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 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…

First Wave: Caught on Film

After sneaking out of the tent to spy on the horses near our home base, Claire looked up and to my surprise, she waved at me!  I waved back and she did it again for the camera!  I was very excited and proud of my special baby girl.  She's growing up so fast right now! 
 
On December 1st, she cut her first tooth!  It took me about 10 shots to actually capture this one, hence only part of her face!

The out takes:







As this 9th month has been so huge on her development, add to the list proper crawling (perhaps the below seen horse was the best motivation to crawl!) & her first pulling up to stand!  Its been amazing to me to see she and Chloe standing next to one another....it makes me realize just how close in age they are. 
  
Happy New Year everyone!  Looking forward to sharing the coming year's milestones with you, too!

New Year's Day at the Rodeo

We've been taking every opportunity to enjoy the great outdoors over the Christmas holiday's and thankfully the weather has been cooperating pretty well. We were able to enjoy a great BBQ on the lawn with our mates last night for New Year's eve.  We did the countdown to 2009 at 9:30 - yes, we're old.  And have toddlers.  But, Kim and I did stay up 'til ~12:30 after all so I guess we still have a vestige of youth in us yet (Kim does).
This morning we drove north ~1.5 hrs (traffic was surprisingly horrific - see the last post for more details) to Warkworth (a 45min drive) for the New Year's Day Rodeo!  We all had a great time.  It seemed to be an authentic replica of Texicana if you ask me.  There was red, white and blue stuff, Texas Star stuff, Justin boots store stuff, Garth Brooks and George Straight music.  In fact, on the way to the rodeo we were trying to think of rodeo songs.  I thought of Rhinestone Cowboy by Glen Campbell, but I only knew one line from it.  Kim had a vague recollection of a Garth Brooks song about a rodeo but couldn't think of it.  Then, as we arrived to the rodeo that Garth song was playing.  It goes, 'it's boots and chaps and cowboy hats, it's spurs and a lot of gold...etc., and they call it a rodeo'.  I'd say there were about 1,100 people there.  I was a little surprised that it didn't seem to have it's own Kiwi flavor to it.  Or maybe some Aussie taint on it.  Maybe there's only so many ways to do a rodeo.  We did sing the NZ anthem, at least.  Here are the pictures:




There was also some iced cream.

And Claire's FIRST iced cream! 

Lastly, people aren't fat here because their iced cream is messed up.  It's kinda like Dairy Queen soft serve, which is good, but is it real iced cream?

Nov. 20, 2008 - An Historic Day for the Grammer family!

I got a call at work at about 11:30.  My boss and I were comparing the stimulus artifact from our stimulator on some recently purchased amplifiers and our old workhorse amplifier.  It was Kim and she was excited.  She put Chloe on the phone and I heard her tell Chloe to 'tell daddy what you just did'.  I waited... then it came, 'TT on the potty'.  Chloe went tt on the potty! 
                             
Kim has been so awesome with this potty training stuff.  She reads heaps about baby stuff and, in regard to potty training, she agrees with the philosophy that babies need to reach a degree of readiness before potty training begins, then they become easily trainable.  I think you can mess a kid up if you freak them out on the potty training scene.  Kim is a wise momma. 

And it's been like opening the floodgates.  Chloe is going tt on the potty all the time now (we expect poos on the potty soon) She went tt on the potty 3 times that first day.  In fact, there was so much 'tt' going around that we had another first on the same day!  Claire said her first word, 'TT'! 

We have since captured Claire repeating her first word on video and will be releasing it later this year as part of a box set.  She is reaching developmental milestones almost daily now.  We are having such a great time!  These babies are awesome geniuses.  And FUN.
God's blessings are better than anything imaginable.  Thank you, God!

firsts

Our first Anzac day - Australia and New Zealand Army Corps. It's equivalent to Memorial day in the U.S. We chilled out. We walked down to a cafe for a leisurely breakfast then spent the rest of the morning running an errand. On our errand, we met a bloke who's traveled a bit in the states. He spent time in Washington state and Wisconsin and he kept going on about how great Wisconsin was. It was shocking. It really impacted me that someone could live in a fairly beautiful country like NZ (the ugliest part of NZ is a million times better than the fairest Wisconsin dairy farm) and pine for the Midwest. He said it was the people that had impressed him, he wants to go back but apparently it's hard to get a U.S. green card (from NZ?). I tried to sell him mine. But, I'm almost getting off topic. Somehow Kentucky Fried Chicken came up in the conversation, in mostly derogatory terms. Kim and I have lived here for almost a year and haven't patronized the KFC. I don't know what it was but after our conversation with this bloke, Dave, we drove straight to KFC. After that we had to find a park to eat our KFC because this is Kim's tradition. You eat KFC at the park. Now we're getting to another first (the real reason for this blog entry). Chloe decided today she would eat her first chip (french fry). Ok, I encouraged her. We documented it.


Exploratory nibbling



This stuff's pretty good..(note skytower in background)









the carnage... and..

the victorious gladiator.





















Another thing, the service at the KFC drive-in was some of the best I've ever enjoyed in all my dining experience - it was like ordering from your sweet, dear, loving grandmother. It was totally pleasant.

So Mature!

"Milk is for beginners, but solid food is for the mature..." Hebrews 5:11 (Message version)

I think she liked it. What do you think? I imagine this is the first of many expressions meant to indicate how she feels about certain foods!

Chloe's Latest Trick

I like to call her "Big Stander."

Chloe's First Ocean Swim!

Chloe's first trip to the ocean occured one thursday two weeks ago. Providing an adventure for her might be the only thing that would get me to set foot in the less than luke-warm waters of the Pacific. I would say, though, that the water was warmer than the water in California! Yeah! And, Chloe loved it, too! She's definitely a water baby....maybe she'll be a surfer like her Daddy!

Better Than the Movies

Mike and I braved our way to dinner and a movie last night, Chloe in tote. It was her first movie. If you've heard anything about the film or seen it you know there are phases to a magic trick. First you make something disappear, but the real part of the trick is making it reappear again. The reappearance is called, "The prestige." Well, Chloe seems to have this act down pat. During the previews, she cleverly made her voice disappear, but just as the theater got silent and the title of the film appeared on the screen, Chloe's voice made its reappearance with a boisterous, "Wha, whaaaaaa!" She claimed the prestige and all its glory. However, the audience did not react with applause, and she was quickly ushered offstage! Though it wasn't part of the act, we were able to get her voice to disappear again without missing any of the film. She actually slept through the whole thing. After the movie, I was so excited to see her again. It made me think of those times in life when a movie is really good and coming back to reality is disappointing. This time, though, when the movie was over, even though it was a really good film, as I walked down Broadway with my husband and my daughter, I realized that life right now is so much better than the movies.

The Roll Over: ~10 Weeks

Lest anyone miss out on Chloe's first's, here's the roll over! Well, so this isn't the ACTUAL first one, but let me tell ya, it looks very similar and in actuality was about her third go at the trick! Now that she knows this trick, she rarely stays on her stomach for any length of time. I am oh so proud of her and am sure she achieved it because of all the neuromuscular facilitation we've been working on in our spare time (smile)!


 

Baby's First Bath

Chloe loved her first bath! I think she thought she was back in the womb! She even tried to sneak sips of bath water! Afterwards, we snugged her up in her new robe, given to her by her Aunt Julie & Uncle Chris.