What comes before terrible twos?

Emily has been bit by the curiousity bug - she needs to touch and handle everything, even if it's just for a second. There has been a remarkable change in her in the past few days where she just is so interested in everything, especially in the things I am doing and touching - whether I am cooking, typing, reading, or putting on clothes. It is neat to see her so interested, but it can be a little tiring to try to keep up with her swift attention span changing from one thing to the next so rapidly. Bryce had her sitting in the front seat of the car yesterday after his bike race, and she was a maniac with all the buttons and knobs to play with.
She has also taken to wearing her helmet more often, due to the cuteness factor of the panda picture on the front of it. As you can see, she wears it around the house, even when her bike is nowhere near. Bryce is thrilled.





This is Emily and her friend Mia. They are really starting to recognize each other and enjoy playing together. Emily tends to be a little too affectionate though at times and can knock Mia over when she tries to give Mia a kiss/hug/aka rugby tackle.

Newbie, Lorenzo, the Jan project?

Looking for a nickname for the newest addition to the Lorcet clan. Bryce quite likes Newbie, but our friends have a dog named Newbie and it reminds me too much of calling our new baby after a canine! Lorenzo is my pick, but as we don't know (and won't until D-Day) the gender, Lorenzo seems to lean to the masculine side a wee more.

I am excited to be pregnant again, but a little in awe of going through the whole event all over again. Luckily, Emily is such a cutie each day that it reminds me why I am going through the morning sickness, fat tummy, stretch marks and the inevitable "day of pain" once more. Let's just try to remember that I said that this is only for once more.
This is a picture of Lorenzo's lil feet. Awwww..... ;)

We like new skills!

Why is it with kids that you know immediately that you need to go and investigate as soon as they disappear and go quiet?



Oh, and we like things like this written on the ground.

Our beach adventure

After being stuffed up in the house most of the weekend from heaps of rain (except for one super fun cocktail party where Bryce and I actually had a night out together!), Emily and I decided we needed an outdoor adventure on Monday.
Our friends Cheryl and Mia joined us and although our adventure was pretty mild by most standards, it was refreshing to be outside in the sun for a couple of hours. Emily and Mia had fun playing on the beach with the shells, sand and driftwood, until....Emily found her shadow. She was curious and a bit intimidated that she couldn't get away from it, unless she hid in Mommy's shadow, of course.

Em and Mia at the Beach from Candace K on Vimeo.

and here's the pic of Bryce and I on our first date since November (we think?).

Winter Cyclocross

Went along to the start of the winter Cyclocross series today, great fun in the mud. We call this pose - "bring it on, motha nature"

We suited Emily up in her Rain Suit and rubber boots, along with her woolen beanie/"toque" and gloves/"mitts". She was a bit slow to move at first, as I remember being as a young child in all my snowsuit clothing getting prepared for the Canadian outdoors. Em's curiosity and love for puddles overcame the confines of the rubber attire and she explored her surroundings. Unfortunately for her, she fell several times and managed to use her face to brace the fall. She seemed to enjoy "eating dirt" though, which pleased her father and inflated further his dreams for her future as a professional mountain biker. The many spectators of the race, became Emily spectators; and she had a few onlookers and a few cheers after a fall, when Emily was stood up again, fully smiling, amidst the wet mud, on her face.

Bryce decided to do the short race (30 min + a lap, vs 45 min + a lap) as he hadn't been training much and had been sick for the past few weeks. His attempt to "blow it all out" worked and his cold seems to be lessened post-race. He came 2nd in his race, so I think he was pretty happy with his efforts.

The course got slashed with rain the day before the race, so the bikes and riders got covered in mud. Not that seemed to effect the outcome at all. We had hoped to see some muddy carnage with cyclists sliding off their bikes on each corner, but most riders were pretty lucky.


Emily enjoyed watching all the bikes riding together and kept calling out "dada" which is her name for bike. She didn't get much dirtier than this after almost 2 hours in the mud, which was pretty good for the cleanup at the car. What was really cool, was after taking off all of her muddy gear and getting her nice and warm and eating in the back of the car, she cozied right into my down jacket and looked like she was ready to fall asleep. I have always loved being outside, and playing in the cold weather, but the most awesomest thing about doing that is the feeling of warmth you get after you come back inside and get into warm clothing. It was beautiful to watch our daughter learn to appreciate one of the awesome things in life. Next step: introduce hot chocolate and marshmallows to that moment. She will flip.

NYC Bike lane entertainment.

This is too good not to share.

Rain + picnic + 3 toddlers = ADVENTURE

I decided that it might be fun to go for a walk with some friends and have a picnic in the park. What I hadn't envisioned or (maybe more appropriately worded) "forecasted" was the extreme downpour we might encounter on our outing.

