Memorial Day Weekend

Today is Memorial Day, so we got to enjoy a long weekend.  It was a great shopping weekend, tons of sales on and we managed to get a few bargains, 40% off all merchandise, add a voucher of 20% off and you get 60% off your entire purchase - now thats successful shopping!   Got to love it!

Yesterday we were invited to Adam and Amy (Ella's parents) for a cook out.  It was just us and another couple, Lauren and Ben, parents to a 2 year old Elenor, and a 10 month old, Josie.  It was so cute watching the babies interact with each other.  So interesting seeing how babies all develop differently. Josie is 10 months, has 7 teeth, crawling, standing and just took 2 steps the other day, apparently compared to Elenor, Josie has caught onto things alot quicker, I guess due to watching her bigger sister.  Ella is 10 months, almost has 4 teeth now, crawling and pulling herself up, then there is Emma 9 months, just today I felt her two bottom teeth (they're just appearing), she's trying to crawl but more interested to pull herself up and stand.

The only photo I have of the 4 babies

When we arrived Ella was still asleep, then Josie and Elenor arrived, Emma was pretty rough with Josie, just grabbing at her arm and pulling her.  Josie didn't like this so crawled away from Emma.  Normally Emma is the one being grabbed and pulled at, so it was funny to see Emma being the "bully".  She's obviously learnt from past experience. 

Stacking blocks

We were stacking blocks for Emma to knock down, but Elenor, being in her terrible 2 stage, walked over and kicked them over.  I restacked, wanting Emma to knock them down and Elenor kicked them again, this went on about 4 times.  Eventually Elenor grew tired of this game and walked away.  So I restacked it one more time for Emma to knock them down and our little monkey chose to use her feet to knock them down instead of her hands.  Rod and I couldn't believe this.  I restacked one more time to see if it was just fluke, and Emma did it again.  Just show this girl something once and she catches on pretty quickly.

Little Ella's top two teeth are coming thru and found Emma a good thing to chew/suck on (still not sure which she was doing).  Ella would bite at Emma's arm, leg and head, Emma would be in her yoga position (legs spread out and head in the middle), almost like she was in a play dead position while Ella "attacked" her.  I jokingly said, "Asian tastes good",  Ben replied with, "yip, but you get hungry again after an hour".
Ella is a really determined little girl, she was holding a container which Emma tried to grab from her, little Ella grabbed on even harder and managed to pull it away from Emma, showing her face of determination, "This is mine!!" and once she got it, she pivoted on her bum and turned her back on Emma. 

So those were just a few things that the kids got up to.  As for us adults we managed to get in some adult conversation, however baby talk always seems to slip in, can't help but to swap stories.  It was a great get together.  One of the topics we spoke about was minivans, for a laugh watch this video of the "Swagger Wagon".

Just taken today,I tried to get a photo of Emma's teeth - this is the best I could get.  Just got to wait a little longer for them to pop out a bit more.  No more gummy smiles from our Em :(

9 Months and counting

123 Wow-Wee!!!  Cam, Cait and Saam-ie would say this and get Emma all excited and it still works.
Our baby is 9 months, just 3 more till she's a year, shew!!
Even tho the months have flown by, thinking back 9 months is quite a long time.
9 month of being a mom and dad to our little girl and she' still thriving, yay for us!! We must be doing something right.

On Monday we went for Emma's 9 month check up and everything is well with her.  Emma is weighing 19lbs (8.6kgs), 28 inches tall and her head circumfrance is 44.5cm.  So definitely growing well.
We're still waiting for her first teeth and for her to crawl.  We've been giving her plenty of floor time, which rolling over is now automatic, and to get to objects she almost screwdrives herself back and forth, and quite easily spins around on her tummy.

Emma has a healthy appetite, eating just about everything we give her.  My home cooking has been going down quite well, opening her mouth for her food even before it's put on the spoon.  I wonder if its guaranteed that if your baby enjoys her food now, she'll always enjoy it and not be a fussy eater?
We've taught Emma to blow her food cold, at times it's more like she's blowing her fringe up in the air.
On Tuesday I gave her, her flute to play with, not thinking she'd know what to do, I told her to blow and she managed to blow a tune.  I think she was just as surprised as I was.  Now her and Justin can start a band.  These two are going to do great things together.

