Xavier's First Birthday

A good time was had by all.

And here's more photos : Click Here

We babysat Xavier today

After a rocky start (we didn't realise he hadn't had his breakfast) we had a lovely day.

Ishbel was main care-giver and did a great job.

Weekend report

The weekend began with RFS training on Friday night. Jamie Neale's dad had invited all those involved in the search and rescue mission to join them at an hotel in Katoomba but Steve, now our Captain, said he had a fun night of training for us instead so along trundled Robbie and I.

And it was a hoot! Somehow our "Ropes and Ladders" training session ended up, not with me adding another knot to my repertoire (of 3), but with us abseiling at Warrimoo in the dark!!! It was alright for Rob, he's been abseiling with the Scouts, but it was a first for me. Steve took some photos and said he'd send them on so I'll load them here and on Flickr when they come through.

Saturday night was Babysit Xavier night, something Ishbel's been counting down to all week. We think things went well enough that we have asked Karen and Dan if we can do it every six weeks or so despite the fact it meant even less sleep than usual for me.

The wee one was quite content during the evening. He thoroughly enjoyed a bath with Ishbel - we'd forgotten about the bath running as we made up his travel cot so it was lovely and deep - but didn't have much milk at bedtime.

We made up the travel cot in Ishbel's room and he went off to sleep really easily. However, around 2:30am he woke up grizzling. A wee cuddle and he went back down but woke up again later. Another cuddle and again off to sleep but again only for a short time. On the third time I gave him another bottle which he polished off in one gulp almost. Then (about 3:45am) he went back to sleep until after 7am.

He'd drunk his morning bottle during the night so he just had yoghurt and toast for breakfast. Same as us really! We were just getting ourselves ready to take Xavier a wee walk when Karen and Dan arrived. She gave him a feed that put him off to sleep! But we walked him up to the shops anyway and he was soon sitting sharing hot choc and a spoon with us.

This afternoon I took Rob out for a driving lesson. It's the first time he's driven a manual car. We've only re-insured the manual Suzuki for the boys; we can't afford to insure both cars for the boys driving, it's about double our normal, and we'd already done the Suzuki before we realised. We just went round and round a couple of loops in the local streets lots and lots of times while he got used to going up and down the gears. It was a bit jerky at times and I ended up feeling somewhat seasick but he mastered the skill pretty well in 30 mins or so.

Then he wanted me to drive him down to Blaxland where he works for McDonalds. He didn't want to have to drive on the Great Western Highway but I said for him to try going along Hawkesbury Road and we'd stop before he got to the highway if he wanted. However, he made it all the way down to Blaxland without a hitch.

Ian is off back to work tomorrow (although he'll have to be off again on Tuesday for a GP appointment). He nearly went back to work last week but stayed home to supervise the kids during the school holidays and anyway his hand has been somewhat sore. It's my turn for a week off this week. We've got Ishbel's mate, Britney coming tomorrow. And lunch with a girlfriend organised on Wednesday and I'll have to see who else I can catch up with . . .

Ian's weekend with Fraser

Ian was up in Queensland for work at the end of last week and spent the weekend WAAAAAY out West at Roma with Nelly, Jono and Fraser. I've added the pics to the Babies folder in Flickr:



You'll just have to look at the lot: Fraser and Xavier from last October

Wet weekend

Sorry we didn't get around to Skyping you over the weekend, Fiona, as usual we were running about at breakneck speed all weekend. Will see what we can do this weekend. Did you have a nice birthday anyway?

Ishbel had arranged for her friend, Ellen, to stay over on Friday night. Ellen is one of my favourite little girls, she's incorrigibly happy, always smiling, but a bit hyper and questions, questions, questions. However, our patience was rewarded and Ishbel disappeared with Ellen to spend Saturday night at her house.

Friday night I left Ian to it with the girls and headed out to book group at Cathy's. We usually meet on the first Friday of the month but Cathy was working that night so we'd changed the day for her. We'd read (some of us anyway - Trish has the distinction of having attended nearly every meeting but never having read ANY of the books - she's doing a PhD and doesn't have time for reading) The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. Cathy always goes all out to create atmosphere when we meet at her house. She was dressed in lacy blouse and lacy, tiered skirt (the book is set in Spain) and had a 'Cemetary of Lost Books' on her sideboard.

