Little boys

It's been a while since I put up a post about anything to do with the boys. So here goes.

Lucas and Sam are growing up quickly. Both boys can walk around now if you hold one of their hands. They're not quick and they're not terribly steady, but they think it's great fun. They're not up to standing up by themselves or walking by themselves yet. Aside from that they furniture surf like professionals. Lucas also likes climbing up on things like the couch and recently Mitch's little table. This is obviously a concern because he hasn't figured out how to get off yet, so if one of us isn't around watching, he will fall off.

They have started saying a few words like "Mum" and "Dad" and they also say "Hi" and "Bye". They have also starting repeating back animal noises like "Woof woof" and monkey noises and cow noises "Mmmmm".

Here are a few photos of them together

 

And one of just Sam:

And one of Lucas:

Unfortunately we're still having issues with the boys sleeping at night. They still wake up multiple times which makes it very hard for both of us, although mostly for Meeks.

Mitch is a good big brother. He loves his little brothers and loves pre-school and riding his bike. Here is the three of them together

And as a final shot, Poppy has been making us bread lately and last night he out did himself and made a crocodile out of bread!

Thanks Poppy!

SOLD!

Well it's been a whirlwind week with a crazy last 24 hours.

We had a couple interested in the house after the first Open House last weekend. They came back on Monday night to see the house again. Meeks had a slow cooking curry on which filled the house with beautiful smells and we put the fairy lights on on the deck and well ... it must have done the trick because we spent the rest of the week negotiating with the buyers and agreed on a price yesterday which we were very happy with and I think was fair in the current market. We finally officially exchanged fairly late in the day last night (Friday).

It is a huge relief to us that it is all done and dusted. Only having to have the house on the market for a week is a huge blessing. Having to pack all the kids stuff away every time we had an Open House and clean up was quite tiring, mostly for Meeks admittedly.

Then as an added surprise this morning, we were sitting inside enjoying not having to worry about cleaning up for another Open House when we heard a huge bang outside. We ran out and found that a truck going past had caught the power wire going to a post next to our driveway which runs power to the house at the back. As the truck drove on it pulled the wire and snapped it and also pulled down the pole and the pole crashed onto our fence and broke it. The truck disappeared off up the road oblivious to the chaos behind it. Anyway, after visits by the police and power company, the outcome is that we have a broken fence and the people at the back have no power until they get someone in to fix the post. They're not home and she's very pregnant, so they could even be at the hospital. I'd hate to come home to that.

For Sale!

Ever since Lucas and Sam wereborn we knew it would only be a matter of time before we had to find a bigger house. Through a series of events we have decided to sell our little house. Here is the web page on Domain. It will be hard leaving here. We have lived the majority of our married life here (only just) and there are so many memories. It is the first place we were abl to make "our own" by renovating and decorating as we liked it. It is where we brought all of our boys home to and it has been the only home they have ever known. We're going to make a video with Mitch so he can have something to look back on as he grows up so he can remember it.

The market is pretty strong at the moment, so we're hoping we'll find a buyer who takes a liking to our house's charms and offers a good price, but at the same time are trying to be realistic about what we will get for it. Fingers crossed!

Laughing boys

Lucas and Sam are starting to interact more with each other and it causes some very cute moments like this.


Sorry about the terrible camera work.

Silver on iStockphoto

In December 2007 I started selling my photographs through iStockPhoto. Basically I take photos of things like people (I can't sell photos of people without a Model Release which states the person in the photo has agreed), landscapes, objects, food, whatever and upload them to the iStockphoto website and people all over the world buy them for use in websites, magazines, newspapers, advertising, books, products, etc. When someone buys a photo you get a cut of the purchase price. The process is such that you don't actually know who has bought the photos or how they have been used (there is a fairly strict set of rules about how you can use them though, so they wont turn up somewhere unsavory). I have been told about my photos appearing on websites like Yahoo.com, ABC Nightline news in the US, various technical websites, and a number of other places. There are a few examples here.

On the iStock site you rise up levels depending on how many sales you have. Each level is repersented by a little film cannister (which is a bit of a throw back to the old days because almost all photos submitted are digital - although there are some scans of old film shots). In September 2008, I was awarded the Bronze cannister when I reached 250 sales. I also went exclusive at iStockphoto which means that I don't sell my photos anywhere else (there are a number of other similar sites out there). This meant I got an increase in what I earned per sale.

Yesterday, I was awarded the Silver cannister for reaching 2500 sales. It has been a fun process uploading and selling photos and has more than paid for itself and indeed has helped us to pay for various things over the past few months which has been great. The next cannister is Gold but it is not until 10,000 sales which is a long, long way away!

