Day 31 - Reading with Teddies

I suspect there is a collective awwww with people that see this photo. Isn't is adorable. Maddie was having a chat to her teddies this morning, for the first time that I have seen, which I thought was cute. But to watch her put some on the chair then climb up with a book was too cute! I had to reposition them so she could fit comfortably but I was amazed when Maddie opened the book and started chatting to them. She pointed to the pictures then looked at the teddies chatting in 'Baby' language. I wonder if she is checking that they are paying attention to her.

Day 30 - Decisiveness

It has become increasingly obvious that Maddie inherited my brilliant ability to make a decision about what she wants. Maddie seems to be really developing within her mind at the moment, and her latest achievement is really advocating for what she wants. Whether it is yelling 'ta' until you listen, having a tantrum or bringing something to you and ramming it into your leg until you do as she says, she is very effective. This morning Maddie woke up too early so she was tired and uncooperative while I was trying to get us ready to leave the house early, not a good combination. When she wasn't attached to me Maddie was bringing  toys for me to play with or to set up for her. This shot is one of the later ones when I was ready to get her dressed, but it was more fun for her to pretend to be asleep in the tunnel that I finally set up for her, after a lot of her ramming it into my leg. If a baby can make decisions so easily about what they want, where does it go wrong?

Day 29 - My Next Project

Seeing as posting a picture of the gardens and my goals worked so well last time. I thought I had better do it again. This is a photo of the wall where our new dryer needs to hang. For almost 6 years I have thought that the holes were left by the previous owners but it turns out they are from Nathan trying to hang a dryer on something that wasn't in the studs. I'm a little daunted by the plaster repair that needs to be done, and then the task of painting the room with wet area paint, which is something that I haven't used before, but I really want this dryer up and ready before winter. So I am giving myself until the end of February to have this room sorted. I had planned to sort out the junk room we call the study this month but it is way too big a task for just a short little month.

Day 28 - Completing Goals

Isn't it a wonderful feeling when you finish a task in the time you allocated to it. Today we finished the front letterbox garden which was my task for this month. Maybe accountability via a blog is a good thing after all.

Nathan decided once I had started to pull out plants that the garden would look much better with a new fence. And what a time to do it, when there was only one tree and a letterbox in the way. Nathan with the help of Simon and Chris did a fantastic job replacing the entire front part of the fence, getting it square and then cutting it back to shape. I think the garden looks a lot tidier now, and I love that there is one garden free of red bark.

Time to plan February's plan of action.

Day 27 - Tandem Post... Whats in Your Glovebox?

Today's blog was inspired by the same person who inspired me to take on this challenge, Belinda Moss.

The idea behind it, if I understand correctly is to demonstrate a difference between men and women. Men have messy bedrooms and tidy cars, and women, tidy bedrooms and messy cars.

Rather than take a photo of the contents of my glove box I went for the centre console, as my car is still relatively new to us, and has a log book, a reading book and a box of tissues in it. Boring!

The contents of my centre console is
a spare pair of sunnies, 1 box of sultanas, 1 sock of Maddie's, a dummy cover, 1 Christmas bow, the old navman, Audio output cable, i phone charger, 1 bobby pin, Red nail polish and $1.15, not that you can see it clearly as the flash is in the wrong spot and I didn't notice before putting it all back in the car

Maybe some unnecessary things, but I wouldn't say that part of my car was untidy, the rest yes. But it is so hard to carry a squirming child, and a nappy bag and your keys and all of the other things that can just stay in the car until you think of them. Oh and for you smarty pants out there it needs to be light outside for me to empty it too. Feel free to link back to my photo if you are joining in

Day 26 - Australia Day

I'm sitting here trying to decide which photo to use today as there are just too many to choose from. After sitting here for the past half an hour trying to decide, and getting no where I have decided to go with my favourites. So much for being decisive and only having one photo like the projects idea is. It was a day of many firsts for Maddie, She waved her first flag, ate her first lamington and smarties, had her first run in the rain, and watched fireworks in the park for the first time.

Day 25 - Swimming Lessons

Its hard to tell which part of swimming lessons Maddie enjoys more. She loves walking down the steps into the pool, almost all of the class and loves her shower afterwards. Today was a big day for Maddie's swimming lessons, she has been getting more confident in the water and has been trying to push me away, so today, while the boss was in the pool, we let her go. Maddie swam about half a meter with no help to Sharon. Initially she went under but not as far as I had thought she would, then she paddled and kicked her way up and across it was awesome.

