It was Beth's actual second birthday yesterday. She seemed to have some understanding that it was a bit of a different day. She got up and was greeted with lovely pancakes that Sarah made, topped with bacon and maple syrup. Neither Dad nor I were complaining it was her birthday either, tasty breakfast! We had a couple of presents opening as well, before Dad had to ruin it all by going to the Dr's for his appointment. Once back we headed to the local petting zoo and ran around there for an hour plus, enjoying feeding the sheep, goats, pigs, alcapas and deer, then playing on the toys including the trampoline and the mini rollercoaster.

Once back it was time for milkies and bed. For everyone! Except Theo didn't really want to go to sleep, in fact he had quite a rough day yesterday, with hardly any sleep at all...

Sunday afternoon we were all keeping a close eye on the weather because it was Beth's Birthday party at the Taradale Park. Thankfully even though the forecase was evil, the weather held out so at 2:30pm we started packing everyone and everything into the car and by 3pm we were pretty much ready to go! Off we went up to the Park, where Holly, Age, Joseph, Isla, Peter and Mary were waiting for us. We found ourselves a nice position near the swings and it was Birthday Party Mode activated!

Photos!

Beth had fun on the swings, Joseph ran around with his soccer ball. Grandpa and Grandad caught up over a beer. I tried to the house photographer, but my skills are pretty average, half the photos I took of the day are blurry or didn't really turn out.

It was time for cake so we got the cake...

My flight back from New Plymouth had to go via Wellington. My flight to New Plymouth had gone via Auckland. I wasn't really paying attention either way. So I was sitting in Wellington having just gotten off my flight and waiting around to fly to Napier, when a shadowy person walked up to the table I was sitting at. I was furiously looking at my phone hoping this person would go away because I was still half asleep having falling asleep on the plan, and well this was my table and I wasn't going to share it. But then they spoke and it was Dad! Yes, his flight to Napier was via Wellington and he'd just gotten in! What a nice surprise, I'm sad to say I was still a bit groggy and tired so really probably didn't seem THAT happy to see him! Poor Dad! Anyway we had a...

Here I am in New Plymouth watching the sun come up over the ocean thing. At least this time I got to see the massive snow covered mountain, it looked awesome. Last time I was here it was wet and miserable, cloudy etc the whole time so I didn't even realise there was a mountain. We (Mark and I) flew in yesterday and we're leaving this afternoon. I spoke to Sarah on the phone last night for a while, she had an OK day yesterday looking after two termites from start to finish. The day before Theo was crazy, all he wanted to do was feed feed feed and when he wasn't feeding he wanted to cry. Probably because on Tuesday he had his first set of injections and they tend to cause a bit of upset for 24 hours after that. Poor little guy. He's growing SO fast, he's...

I got kidnapped on Saturday.
The day started as any other day. Well except it was my birthday. Perhaps it's best to wind back to Friday.
Friday night we had a little Birthday Celebration around at our house. Peter, Mary, Holly, Adrian, Joseph and Isla came. We had a great time, Pizzas from Dominos and then a fantastic Guinness Cake that Sarah cooked. Replete with 39 candles! It was a real effort to blow out, but somehow I managed with about 3 lungfuls. Ugh, getting old, so old.
Adrian reminded me that we'd organised earlier in the week to go to the pub on Saturday for a beer or two, which I'd sort of forgotten about to be honest. Then Peter piped up saying that actually, he couldn't have an afternoon beer because he had stuff on, could we do a bit earlier, say 11am, instead? So I went and...

Little Theo can hardly be called Little anymore. He's put on another 400g in the past 7 days. He is chubbing up to the max! Claire the midwife has handed us off to Plunket, she said she's super happy with his progress and how he's going, so he doesn't need midwife attention anymore. Sarah got Claire a voucher for a local restaurant to say thanks, she's been really good.
So he's doing great, which is excellent news. Beth's really interested in him now, asking after him every morning, can she see him etc. Usually in the morning though he's asleep or feeding.

Had a few messages from Jeremy last night on Viber, he was in St Petersburg, in a McDonalds to get some free Wifi. Glad that he's safe and doing OK, a bit worrying when you haven't heard from someone for a few days.

Man it's cold again this...

Beth slept in until 9am today. That freaked me out a little bit when I woke up about the same time and I realised I hadn't heard from her. It was perfect that she'd slept in for so long though, because we organised with Holly to go to The Railway for lunch, so the fact Beth had had such a big slept meant she was able to cope with being up at 12pm. Usually she'd be in bed by then. Theo of course doesn't mind, as long as he's full of boob milk he's a happy little camper.
So we had a nice lunch, even though it mostly trying to wrangle Beth and Joseph as they ran around the place. Though I'm probably blaming Joseph a bit more than I should, it was mostly Beth was who was the crazy one.
Once we came back we put Beth to bed...

It was a nice Sunday morning today so Sarah, Beth, Theo and I walked up to Orbit for a breakfast meal. Thanks very much Mum and Bill for the Orbit vouchers, we used a couple of them today. After breakfast we stopped in quickly to New World before walking back home. When we got home, Peter was cleaning out the last bits in his shed, and I said I'd help him move a rather heavy metal bench that's in there. One, Two, Three lift move and CRASH BANG HOLY FEK BALLS MY FOOT! Part of the metal benchtop was unbolted, a large metal rod and it dropped from a metre or so onto my foot, which was just wearing my normal boots. Holy hell it hurt a lot, it went numb and then started having werid shooting pains etc. Worried that I might have broken a bone we went to...

Peter, Mary and Sallee (Mum!) came around last night for Dinner and Sarah cooked an awesome Roast Lamb. It was slow cooked so it was super tender and very tasty. When I got home Beth was providing entertainment for everyone by talking about everything. Theo was asleep on Mary. We all had dinner and it was fantastic, Beth seemed to enjoy hers though she seemed to enjoy more applying the Mint Sauce to her arms, face, hair etc. As you do.

I've had two days back at work and they've been pretty good. Not too busy which is nice, just a decent amount of busy. Monday Beth was at daycare, she's got a really horrible runny nose and a cough at the moment. Thankfully Theo doesn't seem to have picked it up, though he is a bit raspy and sneezy but nothing like his big sister. So Sunday night/Monday morning...

Made it to another Friday. Theo has been sleeping well really, we've had a few small rough patches but nothing terrible. The worst thing to happen is that Sarah has been quite sick the last few days with a nasty infection, so that's taking it out of her. And of course with a newborn, you can't just tuck up to sleep to recover, because a little someone still wants feeding every 2-3 hours. So it's been really hard work for her, poor thing. Beth and I drove out to Hastings on Wednesday to see Claire, picking up the antibiotics that Claire had prescribed for her.

Theo seems to be doing really well. He's growing bigger, is a bit more alert, and can go longer stints of sleep. He hates being bathed, at least, he hates being taken OUT of the bath. He screams like you're trying to murder him, though...