| The last few months have been pretty quiet, as we've been busy
coping with our newest addition to the family, and adjusting to our
lives as a family of four! Here's what we've been up to... Emily - our little charmer!!
| Emily (now 5.5 months old) is proving herself to be a delightful baby - offering
huge beaming smiles to everyone she meets and squealing with
delight at every opportunity. She also loves to "talk" (a lot!)
and can chat away to us for quite some time - what we would give
to know what she's thinking! She's quite the little charmer and
stills draws many smiles and flattering comments from strangers
whenever we are out and about - mainly they are surprised by her
alertness and the way she interacts, particularly as she's still
quite petite, so can look younger than she actually is. Her
weight gain has been slow but steady, while she's ahead of the
pack on height, so she's a tall slim baby (much like her Daddy
was, we think). She has been suffering a lot with reflux and
colic, far worse than we experienced with her older sister...
we're not surprised that her weight gain is so slow with the
amount of milk that comes straight back up! She's been seeing a
pediatrician who has been treating the colic very effectively
and neutralising her stomach so the reflux doesn't cause her so
much discomfort. We've now resorted to administering anti-reflux
medicine as well, which we hope will do the trick!
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Emily enjoying her bath
at 5 months old!
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Lydia still adores her little sister - giving
her lots of hugs and kisses and telling her that she's cute etc.
From time to time she's been frustrated at having to share her
toys and her parents' attention, but she gets over it pretty
quickly and the episodes have been few and far between. Emily
certainly loves Lydia back - reserving her biggest beaming
smiles for her. They should make a great team as they get older!
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Our roofing project!
| Unfortunately the time for re-roofing our
house came a couple of years earlier than planned - thanks
to a persistent leak in the lounge room roof which returned
after every roof repair attempt.
We knew the job was going to be quite expensive as we'd
discovered (before we bought the house) that the roof
contained asbestos and would require professional removal -
but the cost escalated dramatically once the workmen came
and viewed the house - it's situation (high on poles on a
sloping section) and structure (numerous sections at
different angles, most quite steep) not only made the job
ridiculously expensive, but also scared virtually everyone
who came to quote away, so we ended up with only one company
who was prepared to do the job - not giving us much
opportunity to bargain for the best price!!! |
BEFORE: Pretty shabby looking after
20 years and numerous repair jobs! |
As Once the full potential cost became clear we decided to
spread the roofing project over a year or two, something
we could do because the roof is in several different
sections. So we proceeded with Stage One of the project
in mid-August, re-roofing the two north-west roofs which
covered our dining, lounge and nursery rooms. This also
included a new external chimney and new guttering on the
old roof above the area being redone (as it previously
didn't have any, resulting in a waterfall falling on the
lower roof!). The new roofing is Coloursteel, in "New
Denim Blue" (a bluish grey colour).
| Because of the asbestos content in
the old roof we had to move out of
the house while the work was being done, so we timed the
job to coincide with Brent's parents' overseas trip, as
they had kindly offered us the use of their house while
they were away. Our dining room was emptied and the
walls and floor covered entirely in plastic (as the
asbestos roof that came off was to all be carried
through this room and out the front door to the
disposal truck) and guard rails were temporarily
installed around the roof line. The old roof was
removed and disposed of in about 3 hours
(there were about a dozen men involved, all wearing
full asbestos-proof suits, the sight of which
apparently alarmed one of our neighbours!). The
whole job took almost 9 days to complete - at which
time we moved back home, and admired the final
result - very smart! It rained constantly over the
next few days, giving the new roof a very good test,
which it passed with flying colours. |
AFTER: Much better!!! |
|
So here's how the house is looking at the completion
of Stage One - definitely half complete (!) but offering
a clear promise of a much smarter-looking house once
it's all finished. Stage Two is to re-roof the rest of
the house (shown top and right in this photo). The
guttering and down-pipes (currently white) will all end
up the same colour as the roof, so they won't be nearly
so obvious.
We'll also be repainting
the deck doors and the top rails on all the decks
either the same colour as the roof or a colour that
coordinates with it. In the longer term, the balusters
and palings on the three decks
that you can see here will all be re-done (they are
pretty weather-beaten and in
two totally different styles at present - the larger
main deck has a particularly fetching plastic green mesh
attached right along the inside as the balusters are too
far apart on their own...). |
So much to do! Never mind, we'll get there in the end, and
the house will look fantastic!!! |
Lydia's progress
Lydia is getting more and more grown-up all the time -
her speech continues to develop all the time (she's
really developing her sentences now), and almost
never stops! She really loves going to crèche - she
still goes two morning a week (Mondays and Fridays). We
go to coffee group every Wednesday morning (which now
involves about eight mothers, eight 2-year-olds and
almost as many babies ranging from newborn to a little
over a year old, so it can get pretty hectic!).
Lydia is now very familiar with the alphabet (upper
and lower-case) and recognises all the numbers up to 12.
She loves dressing up in her fairy dress outfit (with
all the extras like crown, wand etc) and dancing around
her bedroom while Spot or Bananas In Pajamas songs are
playing.
She's showing an early interest in computers which
her father has embraced (!), he has now built her her
own little computer desk which sits in the corner of our
study - Lydia inherited my old computer (as Brent bought
me a new computer for my birthday). She already has a
selection of educational games to play on there - her
favourite so far is her Blues Clues game (she LOVES
Blues Clues!). |
Lydia at creche - way
too busy to say "cheese"!
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| Sonia's weight-loss drive! Unfortunately I
have one of those bodies that gets really huge
during pregnancy... and the weight didn't fall off after Lydia's
birth as I had expected it would (never having had any weight
problems previously in my life)! Then I gained a fair bit more
weight again with Emily's pregnancy. I've been determined to
lose my pregnancy weight as quickly as possible this time around
- ideally down to close to my pre-Lydia weight.
I've been working extremely hard at it, by initiating an
exercise programme where I do a hilly one-hour walk 4 or 5 days
each week (while Lydia is at creche etc, pushing Emily ahead
of me in her mountain buggy) and on days when I don't get to
walk I do an hour-long aerobics video while the girls have their
mid-day nap. The result so far is encouraging - I've lost 10kgs
in 4 months! - and that's without dieting (as I'm still
breastfeeding), just sensible eating... This means I'm now
just back to my pre-Emily weight - I have to lose more though to
get closer to my pre-Lydia weight - another 7 kgs or so and I'll
be happy... but I'm driven to achieve that by the first quarter
of 2004. The exercising does get quite addictive - I am enjoying
it which makes it a lot easier to keep going with it.
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My apologies to my friends who have seen and heard much less from me over this time - the exercising has consumed
every ounce of my 'spare' time and I spend the rest of the day
looking after our girls and catching up with the domestics well
into the night. It's been a
challenge to keep everything going!
I look forward to reaching my goal, so that I can return to a more
balanced and sociable life!
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