Everybody was in the right mood for an adventure in the rain though, and we found a spot in the forest to throw down a tarp and shelter under some trees for our picnic.

Emily playing in the puddles after the rains stopped, which coincidentally ended once we got back to our cars.

We had her rubber boots in the car, but she was in the puddles, up to her ankles before we could switch her shoes for boots. She loved it though, and I think she liked the squishy feeling in her shoes from all the water.

Fun and Friends

Donal and Emily reading a story together.

Emily's new look, fauxhawk with sweet and sour meatball sauce for extra hold.

Emily and Grandy, sharing a joke

Nanny, Grandy and Emily

Old age...

You know you are getting old when...
1) You wear your shirt inside out for most of the day before you notice. And even then, you decide, "meh, it can stay that way".
2) You get really excited to use your new can opener, because it is all ergonomic and magnetic and makes the chore of opening cans a breeze.
3) You enjoy listening to the Solid Gold Hits radio station because the hits of yesterday are all songs you know the lyrics to.

Of course, I am not old yet and am only sensitive to these geriatric indicators because my spouse is getting on in years.

Wednesday fun with Bryce

Here is some video from one of Bryce's Wednesday night rides, riding Ho Chi Ming trail in the Akatarawa hills not far from home. I'm the rider in front of the camera guy for the first half of the descent, (red backpack, white bike), in fact the rider you can see in the frame below.

Thanks to big Peter Woodman-Aldridge for the video.

Meals are getting messier.

My baby girl is growing up so fast. She has decided to wants to start using product in her hair. Ketchup has given some good effect but her use of mayo really brings out her curls.

I thought we were getting past the messy meal time but I was clearly mistaken. Oh, how wrong I was. No pics to add, but I can confirm that I am becoming extremely adept at catching food before it falls from Emily's hands, bringing it under her high chair tray and then slipping it back into her bowl without her looking. I think she thinks our carpet is a cat that needs feeding.

Em's first bike race

At 1 year old it was time for Emily's first bike race. To start the MTB orienteering series there is a "brownie" race, so called because by taking the kids to the race you earn brownie points allowing you to get out to events later in the year!



Map on board, and we were off.



Emily's navigation was top notch, finding good fast lines.





Seemed like Em enjoyed the race, had some good lip vibrating "brrrr" type moments, which is obviously the sound of good fast riding as that's what I've taught her to say when riding fast.



As with all good races, the post finish line feast was a good one.

Adelaide....

We just got back from Kirst and Ant's wedding in Adelaide. We were there for 10 days and had glorious weather at the start of the holiday with some cooler nights and rain near the end. Their wedding was in a little seaside community called Carrickalinga, where we had also rented a bach/cottage with Pam, Andrew, and Quintin. So we got to spend most of the holiday in this little village, walking on the beach every morning, swimming, seeing dolphins swim by - it was excellent. Especially one night, when we were all down at the beach, sipping on a local micro-brewery beer, and watching Ant swim, when Bryce said, "the only thing that could make this more perfect would be if some dolphins swam by", and on cue, three dolphins appeared in the water and gave us a bit of a show.
This picture shows the dolphins that come on command, in Carrickalinga. A beautiful beach.

Here is the sunset that night.

Emily continued to be a good traveller, not letting jetlag affect her too much. She was pretty wriggly from Wellington to Sydney, but was tired out for the next flight (after lots and lots of walking and waving at strangers in the Sydney airport) and slept on Mommy the entire way.
Emily's sticker says "SECURITY SCREENED". Customs was pleased that she was not smuggling anything in through the border, except maybe in the diaper....



Kirstin and Ant had a beautiful wedding. They got married just below the steps to the beach, where Ant proposed to her, and where they spend every other weekend. After the ceremony, they had miniature orders of fish and chips for all the guests to nibble on, before everyone jumped onto the "party bus" to sing songs along with Andrew's guitar on the way to the reception at a winery. Bryce and I had to skip the party bus, so that if Emily couldn't handle the reception, we had an escape route. She was pretty good though, and fell asleep in her stroller beside the head table so Bryce and I were able to enjoy the reception.

The next day we went to Ant's parents house for a brunch, and caught this photo of a spider, that had spun his web above the archway we all walked under (but did not notice until later). This fella is a 'golden orb' (aka 'massive creepy spider').

Pleasingly, we saw no other big spiders on the rest of our trip. We did however, watch snakes get fed, fed kangaroos from our hands and Bryce got a fright from a Tasmanian Devil. However, all those animal encounters were at a wildlife sanctuary and not in the wild. These photos are of the wildlife sanctuary, with our friend April, Nick and Zoe, who is the same age as Emily.


