The Dower Family

We were long overdue for a catch up with the Brisbane based aunties and uncles so we all headed down to our favourite park just a few streets from our place for a laid back Sunday evening early dinner. The weather managed to hold out for us so Ollie was able to have the best time tearing around the park with his Aunty Hayley - I'm genuinely not sure who had the best time but judging from the look on Ollie's face in this picture, it might just have been him. After all the running around that took place we had to carb load (with a fairly hefty dose of fat too) with fish and chips all round, except for Aunty Em who thoroughly enjoyed world's best and biggest burger (Em, you owe me one - I decided against including a pic of you eating it!). Mind you, Obear would have happily just eaten tartare sauce with a spoon. Once home he entertained Hayley and Emma with his antics in the bath and then put both of their reading skills to the test with lots of pre-bedtime stories. Needle...

Well last week we finally had our big scan for Dower baby #2. The main purpose of the scan is to check all of the baby's measurements, organs etc to make sure that everything is as it should be. Thankfully for us everything was absolutely perfect. The other exciting thing about this scan is it is when they can tell you the sex of the baby, if you want to know. Of course, we definitely wanted to know. We found out with Ollie and were really glad that we did - it is still a surprise, just a little bit earlier. I was 100% convinced that we were having a little boy while Nick thought we were having a girl. However he did change his mind on that when the technician asked what we thought we were having. Turns out that wasn't a smart move as we ARE HAVING A GIRL!!!!!!!! Have a look at how beautiful she is... Mind you I'm still not convinced that it isn't a boy but Nick keeps pointing out that not one, but two technicians looked at it and told us it was a girl. But if...

We were lucky enough to have a little mini-break over the weekend up at beautiful Kings Beach. Our good friends Sam & Alan (along with Audrey & baby Henry) were heading up there to catch up with some other friends who are visiting from Canada with their two little boys. We thought it was too good a plan not to get on board so we enjoyed a nice long weekend up there. We may have enjoyed ourselves but there are not words to describe what a good time Ollie had. He is so madly in love with Miss Audrey and just adores baby Henry so much (read: lots of kisses and cuddles/headlocks for him) so any time he gets to spend with them is wonderful. But throw two lovely little northern hemisphere boys into the mix, a bit of beach time and just generally tearing around the place and you have quite possibly stumbled onto the mix for Ollie's perfect weekend. Ollie actually started off the weekend declaring that he did not know Will and James but he warmed to them instantly and before lo...

I seem to be starting this blog a lot lately with apologies. This week it was illness that has delayed publication. One of the real joys of daycare is that kids seem to pick up every single germ that is going around, and unlike most things, are more than willing to share them. So it came to be that all members of this family found themselves off work/daycare early this week wallowing around the house in our tummy bug related misery. But all is well again and I appear to have made it to my Friday in record time this week! Perhaps our illness was related to a busy weekend? Friday night saw Nick going to the Chemical Brothers along with Aunties Hayley, Emma and Uncle Simon as well as pretty much everyone else in the entire town. I felt completely left out but no one really wants a pregnant chick hanging out at these types of affairs. Plus the weather was pretty awful so I was probably better off sitting on the couch watching trashy wedding shows on TV and eating ice cream. Saturda...

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...