A Week in Review...

We're pretty lucky this week! Kate's visiting from Sydney on her way to Melbourne Cup festivities in Melbourne... But, in summary of our last week...
Jameson (from my Mum's Group) came over for a play on Friday. Jameson's Mum needed a little bit of rest because Jameson is being a little bit of a night owl at the moment, and his Dad is away working in Sydney, so he came over for a couple of hours to have a play!!!

So after we'd had a play we walked down to the park to meet the rest of our Mum's group. Jameson enjoyed testing out the toddler seat that is part of our pram. And James thought it was funny having something to play with in front of him!!!

This weekend we didn't go anywhere! Shock!!!! So we kept busy around the house, and got to go for some walks with Matt...

Matt & James spent Sunday afternoon hooning around the backyard in a new set of wheels!!!

Anyway, more about Kate next week when she's been to the cup and is back visiting us again!!! Plus, James is taking Matt and I to the Wyche races so I'll remember to take the camera!

James' First Crawl

I still can't work out how to directly upload to the blog so James is a youtube boy again!!!

So here it is... James attempting to crawl. It's not pretty but it's functional.

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=xADs2BklRsA

He's proud of himself when he reaches something that would have been out of reach last week. But the poor little man has a bruise on the left side of his forehead from headbutting a box yesterday, and a bruise on the right from headbutting the TV cabinet today :-(

Oh, it's a tough life learning how to crawl!!!

Mothers Group still going strong...

Our Mum's group is still going strong, still meeting twice a week most weeks and 8 of us are now playing tennis as well on a Thursday morning! We've had our share of Tupperware parties and book parties, and we also have an Enjo rep amongst us so we're ticking all the boxes for stay at home mums!!!!

The bubs have all grown heaps since we started meeting at the end of April, Charlotte and Maddie are now crawling forwards, Austin is crawling backwards!!!! and James - the baby of the group, is the next one to get going (although his push up style of crawling is pretty inefficient!!! - I promise to get some video of it for all of you who won't see it live!!!!)

Here's a photo of the bubs taken on Tuesday... (left to right) Ayla, James, Ty, Charlotte, Ruby, Austin, Lyla, Archer, Jameson & Maddie.
And, for comparison, here's our Mum's group photo taken in May 2008... From left to right... (back row) Taryn & Archer, Shannon & Chelsea, Suzie & Charlotte, (Wendy the MCH nurse), Karen & Ruby, Renee & Anoushka, Paula & Austin, Emma & Zavier, Kelly & Lyla.
(front row) me & James, Trish & Chelsea, Jacinta & Ayla, Laura & Maddie

The girls are a really great bunch and I know that all of us are so thankful for such a supportive Mum's group. There's no faking how well (or otherwise) we're doing to each other and there's always an ear for support or plenty of advice whenever it's needed! I know that Mum's groups can sometimes create a bit of pressure to have the perfect child so I really do appreciate how lucky I am to be part of this group of down-to-earth SuperMums!

Back to Tassie cont...

So, continuing on from the previous post...
Saturday afternoon, after the reunion, Leigh, Ange, Locke and Zak met us at the gardens (Jenna was busy learning about her Reconcilitation with her Nanna). Leigh took some simply amazing photos of Matt, James and I around the gardens but more about that when I post some of the pics.

We love this photo. He's not anywhere near walking yet but it's priceless!!!!

Dinner was over on the eastern shore with Bainy, Az, Sophie & Fletcher, Ange, Leigh, Locke & Zak, and Kel, Jonny, Holly & Sienna. The bigger kids had a ball playing together, with Locke handling the attention from 2 girls beautifully! The babies had fun playing together on the ground until little Sienna (here on the left in the yellow and grey) decided to see what Zak tasted like, and then, because I'd missed that and left James on the ground, she went in for James too. I had a horrible, horrible feeling when this happened because, as embarassing as it is to admit, I used to bite kids when I was preschool age.

Sophie is also a pro on looking after little boy babies being Fletcher's big sister.


And when we were back at Sarah & Aaron's place after dinner, Sophie cuddled up to James on the couch for some quiet time.

We headed home (late again) and crept in to Anne & Mel's place and slept soundly til Sunday morning.

Sunday morning we had breakky at 'The Beach' with Anne & Mel before going to mass and heading off to the airport for the journey home.
James helped Anne make her choice from the menu!!!

We headed back to the airport and while we were checking in for the flight to Melbourne I happened to look at the other people working at the check in desks and one of our long time family friends was working there - Betsy!
My Dad used to live with Betsy, her parents and her brothers when he first moved to Hobart. It was great to 'accidentally' catch up and show James off to another friend!!!! Betsy has just moved back to Hobart from Ballina where Matt and I caught up with her about 4 years ago on a family holiday with Mum & Dad to Noosa! And the funny thing is Betsy knew me when I was James' age so it probably spun her out a bit!!!

