Photoshoot

A friend of mine from school, Donna Cooper, has just gotten into professional photography and she did a photoshoot of Josh, it turned out great! I'm so in love with so many of the photos and feel so lucky to have them to treasure. You're awesome Donna!

Here are just a few of the pictures, I haven't even seen them all yet. Josh totally loved it too and was in a really great mood and so it worked out perfectly. My favourite I think is the one of him laughing.

Anyone who is interested let me know and I'll pass on Donna's details to you.

Josh turns 1!

On the day of Josh's actual birthday we (Monique & Isaac, Laura & Reese, Julia, Keelia & Nathan) took him to Butterfly Creek where he went on the train (not for the first time) and for the first time ever (much to Julia's disbelief and disgust at the cotton wool parenting she reckons this shows....) had his first go on a slide! He loved it as you can see.

Of course I was a little sad as well as excited for Josh to be having his birthday. The whole year has gone incredibly fast! Sometimes I look at him and just wonder where my wee little baby has gone!

We also had a family afternoon tea party for Josh at Grandma & Grandad Pointon's where pretty much all the Pointon side of the family came as well as Granma & Granpa Carr. Grandma Wendy had organised him a train cake which was so cool and Josh is right into trains and trucks and cars so it was a hit with him. He says "Draaaaiin.." for Train. He got a wooden train from Granma and Granpa Carr that he can now run around behind the front engine pushing it along. He's gotten really good and can steer it while pushing it too.

Then it was the official Teddy Bears Picnic birthday party that he and his "twin" Abbey shared. They are so cute dressed in their little bear outfits that Jana got sent over for them from the states. Two peas in a pod!

Their party was really fun and it was so cool having our twins share the special occasion together and I really loved sharing/halving the organising with Jana too, who was amazing considering she was also dealing with going in and out of hospital for treatment for a really bad eye infection at the same time. Big thank you to Sam Kilpatrick for taking charge of doing all of the coffees and to Julia for being an awesome waitress and helping me with the baking and decorating the night before! And thank you to everybody else who helped on the day with setting up and cleaning up. Emma Diack decorated their cake for them - well done Emma, you did such an awesome job! Thank you again!

Bit of an update

Josh loves playing with cars and trucks, he goes Brrrrrrrr when he plays with them too! It blows me away cos we didn't even teach him to do that, he just did it all by himself a few weeks ago. Just must be a boy thing I guess! He is nearly 11 months old now, and just the other day it really hit me that he isn't a baby at all anymore, he's a little boy now. Of course, being the sook that I am, this made me a little sad. But he really is, he crawls all around really fast, and pulls himself up onto everything and anything. He even has started climbing a little bit.
In the last week or two he has started every now and then to call me Mummia when he's looking for me or something, and often calls Mike Daddia too, so cute. I call him Bubbia when he does it. He still calls Mika "Ka" and says something that sounds like "Ya Ya" for Taylor, although he hasn't even attempted to say Crystal yet even though he adores her. Often he'll have a go at saying something like Granma if you ask him to and get really close but then won't say it again. He often tries to say Harry "Rarry" which is Granma & Granpa's dog. He says Duck and "kark, kark, kark" for quacking. If he see's a cow he goes "Mmmmmm, Mmmmmm" for mooing. Duck, or Uck for truck. Still Ka, for car as well as Mika. Most often he says "Huh? huh? huh?" when he wants you to do something, look at him or pay attention, or just to join in the conversation. And boy is he a little chatterbox, he just talks away all the time (like his daddy...) in his own little language. Today I was on the computer looking at the screen and he was on my lap and he was talking away and I obviously wasn't paying attention because next thing he's right in front of my face moving his face right up to mine and looking into my eyes trying to get my attention going "Huh? huh? huh?" sooo cute! He understands that Daddy goes off to work in the mornings, and now when Mike comes in before he leaves (usually while Josh is having his morning feed off me) to kiss us goodbye Josh starts to wave because he knows daddy is leaving now. Also he waves when he hears the ute/truck go down the driveway, it's really cute, just lifts his hand and gives a little solemn wave when he hears daddy going. And when daddy gets home, gee, you'd think it was Christmas!
Every day I love our little boy more and more and am so thankful for his precious wee self being in our family.

