We had a party at Mike and Mandy's place for Grand-Dad's birthday last night. Mitch and Lilly played on the see-saw:
And watched Play School together ("The wheels on the bus go 'round and 'round"):
Meeks had a little cuddle with Baby Will:
And Grand-Dad had a cuddle with Will too:
We had a farewell brunch for James and Phaik this morning because they are returning to the UK tomorrow night. As usual it was a chance for Mitch and Lilly to play together.
We had a bit of fun with the off camera flash as Mike and Rob showed off their best Billy Elliot impressions
Jamie and Phaik are indeed a photogenic couple
"Really, really good looking" you know ...
A couple of Clark family shots:
The we proved something that Jamie had thought all along.
The sun really does shine out of his bum.
Uncle Jamie is home from London for a holiday so we thought we'd have lunch at our place. Ganny and Grand-dad and Uncle Mike and Mandy and Lilly and baby Will also came along. After a delicious lunch the boys and Lilly went to the park. Mitch and Lilly had a wonderful time togather playing and running and rolling down the hill and holding hands.
Mitch and Lilly both had a go in the photo tree:
Mitch had a swing with Uncle Jamie pushing him and had heaps of fun:
After playing in the park we went back and had lamingtons:
What is a Clark family lunch without Grand-dad falling asleep:
Congratulations to Mike and Mandy on the birth of William (Will) Thomas Clark today at 1:43pm. Brother to Lilly, nephew to Meeks and I and cousin to Mitch. We're looking forward to seeing you all!
Forgive my slowness, there are a wealth of Christmas and post-christmas photos to show off!
Firstly Mitch opening his presents on Christmas morning
Riding his hobby horse at Nana and Poppy's house
Mitch and Lilly playing together at Mike and Mandy's house
Uncle Rob playing with Mitch at Mike and Mandy's. Rob spent a heap of time playing with Mitch and Lilly in Mike and Mandy's backyard.
Lilly did some big jumping by herself too
Also with Ganny
In fact everyone stood around just watching Mitch and Lilly playing.
From Mike and Mandy's we moved on to Ganny and Grandad's house where we had a lot of eating and present opening, but I had put away my camera by then.
Mitch and I had a fun day yesterday. We went to a park in Asquith where Mitch climbed a ladder onto a play gym for the first time. The ladder was taller than him and was quite an effort to get up. I recorded a video on my mobile which hopefully I'll be able to get onto YouTube at some stage. He was a little uncoordinated at first but after a few tries, he was doing it quite well. He was very proud of himself. He also walked up and down some stairs without holding on which was impressive. He hasn't quite got the hang of jumping off things yet. Rather than jumping with two feet he sort of does an exaggerated step (and shouts out, "Shump!") and then overbalances when he lands and lands on his face and then looks up with surprise as if to say, "What went wrong there?". He's also mastered getting on to slippery dips, which again he's very pleased about.
In other milestones, he has learnt to say, "Please". At first it was only in reply to the question, "What do you say when you want something?", but now he says it on his own. It sounds more like "Peesh", but you get the drift. He has also learnt to recognise and say "Lilly". Again it comes out more like "Wiwi", but you know what he's talking about.
He's also learnt to say "No". Fortunately it's not a cranky, disobedient "No!", it is a very cute sort of questioning "No" in response to a question like "Does Mitchy have a beard?" (for those of you who missed it Daddy has a beard at the moment for Movember - only for a few more days, I'm pretty sick of it and Meeks doesn't like it either. Incidentally, you can partially see the current state of the beard here. I have set up a separate blog for my photography stuff and took this photo playing around with the camera the other day - the subject is a bit of a clown, but I'm happy with the quality of the photo). Mitch also has a funny little "nonono" for when he's being cheeky and he knows it.
So it has been a busy little time for Mitch. He's learning new stuff all the time. It is delightful and fascinating to watch.
Ganny is back from overseas and was taking care of Lilly today so we decided to venture over and visit. Mitch and Lilly played together and Brandie thought it looked like fun.
And then we were visited by a very tame kookaburra.
Mitch and the Kooky stare each other down. I think the Kooky is actually wondering if he could eat Mitch. A little later on, he almost took a snap at one of Mitch's fingers
"And now for my close up!"
Sunday was Father's Day. It gave me a chance to reflect on how lucky we are to have Mitchy and what a blessing he is for us. In the evening we went to my parents house for dinner with Grannie and Grandad, Mike and Mandy and Uncle Rob. Mitch also got to play with Cousin Lilly again.
Here is a cute one of Mitchy by himself:
In other news, three out of four of Mitchy's eye teeth have poked through and the result is he's been a bit of a sooky boy during the last week or so. It's very unusual for him to cry for no reason and there has been a bit of that in the last week. It looks like our little boy has come out the other side though because he was back to his happy-self today.
We had dinner for my Dad's birthday at Mike and Mandy and Lilly's place on Sunday night. Mitch and Lilly enjoyed the chance to play together.
First there was drawing together
Then there was reading a book with Meeks
Then there was reading a book with Uncle Mike before Lilly went to bed.
Dad loves his Morgan. If you don't know what a Morgan is, have a look here. Given his love of his car we thought we'd make an appropriate cake.
Once again, Meeks' genius shone through in icing the cake.
In other news, the flower on the now identified camelia has opened. It's very pretty!
