The Dower Family

Love seems to be Ollie's word of the week. It has been in his vocabulary for quite sometime but this week it seems to be used for everything. Examples of things Ollie loves: - suncream (as in "I LOVE suncream") - Aunty Emma - Trees - the cooler (meaning the air-conditioner in the car) - Groceries - Ice cream - Dora (no surprise there) - Balloons - And of course mummy and daddy We made a return visit to Seaworld this week (our tickets get us in now until the end of financial year) along with Nanna Freddy. This gave us a chance to check out a few things we missed out on the trip before like the dolphin show which was just amazing. Obear kept saying "more more" throughout the show so he definitely got a kick out of it. He also enjoyed another visit to the penguin house where they were swimming in the underwater bit catching fish and doing the most unbelievable propulsions out of the water. He also sat still for 15 minutes watching a 3D version of Happy Feet w...

Apologies for the lack of blog last week. We were lucky enough to be freeloading off Nanna Freddy & Poppy Mick down at the coast for the entire week. It was actually quite a full house of family and friends throughout the week with Alicia & Guy coming up from Sydney for the weekend, Peta, Zoe & Jackson joining us on the same weekend and dear friends Jean & Ian popping by for a couple of nights too. By far Ollie's favourite visitor was his uncle Guy and he talked for days in advance about how he was going to splash Guy in the pool. Of course he gave it a shot but Guy is in a slightly higher weight division that Obear so naturally Guy's splash packed a little more punch - you should have seen the "death stare" he through Guy's way, totally priceless. Luckily all was forgiven and much more tomfoolery was engaged in. Alicia and Guy endeared themselves even more so to Ollie by bringing him back presents from their recent Fiji trip. O's favourit...

Ollie was lucky enough to have a visit from his Grandpa Peter on the weekend. All the sweeter because he brought Obear an awesome (and VERY noisy) police car. The two of them had a great time racing it up and down the hallway and worked up such an appetite that they had to demolish lots of pancakes with ice cream to rebuild their energy. Grandpa was very impressed with Ollie's language skills, particularly his many requests for "Grandpa come play me". This little line is getting trotted out a lot lately and is very adorable. Don't you just love the smell of commerce in the morning? Ollie does, he is quite the little capitalist since he got his own cash register at Christmas time. We've since filled it with Monopoly money (we can't use it to play the game as we always end up fighting - seems we were brought up on completely different rules - Nick is fiercely competitive while I don't care about the hotels and just want to drive my little silver car ar...

It has been a reasonably uneventful week around here which is quite nice in light of all the drama of late. Ollie and I had a great playdate with our old mother's group at an indoor play centre which was just out of control in a really fun way. We had been to this play centre in the past but it just seemed like something really clicked for Obear and he was climbing up everything, scaling the second floor of the play equipment and totally loving sliding down the really steep slides. In the past I've had to go right into the equipment with him to supervise but this time we got to be really slummy mummies and just pulled up chairs at the front of the playground and let them run wild. Bunch of big two year olds that they are. More indoor play, this time on the weekend. Nick graduated Ollie's trike to the next level, taking off the back and side support and engaging the pedals. Ollie wasn't too sure about turning the pedals himself but after some encouragement from Nic...

You would have to be living under a rock to have escaped the recent events in our town. Luckily for us we were nowhere near the action thanks to our move to the bay, however our old area was hit pretty hard with lots of people's houses being seriously damaged. It felt quite strange watching it unfold on TV from the comfort of our loungeroom while the gorgeous sunlight filtered in, while almost all of our friends at least suffered the inconvenience of doing without power for a day or two. Nick went and put a great effort in helping to clean up in our old area, relishing the combination of two of his great loves (cleaning AND destruction) helping out strangers to gut their flooded houses. There was no such hard labour for me but in tough times I bake so many many muffins and cases of water were dropped off to the volunteers station. It was so nice to see so many people pitching in to do whatever they could to lend a hand. Here is a pic of Nick's filthy legs after he came hom...

(Look how he has grown - a photo from each of the last 12 months) Another 12 months have flown by and now our sweet little boy is a two year old. In keeping with last year's birthday post I thought I'd share a few of my favourite things about this gorgeous little petal: - he calls out to me from his bed "I'm awake" each morning, usually way before the sun comes up - he puts his toys in the naughty corner and imitates me saying "sit down, stand up, I love you" - he loves to cuddle up and read "Where the wild things are" and say all of Max's lines - he has big beautiful blue eyes just the same colour as mine - his absolute favourite matchbox car is his hummer - he still loves his toy panda as much as he did this time last year - he gets a tuft of crazy professor hair that sticks up after every nap - his favourite day of the week is Saturday even when it is Tuesday - h...

