Goodbye family

Sad to see the family drive away this morning,makes you realize whats important.Atleast Jasper was at an age where he could really interact with his grandparents.He had a lovely bond especially,with his granny-they would lye on the sofa and gran would sing songs to him and he would listen intently and just smile-It was adorable.Ofcourse grandpa,too,had a special place in jaspers heart-he was simply known as "Ga-ga" to Jasper,atleast that's what he affectionately became called,to all of us!Oh well,he still has his auntie Fi here (for awhile anyway.)
His grandparents can atleast keep track of his progress on this blogsite.So,hello Gran and grandpa!!
Needless to say,we now have a very quiet house.It is kind of nice just to wind down after the madness of christmas,and welcome in a brand new year.So happy New year to all of you!!.

Thought I'd add my 2 cents worth... A whole new year, a lot is going to be happening, a lot of changes coming up, am really looking forward to it.
Jas has relly come along in the last few weeks. Since his granny and grandpa arrived, they have seen him get up onto his knees for the first time (he is not too far off from crawling now!), they have seen him get 3 new teeth, grow a lot of hair, his hand/eye co-ordination has come along in leaps and bounds, he even learned to wave the day before they left. It was really cute, all of us waving as they drove off!
Hopefully the transition back to normality will be smooth and painless for all parties concerned. It will take all of us a while to get used to the quietness of the house, mom and dad have only just left and the place already seems so much more empty. Am sure that Jasper will be right back into his routine within a day or two.
Went for a picnic yesterday , just in the greenway near the house, under some shady trees, it was the perfect day for it, Jas has a really great time, he absolutely loved it. We were all down on the ground on blankets, on his level I suppose, wow, how much fun can one small boy have!
Will have to repeat it again soon.

Christmas snaps

We are still recovering from the excesses of Christmas day, yesterday we were recovered enough to go up the gondola in Queenstown, some of us (except for the pregnant lady) even luged down again. A great day was had by all.
Have set up the printer that the folks gave us for Christmas, so far so good.
Jasper has 3 new top teeth, he is coping well with the teething process, the odd sleepless night here and there. He is certainly chopping through the chicken bones at the moment (see photo). Great stuff, chicken bones, they really work! If his dad has his way it will be bitong next!

Christmas Day

We have had a fabulous christmas day.LOADS of pressies for jasper,he was exhausted by the end of his gift opening session!He got given about 6 new books by Gran W,Gran and Grandpa, uncle J and uncle G, Poppa and Gran R, we gave him one, his library is growing..., aunty Shanley sent a beautiful fairy photo album for Ruby, not born yet and getting presents already! Jas got a load of toys, many bath toys, a ball popping machine from aunty S, a cookie shape sorter from gran and grandpa (it sings and I fear it will soon be running out of battery life!), he also got a cool toy helicopter that, surprisingly enough, also sings, from aunty Jean and uncle Ian and kids, gran in England sent heaps and heaps,an african shirt from governors camp in Kenya (where I used to work), a melamine set, toy/travel books for stroller and car, to mention a few.Auntie Fi gave jas a wooden toy(that has a spring attached and which i cant help playing with!) and auntie Heather and uncle C ,in south africa,gave jas a beachset.Poppa sent clothes and a pull-along-duck set.Great-grannies gave him clothes and a book and toy duck. These are a few of the presents, not all have been mentioned, no offence to anybody. BIG thank-you's to everybody who sent something and made our little boys day.

Summer time

Jasper and Daniella

Jasper and his "Ga-ga"

Jasper is getting the hang of this crawling thing.He is now managing to get up on his knees but he is still moving backwards?We were amazed the other day,Jas nearly pulled himself up on the couch himself(Which is typical jasper~Trying to do a million things at once.)I am amazed at the sheer determination that jas has,once he starts something he will see it through~It's a good trait to have i think.
He has started babbling "Ma-ma" and "Da-da"when dave or I pick him up.He also calls us "Ga-ga","Bub-ba"etc...so I don't know how much is recognition and how much is repetitive babble,but it still makes dave and i go all mushy inside when we hear it.We call him our little "Na-na",mainly because he always seems to have banana hanging off his face.

Holiday snaps

This morning we went cherry picking out at Ripponvale Orchard and stuffed ourselves, ending up with 5 kg of cherries! We still had room for ice cream afterwards...ahhh, holidays! Have included some photo's of this, and the glaciers.