Solids & Sleep

At the beginning of December we started Josh on solids. He was pretty unimpressed. First we tried breastmilk mixed with baby rice... not a hit. Then it was apples.... not a hit. Then it was Watties fruit salad which he liked and would eat... but not alot and generally with quite a bit of cajoling. Next was pears which he liked too. For awhile he just ate pears and fruit salad while I tried to just get him used to the fact that he needed to eat. I started to introduce other foods too and it has taken ages but he now is pretty good at eating and really good at drinking water out of his sippy cup. What really helped was Reesey came over the other day and was sitting up eating like a pro and I was telling Laura how Josh was so not into solids and said "Here, I'll even give you demo just so you can see for yourself cos it's quite funny too" so off I went to get the rest of the potato pumpkin and beef that Josh had (not...) had for lunch to do the demo, sat him up by Reese so he could see Reese eating and thought surely he won't eat any, especially since we'd just had a go at lunch time not long ago but what do you know? He gobbled the whole lot up! Yep, Laura probably thought I was lying, or at the very least exaggerating! Ha! Anyway... it's all good and since then he has been much better. Here is a little video of Josh and his Daddy at dinner time tonight. My favourite thing is the gummy/sniffy little laughing he does too and I'm glad we got in on video in this little clip.

A couple of weeks after we introduced solids we also decided that getting Josh to sleep at night needed to be addressed as we'd (I'd...) gotten into a bad habit of cuddling Josh in the evenings until he fell asleep, which was ok at first (yeah.. yeah.. I'm a sooky mummy and should never have done it in the first place but I loved it and who knows whether I'll get to have another bubba or not so I'm enjoying every minute I can!) as it was pretty quick and then he was off out for the night (or until his next feed at least) but just before Christmas it started to get ridiculous and a couple of times he was up until like 10pm because he'd just gotten too alert and then overtired etc. And we knew this couldn't continue. He'd never been a really early evening to bed baby but 10pm was getting too late. Anyway after 3 HORRIBLE HORRIBLE HORRIBLE evenings of screaming and me going in intermittently to cuddle/settle him he finally got it and started to cry less and less until finally he went to sleep happily around 7 - 7.30pm without even a cry at all... for a few days... now we are back to big crying again most nights. And I hate it! So does Mike. And what's even worse is that since he started this "self settling" in the evenings, with the exception of the 1st night of the 3 HORRIBLE nights, when he slept soundly from 9pm-ish (after huge crying must have worn him out) until 5am, he has begun to sleep very lightly all evening and wakes at nearly any slightly loud or sudden sound (ie. dishes being done, shower turning on, a bit of cutlery dropping, a creaky floorboard etc) we make until we go to bed or even sometimes wakes even if there is no noise and often goes through the whole crying thing again! Argh! And even worse than that - he is waking so often through the night all night every night that I'm half considering going back to the old way of cuddling him off to sleep to see if he stops all this wakefulness! I even took him to the doctor the other day to make sure he is ok and not allergic to any food or something, but he's fine. And to be honest I don't really think that is the problem at all, I'm guessing it must be teething because he has no teeth yet and is 7.5 months old so they must be pushing their way up surely! We're going to get an amber teething necklace for him and see if that helps. Anyway I'm tired and any of you who feel inclined to pray for me please do! I'm just holding on the the hope that this sleeping part is "just a phase" and will soon be over! But also we wouldn't trade him for the world even with this annoying sleeping bit at the moment because he is such a wonderful, funny and happy little boy and we totally just love him to bits!

Josh's First Christmas!

We hope you all had a lovely Christmas! We did! It's so cool how Christmas is all exciting again when you have a baby to enjoy it with! Our little boy got SO spoilt! Here he is in his clam shell paddling pool/sandpits that he got from Granma and Granpa surrounded by lots of his presents (later on I realised there were some more still in the car). Christmas lasted two days for us which is lucky since we got home on Christmas night after spending the day with first the Sagers and then Smith side of the family (which includes Josh's very special friend and cousin Samuel Lee who despite feeling a bit crook with a cold coming on was being very patient with Josh who was trying to steal all his chocolate money!) and because he was so tired he didn't even get to open his presents from his mummy and daddy before it was time for bed! On Boxing day we got up and did it all over again with the Pointon side of the family. So it was two BIG days for our little boy. We think Josh takes after Julia (who has a great love of presents - although she probably likes giving them more but Josh definitely was loving receiving!) because he knew EXACTLY what to do with them. He was right into it! Ripping the presents open and stuffing the paper in his mouth with a little gleam in his eye! In the end we resorted to giving him his dummy for most of the present opening because he was getting so good at ripping tiny little bits of paper off to chomp on! Ha ha! It's pretty hard to be sure but we reckon his favourite present would have to be the one his daddy picked for him which is a Leapfrog spinning thing that he can sit up and spin himself and when it lands on an animal or a letter the music stops and it says the letter or the animal or makes the animal sound depending which setting it is on, but he got so many awesome presents that he immediately loved when he played with them, like his material books his Nan made for him with the bright pictures and crinkly bits sewn into the pages (and Nan also made two more little orange "Friends" for him which he thought were pretty cool as soon as he saw them - so now Friend is a triplet which is very handy for mummy and daddy who have seen first hand Keelia Grace Hill's attachment to a certain yellow friend called Mr Sleepy who has been lost PLENTY of times resulting in much angst on Keelia's part and agony of the part of whichever adult is in charge at the time!), and his Gloworm that he's been giving cuddles and kisses to ever since. All in all even without all the presents, Christmas this year was one of the best ever in my memory banks. God bless you all at this special time of year!