We did go camping though, which allayed our fears about camping with a toddler. She was awesome and slept really well, waking up only once at 4am, but easily appeased with a bottle. It probably helped that Kirst and Ant set us up in camping style with mattresses and duvets ("dooners") in the tent.

(SIDE NOTE: Everything in Adelaide, and maybe Australia is shortened or nicknamed. I figure it must be like people trying to get used to a cockney friend. Kirst said something like "don't worry, we have some dooners for you to camp with, and we will have some snags tonight or maybe a sanga". I was lost. Snags=Sausages, sanga=sandwich. Ah, right. Gotcha.)
This is the view we had in the morning, at our campsite, with the smoke from the fire moving through the stringy bark gum trees.

This is a shot of breakfast that day. We fed like royalty during the whole trip and camping was no exception. I especially liked the wasabi cheese, thick natural yogurt, and alcoholic root beer from the local brewery and the local red wines. Not all together, mind you - oh, and they have dill pickles in Australia, which I missed OH SO MUCH! What a treat. Only went through 3 jars in 10 days. I thought it was best to hold back a bit.


Emily enjoyed living with flatmates. By the end of the week, she was able to look at people when we said their name, and give her toys to the right person when we asked her to walk them over to someone. She is saying more words now, like "Lala - for Pam, "na-na-na" for banana, "ooh" for kangaroo. She is a very friendly little girl, often overly so, where she will go up to strange children and just bend over to kiss them, but it looks more like she is worshiping them. They often don't know what to do, and by the time she is finished her demonstration of love, she has lost interest and is walking off again, leaving the poor boy or girl a bit confused. But nicely so, I'm sure.
Emily really enjoyed having the guitar around and even had a chance to play with it a little with Quintin. She enjoyed watching him play and let her touch the strings.

Here is a photo of Emily, the guitar groupie with Andrew on the front deck of our rented cottage.

Here she is in her new puddle jumpers that Pam and Andrew bought for her birthday. Perfect for camping and getting dirty in.

Great holiday. Loved it. Loved our first true holiday as a family, with a child who could explore, not just sit on your lap and look cute. Although, she still did lots of that too. What I learned? Always take extra food with you, sand does taste good to eat (at least Emily thinks so), children are more adaptable than you think, and if your child won't sleep in the plane - have a glass of wine and patience will blissfully wash over you.

A year has passed....

The Evolution of Laughter from Candace K on Vimeo.

Enjoy!

Making lemons into lemonade...

I am amazed at how skillful these guys are and how they see skating opportunity amidst the destruction of their city.

The house needs a new round of child proofing.

Wow, take a little girls first steps and add 10 days!

Emily walking (first steps plus 10 days) from Candace K on Vimeo.

Stupid product design - Microwaves

In our kitchen the microwave is located under the bench top, perfectly situated at Emily height. Upon trying to use said microwave I discovered the screen showing "child". Was this some warning from the mighty powers within the machine that it was watching us? Was it going to say Adult next, did it know my name? Is this the start of the machines taking over?

Fortunately, it turns out that the microwave was only locked in child proof mode, but how did this happen. Asking all in the house that had a grasp on the English language (ie everyone except the 11 month old) whether they had set the child lock, resulted in negative replies all round.

So who had done this? Little Emily scoots over to check out what daddy is looking at and starts pushing buttons, interestingly the same button repeatedly.

Out comes the owners manual to find out how to set, and more importantly unset the child lock. To set, press the "Start" button three times, to unset, press the "stop" button threes times. Rocket science!

I don't know what the product designers were thinking when that they came up with that inspired keystroke sequence, but it is perfectly clear that they do not have a single child between them. If I have learned one thing in my short time parenting, it is that a child (particularly ours) will press the same button over and over when said button emits a satisfying beep when pressed.

Hopefully she doesn't learn the unset sequence, but I'm not confident in that one.

Walking practice

Little Emily is getting some great walking practice in, and now is not keen to stay sitting on the ground! Who is smiling more, Emily or mum?

This babe was made for walking....

We have been helping Emily walk between Bryce and I for a few weeks now, but until tonight, she has never taken unassisted steps. We were anticipating the first steps anyday now, so we grabbed the camera fortunately at just the right time to record it all.
Enjoy! We sure did.

Emily's first steps from Candace K on Vimeo.

Almost a whole year.

Continuing the theme of taking the monthly image with George the bear; Emily now won't sit still long enough to get the photo. It is the first of the standing images I guess.


Emily hadn't really seen TV until the Christchurch earthquake last month, when we were glued to the evening news trying to comprehend the devastation. Emily had worked out within 30mins that the remote control was the key to this new world and now carries one with her whenever possible.