West coast dreamin'

We had a great time in fox.Ofcourse it wouldnt be the west coast without THE RAIN!or THE SANDFLYS!.On thursday we hibernated in the cabin and jasper loved the portable cot provided,which i admit we kind of used as a playpen~have to get one for the next bub.He sat in there with his toys and giggled at everyone and was happy as larry.
On friday,we had a break in the weather and the family got to see fox glacier.Even second time round for dave and I,it was still very impressive.Dave even managed to get the stroller halfway up the track and jas looked so gorgeous all snuggled up in his red blanket.I admit i didnt even make it halfway!(It is bloody hard when your 5-months pregnant).But a curious kea kept me company.
We also had a look at lake matheson .The highlight for me was heading off the well beaten tourist track and driving 10 kilometres thru bush to gillespies beach~awesome stuff.So wild,with the kind of surf that could break a back(I've never seen surf that actually breaks on the beach itself) and huge stones that that same huge surf threw out and which covered the whole beach.Very cool and being on the west coast made me miss the west coast back home~Piha and all those special places,which thankfully dont have the sandflys.
A great little holiday away.Today we will nurse our sandfly "wounds".

music group

Today we took Jasper to his music group Christmas Party. There were lots of fairies and reindeer and one wise man! jasper had his jingly reindeer antlers that his gran Walker sent him, on. We went over to the church hall where all the kids entertained the old people with singing and dancing. Dave and Gran were there as well so we got some pics.

Family fun

Today we went to a picnic out at Lowburn, a chance for the family to meet everyone from our church. Jas had a great time, he was really well behaved, just sat and ate grass...and played with a puppy. He was fascinated to watch his daddy playing volleyball. It's a lovely hot day, lots of hats and sunscreen, perfect picnic weather. Jas is loving having the family here, lots of cuddles and attention.

The family arrive

Very busy day yesterday. Dave's family arrived around 11am but I was at a course in Alexandra for kidstart. I didn't get home until 5:30pm, it was the first time I've been away from Jasper for so long, was surprised by the depth of emotion I felt when I drove away.
Anyway, it is fantastic to have the Doyles here. Jas took to them straight away and had a ball, everyone was paying attention, which he loves! Anne was so looking forward to meeting her first grandchild, she could hardly wait for him to wake up. They had great cuddles, Aunty Fi and Grandpa also got into the act, Grandpa gave him his afternoon bottle.
Jaspers in our room and we are all finding the change very hard. His sleep pattern is all over the place, hopefully he will settle down VERY soon.

Pink booties!

Gorgeous pink booties arrived in the post today!So sweet and really hitting home that we really are bringing another little life into our home next april.
Jas is fantastic,he is desperately trying to crawl~It is so frustrating for him,he wants to move forward but finds himself going backwards.Today 4 the first time he was trying to move off his butt and forward onto his hands and knees~that confirms he is trying to crawl.Lately he has taken to just flopping onto his tummy and then he just stays like that~he kind of skipped the stage where they learn to roll?So he just flops around like a little fish and hopes for a miracle,or for mum or dad to pick him up,whatever comes first.

Babble and brush

Our boy has discovered the art of babbling and man,It is such a crackup!His latest is "Da-da"which is followed up with a succession of blowing bubbles.He is such a boy- he is so loud.Before I found out i was having a girl,I was imagining myself chasing 2 boys around ,an endless round of cowboys and indians and discovering our VCR or telephone taken to bits and then left like that!I know, i have 2 brothers!
Boys are cool tho,Ok,they may go through a smelly patch as teenagers but at the moment jasper is just adorable(and a long way off from becoming a teenager,thank goodness) Jas is
very affectionate-I get lots of cuddles and unconditional love(babies don't judge) He loves my singing!!
He loves bathtime,and he has taken to brushing his teeth in the bathtub lately-we have included a photo of this .I love getting up in the morning and seeing 2 big toothbrush's and 1 little one-It's
never too early to introduce good dental hygiene.

The learning curve

Jasper is getting cuter every day. He is learning so much all the time, really developing into his own little person. We always have a great time playing in the bath, his favourite toys are yellow duckie and two round rattle bath toys that Granny Doyle sent to him, and he splashes, whacks and wallops until he is almost breathless. Always before, he has tried to grab all the toys at once, to his undoing because he can't hold onto all of them and invariably loses the lot. Just recently he has learned to grab only one toy, and play with that for awhile before trying for the others, a toy in the hand is worth three that annoyingly bob out of reach the whole time! Small things, but amazing to watch him work them out.
Lee was telling me today about him learing to share. He has always grabbed a toy and played for a bit, amusing himself but not letting other people into the game. Today for the first time he held his toy out fot Lee, sharing with her, encouraging her to join him in his game. Wow, a small step perhaps, also a giant leap, I was so proud.

