Time for an upgrade?!

OK, so I just love these comparisons!  This is just so fun to see.

Here is a picture of Amelia at around 2-3 months of age (when Brandon and Felicia came to visit.)  All snug in her little carrier/carseat....

And here she is just yesterday.  So stinking funny!  I think it's time to get a new car seat, what do you think?!

Out for a stroll...

Just another lazy day with a beautiful baby girl!   It's so much fun to be able to just go out for a walk and let Amelia play.  The weather is improving so we try to be outside a lot more often and I just love watching Amelia learn and discover.  I love watching just how excited she gets when she discovers a leaf or a stick or spots a bird flying through the sky!  I love how her face just lights up when she sees a doggie, I love that she thinks she has to yell while she runs (something I totally remember doing as a child.)  I just love this little girl.  We are so glad she has come into our lives!

This chair says it all after all that running!

Doggie?!!

Yes, I just saw a doggie!!

Playing at the prison, er, park I mean.

Peek-a-boo

Visits from around the world...

So we've noticed there have been quite a few people from around the world checking our blog.  We'd love to know who you are, leave us a little note and tell us what you think.

Family stroll along the beach

This weekend, a friend of ours let us borrow his car.  It was great to have a set of wheels again!  We went to places we can't normally make it to, AND we got to drive to church as a family!  It was great.  

Once we got home from church Amelia had a little nap, and then we decided to go for a stroll along the beach down the road.  It was great to be at the beach as a family again.

Love these!

This was some funky fish we found washed up on shore.  It had a mouthful of teeth and that stick thing coming out of it's head looks like one of those things that lights up.  You know like on Finding Nemo?!

Kim tried to have a nice little picnic, but it was just too cold.  So we packed up and headed back home.  

Always time for a good book!

Most days Sharon and I take the kids out for a walk just to occupy their minds before the rush of dinner, bath, and bed time kicks in.  On this particular day this is kind of what went down:

"Hey Isobel, check it out!  I found a cool book in my pram!  Let's sit down and have a read of it!"

Isobel: "No, we gotta get home and watch Dora in the bath" (which mean, have a bath and then watch Dora the Explorer.) You're taking too long."

So then Amelia just decided to read while she walked the rest of the way home.  And I don't think she put the book down until we walked in the door.

Nappy free time!

Amelia seems to have really sensitive skin, (just like her mom, gotta love that red head complexion!) and so we have been having a LOT of nappy free time lately.  If anyone has any advice on how to cure bad nappy rash, and I mean bad as in bleeding, I would be so grateful to know any family remedies.  Anything at all.  This poor girl!  I feel so bad for her.  I only wish she was older so we could work on the potty training...

This is Amelia's favourite perch out in our back courtyard.

I love this photo.  It's not the best photo of her, but I love the coloring!

(I scored this teeter-totter from a yard sale down the street, I talked the lady down to seven bucks!!  I was so excited and she loves it!)

Priceless!

Here is a fun little time lapse for you.  This first photo was taken when Amelia was about 5 months old.  I took it on my phone and just loved it.  Going back and looking at it now, I can't believe how bald she is!!!  I am glad she is out growing that look of her daddy's!

And here we have the updated photo.  This was taken just last week before Family Home Evening.  Amelia loves to read.  She will always go and get her books and want to sit right in the middle of what you're doing.  I just love it when these two have their bonding moments together!

Brad & Kim...manga style

Okay, so I was inspired by a good friend of mine, Todd Hamilton (congrats on the upcoming wedding, by the way!) who had some FaceYourManga avatars up on his Facebook profile of him and his fiance, and a good friend of Jeremiah Udy's (Kevin Rose, founder of digg.com) who had one he did on his pownce.com profile.

Here's what I came up with (I'm hiding my "baldy-locks" - as Olenslager coined it - behind the orange "Wheaties" hat I always wear:)...and thats Bronte Beach in the background (except its winter, hence my blue Sydney Uni jacket).  Kim just always looks amazing!

(compare with our profile pic in the upper left corner of this blog)

Whaddya think?

Do something today...

