Happy 2nd Birthday Carter!

Over a month since the last post: slack! But we have a good excuse, having just returned from a 10 night holiday, where we drove(!) up to Mooloolaba. I'll post more about that later (with photos), but today is a very special day - Carter's second birthday. Two whole years since his birth; it's hard to believe as it has gone so very fast.

He is now talking amazingly well, easily stringing together at least six words. It is much easier to understand what he wants, and the result is he is less frustrated as we are more responsive to his needs (which is generally Mum, Mum and Mum).

We had a morning tea with family for his birthday and it was a huge success. Mum made a fantastic cake that looked like an archaeological dig with stegosaurus bones buried in chocolate cake - she is so clever! He got heaps of presents (not surprising!) and spent most of the time outside playing as we are having a beautiful spring day (currently 17 deg).

Australia's next MotoGP champion?!

Dinesaw - ROWR!

The two boys

Trash 'N' Treasure

Today I took my two boys to Trash 'N' Treasure, just like my Dad took his two boys over thirty years ago. They behaved really well, with Carter relaxing in the stroller and Linc never leaving Dad's side. We picked up a couple of new cars for the boys, with Carter lucky enough to get some 'new' dinosaurs for his collection!

Carter is recovering well from his operation, and hasn't had any pain killers today; can't wait until Wednesday when we can take the bandage off and give him a proper shower...!

Carter's operation



Waiting to be admitted (approx 13 kg and 87cm)

Everything went well. Apart from a drip that kept getting blocked, there were no hiccups. It's been a long, stressful day, but Carter is doing remarkably well. He has a bandage that goes around his whole body with gauze covering his belly button. That stays on for a week and he can't have baths or showers for the entire week! He's allowed to play as normal, but we have to keep Linc from jumping on top of him for a few days.



In first stage recovery



In second stage recovery (where he ate and ate and ate!)



Carter's amazing vocabulary

Carter is amazing everyone with his ever expanding vocabulary; he's now saying whole sentences; for example, he says "More cheese please Mummy" and it sounds perfect. He is also fantastic at repeating words, like 'triceratops' which is a mouthful for a kid who is not even two yet! At the moment he loves it when Grandad pretends to be a ghost - although it's a love/hate relationship as he can get a bit frightened if he can't run to Mum or Dad or Nan when the ghost pops his head around the corner! It's just so heartwarming when we put him to bed and he says "Goodnight Mum, love you". And even more touching when Linc goes into his bedroom in the morning and says "Hi Squidge; how you feeling?" to which Carter responds, "Good". It's so nice to see them talk to each other, and even nicer when they play together without fighting and whacking each other!

The year is going very fast, and (thankfully) so is winter; although we have had some beautiful sunny days this week where the kids get outside and do chalk drawings all over the concrete. At the moment we have a stegosaurus, a shark, an octopus, an elephant, fish and the entire alphabet on our patio!

Finally did a photoshopped pic of Carter (edit: added Linc too!), as I took a photo of him with a really interesting look on his face.

General update

Firstly, I acknowledge the long period since the last post; however, there's good reason for that. One word - sickness. Mum's been sick. Dad's been sick. Linc's been sick and Carter...yep, very sick. Carter got pneumonia which luckily responded to the antibiotics and is clearing up very well, but Dad has also been very sick - going on two weeks now - so no energy to do anything on the computer.

So, what else has been happening? Well, Carter is saying an incredible amount of words now - he's able to communicate quite well as to what he wants, so that makes him less frustrated these days! Nan and Grandad are back from Adelaide to help look after the kids while Mum works on Thursdays/Fridays (as Gran is O/S for the next few weeks). They have really noticed how much Carter has grown in the last few months.

His favourite things at the moment are fish and dinosaurs - he just loves it when you draw a fish or dinosaur on his little etcha-sketcha thing. Oh, and in just over two months he'll be two years old. Two Years Old. Unbelievable how time flies. He was booked in for his surgery for his umbilical hernia on 27 June, but we had to postpone it due to his illness - it's now on 25 July... and we're very keen to just get it over and done with!

And Linc - well, he's an incredible little kid - stubborn, cheeky, active (VERY active), talkative (doesn't shut up - ever) and sometimes way too rough with his brother. He's also no longer having day sleeps, although often he still needs one as he gets very 'emotional' at the end of the day! So goodbye to any adult time during the day, although we make sure he has 'quiet' time where he usually lays on the couch and watches his new favourite TV show - Dora and Diego.

Eight weeks to go until our first big family driving holiday to Mooloolabah! How exciting! It's the small glimmer of hope on the horizon that we hold onto for dear life as we battle through yet another freezing cold Canberra winter...okay, it's not that bad, but bring on spring...!

Coast trip

Firstly, Linc's orthoptist appointment went very well, in that they found nothing wrong with his eyes... go figure, but his vision is the last thing they checked at the previous appointment, so he was probably just not concentrating... We're all very relieved for sure.

Unfortunately Carter's umbilical hernia is still present; he will have to have day-surgery to get it fixed but we haven't booked him in just yet... 

We have just come back from three nights at Dalmeny, NSW in a $900k house with absolutely amazing views.  It was nice going to the beach with the kids, but they didn't sleep very well (Linc didn't have a day sleep at all) and both kids woke up way too early each day... this made them quite grumpy at times with Mum still getting over an illness and both of us just tired (we were even in bed by 9.05pm on Saturday night...!)...

View from the dining room (same as the kitchen, lounge room and master bedroom!)

But we saw seals, stingrays and white bellied sea eagles so it was good for the kids to experience those new things. On Sunday we had fish and chips back at the house and watched a storm approach from the ocean, with a beautiful rainbow providing the finishing touches.