Funny thing today, I put Jas down for a sleep but he likes to sit up in his cot a the moment before lying down for a sleep, Well, I left him thinking I'd removed all hazards from his cot; five minutes later I hear this almightly static on the baby monitor - I rush back to his room and here's Jasper, happily chewing on the monitors wires with a big grin on his face. Oops!
I took him out to playgroup this morning. It was his first time at this particular playgroup as it has always cut in on his morning sleep time before now. I always feel a bit awkward when i first rock up at these things, and although I did find the competitiveness between the mums about "whose babies doing what" a bit annoying, I found Jasper really enjoyed it. I find his at the age now where he needs that social stimulation with other people and I do too. Cromwell is so small and it's very easy to make and maintain friends because you are always bumping into one another. thats the nice thing about living in a small town, I know just about all my neighbours on our street, it's nice and safe for children.

IT'S A GIRL!!

Yep,It's a girl,we are so excited.We found out this morning,bub is lovely and healthy with a very fat tum!She's still due around 25 april.We are so happy,our perfect little family.The scan took ages,they checked everything from head to toe,such a relief to know everythings in perfect
working order,It was our first and only scan of her.With jas we had about 4 scans!
Am so looking forward to my first precious cuddle,nothing compares to those first moments together when they are newlyborn,magic!
Girl's now outnumber the boys in the barron family.GIRLPOWER!

Christmas parcels

Received lots of Christmas parcels from Gran Walker in England this morning. Naturally, Jasper was more interested in the brown packaging they came in. Of course we will have to wait till Christmas day till Jasper can see what he got! I can just picture him neck high in wrapping paper on Christmas. Only 27 days to go!
Only a week till Jaspers Gran and Grandpa and Aunty from S.A. get here... Can't wait!

Feeding frenzy

What a lovely day! The weather is that sort that makes you just want to get out and do stuff, needles to say managed to gat quite a bit done around the house today. Jas was in a clingy mood all day, didn't like me to far out of his sight, even "helped" with the lawn mowing (moral support). Have found a cool high chair on trade me, our first time using the site, have sent confirmation that we would like to buy, now are waiting for a return message from the seller, wierdly it is really nerve wracking!
It will be great to have a high chair, Jasper is at that age where he really has got to big for his bouncy chair, aside from the fact that the spoon sways around like a heat seeking missile trying to lock in on its target, what with all the bouncing in between, it has just got really messy. Here's hoping for the best...

Sleep,glorious SLEEP!

Well,Jas is sleeping through the night again.Only thing is ,now he isn't sleeping as much thru the day but I cant expect miracles!!
He has discovered how great his dad is lately.Dad ROCKS-poor dave can't even leave the room without jas grizzling.This morning jas sat on the grass outside for a full hour just so he could watch his daddy mow the lawn-he refused to be inside with me,OH NO! But I'm not jeolous,I'm far too tired and hormonal for that.I relish the chance to have just five minutes to myself. This parenting stuff is incredibly rewarding but also bloody hard work.I think I just need a night out WITHOUT child.Boo hoo
We are trying to get Jas drinking from a sipper cup at the mo .Thank god for non-spill products!.Feeding him is also getting very messy,with food exploding out his nose and mouth(sometimes by way of a sneeze othertimes -and this is his latest trick-by just spitting it out if he doesn't like it)Ah,kids-you gotta' love 'em.We are now searching for a highchair but it's ok because we have discovered Trade me-brilliant stuff.
Am loving seeing all my gorgeous nieces and nephews on the blogsites,they are all so different and all so precious.

boy meets dog

Funny thing today,jasper met a dog for the first time.My friend,claire,has a lovely mut called mia .Mia loves children (claire has a 4-month old,jack) so when we went to vist mia was all slobbery kisses for jas-well, jas was so unfazed by the whole thing ,letting mia lick his hand.Infact my boy is pretty unfazed by most things, on wednesday I took him to rhythm and dance down at old cromwell and he loved it! I kneww he would as he love's music and is always bopping away to himself,but jasper loved all the children and noise and It's great to have such a happy laidback kid.
Jas is starting to get more mobile, exept its in the wrong direction and its when he's on his back! And man is he ACTIVE! Near impossible to dress as he kicks and wriggles around so much! He's also gotten a lot more vocal, with lots of squeals thrown in for good measure.
in conclusion, Jasper is turning out to be a happy, squealy, bouncy, sociable young lad and we love him to bits. Life was so dull before.