I was just reading over the message from President Monson in this months edition of the Ensign and stumbled upon this:

"How fragile life, how certain death.  We do not know when we will be required to leave this mortal existence.  And so I ask, "What are we doing with today?"  If we live only for tomorrow, we'll eventually have a lot of empty yesterdays.  Have we been guilty of declaring, "I've been thinking about making some course corrections in my life.  I plan to take the first step--tomorrow"?  With such thinking, tomorrow is forever.  Such tomorrows rarely come unless we do something about them today."

I love the way President Monson words things.  I truly got caught up in this article and thought about what I am doing with my life.  Do I live my life everyday as if it were my last?  Do I really tell those whom I love how I feel?  Do I cherish the times that I am able to spend with my own little family?  I don't want to miss a moment of it.  And yet, I feel I am guilty of rushing through life and not savouring those precious moments.  They happen everyday and if we're not watching, we're gonna miss them.  I want to make sure I am not a spectator in this life.  I want to play with all my  heart.  I want to grasp every moment and make it count.  We never know what lies around the bend, and I want to make sure I'm ready.

why did they build the Great Wall of China? [VIDEO]

"to keep the rabbits out" (from an Aussie commercial)

The reason why we have kids...

To put them to work!  

Before dinner...

After dinner...

washing your own dishes...

With shoes, or without...

And we're not afraid to enforce it!

New best friend...

After I discovered Amelia talking to herself in the reflection of her bedroom mirror, I found her talking to herself in the oven.  And now this is something that she does anytime I am in the kitchen making dinner or cleaning or anything that she might not be a part of.  I always knew she was a friendly little girl, but I never could have imagined that she was this friendly.

"You sound funny."

I have recently been called into Primary (the youth organization for kids between 3-11 years of age in our church: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints)) and I serve as the Music Leader.  Something I know very little about.  But I have still been having lots of fun none the less.  One thing that always cracks me up is when kids discover that I talk funny.  Here is one conversation I had just last week:

Primary kid: You sound funny.

Me: That's because I come from America.

Primary kid: Oh, I thought you sounded like you were from Africa.

I have also been told by the primary kids that I sound like I'm speaking chinese (Maybe he was excited for the olympics?!)  And adults have told me that I sound Irish, Welsh, Canadian eh, and my favourite, Scottish!!  Must be the red hair mixed with the funny talk.  Maybe I need to work on my fairdinkum Aussie accent a little bit more.  

Cold winter's day.

Girls win!

Well, if you haven't noticed, the girls are winning in the family.  Brad's not nearly as excited about our new look, but I love it!!!  And well, you know what they say, "Ain't mama happy, ain't nobody happy!"

Vroom Vroom!

Just the other day Sharon and I took the kids to an indoor wonderland!  It was great.  They had a bunch of blowup toys, swings, jungle gyms, and padded building blocks that kids can climb all over (and under).  Unfortunately, the only thing Moo Moo ("Amelia" in Isabelese) wanted to play with was the big plastic cars.  They had loads and loads of them.  I'd say at least 10 cars, and all Amelia wanted to do was go from car to car to car.  She wouldn't really drive/push them about, just open the door, get in, sit down for a few minutes, then off to the next car.  How boring is she?!

Out for a walk

Most afternoons we head down to the water to break away from the monotiny of being at home.  Often times we get to see the pelican feeding at the local fisherman's wharf, and often get to see pelican's fighting over food, it's quite a site!  Admittedly that's my favourite part, the kids really couldn't care less.  This is what they prefer to do.

Brave the grass jungle

And see if you can get Moo Moo's to mooooove.  (Moo Moo's is Amelia's new nickname given her by Isobel.)

"Who you telling to mooooove?!"

Beware of those quiet moments...

Ok, so just yesterday morning I was tidying up the house and all of the sudden I noticed that Amelia had gone quiet.  As I walked into the kitchen, this is what I found:

She has always been very interested in the dishwasher and today she managed to open it (it wasn't fully locked) and climb inside.  Isn't it great to be a kid?!

have we met?

Just the other day, I walked into Amelia's room to see what she was up to and I found her having a conversation with herself!  Who would have thought a one year old would be content having a party all by themselves?

This is a face that she has just started pulling and it's so funny!