Hairy Maclary from Donaldson's Dairy!

I thought Hairy Maclary deserved it's own post since Josh loves it so much!

Here are Josh and his Granpa spending some quality time reading together. Josh LOVES Hairy Maclary! It's so cute! He got this book just before he was 4 months old and immediately began to love it. I wrap him up in his wrap and give him his dummy and read to him before naps and bedtime. Within a few days of having the book whenever I'd get to the part in the "Caterwaul Caper" story where it goes "Ro Ro Ro Ro Ro" for the bark belonging to Bottomley Potts Josh would spit out his dummy and laugh. And then he started to laugh just before that bit like he knew it was coming! Soon all I needed to do was turn to the page with Bottomley Potts on it and he'd start to laugh and wriggle around to watch my face make the cat noise and then the barking noise! It was so cute! He still loves all the Hairy Maclary stories and "Caterwaul Caper" is by far his favourite because it's full of dog barks and cat-stuck-up-a-tree noises, but he has stopped laughing at those parts so often now but will still wriggle around to see my face make the noises usually. He also loves the new Lynley Dodd book we got him called "Cats Whiskers" which has four stories about Slinky Malinki and Scarface Claw - but not as much as he loves his Hairy Maclary! I have read Hairy Maclary so many times to Josh now that I know nearly all six of the stories off by heart!

Time Flies!

Wow - time flies! Josh is 5.5 months old now. I can't believe it! He is just getting cuter and more funny every day. He gives big gooby sloppy kisses now, and cuddles and a big "Ahhh.." to go with them sometimes. Josh has now mastered the art of putting his dummy in and out of his mouth by himself. He has rolled from front to back several times a few weeks ago but won't do it again at the moment and from back to front a few times too (just last Friday was the first time for that) but won't do that again either! He's recently discovered his feet and loves playing with them. He also loves his mobile above his bed and his little toy which seems to be called "Friend" (for now at least, he may get a better name later!) that his Nan made for him, after he gives mummy a kiss goodnight he gives Friend a kiss too - soooo cute! And if mummy gives Friend a kiss then that makes Josh laugh his head off. Sometimes I make Friend give the little animals on his mobile a kiss too which cracks him up as well. He has a stacker ring and all the rings do different things like crinkle or if you shake them have a rattle noise etc and on the top of the ring is a dinosaur head which Josh also loves and from very early on he used to smile at it (but not as much as he smiled at his sun smiley face toy which was his first ever favourite thing!). I used to put the dino head in his bed with him too - but it had an unfortunate accident and ended up in the washing machine at one point and now lives back on top of the ring stacker. His favourite thing to do now when he is playing is to be in his exersaucer, he has figured out how all of the toys on it work now and loves to jump up and down in it to make it bang too - typical noisy boy! He loves his green frog toy and his lamaze moose too. His favourite thing ever though is to be read to. He LOVES Hairy Maclary and now Slinky Malinki too, Kapai the Kiwi is a close 3rd! He is just starting to touch Mummy's (or Daddy's) nose, cheeks and chin when you ask him where they are. He is trying really hard to sit up and when he is lying on his back he often looks like he's trying to do stomach crunches but if we do sit him up, after a short time he keels over to the side - but it won't be long now I'm sure. Often when he is on his tummy and something he wants is just out of his reach he pulls his legs up under himself so I don't think it'll be too long before crawling starts - but I'm not encouraging that yet! He still scratches himself alot though so we're still wrapping him up and putting mittens on for sleeping - but if he wants to he can get his hands out of the wrap now and take his mittens off too, but usually doesn't. Here is a little video of Josh with his friend Reese Kilpatrick who is 8 weeks younger. We were looking after Reese while his mummy Laura was having her hair cut and when Josh woke up I put Reese in Josh's cot with him and Josh thought it was fantastic having his friend in there too! He kept looking at Reese and laughing and I somehow managed to get the cutest part on video with them holding hands! I think they look adorable.