Well I started writing this post yesterday (Wednesday) and didn't get to finish it, since then, just this morning I gave Emma her sippy cup to drink some water, she had been doing pretty well drinking her water, but after blowing her flute she might have got a bit confused,  So after a bit of repitition of telling her to suck and not blow she eventually got it, when she got that bit of water in her mouth it was so funny to see her expression, she just loved it and started laughing.  Funny girl.

Very rarely, do I let Emma sit with me infront of the tv, but this morning I thought I'd catch up on the Idols winner and Emma very easily sat next to me, leaning against me, watched tv and played with her giraffe.  I will say it was such a lovely experience just having her so content to sit there and not budge at all.  I could stroke her head and give her kisses, she wasn't phased at all, reminded me of the days I would let her sleep in my chest.   Special part of my day today.

Guess the developments slow down somewhat, there is such a wide range when things can happen now from the crawling to sitting up, standing up etc.  Every month just seems to get better and better, minus the difficult diaper changes.  Right now we just love how she's understanding things, like when we say Ta and she loosens her grip of her toy, when we're changing her and she's holding a toy in one hand, we'll say Ta other hand and she'll switch hands so we can put her arm through the sleeve, when it's eating time and I have to place the tray on the chair, I say hands up and her hands go up.  Clapping and waving gets a bit confusing for her, she'll hear people clap or cheer or I'll say clap and she'll clap, but when I tell her to wave, she claps too.  Something to work on.  Playtime is great as we get so many giggles out of her, we can do tickles and throw her up in the air, all those fun things.   The words Whoopsie-Daisy gets a few chuckles out of her.  And for the first time today Emma expressed fear.  Our iRobot (robot vacuum cleaner) was cleaning the floors, Emma was terrified and just clung to me, watching the iRobot very closely, cringing as it came closer to her.  Even though I don't want her to be afraid of something like that, which I know she'll get used to it very soon, it was a good feeling knowing she feels secure with her mommy. 

I love this baby so much.

Emma's First Dance Move

So much happening so quickly. We can't get over how quickly Emma catches onto things. This is the rare occassion where we had the video rolling and captured something new for the first time. We just happened to have music playing and told Em to dance, I was shaking my body side to side and no sooner she was copying me.

Roll the ball

This was taken on Thursday afternoon. Emma has been rolling the ball to mom and dad and getting really good at it, she's even able to "catch" it at times - hoping this is a good sign of good hand-eye co-ordination. We managed to capture it on video and what made it so funny was that we brought Bear or "Ba" into the equation which Emma tried to roll. Since then she's tried rolling a variety of objects, but has noticed they don't get as far as a ball.

Last of South Africa

Going through all our photos, makes me realize how much more we actually did in SA.
I'm not going to post about all of it, else I'll never catch up and miss out on all thats happening with Emma.

Instead I selected a few photos and created an album, hoping to tell the story with photos...Rod at a Sharks and Lions Rugby Game, SAB World of Beer Tour, Clints Birthday, Spa Day at Thaba Ya Batswana, dinner at Back of the Moon, days spent at my grandparents place - it made me so happy to see my Kungsy's (grandfather) face light up everytime he saw Emma, special times.

Anyways....here are the rest of our photos.

Highlights of South Africa Part Two

April 24, 2010 - Cameron's 5th Birthday Party

We finally got to celebrate a birthday with Cameron.  I asked Nix if we could have his party early so that we'd at least be there for one of them.  So Nix organised a party at Kid-e-Up, a great venue in Kyalami, that has just about everything you need to entertain kids - jungle gyms, jumping castles, trampolines, ponies, swings, etc etc.We just had to organise the food and treats.  The weather didn't quite co-operate that day, it was one of the coldest days and had rained the night before.  It was predicted to rain the entire day, but thankfully held out for the party.  Kids being kids weren't phased by the cold, still running around outside and enjoying themselves.  Thinking of it, I didn't even see the kids stuffing their faces with sweets because they were too busy playing.  Nix had organised a clown, which was a great idea as it kept the kids indoors for some of the time and they thoroughly enjoyed it.  Emma was even entertained, she was squealing along with all the kids.

Cam really had a great day, from the start he had the biggest smile on his face, you can see it in all the photos.  So glad we got to share this day with him.