Day 24 - Maddie Reading

Since Maddie has discovered that she can climb, this rocking chair is one of her favourite places to play. I caught her sitting there reading yesterday but wasn't quick enough to get a photo, so when I saw here there again this morning I crept as quietly as I could to grab the camera and get this shot. I'm not quite sure I like this being able to take her pants off business that's going on, especially as I'm guessing she took them off while standing on the chair. Either that or she has gotten a very good arm to get them in the pile of her teddies.

We had another successful night last night with Maddie sleeping through again, but waking up at 6 am has taken its toll on her and it looks like she is having a morning sleep today. I hope she has an afternoon sleep for Amy or she is in for a long day.

Day 23 - Dolls House

Nathan scored well with this one, he posted an add on one of the sites he belongs to saying he wanted to buy a wooden dolls house and scored this, with wooden furniture and a bag of kids DVDs for free! Another project for Super Dad coming up, as if we don't have a tonne going already. Nathan plans to draw the house and colour it in a few times until he gets the colours he wants before painting it, sounds to me like an excuse to do some colouring in. Maddie took a fair bit of interest in it today, pulling some furniture out of the bag, although it didn't make it to the house, instead the bed made for a great place to put blocks and I'm not sure what happened to the chair. Once Maddie was bored of that she decided it would be good fun to try climb inside.

On another note, Miss Maddie slept through the night last night, Yippee!

Day 22 - Flowers and cutting it fine

After a long day at work today, I came home to a lovely bunch of flowers sitting on the bench from Nathan. He said he would have put them in a vase for me if he could have found one, but unfortunately he couldn't see it in the corner of the bench ;-).The Lillie's hadn't opened until late tonight so I am glad I waited to take a photo until late. Although there are only 5 minutes left to post this on time so I better click publish!

Day 21 - Working in the Garden

It seems Saturdays are about all of us working in the yard now that the weather is nice and my hours at work seem to have become regular. Maddie here is using the garden set she got from our trip out to Rodney's from Grandma. In this shot she was only just learning to shovel, and way too busy to consider looking up for a photo. She really loved using it to help me pull out the old trees from their pots near the door, and then to put the dirt back into the pots for some flowers to go in. Unfortunately she also discovered a new hobby today, pulling flowers and leaves off plants and ripping them to pieces. Nathan and I achieved a fair bit too, the front letterbox garden is now empty of the red bark and tree stumps and the smelly tree from out the back is gone with the stump out too. Everything is running on schedule for my January challenge of getting the garden replanted, although Nathan has thrown in another challenge of replacing the fence for that very front part, which will make finishing the garden in time a lot more difficult.

Day 20 - Maddies first proper head bump

After having people over to play with for a few hours Maddie tends to get over confident and silly, and today was no exception. She was running around like a hyped up crazy person squishing Hunter off the couch and getting more and more energetic, when she tripped and landed in the coffee table. I am trying to convince Nathan that we don't need one once we get Maddie a table and chair set, so hopefully we can get rid of it. Initially I was a little nervous as Maddie sat quietly after only a short cry, which she doesn't often do, but she was back to her self in no time. I took this picture to remember her first decent bump to the head, although I am sure that there are plenty more to come, and while I took a lot more pictures to try capture one for today's post, this was the best one I could find. This toddler is just not photo co-operative.

Day 19 - Showing Off to Grandma

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Another trip to Rodney's was on the cards for today, to have a coffee with Grandma and another look at more plants for the front yard. Its funny how as I read this over I didn't notice that I initially referred to Mum as Grandma. Maddie had her first baby chino, which she did not like, but did enjoy the choc drops on the side and had a quick taste of a marshmallow before throwing it back. I think my favourite part from that experience was when Maddie squeezed the cup holding her Baby chino until most of it came out the top and all over Maddie's and Mums hands. This picture was taken while we were waiting for our drinks, Maddie was either demonstrating how quickly she can unlock the iPhones now, or turning off the videos Mum had of music being played while she was in Ireland.

