To Find A Silver Lining

Thursday 20th January 2011 Today Button and I had a fun day, - unfortunately I didn't take any photos, which seems such a shame now; but I have no doubt it'll happen again, and maybe next time I'll remember to take some pictures! This morning after her first small sleep (ggrrrr), we popped outside as we could hear the neighbours boys playing in our Playhouse... so she smiled and cooed while I had a quick chat, then went in search of their respective Mums! Found them both inside their part of the house (for those unaware - we 'share' a LARGE house with two other families, we have the completely self-contained 3 bedroom house out the back known as 'The West Wing', and the other two families share 'the big house' with 9 bedrooms), so invited Button and myself over for morning tea with them. Yum - Nicol had made some divine chocolate chip cookies the day before, so it was worth pushing my way in *grin*!!!!! Button got grizzly after only being up 1.5

Tuesday 18th January 2011 So I thought I would share our 'at home summer holiday' with you all, but as it was quiet - rather than bore you with minute details that you probably wouldn't want to know or care about, I'd share some photos instead... hmmm, I be thinking this is a good time to practise my linking also! Please note - anything highlighted and underlined is a link to a previous post on my blog :-)! So holidays started for us on December 22nd when Mr.C finished work early and my parents arrived for 5 days... It was Button's first Christmas and we were hosting Mr. C's family for the first time. Button's First Christmas We were also finally able to get curtains up in Button's room with the help of both my Mother-In-Law and my Mum also... it is starting to look more like the baby's room that I had envisioned now. Christmas Curtains After my parents left, we managed to get some quality family time in with a few hours down at the Botanica

Tuesday 18th January 2011 Do you like the new look? It's to go with my new year theme - 'Always Look on the Bright Side of Life'... needed something bright and cheerful to greet me, remind me to focus on the good stuff! Talking of that - you're welcome to keep me accountable! Now that I have committed to staying positive this year, feel free to remind me of that if you feel one of my blog entries is not following this! Of course there'll be times where my posts will not be quite so bright, as that is life - but gentle reminders to look beyond whatever the issue is that I am blogging on about, are welcome! Elizabeth  

Welcoming in 2011... Tuesday 18 January 2011 Ahhh - the sound of peace! My baby is transitioning from three sleeps down to two sleeps... this has meant that by late afternoon she is beside herself with exhaustion, and over the weekend she never even got to eat her dinner; let alone have a bath. So I went back to giving her a dream feed, to make sure she made it through the night, between that and the excessive heat - poor baby probably needed the extra feed! Yesterday we managed to get dinner into her, she scoffed it down... and she got a BATH, yay - she LOVES her bath and I am sure she was missing it! So I decided to try and hold her out a little longer between sleeps today, in the hopes that by going down a little later,  they last a little longer and - thus making it easier on her at the end of the day. However, I fear I kept her up a little TOO long this time! She normally handles two hours, and if we're out she copes with three hours between sleeps... so I managed to keep h

Tuesday 18th January 2011 Do not judge! Everyone has their weaknesses... mine is hot toast with melted butter, loaded with peanut butter and apricot jam. YYYYYUUUUUMMMMM - oh yeah!!!!! And the reason for comfort food: Crappy weather... And it's not that I mind the rain and wind today (although I am sure I will be OVER it by tomorrow *grin*), but it just feels like the kind of day you want to be eating comfort food, and doing very little... maybe reading a good book, watching a good movie (blogging on the computer!) or curled up with your little treasure - who is currently asleep, yay!  That's my take on the day... Elizabeth

Hmmm - having never put a video up on here before, I can only hope this will work! This is not a good video of her, but Blogger wouldn't let me upload the slightly bigger one I wanted to put up... Anyway - the point is, this was taken January 7th, and it was the first time we'd seen her attempting the next step to crawling (up on hands and knees rocking) in public. Both Mr. C and I have caught her 'practicing' it in her cot however - so we knew it wasn't far off! She managed to go backwards yesterday for the first time (almost fell off the stairs), but no forward movement as of yet... however, even now she is much stronger and when she 'head butts' the carpet, she just pushes herself back up. Won't be long and our entire lives will never be the same!!!! Elizabeth

Thursday 13th January 2011 * For our beautiful country * For the opportunity to live in our wonderful home * For the 5 acres of land surrounding us * For my little family * For glorious sunsets Taken at the exact same spot, only a few seconds apart - difference is the mode on the camera in which I took each photo... one was on 'Dusk/Dawn' (top one) and the other on 'Sunset'. The 'Sunset' mode is definitely more accurate regarding colour, as tonight it was fiery orange - hence why I took the photos; not even a hint of pink! Love it, Elizabeth

Thursday 13th January 2011 We took our first trip to the zoo this past Monday, but came to the conclusion that Button really is still too young to appreciate it... I had thought that personally, but she does have an extreme fascination with the animals around our place (of which there are many), and Mr. C was SO excited to be able to take her these holidays - that I figured it wouldn't hurt, and maybe we'd have a nice family outing! Oh yeah right, I forgot that it is MY daughter we're talking about here... the child who 'just knows' instinctively when we are trying to go out, and just doesn't sleep, or doesn't behave - just doesn't do anything that she is supposed to! Anyone else have this issue, or is it just a 'me and Button' thing here?!? The day before she had slept - had a perfect day when it came to sleeping in fact, given us nearly 3 hours altogether, and had gone down super quick and super easily each time. But not that day... nope, sle

Sunday 9th January 2011 CHRISTMAS CURTAINS Do you remember me lamenting over the fact that Button had to have blankets and towels hanging over her windows? The cream curtains to the left actually have three towels pinned underneath it...   The afternoon sun shines straight into her bedroom - not only making it light like 3pm in the afternoon at 7pm, but it made it unbearably hot and stuffy also... not that the blanket and towels helped with the heat, but it made a significant difference to the light! This has meant we have managed to get her into some good habits (sometimes anyway) of going to sleep at a reasonable hour (e.g. going down to bed at 7pm, even if she doesn't fall asleep for a while), rather than keeping us on our toes until 10pm!!!! I hated the fact we had her room looking like a dark dungeon, and during the day we couldn't open the windows or curtains and let fresh air and light in for her... it really did not look like a baby's room, nor was it very invi

NOT JUST A FACE... Sunday 9th January 2011 http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10697897 Quad bikes claim another farmer By  Edward Gay 5:30 AM Wednesday Jan 5, 2011 Photo taken by me at my Dad's 70th in March 2010  (Couldn't upload the photo the paper used) A farmer has been killed in a quad bike crash on his sheep, beef and stud farm near Wairoa, in the northern Hawkes Bay. Kevin David Knauf died when his quad bike rolled 40m down a steep bank on his 2000ha station Tangiwai on Monday afternoon. It is understood the 59-year-old had been working stock by himself when the accident happened. It was only when he failed to return home that night that a relative went to look for him and discovered the crash. The Lowe Corporation Rescue Helicopter arrived too late to help him. Jon Knauf last night described his father as a much loved husband, father and father-in-law of four and grandfather of seven. Alastair Milne told the   Herald   he met Mr Knauf