More pics of Cam's birthday

April 27, 2010 Ukutula

With the limited time that Rod had in SA we squeezed in as much as we could and tried to see as many people as we could too, with everyone working, getting together with friends and family during the week was tricky.  However the last Tuesday of our holiday was a public holiday.  We decided to ask whoever wanted to join us at Ukutula, a lion park just over an hour from Johannesburg.  There were 15 of us, it was such a unique experience, to be able to see so many lions up close.  I don't know how many lions there were, but there were a lot, from 9 week old lion cubs to adults, cheetahs and tigers too.  Truely amazing.  One of the cheetah's names was Emma.  We were able to milk feed the baby cubs, touch them and even carry them if you wanted to.  That day they had just brought in a buffalo that died giving birth to her calf and fed it to the lions, they also introduced a male lion into the one section of just females, so was interesting to see how they suss each other out.

The lions were really intrigued with the kids, Cameron and Caitlyn would walk up and down and the lions would pace up and down following them.  Emma would be squealing and you would see all the lions sit up and run toward her (you can see this in some of the photos) - can you just imagine if there weren't any fence barriers.  Kind of scary in a way.

The closest that Emma got to the lions were the lion cubs - she almost got to sit on one, that was pretty funny, as the ranger placed her above the lion cub for a photo you just heard everyone gasp.  Emma just wanted to touch them.  These lion cubs were pretty fiesty especially at feeding time, Uncle Roy was the unlucky one to get clawed, but thankfully nothing serious, their claws were pretty mean for such small little things.

Again the weather was cold that day, and thankfully the rain held out, turned out good as the lions were more active.  Definitely a great day and something I would recommend people do if they want to see lions up close.

More of our Ukutula experience

May 9, 2010 - Mother's Day

My First Mother's Day, sometimes I still can't believe I'm a mommy.  It's so special having a baby now and I'm so proud to be a mom.  Pity that Rod wasn't with us to share my first mothers day, but nonetheless it was still a good day.  I got to spend it with my mom, gran, Nix and Rod's mom, so that was special, we all went to Pretoria to have Mothers Day brunch at Aunty Glor.  Eggs, bacon, sausage, fruit, muffins, it was all good.

This time the weather was sunny and beautiful, great weather to be outdoors.  I had battled to put Emma down for a nap, so instead took her downstairs to be with everyone and just aswell, we managed to capture some great shots and Em was in one of her happy, bouncy moods.

Thanks Aunty Glor and Kar for hosting Mothers Day brunch, it was wonderful spending this day with everyone, a great way to end off an awesome holiday in SA.

More of our Mothers Day Photos

Highlights of South Africa Part One

Taking photos is great, being digital even better you can take as many as you want, the part that takes the longest and time consuming is sifting through all of them and picking your favorite ones, doesn't make it easier when you have photos from everyone too.

Slowly slowly getting thru them, finding the one photo where everyone is looking in at the camera - almost impossible.

So I wanted to share some of the highlights of our trip - this is just part of what we did, the rest is still to come.

Click on the links below to see all our photos

April 10, 2010 - Family & Friends Get together

My mom had organised for everyone to come over for tea and meet our little Emma.  Such a great day and so wonderful to see everyone again.  Emma handled the crowd well, didn't hear a peep from her and she just went from arm to arm, not at all phased.

We finally got to meet all the new baba's too, Wendy's Nathan, Pauline's Triplets Kayla, Evan and Noah, Leisel's Connor, Uncle Mike's Daman, so amazing to see all our friends with babies now - the New Generation.  Times like this make you wish the kids could all grow up together. 

Thank you to everyone for coming over that day.

More photos of this day here.

The thought of one day Emma looking at these pics and saying oh look there's so and so, or telling her kids this is uncle/aunt so and so, seems strange.  She'll probably look at the photos the way we look at photos of our parents or grandparents, history repeating itself.

April 13, 2010 - Walter Sisulu Botanical Gardens

Charmaine suggested a day out, so we went picnicking at the Botanical Gardens in Ruimsig area.  I didn't know what to expect of this place, wondering if it'd be safe or clean.  I was pleasantly surprised.  This place was beautiful and so clean, it's gated, so pretty safe.  No trash cans anywhere so you're forced to clean up after yourself (they got something right!).  I would not have thought you'd find a waterfall in this part of town.  Such a nice relaxing day, beautiful sunshine, absolute silence (besides the occassional sounds from the kids), and food provided by woolies (yummy chicken mayo sandwiches). 

