I bought Theo a kickstand for his bike yesterday  $15 from the bike shop, nothing really.  But he's been banging on about a kickstand for weeks, every since he got good at riding his bike it's just something he's desperately wanted.  I think it's because my bike, Beth's bike and Sarah's bike all have one, he felt like he was missing out having to lie his bike down.   Anyway, he's super happy now.  Yesterday morning Sarah went fishing with Adrian on Blackfoot, Beth went to Church with Grandma so it was just Theo and I.  I took him to Anderson Park and we did a few laps around, he rode his bike to get practise and I jogged behind him to encourage him and for exercise.  He doesn't need much encouragement now though, he's really good and he really enjoys it.  Still very, very wobbly but Sarah reminded me that...

Theo has suddenly gone on a rampage wanting to learn to ride his bike (sans training wheels).  Not sure what's prompted it, maybe the boys at school talking about it, seeing other kids riding, or the fact that Beth rode up to school the other day while he was on his scooter.  Either way, suddenly on the weekend just gone he declared that was it, it wanted to "give it another go" which is a sharp change of tune from "No thanks I don't want to" when we've been asking him if he'd like to have another go riding.

Sunday he really got into it, he got out there on his bike and did circles around in the driveway, over and over.  And the thing was, he fell down.  Quite a few times.  But even though the peddles knocked his legs, or he got a scrapped knee or hand, he...

So the 11th of Feb was, as it always is, Sarah's Birthday.  And it just so happened that was when we had dental appointments booked in (automatically) by the dental clinic, so I took the kids up for their appointment.  Beth was first and it seemed to take a lot longer than I was expecting.  The Dentist was also worried Beth was going to inhale one of her super wobbly teeth, so she put some cream on it to try and numb it but all that did was greatly upset Beth.  And didn't seem to numb it at all.  Anyway once the Dentist cracked out the tool that takes a photo of teeth, I knew something was up.  Even when she was taking a photo I was thinking to myself "Hmmmm that looks like there's a big hole in that tooth".  Next it was Theo's turn and his examination was...

So winding back to the 22nd Feb (Happy Birthday Dad!) - We took the Dog to the Vet to get his shots updated, well Beth and I took him, Theo didn't want to come.  Beth accidentally banged her head really badly getting out of the car on the car door, poor thing, but the excitement of taking Biscuit to the vet soon overcame that.  Biscuit was fine, he's lost 2kg since his last visit which is really good, he was a tiny bit overflab last time.  We put this down to the fact it was lockdown, I/we didn't go out and do a real lot of running/exercise and we were always at home dropping him bits of food, left over sandwiches the kids didn't finish etc.  So he got a lot of extra food and not a lot of extra exercise to make up for it.  These days he's the...

Oh man. I'd just typed up half a story then I clicked the wrong thing in my browser and lost it all.  Damnit!  Oh well, time to start again... Here we got.  What's the haps I hear you screaming, desperate to know what we've been up to the last couple of weeks.  Well really, not a lot.  We're both back to work, the kids have been at School's Out which they both seem to be enjoying.  We were a bit worried that Theo might not like it, but he got stuck in straight away without a care in the world.  It helped of course to have his sister there with him to look after him, and the fact the first thing he saw was a big car tower to play with also eased the transition.  It's good that it's been easy for them both, Beth was always a bit hesitant...

Last weekend we did some Bike Riding training with Theo.  He's so scared to ride his bike with the training wheels off, so we though to meet up with Grandma at Anderson Park and she could ride her new e-bike around next to Beth on her bike.  Sarah and I spent an hour with Theo encouraging him to ride without his training wheels.  He was very scared and nervous at first, but with some encouragement and flat out bribery (you ride back and forth 5 times and you can get a treat from The Warehouse) and he did a really good job!  Right at the very end, on his last ride, he stopped and tipped over on the grass.  Which would have been perfectly fine except the poor tacker put his hand onto a flower that had a bee on it, which promptly stung him.  SCREAMING and tears, the poor...

Well here we are already, the first post of 2021.  I'm going to wind back to Christmas Day and go from there.

The kids woke up super early on Christmas Day, as expected.  It was about 6am I think I heard all the banging of jumping off the bunk beds at the Bach, giggling and excitement.  I managed to get out to the lounge just as they were looking at what Santa had left and were about to start tearing everything open.  I stopped them and they waited, pretty patiently for everyone else to get up.

Once we all awake, presents were opened and ooohs and ahhhss were exclaimed.

Presents:

Beth Got:

• Unicorn Vet set
• A collar for Charlie
• Jellybean Bamboozled
• Holy a small puppy
• String to play games with
• Hairties
• Chocolate Bath Bomb
• Socks with her face on them (and Rainbows)

Theo Got:

• Helicopter Transpormer
• Bakugan Battle Area and...