Making bread...

Yum! Today we discovered bread dough....I had to physically remove him before he ate the whole lot!

Counting down the days....

Well, that could pertain to a lot of things right now...
-counting down the days until this jolly eye tooth shows itself
-counting down the days until Eldon gets his pay raise
-counting down the days until our trip to Ireland/USA
-" " until we have our own house and our own things
-" " until we live nearer to family
-" " until we can have more kids!
-" " until Eldon's 30th
and so on...I suppose I could think of lots of more things we are waiting for in the future. However, all this waiting and wishing and hoping makes it hard to live in the present! I am trying to enjoy my days more just doing day to day things with Rhys and TRYING not to think so much about all the things in the future.

Ok, so there's the heavy stuff for today. Rhys cracked us up this morning with his animal noises. He spent a few hours yesterday evening with one of our friends who has a cat. Rhys came home meowing after apparently following the cat around most of the time he was there. Thankfully the cat was pretty docile and even let Rhys touch him a few times. Anyway, he can meow now! He has mastered the dog (panting, not barking for some reason), the monkey, the donkey, the snake, the rabbit, the lizard, the gorilla, the bird (more on that later), the horse, the pig and the duck...I think that's about all. The one animal we can't get him to even try is the cow, which seems odd to me. Anyway, we might have to find someone who owns cows......
So the bird...well, I was telling a friend just recently that Rhys is definitely "aussie" in some ways....he thinks birds say "ark, ark" instead of chirp or cheep or tweet or any of those things. He is getting better at telling us he is all done without throwing his food off the tray...woohoo! He has mastered please in sign language (along with more, cracker, all done, eat) which is nice but I've been lazy and haven't taught him anything new. He does say Ta (thank you for those of you in the states) but he says it whether you give him something or he gives it to you. :)Very cute. I am trying, a bit unsuccessfully, to get him to use a spoon....might have that mastered by the time we go to Ireland. We have half-heartedly started toilet training...but it might be time to ramp it up as he's pooed in the shower about 4 times in the last two weeks. Luckily he doesn't think it's something to play with...he usually sits on the opposite side of the shower while I clean it all up! Ok, hope that didn't spoil your dinner.

Eldon is working really hard right now with his King Air training and studying for Flight Planning. I am really looking forward to him being finished with the studying and I know he is too. It isn't easy trying to study with a crazy 18 month old running riot. Rhys and I try to get out of the house while he's studying, so he runs riot at someone else's house while I collapse on their couch and accept a cup of tea laced with Valium. One fortunate thing is that Rhys doesn't have trouble going down for his naps and bedtime. Whew!

Well, sorry for the lack of photos...haven't really done anything really significant lately. Hope everyone is having a good start to the year!

Christmas Day

Well, we were so lucky this year with the weather! Forecast called for rain and thunderstorms...not very exciting! But we ended up with nice breezy cool (if you call 32 cool) weather! It was a great day for just hanging out, eating, and relaxing in the pool..which is exactly what we did! We spent the day at our friends' place (Tim and Danielle). Tim's brother, Pete, was also there. They have a baby girl, Eva, who is just getting big enough for Rhys to take notice! On the menu was: Turkey and stuffing, ham, butternut squash bake, 3 kinds of cold salads, broccoli and cauli bake, cranberry (of course)...hmmm can't remember if I'm missing anything. Anyway, it was delicious! We had 4 different desserts which ended up as our dinner as we were too full to eat them after lunch!

Had to get a picture with the stocking!

Rhys managed to open his first present...a book from Arlen and Jessi...and then he promptly sat down to read it and forgot about all his other presents!

Eldon reading "The Gruffalo" to Rhys

Eva likes the music from the frog on this bouncer so Rhys is helping her pull the cord

Sitting down to our feast! (Notice Eva in the bumbo...getting very interested in food!)

Rhys in the pool...he wasn't very happy to begin with

One of Tim and Danielle's dogs relaxing on an inner tube

Dinner! Pavlova, apple pie, christmas tree cupcakes, and chocolate marshmellow balls (not pictured)

Christmas baking....

Merry Christmas everyone! We are heading to some friends' house tomorrow for the day....a day of eating and relaxing in the pool, playing games and then more eating probably! Hope everyone has a really good day! Here are pics of my baking to get you in the mood!!!

Orange Cinnamon Bread

Apple Butterscotch Pie

Christmas Tree Cupcakes

Stocking complete!

I have finished the stocking for Rhys! It turned out pretty well considering I didn't really know what I was doing!
These are the fabrics I found...didn't want traditional christmas-y fabrics so we went with blues and dogs...Rhys loves dogs!

These are the two sides cut out...the back is navy with gold pin stripe and the front is going to be quilted...

All cut out and quilted...just putting the stars and cuff on...
Here's the back all done...Finished!

Close up of the stars and cuff

All ready for Christmas!