So with the end of the trip in sight, James snuggled up with his Daddy on the plane watching the VirginBlue advertisements!!!! -

And then slept, slept, slept the whole way home, only to go to bed at 8pm, wake up at 5am for a quick feed, and then sleep til 8.30 this morning. What a little treasure, his Mum & Dad needed that long stint of sleep to get over a fantastic but tiring weekend getting 'Back to Tassie'

Back to Tassie

We had a whirlwind trip to Tassie this weekend, but in true Tinkler style - we packed it full of catch-ups with our close friends!!!!


After hopping off the plane and picking up the rental car we headed off to Blackmans Bay - first stopping off to see our special friend Jenna who was going to be busy on Saturday night when we caught up with the rest of her family...
James thought Jenna was very, very cool!!!!


And she's so good with babies having been the big sister to 2 brothers and a big cousin to a lot more babies!!!!

After seeing Jenna we travelled on to Anne & Mel's and then quickly turned around and went out with Anne and Mel to see Deborah, Rod, Nic, Lauren, Christian & Lincoln at their very nicely renovated home!

Here's some pics of James watching the cricket with Nic...

Having a cuddle with Lauren...


Of Christian preparing our coffees in the kitchen...

Trying to eat Rod's placemat!


And all of us sitting around having a good night...





We headed back to Anne & Mel's and James had a late night to bed - but slept well considering his big day! Saturday morning we woke nice and early to a grey and overcast sky - which had me in a panic as I'd organised the school reunion for the gardens and didn't come up with a wet weather plan!!!! But, as Mel predicted, before midday the clouds had cleared and a glorious day was with us!

We went for a walk around Salamanca Market and the back streets of Battery Point. We ate fresh fish from the punts at Constitution Dock...





James slept soundly in the baby carrier. Matt did well carrying him around for over an hour!!!


We then went to the Botanical Gardens for my high school reunion. It was very disappointing with only 6 others coming along, the rest had decided instead to meet up at a pub in Hobart that night so I missed out on that. Anyway, the people that did come were great to catch up with and we enjoyed spending a relaxing afternoon sneaking the occasional peek at the wedding next door!We'd missed the tulip festival by a week but the tulips were still in full bloom and they were a glorious display throughout the gardens.

Photos at the local Pharmacy - 6 months old

Washing Day!

What a lovely surprise when Matt brought the washing in this afternoon!!!

;-)

My first postcard!

James got his first postcard today! His cousins, Reilly & Chloe, sent the postcard all the way from Canada after they'd been to Great Wolf Lodge at Niagara Falls.

He was very excited to read all about the fun time the girls had there with their Daddy and he told me he definitely wants to go there with them one day to play on the slides, in the wave pool and the lazy river.

Thanks Reilly, Chloe (and Paul) for sending James his first postcard!

A Lazy Weekend...

We headed out to the farm again this weekend for a lazy, relaxing time with Bernie & Denise...
James had a play on a tractor (!!!)

"Well, you drive it like this Dad..."
"Then you just pull this lever... See!"












Matt and James had a play with Cedric the labrador... (Matt always says Cedric has the best life - he gets to go everywhere on the ute with the farm dogs but has to do no work!!!)

And we had lots of cuddles with our puppy Monty (who, you may remember, is on a permanent holiday at the farm while we live in town).

But poor old Monty got a bit excited when we were packing up the car and thought he might be coming home with us. When we had the last car, Monty used to ride in the boot to work with Matt while he was working in Wycheproof. This car has a big gas tank in the boot so the poor little munchkin can't ride with us anymore.

And just before we headed off, Norm, Ros and Katelyn came to visit - and James made Kate have a big cuddle with him!!!

Hanging out with my girlfriends at the park!!!

As you probably know (depending on how closely you follow the blog), my mothers group meets at the park on Friday afternoons for a couple of hours.

Today, James was caught red handed with his girlfriends Ayla (on the left) and Lyla (right). If you look closely you can see James grab hold of Lyla's dress...

Lift it up...

And get busted... "What? It wasn't me! I've been keeping my hands to myself!!!!"

And while we've been meeting at the park, we've welcomed some little cygnets to Mummy & Daddy Swan...

The first pic was taken on the 26th of September with 3 little ducks (cygnets) going out one day... over the hill and far away...

But, as you may have noticed, Mother Swan said "quack, quack, quack, quack" and only 2 little cygnets came back :-(

Fortunately, our brood are too young to notice!

Who's scared of Tigers?

"Hey, tiger, what are you looking at?"

"I laugh in the face of tigers. Grrrrrr...."

The next Thorpedo???

James had his first swim today. He's 6 months and 8 days old. And yes, terrible I know, i forgot to take our camera!!! Lucky Nokia knew it was happening and have a camera on my phone. Here's some grainy photos...

"What's this? I don't know about this..."

Matt & James in the pool

Out...
And back...

1... 2... 3... Blast off!!!

"Here's Steph, my swimming teacher"

"I love this stuff!!!"