Day 18 - I Need New Shoes

Yes, I know that I have a lot of shoes and yes I know that I have shoes that I haven't worn, But I love these shoes! I have been looking at them trying to decide which colour I want and if I will ever wear them for a while now. OK, so the Ivory Patent ones haven't been in store for a fortnight yet, but that's irrelevant. It was love at first sight when I did see them, I always fall for the ivory coloured ones which I am sure helps them sell. One of the many advantages of working for Sandler is the generous discounts we get, which makes my shoe collecting habit a lot less expensive. The only problem to having this love for shoes, is choosing which ones, (when there are at least 4 pairs in store that I think I need this week alone) and storing them. No matter how good I am at reality tetris, my side of the wardrobe is not getting any bigger, so maybe the solution to that is to take over some of Nathans side.

Day 17 - Maddies Odd Socks

When i was rushing out the door this morning to get to the shops while a load of washing was going, I reached for a pair of Maddie's socks only to discover that the basket was empty. As Maddie uses her clean socks as a security blanket we often have to grab a pair in the night to help resettle her as she has lost hers down the side of the cot. Knowing that Maddie has a fair few pair to cover wearing them as well as sleeping with them I was surprised to have run out. This picture is of Maddie's Odd Sock pile as of 11am this morning, with a lot of washing and hunting I paired up 9 pairs but still have 26 odds.. I know the math doesn't work there! So I'm left pondering, if Maddie has a pair of socks for more than everyday of the month, where are all these others hiding? And how on earth did we get so many pairs? I suspect I will spend a good portion of one of my days off trying to get this pile a lot smaller.

Day 16 - 1.4 x 1.4?

When Nathan built the frame for Maddie's outside area he told everyone that he used 1.4m lengths of sleepers. I worked out the amount of turf that we would need to cover the area based on the 1.4m lengths with the area supposedly being 2.8m x 3m, so we needed 10 square meters to be safe (9 really but an extra is always handy). I like to think I'm fairly good at basic maths so I was very confident with my calculations and was sure the maths wasn't the problem. Nathan bought the 10 square meters that I so confidently said was how much we would need, and today while laying it we couldn't work out why there was a gap left. While Leah helpfully told us you should always measure everything, Simon grabbed a tape measure and we found the problem, the lengths of the sleepers were 1.8m. So we learnt a valuable lesson, always measure everything... Oh, and my maths is spot on.

Day 15 - Cheap entertainment

Tonight we were out for dinner again with Mark and Karyn at the tourist hotel here in Queanbeyan, they do lovely meals but take a long time to cook. Maddie always gets a little cranky waiting, so today Mark decided socks would be great on her hands. The socks did entertain Maddie for about 5 minutes until she got too frustrated that she couldn't turn the pages in her book and they had to come off. Maddie uses socks to settle herself off to sleep, when she does actually sleep, so more often than not we have more odd socks than pairs. The ones in the picture are from Karyn's handbag so I swapped her for a pair and bought those home to try match up.

Day 14 - Yard Work

As I finally had this afternoon off, we didn't have plans and the weather permitted, Nathan, Maddie and I spent a few hours working in the yard. Maddie was up for long enough to help us shovel a load of dirt (by sitting exactly where we wanted to put it) into what will hopefully soon be her play area. Towards the end of the load, as she got tired Maddie thought it would be fun to throw the dirt all over herself and then have a taste, which she was not impressed with.

Day 13 - Park play

I couldnt pick just one picture from todays trip to one of the parks in Jerrabomberra. After a much easier walk around the lake we took some streets back to this park past some very lovely houses for sale. Maddie absolutely loved playing at the park although she did seem to get a little queasy in the swing after a while. I always thought that these swings were for babies but it turns out the only way to keep them in is backwards.

I have said for ages that we are lucky that Maddie isn't a climber but in the past few days that seems to be all she is doing, at least instead of standing on Leah to get down she did sort of get the hang of the slide.

The cotton pants that mum made finally fit Maddie, and they seem like the perfect thing for park time. I really don't know what to dress her in, as it is so hot, but I want to protect her skin from the sun.

Day 12 - Piggy tails

Little miss smiles here, this afternoon is showing off her pig tails that her hair is only just long enough for. I'm not convinced that I like them as they make Maddie look so much older than I am prepared for her to be, they are still cute though.

Day 11 - Summer?

Its summer... right?? Then tell me why, in the middle of January, I had to turn the heater on. The weather today was insane, Warm, Freezing, then even colder, and the wind, whoa! I went out to Rodney's at Piallago and half of their plants had been blown over in paths where the wind cut through.