Nix surprised me or us (Emma and I) by letting Cam and Cait bunk school to spend the day with us.  Always great spending time with the two monkeys, love doing outdoor activities with them.

Thanks Karch for taking them out of school for the one day and Thanks Charm for organising this day.

 We got some really great shots of this day.

April 18, 2010 - Emma's Baptism

Emma was baptized at my grandmothers church St Andrews in Suideoord by Father Alan. 

Such a special day for our little girl, and even more special that Rod got to share this day with Emma, not only by being there, but by being Baptized with her.

We were fortunate enough to have had a private service for just the family and just aswell, the family took up pretty much the entire church. 

Emma just about lasted the service, but had fun testing the water before being baptized - Father couldn't help but laugh at her, she was intrigued by the flame of the candles - trying to grab it, and couldn't resist eating the baptism leaflet. 

The service was beautiful, we had great weather in the morning, just wish it held out for a little longer so we could have gotten more photos with Rod's family.

Thanks to my mom and Pops for organising the Baptism and Rod's mom & dad for hosting the tea and dinner.

Emma with her Godparents - Sharon, Nicole, Shannon and Clinton

Emma's Great Grandparents (Tai Por and Tai Kung)

More photos we managed to capture.

Home Sweet Home

We’re finally home after a whirlwind trip. The month flew by, and even with the extra week , it still felt too short. It was so great spending time with the family, seeing my grandparents, having Emma spend time with them and getting to know her cousins, all her aunts and uncles, grandparents. So glad we made this trip and had the family see Emma at her cute stage, everyone just loved her and spoilt her, I know everyone is missing her very much right now. Emma continues to see the family on Skype, still shrieks when she sees her cousins – too cute.

So after almost 24 hours of travel time, we made it back in one piece. I’m still a sane mommy, my arms are still attached, hair not pulled out. Turns out that our worst case scenario was a good experience. Definitely thankful that Emma was a cooperative baby. She was full of beans when she needed to be, laughing and smiling at all fellow passengers, cocking her head trying to look at the passenger behind my seat, trying to see the hostesses in the kitchen preparing meals and drinks. What caught me by surprise, Emma was leaning over the chair and I saw her hand go up and give a small wave, the passenger directly opposite us was waving at her. Of course Emma had her moments of crying and being fidgeting, at least they were just short moments. One dose of Gripe water helped settle her a bit in the beginning, after that it was almost as though she were drugged, barely opening her eyes and falling back to sleep if a noise disrupted her, or if I shifted her a bit, I swear I didn’t give her more than 1ml. Just glad she got some good sleep and didn’t keep the rest of the plane awake.  I managed to get some shuteye too at least.

We left on Monday afternoon. After saying I’d be ruthless with my hand luggage and only take the bare essentials I ended up with my pullcase and a fair size tog bag. This tog bag consisting of diapers, toys, blankets, extra clothes, food, toys, bibs, bottles, did I mention toys?? Shan, just so you know, we pretty much rotated through all the toys. The Ergo Baby Carrier worked out well too, freeing my arms and not having to worry about folding and unfolding a stroller, Emma’s weight was still bearable, I was a little worried she would have gotten fidgety, but she did great and loved being in the carrier, bouncing up and down.

I was lucky enough to be seated in the bulkhead section and had an open seat next to me, this definitely helped a lot with leg room and just being able to plonk Emma in the empty seat when I needed to organize myself. Just when I realized the armrest lifted and I could have laid Emma down, we were halfway through our trip and a passenger occupied the seat in Dakar. Thankfully she was kind enough to ask to be moved to give me the extra space, there are some really considerate people out there. The airline staff weren’t extra helpful, but definitely helped out when I needed to be helped.

Emma’s timing of poops were impeccable. She had all day to clear her system, but she chose to wait until just before boarding time, after take off and then in Dakar. The tissues in the toilet were a great distraction for her, she saw them above her head and just started pulling them and tearing them. It helped me out, making diaper change alot easier, can’t say I worried too much about wastage. Also wearing my tshirt with beads proved to be a good distraction too. The gentleman next to the open seat was really sweet with assisting me whenever he could. Emma at times would just look at him and then reach her hand out to his arm. Curious little monkey.

