So...getting ready for another birth day!

Our house is full of the paraphernalia involved in welcoming a new little soul when waterbirth is the plan.

Both the other two were "planned" waterbirths and arrived solidly on firm land, so we wait and see what this little one has in mind...but while we wait we have all sorts of preparations on the go.

The kids and I read a lovely book called Hello Baby! by Jenni Overend

We also did something called an "undress rehearsal" where we time how long it takes to set everything up and make sure everything is working as it should...considering Evie's speedy arrival we want to make sure that we get everything done as soon as possible this time, so we made sure to do our rehearsal as soon as we picked up the pool.

The kids also enjoyed the excitement!

Checking the pool is good to go

Yip, it's all good in here Mom, you can climb in!

And cause I never get photos of me with the kids, I took advantage of the situation to get the Dad to snap a few of us.

And just a snap of the corner which will be my focal point during labour, in case we don't get one on the day :)

We're all ready to meet you our little water baby!!!

Someone turned 2!

We had a littler person turn 2 not so long ago...just ask her, she'll proudly tell you how old she is now :)

First we had a little get together with some friends at a nice little place where we could spread out a blanket, relax and play on the fun equipment.

We took along some cupcakes to share and had a lovely time, thank you to our friends who came along.
Our little 2 year old!
Then the next day was the real deal and we got to open a whole bunch of presents, and our birthday girl wasn't the only excited one!
Showing mom what we got
I wonder what's in this one?

Oh yay, the latest Studio Ghibli movie!!!

And this one looks like...

...a pretty dress for Bella!

Oooh, here's a big one...

Unwrapping presents is hard work!

It's a kitchen!

A book - my favourite!

Time for cake and singing
...and blooooooow!
Yummy cake
And a present from The Aunt!
Putting the new sink to good use after our tea party!

So...Pirate Party Time

These pics are a little overdue but we've had pc troubles for a little bit so hopefully I'll be forgiven.


We had a party for Bear a few weeks after his actual birthday and despite the weather's best effort to put a dampener on things the party turned out a rip roaring success.


Here's a couple pics of the day!

Our first buddy arrives

The sweet table

The rest of the food

The cake

The party packs

The pirate ship

Time to sing happy birthday
Recovering from the torture with a hug from Mom
That's better!
Blowing out the candles
Deciding who gets what off the top of the cake
Yummy!

A few of the adults

So...Cowboys and their ladies

The other day the the two decided to play dress up and the chosen theme was "cowboy" and "pretty girl"...oh how I giggled when they came back looking like this!

So...a budding photographer?

Bear has been enjoying his new leappad and getting to grips with everything it can do.

He's even found a spot where his sister can't bug him!

We recently hooked up the leappad to the laptop and downloaded all the stuff he's been busy with and lo and behold we found all these lovely photos...well at least I think they aren't too bad at all :)

This was one of the very first ones, I love the toes in the photo :)
Dad & Evie relaxing
Dad being silly
Grumpy & Noni
Say cheese Mom!
And Dad too!

And I love this one most

So...and then he turned 4!

Everything happens all at once in our family, we get Christmas and everyone's birthday over and done with in about the space of 6 or so weeks!

But first on the list is our Bear who turned 4 this year to our amazement and disbelief. Surely it was just the other day when he was just a squalling newborn in our arms?
He has grown beyond belief and in some ways seems so very big already, but he's still just our little baby boy!

For the most part we let him decide what he wanted to do on his birthday, and he decided some balloons were in order, so we all set about blowing some up.

Then it was time for presents
He got a really cool magnifying glass on a stand

Some more of his favourite rattlesnake egg magnets

A Lectron Junior (which has been a big hit)

But the big gift of the day was his Leappad!

Dad showed him the basics

And that was about all he did for the rest of the day :)

A little mischief helped me bake a cake...or should I say helped eat all the cake batter and icing.

And she used the time while her brother was preoccupied to check out some of his presents in peace. First she set off to find a bug...

Aha, got one!
Taking a good long look
WOW!!!

Then we put the cake together, I started baking with no real ideas beside instruction from Bear that he wanted a chocolate cake and he likes pirates...aye aye Captain! I finally ended up with it looking like this

And once the icing and finishing touches had been done!

Bear seemed pleased so that was good enough for me :)

However while we were singing happy birthday someone demanded that we put a stop to the racket!

Can you say flashback? Here we are a year ago being told the same thing...lol

Unfortunately some people get really upset by out of tune singing...sorry my beautiful boy!