So Boxing Day afternoon we packed up the rest of the presents that Santa had left under our Christmas tree and took them over to Nanna Carmel and Grandpa Rob's house for the next instalment of Christmas 2010. Ollie always has such a good time here because he just loves his aunties Emma & Hayley and Uncles Luke and Simon and Fiona. He gets so much attention normally so of course he was going to be the star of a Christmas gathering. Not surprisingly there were lots of lovely presents for him and by now he had totally got the hang of this present thing, wildly ripping paper off and declaring "that's mine" about any present that was around. In keeping with his domestic goddess themed presents, Ollie got his very own shopping trolley and cash register, complete with groceries. He has been having a wonderful time pushing them around the house along with his newest friend, Jemima from Play School from Aunty Hayley, who he has had a real interest in lately (Jemima tha...

Well Christmas is officially behind us - the turkey and ham have been eaten, the frozen prawn shells have been picked up by the garbo and the Christmas tree is safely tucked away for another year. We had a wonderful time, naturally when you have a little boy who has cottoned on to the general premise. Not the religious meaning, more like (in his own words) "Santa brings presents". But it was still a delight to see. As Ollie is blessed with more sets of grandparents than the Brady Bunch we were limited to only seeing Nanna Freddy & Poppy and Nanna Carmel & Grandpa Rob over Christmas but we are looking forward to catching up with Pa & Nanna Kaye and Grandpa Peter really soon, as well as Aunty Alicia and Uncle Guy. In an effort to keep Santa fuelled up for his massive trip we left out some cookies and milk and a carrot for the reindeer (only one? Aren't there like 8 reindeer? Hope they weren't too hungry). Ollie may have helped out the reindeer by takin...

As a real little boy, Ollie is a big fan of anything that moves fast so it isn't a great shock that we would be hearing "ready setty go!" a fair bit as he launches himself down the hallway, off the couch or around the yard. But this week it has evolved with the addition of his favourite day of the week - as in "ready, Saturday, GO!". I love it. A great cheer for the weekend! Something else that I am loving this week is our neighbourhood Christmas party. We went to our friend's Jim & Jenna's house on Friday night for a neighbourhood get together. I didn't realise that there were a few kids in such close proximity to our house so it was lovely for Ollie to be able to play with kids close to his own age. He rode down there on his little bike so he was pretty popular, especially as he was willing to share it with the others (well, sort of willing). Perhaps it was this cool accessory that saw him win the heart of a little lady, Lou Lou from nex...

10 more sleeps until Christmas and there is one word that is getting used a lot around this place - Santa! Last year Christmas was just another day for Obear (albeit one with lots of presents and food) but this year he is definitely aware that something is going on. The area where we live is in Christmas overload and there is one particular big wooden sign of Santa which seems to adorn the roof of each and every business nearby. It is quite weird, I've never seen anything like it but it is lovely and festive. Plus it keeps Ollie occupied in the car spotting them all. If only Ollie's enthusiasm for Santa extended to the live variety. The other week we took him to see Santa with the hope of getting another beautiful photo (see December blog last year to refresh your memory). We were the first in line at opening time and after 20 minutes of waiting he got his chance to talk to the big man. No surprises for guessing that he was not a fan. We let the next kids in line go ahe...

It always get to this point in the year when you've just had enough of work and desperately need a holiday, even though the Christmas break is just around the corner. Well this year we recognised that we just needed to get away a few weeks ago and booked ourselves into the most amazing house for a week at Peregian beach. This beach is not far from Noosa but a million miles away in terms of its laid back approach. We were lucky enough to spend a week with just the three of us rattling around a giant house on the beachfront with days filled with nothing more than walks along the beach, swims, delicious meals, baby cinos, snoozes and some drinks in the evenings. I think one of the best parts had to be our early morning walks along the beach. Once upon a time a holiday would involve a good sleep in. Not so with Ollie bear but you do really get your value for money when your days are twice as long as the average person. Most mornings we embraced this by taking our bucket and goin...