We always have a lot of fun and Friday night was no exception. Apart from hearing how Heather had turned the tables on an obscene phone caller, Sharon told us she had an annoying song in her head. The cure for that is to sing Jesus Loves Me - it puts the annoying song out of your head but doesn't stay itself. How does that go? asked someone. So I started to sing it and the others joined in. Sudden silence from Cathy's boys in the next room! We really lost it when Cathy reached in behind the Cemetary of Lost Books and pulled out a picture of Mary and Jesus (or Mary and Joseph) which, at the flick of a switch, had flashing lights going! Cathy's mum had got it from the local convent when it closed down and thought Cathy would like it!

I was up and out early with Jamie on Saturday morning. Jamie was doing a two day Senior First Aid Course up at Firecom in Katoomba. Luckily our friend, Marie, and her son, Rob's mate Leigh, were also doing the course so we were able to arrange for Jamie to go up with them. Rob and I did the same course about this time last year.

During Saturday afternoon (Valentine's Day) I rang Sharon and Janet and Steven to see if they wanted to come round for tea. It's been raining and cold for AGES now and I thought we could do cold weather comfort food like thick soup and steamed pudding. Nobody was free, which was a bit of a fizzer but not long after that I took a call from Cathy Humphries. Cathy (separated, single woman now) offered for the children to come to her for the evening, letting us do something for Valentines. I looked up the showing times for the Ricky Gervais film, Ghost Town, and tried to book us into my favourite restaurant in Katoomba but it was fully booked and I thought it would be a similar story all over so thought we'd just take pot luck after the movie. I didn;t give Robbie any choice, just told him we'd be dropping him off to spend the evening with Cameron and Brendan and Jamie would be able to walk over there from Marie's place when they got back from Katoomba.

The film was great fun. If you haven't seen it already, I highly recommend it. I laughed out loud all the way through and there's a shock at the end where I shouted out loud too. After the movie we crawled through the main street in Katoomba looking for a not overcrowded restaurant or cafe. But it was chucking it down and there was no parking so we then trawled the Mall in Leura. Again no parking. We thought we'd have to just wait until we were back in Faulconbridge or Springwood. We tried Wentworth Falls on our way past. There just happened to be a parking space outside the Chinese restaurant so we thought we'd give it a go - and had one of the nicest Chinese meals I've ever had. And it was a very reasonable price.

Meanwhile the boys had been playing board games with Cameron and Brendan and had also had a good night. We had a cuppa and a serving of sticky date pudding (my favourite) with Cathy before taking them home.

And up early on Sunday again to take Jamie to Marie's. Not me this time - Ian. I stayed in bed trying to finish the book for my other book group. I didn't finish the book but that wasn't too much of a problem, I'd read it a couple of years ago and I got pretty close anyway.

I went to see Xavier. He was awake and playing happily on the floor plaything. When he started to grizzle I picked him up for a play, tired him out and made him grizzle so he was sent to bed. By then it was time to head up through driving rain to Katoomba for book group and back again through cats and dogs stuff afterwards.

Not the weekend round up

Ian is away up in Queensland to help Jono and Nelly with young Fraser. Sounds like they are all having fun.
Meanwhile, Ishbel and I got our baby fix by spending some time cuddling with Xavier. He likes sucking and got a little ratty when he couldn't get his finger in his mouth. At other times he was sleeping and lovely to cuddle.
Ishbel and I were at the bus stop a bit early this morning (she takes the bus from outside the front of the library). Jamie had announced at 10 to 8 this morning that he needed $10 for a calculator for his maths exam today. I had not 10c, never mind $10 so we had to duck up to the shopping centre and raid an ATM. So Ishbel and I were at the bus stop a bit early this morning. We decided to go and get a hot chocolate. Ishbel also conned me into getting her a chocolate freckle too.
Getting to the end of the chocolate freckle, she announced that it had been too chocolatey. She doesn't really like chocolate. What is a girl who doesn't really like chocolate doing having hot chocolate and a chocolate freckle?? Anyway, I didn't even get a little nibble.
The children have all gone back to school this Monday after two weeks holidays. Jamie and Rob went straight into exams - on Monday morning! Didn't have a chance to catch their breaths. Rob finished his last exam this afternoon and was angling for a day off - no way Jose and Jamie will finish tomorrow. There'd not been much evidence of study so the results will be interesting. They have the proper School Certificate exams in two or three weeks (equiv. to the O Grades we did).

Here's Karen's new boy

Xavier Christian Hale

Born : 12 October 2008

Time : 21:52 hrs

Weight : 3.845 kg (8 lb 7 oz)

Length : 54 cm (21.25 in)

Head Circumference : 36.5 cm (14.3 in)

Pictures in the slideshow at the right or via the Flickr site (link above).