October - Early December 2001

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

We wish all our friends and family a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful time in 2002!

This will of course be a very special time for us as it will be our darling Lydia's very first Christmas! She will be a little over nine months old by then, and her crawling, (which she is just starting to get the hang of now) should be proficient enough for her to get a good hold of all the interesting and shiny things around the bottom of the Christmas tree and put them in her mouth!

 

We are looking forward to celebrating Christmas with our family and friends, before going out on the boat for several days with Glyn and Noleine at Great Barrier Island. I am looking forward to enjoying a spot of fishing, and Brent will hopefully get to fit in a dive or two. Meanwhile Lydia is relishing the thought of being spoilt with the attention of her Nana and Grandad!
The Backyard Challenge!

Brent has spent the last month of weekends embarking on the challenging project of building a boardwalk pathway through our steep and bushy backyard, which will eventually connect to the council pathway that runs along the lower end of our section. This path leads to the tennis courts opposite Smith and Davies (Brent's parent's work), and Brent is building the boardwalk wide enough so that I can wheel Lydias stroller along it! The pathway will zigzag a few times down the slope, and once this project is done we can move on to deciding what we will do with the gardens etc that are down there - will be a few years work, but we both enjoy doing it, and we look forward to completing each stage.


The loation for the start of the boardwalk (before)
Brent has taken to this project with great gusto, so far he has completed over 12 metres of the boardwalk, and he is now focusing on completing the front connecting area which will include an extended deck from the garage (where I can come through with the stroller) and stairs leading down from the upper side deck of the house. My contribution has been to transplant any small native trees that are in the way, which I have planted in a temporary "nursery" where they will stay until the pathway is completed.

Our biggest challenge has been the weather, which lately tends to be fine all week then rain most of the weekend!!!


(after)
The Tyler-Davies Family Tree

Now that I have officially (and reluctantly!) resigned from my job at WestpacTrust I am now a full-time Mum! While this job in itself is hectic, I have found the time while Lydia sleeps to finally work on the family tree (an interest I have had for years) - and I have found it very rewarding to have something like this to keep my mind active and to have an interest that is quite distinct from parenting!

I have spent a lot of time over the past few months putting together the Tyler-Davies/Simpson side of Lydia's Family Tree.


Above: Magdelena Lederer with her son Joseph Bayer and his family

A few months ago I attended an open day for the NZ Genealogy Society at their local office which turned out to be located just blocks from our home! I was surprised at how easy it was to locate and request copies of birth, death and marriage certificates for all the relatives who were born, died and/or married in New Zealand. The information contained in these documents allowed me to go back several generations further than we currently had!

Then I collected all the old letters, photos etc which Brents family and relatives had in store, and transcribed/scanned the contents into the Family Tree. From these, and stories recounted by several relatives, I have now produced a comprehensive Family Tree "book" which contains information, stories and photos on each of Lydia's direct ancestors going as far back as the 1700's (I am now beginning to put together as much as I can in a similar fashion on the Bowmaker side, however this will be more difficult as the old relatives with the stories and photos are living in Australia (or further abroad!) - but we'll see what can be achieved!). Over the next few months I will update my family tree section of this website with all of this new information - and I'll let the Tyler-Davies and Simpson family members know when this is done.

I'll certainly remain pretty busy in the months ahead!

Above: The Price Family


Above: David Tyler Davies with his children Alun and Eirlys

Lydia's progress over the past few months

Lydia reached the big milestone on 30 November of starting to crawl!

Her mum was wildly excited of course and immediately rang her dad and grandparents! Lydia's confidence has increased over the past few days as her mobility continues to increase. She still prefers to stand, and pulls herself up to standing whenever she can! She is getting increasingly more steady on her feet now and likes to stand while playing for quite long periods. This mobility is of course making Lydia a much happier girl (she was getting very frustrated before she could get where/what she wanted) and her parents are now busy getting the house crawler-proofed!

On the down side, Lydia has unfortunately been experiencing a mystery problem (for several weeks now) of vomiting (a lot) at most once or twice a day. There is no time pattern, and it not related to particular foods. Her blood and urine tests have not revealed a cause, so she has been referred to a paediatrician for assessment, who she will see later in December. The good news is that Lydia seems her normal happy self the rest of the time, and she is still gaining weight quite well, so it doesn't seem to be affecting her too badly. Fingers crossed that we'll get to the bottom of it fairly soon!

Lydia is still a very chatty baby - loves her voice! She really enjoys being read her books at night before bed and loves to touch the books and help turn the pages / lift the flaps! She already has a favourite book which she makes us read to her again at the end! She has a great sleeping routine which makes planning appointments etc much easier for her mum! She still sleeps for 10 hours at night and up to four hours during the day (2 hours from 10am and another 2 hours from 3pm).

She's a great baby who is fitting in well with us and giving us much delight with her laughs and smiles and her funny antics!

 

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