It's getting muddier

Cross race number two for winter, and it's getting muddier.

It's cyclocross time.

It's winter, and that means cyclocross race season.  Nothing beats racing laps in the mud with your two year old yelling "go daddy".  We need to give her a cow bell at the next race to really get the spectator spirit up.

Go Queen!

The all too popular "Go Queen" chant, sung on the Queen's birthday...

Untitled from Candace K on Vimeo.

Swimming and splashing

Em and Bryce at the pool. I just love the excitement she gets from watching Bryce jump into the pool. Check out her expression and tiptoe pose at 00:24.

Untitled from Candace K on Vimeo.

Queens birthday weekend

First up we headed to Palmy to catch up with Nanny and GG.

We celebrated the Queen's anniversary thing with our British friends Guy, Cheryl and Mia.

What the image below doesn't show is Emily running endless laps of the kitchen, British flag in hand chanting "Go Queen", post desert of course.

Holiday Monday was a good day to get out for a walk to a hut for lunch.  We went into Otaki forks for an "adventure", a loop track walk that has a hut right near the car park. Carrying a 2 year old, plus food, plus a cooker and billy, water and clothes equated to a not insignificant load. Great fun however.

The adventure continues...

 Cameron and his 4 month picture, alongside George the teddy

 Bryce and Guy after a night out in the bush

 Emily and Bryce at the pool

 Emily and Mia exploring the compost heap and Mr. Worm who lives there

Cameron enjoying his nude-y rude-y time

Life lesson #35: No matter how hard you try, the magnetic attraction between a poopy diaper and a baby's foot is too strong to keep apart.

Random images

It's winter and we are not doing much. Have had some fun hanging out with the growing family though.

Life lessons

Life Lesson #256: Never feed a croissant to a child while indoors.

3 months old

Emily and Cam-Jam in their his and hers knitted hoodies from Nanny

Another cute knitted combo from Nanny!

Easter weekend

Although Easter was a few weekends ago, we have some finally got some photos downloaded to post. We had an awesome visit with Mark, Rachel and their cuties Holly (or as Emily says "horsey") and Sarah. We took the girls to an Easter Egg Hunt on the Saturday which they loved; mind you, Bryce was the one who collected more eggs than the amount they were allowed! He didn't know this, however, and had just had fun finding the eggs. We didn't want Emily consuming all the chocolate and going wild later so as we drove away from the egg hunt, I leaned out the window of the car and gave several extra eggs to some kids walking by, who were thrilled! Their parents, needless to say, were not. We happened to see this family again at the local market about 30 min later and the little girl was being told off by her mother for not listening and then was seen lying on the pavement having a bit of a tantrum. Surely I wasn't to blame? He He... The Thorpe tribe arrived on Easter Sunday and we got to visit with all of them through the next few days. It was great to see everyone again, especially considering we had them come from Dunedin, Tauranga, Adelaide and Nelspruit (South Africa)! On Easter Monday, we went to the park for a picnic and ended up staying there most of the day. We even had a casual game of Ultimate Frisbee, which was fun for the adults, but not so much fun for Emily. She couldn't understand why Dad kept running away and yelling out and sometimes diving to the ground. Bryce kept having to tell Emily he was happy and that he was playing a game. I think she started to enjoy it by the end. Emily and Bryce rode the bike from home to get to the picnic on her new bike seat. She sits comfortable on the bike's top tube and enjoys seeing everything. Emily is a bit of a daredevil though and sometimes changes the gears without Bryce or I noticing until she does it, or she takes her hands off the handlebars and just balances. Bryce is thrilled. Cameron and Charli

Easter picnic in the park

Sam and the kids

Bryce and his protege

Emily is 2

On the eve of turning two Emily launched into her biggest tantrum yet, started because the towel after the bath didn't have a hood in the middle for her to wear. Maybe there is something in this "terrible two" thing!


Backing up for "big blow".

Then into yoghurt cake!


Awesome.

The marble game

This post is primarily for Nathan and Kirstina, and all the other engineer type folks.

The marble game, rapidly becoming an Emily favourite. Candace and her brothers spent many hours in their youth out building each other's structures. Candace was recently visiting a teaching friend and spied the game, with one thing leading to another the game was loaned to us.

Early attempts were small, then up to eye level.

Then the boys got involved.

I can't wait too see the structure that would result when Nathan and Kirstina's little boy Zac gets a set like this to "play" with.

Twilight train rides

The end of day light savings always brings the realisation that winter is on it's way, however that also means that great night mountain biking is also on it's way, bonus.

The good folk that run the local Kapiti kids trains put on a twilight session for the end of daylight savings, so off we went. Pajama's on and off to the trains. This is one excited little girl clutching her train ticket.

Good times, and still holding the train ticket.

Happy Birthday Nana!

I thought it would be easier to post this on the blog than trying to email a full video to my Mom. Happy Birthday Nana! We love you very much. Thank you for being the wonderful person that you are.

Happy Birthday Nana! from Candace K on Vimeo.

Em-a-wee is lurnin'...

This is a video of Emily spelling out her name and counting her fingers. She has been getting more confident with her numbers, especially when climbing the stairs. She usually counts up to 13, but only 13, as that is how many stairs we have.

E-M-I-L-Y from Candace K on Vimeo.

As you can see, she struggles with words that have 'L' in them, which makes what she says all the more cuter. Like when she goes to gymnastics and gets excited about the "big tram-po-weeeeen!"

Little Cam Jam hits two months

It's probably more of a celebration for parents as it hopefully heralds the start of a (slightly) more settled period in life. Thinking back, I don't remember Emily's early life being this unsettled and loud, however looking at the cold hard facts, indeed it was. Anyway, little Cameron is 2 months old, yippee!