boy meets dog

A wee step backwards

We had a very tough night with Jasper last night, are trying to get him to sleep through the night, quite successfully, I thought, and then last night he decided to wake up at 1 am and cry his little heart out for two solid hours. I went in and checked on him every 20 - 30 minutes, a little cuddle, we were so tempted to give him a bottle just to get him off to sleep again but somehow managed not too. Lee agreed that it was the toughest night that we have ever had with him. Eventually he went back to sleep, he woke up in a little later than normal, I had left for work already but Lee reconned he was in a really good mood, no damge done ! Hope that it goes better tonight, he is normally really good, pretty much he has been sleeping through for the last 2 weeks or so. Here's hoping...
Other than that all is well with the Doyle clan. Have got my folks and sister arriving from South Africa on the 10 Dec, are staying for 3 weeks, am really looking forward to it. It is certainly going to be a change for Jas, all those new people to get used to (we also have my aunt, uncle and three cousins arriving for Chrismas, staying for a week or so) Hope his little routine is not too badly affected, it is bound to be but with a little luck he will come right in a few days.
Lee felt the baby move today for the first time. Very exciting! She is 18 weeks at the moment, a really good pregnancy so far. Can't wait to go in for the scan on 1 Dec. Yay!

Sleeping beauties

A very rainy and cold day in Cromwell. Fresh snow on the mountains... ahhh...summer! Jas is all wrapped up warmly, just had a two hour sleep so he is full of beans. Was also full of beans at 5 this morning when he was in our bed. He lay in between us, I looked over at one point and he and his daddy were both asleep...awww. Very cute.

Flippin computer!

It's o.k. for all you computer boffins out there but we have just spent an hour trying to get into our own blogsite; a lot of stress and hair pulling - anyway we made it and here we are...
Our next mission is to try to put photo's on, we will try tomorrow but with our collective computer skills you may only get these next year!
Jasper is much fussed over by the ladies at New World checkout. Today they gave him a couple of balloons to play with. Being only 7 months old he lost interest when they dissapeared from sight. Tied some string on and this worked well, he played with them for ages.
Dave put him in his "broom-broom" box and pushed him around the lounge. He loves that! He is a real daddies boy.
I think he is going to have curly hair like his dad. He still loves his music. There is a movement and rhythm class for babies in Cromwell that I will take him to next week. Will let you know how it goes.
Listened to babies heatbeat. Jasper listened as well, he looked most concerned until I smiled and reasured him. Still hard to believe he's going to be a big brother soon!

Grumpy Boy!!

Hard day with Jasper. He is teething again. Yuck! We think his top two teeth are coming, he is chewing on everything at the moment, including daddy's finger(he drew blood, true) and he is dribbling like a maniac, poor kid. His behaviour has been all over the place, not quite himself. He is still sleeping through the night, a real blessing.

The Doylie Kids

A very exciting day in the Doyle household, we have aquired our very own computer, and now we feel inspired to share with you the progress of Jaspers life so far. So here goes...
Firstly, he is gorgeous, and incredibly patient as we are constantly dragging him from point a-z. Hope the next one is as accomadating as his\her not so big brother. (finding out if it's a girl or boy on the 1 Dec.)
Today was very exhausting. We went to the Cromwell Primary School Fair, pretty cool. They had a dunk the teacher comp, kids doing a demo of samurai karate, a toss the gumboot comp, candy floss and very excellent truffles...YUM! Everybody in Cromwell was there, including Jassie's playgroup friends, wonder if that will be Jaspers future school?
Jas now has two teeth, a lot more hair(slowly going blond), very long Doyle legs and a winning personality, he is also sitting up by himself.
We took him to Plunket recently, he now weighs 9.5kg and is 70 cm long. We are obviously doing something right.
BREAKTHROUGH - as of two nights ago Jasper started sleeping through, bliss.
Will put photos on here for you all when we have figured out how to do it.
Counting down now till Jaspers first Christmas, only 42 days to go!