is feeling more like summer is closer every day. It is our first summer as parents and when you are experiencing a first summer with your infant, everything is just a bit more exciting! Emily had a visit to the beach with her friend Mia yesterday (and Mia's parents, Guy and Cheryl), and enjoyed sitting in the water and avoiding the waves with Daddy. Mind you, Bryce didn't really try to avoid any; he was more interested in showing Emily how to body surf the waves.


I think she just enjoyed being along for the ride in Daddy's arms! Bryce is sporting a great cycle tan, courtesy of the ride he took in the morning (although Bryce tends to have a cycle tan most of the year anyway). Bryce and Em had the morning to themselves, and I went out for a ride myself up one of our local hills. So tough, but nice to feel intense muscle work again! Walking with the buggy just doesn't quite get the lactic acid burn we so enjoy!

On Saturday, we visited John and Cushla for the day, along with catching the tail-end of Henry's cricket game. It was nice to see Rob, Rachel, Henry and Charlotte; and Henry and Charlotte really enjoyed playing with Emily. They made her smile all afternoon and sang songs to her if she got a little grumpy which changed her mood around quickly.



Bryce and I have been competing for crazy dreams lately. I seem to be almost over by nightly-nightmare of Em being squished under Bryce in our bed (only have it about 1x a week now!). Bryce, however, had a dream the other night that there was a cashier stand at the bottom of our driveway and he tried to take a pinecone from the yard, but the cashier wouldn't let him go anywhere without paying $2 for it; despite his protests that the pinecone was from HIS yard. I think the lawn is doing his head in, at the moment. Now that we have SUN on our grass and the moss that had overtaken our back yard is dying away, Bryce is now quite aware that he wants his beautiful velvety green lawn back that he had a few years ago.

This picture is of Emily in a gown we found in Bryce's baby stuff, and the plastic teddy bear is his old one as well. They sure made things that last, back then! It is some hardy plastic.

Before and after

We had a stand of 9 pine trees on our neighbours property cut down last month. The trees basically stood between us and the sun for half of the day, and fully blocked the sun from our house during winter.

The view from the deck. The before image doesn't convey the full height of the trees, they were HUGE.



From the back lawn the height of the trees is a bit more apparent. The lawn was full of moss due to being semi-permanently in the shade, a couple of weeks of sun and the moss is dying off fast.



From the side of the house the full height of the trees can be seen, dwarfing the house.


And now all we have is blue sky!

The "shadow" becomes firewood

The past month has seen great change at home. Full details on the before and after shots will come at some point however it's worth noting the work in progress. We've had a stand of 9 huge pine trees cut down on our neighbours property, trees that lay between our house and the sun for most of the year.

The trees were dropped and cut into firewood length rounds by a tree contractor, and the neighbour and Bryce have been doing the hard yards splitting the rounds into firewood using a hydraulic splitter. Two full workdays done and we are about three quarters of the way through the pile.

Then there is the fun task of stacking, well supervised by the house chief.

7 months and growing fast

It's getting harder each month to take this photo lying down, so we've switched to sitting. All is good for a moment before the lack of toys within arms reach means that the "7 months" sign becomes very interesting.

Free time? What is that?

Amidst the craziness of a 6 month old with a cold, volleyball season and having all the titanic trees cut down in our backyard, it has been hard to find time to do much of anything else. Happy to say that Em is on the mend, and weathered her first cold well. I had a minor sad moment after trying getting her back to sleep one night and she was having such a hard time breathing from the coughing and snuffly nose. You really do realize how much they are a part of you when they are sick and you can't take the discomfort away for them.


My volleyball team at the College is doing very well. We have made it into the finals for the top division in Wellington and have been undefeated until now. They are a great bunch of girls who have a lot of energy and spirit, and fantastic skill. It has been amazing seeing them grow and improve for the past 4 years.

I have had my own success in the past week: first, being shortlisted into a group of 3 for the Wellington Coach of the Year for College (highschool) sport, and then second, for actually winning the award and receiving a trophy at an awards ceremony on Sunday.

It was a very exciting night and I was thrilled (and very surprised) to have won above all the other fabulous coaches around Wellington. It was weird, as this year, I have been pregnant, or away from school with Emily, so I hadn't felt like I had done as much as other years for the Volleyball programme. However, the announcer who outlined my accomplishments at the ceremony addressed the past 8 years of work I had put into the Volleyball program at school; so I felt a bit more worthy then!

Bryce is busy being "Head Parent in charge of Bedtime" around here. With my volleyball practices twice a week and games, he has got Emily's bedtime routine down to an art, and enjoys telling me when I get home how he found a new way to settle her, if she wakes up at all.

Emily is becoming more active and really enjoys sitting on her own and taking toys out of containers or boxes. Our little girl is quite the independent player; although she always prefers to go outside and watch what everyone else is doing too. She will be 7 months old this weekend; amazing how fast she is changing!

Our "new" house

Here is a picture from yesterday when John and Cushla came to visit us and see the new addition of sky to our house! We had several MASSIVE pine trees cut down and now we have no enclosure alongside our back fence and no more shade! We have lots of sunlight and our view now encompasses a rural field beside us that is just so much nicer than looking at a wall of trees. We are thrilled with the change; it feels like we have a holiday home now! The extra sun might be a bit harsh in the depth of summer, but it will be so much brighter in winter.

Emily's first swing.

Emily's first ride in a swing from Candace K on Vimeo.

Rotorua and Single Speed World Champs weekend

Last weekend we visited Mark, Rachel and Holly in Rotorua, so that the boys could compete in the World Single Speed Mountain Bike Champs. Basically, 1000 riders, from about 30 countries, who almost all dress up like weirdos and ride 40ish km on bikes with only one gear. Oh, and if they want to take short cuts in the race, there are places to do so, but you must either drink/chug a beer to earn that shortcut, or if you don't drink you have to down a small bottle of concentrated Redbull. You know, pretty standard athletic endeavour!
The boys dressed like horse jockeys. Note the extra effort the boys put into putting horses on their handlebars, and the white women's tights they wore as riding pants. I had thought I might take the tights over from Bryce after a good wash, but as muddy bum bike stains, don't come out very well, I have taken a pass from inheriting the tights. Dirty bum on white pants is not a good look, outside of the bike trails.
From left: Bryce, Joel, Mark and Carl


Emily, the gangsta rapper: "take heed, cuz I'm a lyrical poet; Daddy's hat's on my head, just in case you didn't know it"


Emily, the avid bike race supporter. She even called out at the riders as they went past. It sounded more like "ah yaah, ah yaah yaah, blllbb bbaaah", but I know that means "Go Daddy!"

We were able to crash a family get together that Pam and Andrew had in Turangi on our long drive home; and visited with them for a little bit. It was good to break up the long drive and because we don't get to Tauranga that often, we will take Pam and Andrew time however we can!