Day 10 - Cute little visitor

Pulling into the driveway today I nearly ran over this tiny little kitten who ran over to say hello. Isn't she beautiful! I thought Amy's phone was going to go across the room when she went from pretending to listen to me to jumping up with excitement to hold the little cat. Maddie excitedly stepped on the spot and spoke quickly and came to me for a cuddle, although I suspect it was more so she could pat the cat than for the cuddle. After a brief panic that I couldn't put the cat back out as she wasn't road savvy I raced around to find her home and thankfully found out she lives a few doors down, Much to Amy's disappointment, I think that she thought she would score a cat by default.

Day 9 - You are not my friend

Superglue and I just don't get along. Even with the brush on option I still managed to glue my fingers together today. Does anyone actually like this stuff?? And can anyone use it without getting it all over them? I decided long ago when I opened a tube with my mouth, (not my smartest moment) that this stuff is horrible.. but today I think that I really have had enough, there is just no tidy, easy way to use Superglue

Day 8 - Two Weeks Later

Its been two weeks since Christmas day and Nathan has still not opened his Christmas present or card. The tree is away, the cards have been recycled, most of the presents have homes but there is still one lonely one sitting wrapped up in the corner. Nathan argues that he knows what it is, therefore doesn't need to open it but that's not the point! I think its time I take the advice that I was given and return it.

Day 7 - New Title For Nathan

To Borrow a line from Leah Morgan "Your a real housewife now Mr Meredith." This is the lovely, huge dinner that I came home to tonight after a long day at work. While I was at work Nathan worked 3 hours, mowed the lawns, sprayed the weeds, brought the groceries for dinner and cooked, all the while looking after Maddie once Amy left. He has outdone himself today, there will be no slacking off now we all know how much you can achieve in a day.

Day 6 - Jerra walk

Monday walks with the PND awareness group are on holidays over the Christmas new year break. So we thought we would do it in reverse on a Friday. I still remember the first time I went to the Monday walk and saw this bridge, but not even the lovely scenery made up for the hill Leah didn't warn me about. The lake is man Made and has a lovely island in the centre which holds 8 'houses' in a gated community, imagine living there!

Day 5 - Cass and Hunter

Savior Cass and Hunter dropped in today and turned Maddie's cranky morning into a much happier one. Cass is about 27 weeks pregnant here, and got to practice having two kids on her at once as almost as soon as she arrived Maddie was all over her. Hunter did very well practising sharing his Mum, and we had a good giggle over some of the things to come for Cass and Hunter when his little sister arrives.

Day 4 - Jake

Check out this little man, isn't he adorable! Maddie and I went to catch up with Holly and Jake in Belconnen today. Maddie wasn't all that interested other than a little chat and poke, but I spent the whole time clucking and marvelling about how tiny he is. I don't remember Maddie  ever being that small but Holly tells me she must have been. It is crazy how fast you forget these things.

Day 3 - Space and Babies

Who would have thought that such a tiny person could take up so much space. Maddie rules this house, with things of hers seemingly everywhere you look. Today's goal was to sort out her wardrobe, and take out anything that I no longer want to keep, or that needs to be stored in our recently, almost vacated shed. I went from the wardrobe almost overflowing to the above picture and was super excited by SPACE, maybe I could fill it with things in our room for more shoes. Alas it wasn't meant to be, I later remembered the box of size 2 clothes the neighbours passed onto us last night waiting to be stored away for the winter and a box of nappies needing to get out of the hallway as I keep tripping on them. I guess I can only have a few more pair of shoes until I can find more room.

Day 2 - Fence garden

This picture was taken to ensure that I actually pay this garden some attention this year. We currently ignore it as we don't like most of the plants that are in it, and keep thinking it will be such a big job to pull out the trees. I am hoping that by the end of the month, which thankfully is ages away, I will have completely pulled it out and replanted it with something much prettier. Accountability, I'm not sure this was such a good idea.

On yesterday's blog, no Maddie did not sleep through this night, instead she woke unwell at 10, threw up then slept through.. I'm sure that I would have too if I wasn't so worried about her being unwell.

Day 1 - A New Years Resolution for Maddie

After a long year of mostly sleepless nights I have decided that Maddie needed a New Years Resolution... To learn to sleep through the night. So after getting her settled late into bed I took this photo of her actually asleep. When I look at her asleep in the cot, I still can not believe how much she has grown, from the tiny baby that we first made up the cot for, with sheets tucked in tightly one third of the way up the cot, until now.


Now I just have to work out how this blog thing works, and how to upload the days photo, wish me luck!