Updates

Busy times!! As per the pictures last month, Cooper is now @ school (the school year starts in Aug/Sept here - still hard to get my head around the timing) so off we go every morning @ 7.40am to drop him off in Saginaw and then pick him up again @ 12. Maxwell is 8 months old and quite delightful - sits up himself, starting to crawl (oh no!!) and is quite interactive. He claps his hands very enthusiastically, waves bye-bye (sometimes) and can say random words from time to time although at other times he can screech very loudly. He has one tooth (bottom, middle) and would be happy to spend all day long watching his big brother. Here are some pics from our annual pumpkin farm visit yesterday.....

I've been running quite a bit over the Summer, the other day I took my camera along on the main journey that I do. Here are the photos.

We're very excited to have just booked our tickets tonight for our down-under Christmas - the first since we've been married!!

AmeriKiwi boys

We had a request from Frana's Dad in Nelson to get some pics of our AmeriKiwi boys as he was attending a Rugby World Cup function when the USA game was on and thought it would be fun to have some photos of them dressed up. It turns out that the American Consulate people were to be there too! So when we were visiting the other day, we quickly stowed them all into All Blacks/RWC/New Zealand shirts and snapped some pics. On account of the smallest ones we didn't have time to find both flags but 'Kiwi' the new kitten leapt into the background in place of the NZ flag. So here are the dual-citizens of New Zealand and the USA Baby Quinn (almost 6 months), Josh (3 1/2), Baby Max (almost 8 months) and Cooper.

6 months (whoops, make that 7 this week!) already!

Here are a few pics of our littlest man. (I'll add the 'official' 6-month pictures once I line them up beside Cooper's as they still look like twins except one has brown eyes and the other has blue....)

He surely is a happy wee soul.

Cooper's first day at school

I'm still not used to the fact that school starts here at this time of year and not at the beginning of the calendar year like it does down-under. Not to mention that it's amazing that Cooper is already starting school!! (and yes, a bit emotional leaving him there, although it is only for 3 1/2 hours for the first half of the year).

Apparently he did really well on his first day, despite following us out to the corridor when we were leaving and telling us that he thought he might come home with us after all (we stayed in the classroom for a story and all was well after that). Hopefully the next few days go as well as today did.... Here are the photos....

August 2011

We have a big boy getting ready to start school this week (pics to come...) and a smiley little boy who is growing fast.

Link to pics from this week

We just had our annual holiday (vacation) "Up North". Here are the pics

Two more photos of lego vehicles for Poppa

Today's additions & changes compared with yesterday's vehicles

Left is Mission Control for the space vehicles, mobile mission control, moon buggy that goes first, mobile post-hole digger incorporating a leaf blower, 2nd arrival moon buggy and finally a police golf-cart.

Cooper wanted me to take this picture for Poppa & Oskar

Cooper has amassed quite a Lego collection since Christmas. He spends a lot of time each day making various things - sometimes following the instructions, sometimes looking at a picture (he has the airport set but he can convert it to an elaborate police station by looking at a picture in the catalogue) and often just 'making what I see in my brain because I have a picture-kind of brain'.

Here are today's vehicles - it's only 9am but by tonight they will no doubt have evolved into a completely different set of vehicles.
From the left we have:- a post-hole digger, a police boat, a crane, two golf buggies and a tractor/snowplow (click on pic to see the detail!)

Brothers!

Max spends most of his day looking at Cooper!

Decorative rubbish bin

Cooper very kindly put the kiwi fridge magnets on the rubbish bin "look Mummy, now you can think about New Zealand every time you put rubbish in the bin". Nice.

Bathtime for Baby Max and (Cooper's) Baby Alexander