Claire’s Second Birthday Party!

We delayed Claire’s birthday celebration this year because Christian was born the week before her birthday and we wouldn’t have been able to celebrate properly.  We also decided to have the party at a venue thinking that the kids might enjoy it more and that we’d leave the clean up to someone else.                 Happy Birthday, Claire!Some bouncy castle… Carousel… Heaps of kids and gourmet hors d’oeuvres… 

  And a baby Goofy birthday cake!!! Also, she chose the dinosaur throne over the princess one.  Her excitement can be seen 2 pictures up.  Olive did a great job encouraging Claire’s candle extinguishment. 

There was some iced cream.And a fun train ride. With some of the most beautiful girls in the world.  Did the party wear Christian and Lucy out?

Three little giraffes

Some recent photos of Christian.

Baby blue might be our family color.

Christian’s first yawn

Quite an auspicious occasion that we were able to document. He’s warming up…just about to yawn… Viola. Look at that!He’s been working so hard. Ok, probably not really his first yawn.  Here he is relaxing after a hard days work in Chloe’s lap. I love her little smile in this picture. 

Christian’s first trip to the beach, proper

We have been to Mission Bay which is like a sidewalk along the sea, even though there is a good deal of sand it’s not really a proper beach, although a proper beach is relative.  Somewhere else, Mission Bay would be THE beach.  Not here.  Here’s what I call ‘the beach’. We took a little bacon and we took some kids full of beans. And that lasted about 10 miles until we got to a cafe. A few cafes and playgrounds later we did make it to Omaha Beach.  Welcome to the beach, Miss Claire. This beach is 80km from Auckland and, in my humble opinion beautiful.  So, it must have been crowded, eh?  Not too many people in this direction… How about the other half of the beach…nope, no one there either. And, the star of the trip?  No pictures, please. Is God’s creation beautiful?

Christian’s First Trip to Ambury Farm

Well, he might have been asleep most of the time, but here’s a picture with him in it (the arrow). We were very excited to see a new horse to replace the previous one that died and there were piglets, too. Chloe looks like she’s herding them. Yeehi, pigs.

The lambs are getting more sheep-like. The little lambs…

Will all the blog posts be, ‘Christian’s first…’ forever?

Yes.  At least for a while.  It’s an easy, descriptive title.  This one is ‘Christian’s first trip to the pool’, although he didn’t get in the water.  We went to Parnell Baths which is a really cool public pool.  I say public pool, but this IS Parnell (said with a snooty accent, Pah’-nell).  They did let us in, in fact, we had the run of the place. The pools (baths) are outdoors (as you can probably tell), heated and salt-water. There are lots of water features.

There are also hot pools (picture not included).  Is that Ariel, the little mermaid? What did young Christian think of all this?  It was a nice place to take a nap.

Claire Reading to Christian

She hasn’t been reading for long, but she’s already showing her baby brother the ropes. Showing Christian how to do it… And him doing it on his own…very exciting. Claire doing some peek-a-boo. And us getting to tell her not to do this because her face might stick that way. Ahhhh, the circle of life and all it’s vindication.

Movies and the Zoo

Well, as often as we do this I still love it.  It’s just neat getting this close to a giraffe. And the sea lion exhibit is cool.

Later that afternoon Chloe and Christian had a good time hanging out and watching Lady and the Tramp.  My favorite part of the movie is when Aunt Sarah arrives with her Siamese cats.  I love that song… ‘there will be a head for you, a tail for me’.

Notice Chloe cuddling Christian’s feet.

  Christian already knows how to make his ‘South Side’ hand jive thing.  ‘Yo, I’m SouthSide and I will pop a cap in you if you don’t bring me my milk.’