We’ve been home for 7 days now and I think I’m over the jetlag, whereas for Emma I’m not too sure. Right now I’m not sure if she is going through a new phase, or if it’s the time zone change. We’re down to two naps now (apparently this is normal around this age), and at the start of each nap time Emma has gone from calm, placid Emma that just grabs her paci and blankie, rolls over and falls asleep, to a crying, hysterical baby that just doesn’t want to go to sleep. She’s also been waking up in the middle of the night. Not sure if it has anything to do with separation anxiety , or just her settling in, getting used to her crib, getting used to a quiet house with just her mom and dad around?? Today was the first day of no tears at naptime, and last night was the first night she slept through since we've been home, we’ll have to see how tomorrow goes. Tash was saying last night that for every time zone you cross, it’ll take that many days for your baby to recover – Tash, you may just be right.

It’s good to be home and to have out little family together again, the weather is warm and we get to be outdoors again (although we’re already complaining about the heat, and summer hasn’t even started). We have just enough time to settle in before we head to California for a few week, again dealing with a 3 hour time zone change – why do we do this to ourselves, or to Em?? We all finally get to meet little Ruby, who’s going to be 2.

8 Months 10 days

 I feel like a stranger to my own blog.  A whole month has passed already since we arrived in sunny SA.  Haven't been diligent with my updates, guess it shows I've been busy and having a great time.  Thank goodness for the photos I've been taking to jog this really bad mommy brain - should I be past the mommy brain by now or does it last throughout motherhood?? Oh Boy!

As for sunny SA, more like rainy and cold SA, not quite as lucky to escape the cold.
  
This months vacation has felt like a whirlwind one.   We were meant to have left SA on Saturday, but due to problems with the issuance of my visa, I have been "forced" to stay a week longer.  Rod left as scheduled on Saturday.  Great for the family that they get to spend 9 more days with Emma, but now I'm going to have to face traveling home alone with Emma.  It's going to be an interesting plane ride....stay tuned for this upcoming episode.

So an update on our little munchkin who is  now 8 months and 10 days old.....I would have thought by now Emma would start crawling or show inclination of wanting too crawl, aswell as showing some teeth.  However none of the above.  Everyone has been waiting for one of these firsts, Rod and I have been joking saying that with the family being around and holding her so much it's slowed her development because she has been carried so much.  Although having said that we can definitely see that she's grown a lot socially.  Talking, shrieking and squealing to her hearts content, getting really excited when she sees her cousins, Cameron and Caitlyn.  Just lately she's understanding tung-tung (light in chinese), starting to give five, and waving Ta-Ta (bye bye).  Emma discovered her tongue, so constantly sticking it out as you can see in the photo, and lately tugging at my arm as if to say, hey mom look at me and trying to get a reaction from pinching me.

We're so happy to see how she has taken to all the family, not being phased by who's carrying her or entertaining her. Em has mastered the pincher grip, (who would have thought one would get so excited about your baby being able to grip something with just two fingers!) and enjoying the concept of finding things under blankets, hands etc.

She's so interested and aware of everything around her, she loves investigating things that catch her eye, and looking where a particular sound is coming from.  We just love how she cocks her head to the side to catch your attention, or to look at something that is perhaps behind you.  Her antics to us are just too adorable, we can't get enough of her.  Even though I know she's just going to get busier and busier, it's so great watching this little person develop into such a happy, content and inquisitive soul.

Our vacation home has been pretty busy with family and friends visits, catching up, eating, shopping.  We definitely haven't had much time to relax.  The highlights of this trip, which I'll expand on later in our blog have been the get together my mom organized for everyone to meet Emma - can't believe how many babies there are now, Emma's Baptism, which Rod got to share this special with, as he got baptized too, Picnic at the Walter Sisulu Botanical Gardens, Cameron's 5th Birthday Party, a visit to Ukutula - the closest we've ever been to lions, quite the experience, and a spa day at Thaba Ya Batswana.

Emma has had some really good time with both sides of the family, at first it was hard leaving Emma alone with the family, but after one day it was quite a treat being able to leave her and not have to worry about her.  Emma certainly loved it as she got so spoilt by everyone.

It has been a great month, good family time, so happy we made this trip out and Emma got to meet the family.
We sure are going to miss all the attention Emma's been getting and extra willing helping hands to feed, bath, change nappies and entertain.....

 Hugs from Tai Por

Great Grandparents with their Great Grandchildren

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Emma with her Great Grand Aunts