In the Park for Lucas and Sam's First Birthday

When Mitch turned 1 we went to Coonanbarra Park in Wahroonga. Today was Lucas and Sam's first birthday so we thought we'd do the same thing. The weather was a little overcast, but it was warm enough and not raining so off we went. Mitch was at pre-school so it was just the four of us. Here are some shots from the picnic.

Created with flickr slideshow.

Compare Mitch at 1

 With Lucas

and Sam


Without doubt they are all beautiful and we love them dearly. Happy Birthday boys!!

Little one year olds!

It's hard to believe that Lucas and Sam are 1 year old today. Happy Birthday boys!

A year and one day ago, they looked like this:


Then a year ago they looked like this:

Look how much bigger Lucas (on the left) was than Sam!
Now they look like this (Lucas in blue, Sam in red):

and like to do this:


Meeks and I are hopefully going to go and have a picnic in the park with the boys later today. Mitch is off at pre-school today so it will just be the four of us.

Mitch, Lucas and Sam's Birthday Party

We had a combined party today for Mitch's 4th, Lucas and Sam's 1st Birthday. The day started off rainy and wet and fortunately cleared in time for the party so we were able to start off in the park. Midway through the party, it started raining ... a lot! In a mad scramble, we moved everything under cover and continued the party on the back deck.


Here are some shots from the day:

Created with flickr slideshow.

Mitchy rides again!

Another video! This time a bit more creative and it has some accidents!

Mitch's birthday

Yesterday was Mitch's 4th Birthday. Among other things he got a "big boy bike". He was very excited! He has never been able to ride bike before, because he couldn't work out how to push the peddles. On the morning of his birthday he experienced the same difficulties on our drive way. He was a bit disappointed.
Off he went to pre-school with cupcakes with dinosaur sprinkles to share. After pre-school, Meeks and I picked him up went to a park which is next to his pre-school which has lots of room to ride and an oval with a flat concrete bike track around it. After quite a lot of practice he finally got it and he was so proud and excited. We were so proud of him too. When we came home from the park, he decided he wanted to ride it around (and around and around) our back deck. Here is a video:



Nana came over for dinner and we had Mitch's favourite dinner which is Mummy's chicken pie and ice cream for dessert. All in all a pretty great birthday for a 4 year old! More photos to come soon!

Small boys around the house

Mitch, Lucas and Sam and I were playing around the house today. Lucas and Sam are getting to the point where they can play a bit more with with Mitch which is great. I decided to bring out the camera. Mitch is not a fan unless he get's to make funny faces

Sam and Lucas are still in the inquisitive stage :)

Sam is in dark blue, Lucas is in grey.

Here is a slideshow of the shots

Created with flickr slideshow.

Snip, snip

The little boys hair was getting a bit too long at the side and the back and well ... they had Mullets. It's not a good look. Even on cute little boys. So we had a bit of snip, snip and while it was a bit rough, they don't look too bad! (Sam is in the green sleep suit)





Chewing the bar of the cot, yum, yum!


Mitch is pretty cute too!

Standing up, sitting down, rolling over

I haven't posted for ages so I thought I'd post a quick progress update.


The little boys continue to progress in their ability to do things, not quite in the same order, but they're both getting along. Lucas and Sam have both mastered pulling themselves up on things, but unfortunately only Lucas has managed to work out how to sit down again, so every little while you will hear Sam whining because he's pulled himself up on something and is now "stuck". Sam has got the hang of rolling over ... sometimes. He's a bit lazy about it though. He did it three times in a row the other night just before we were about to put him to bed so I hurried and lowered his cot, then the next morning he promptly forgot how to do it. Since then sometimes he remembers, sometimes he doesn't. Lucas is still resolutely stuck on his back. If he doesn't get it soon we're going to start calling him "turtle" because they can't roll over from their backs either.

Lucas has developed a nasty habit of face planting. He did it about 4 times on Saturday. The first time was after a bit of "encouragement" by his big brother which lead to a huge bleeding fat lip and he spent the rest of the day looking like he had a very bad collagen lip injection job. Unfortunately through the rest of the day he face planted another 3 or 4 times each time bumping the big lip and leading to much more tears.

In other news, congratulations to Krissy and Glenn on the birth of their little girl Hannah. We're very much looking forward to seeing her via photos of Skype or whatever as soon as possible and meeting her in person at Christmas. We love you all and hope the coming weeks are full of wonderful new experiences and as much sleep as possible. Mitch was very excited at the thought of a new cousin and the prospect of playing with her. Although he did have some concerns. When asked about whether or not he was looking forward to meeting his cousin he said, "She might be friendly or she might be as tall as a bridge!". Admittedly he had only just woken up from a sleep ... but still, amazing imagination!

Merrijig and Mount Buller

The laptop is just holding up and I managed to put together and edit this panorama of the Merrijig Valley near where we stayed with Marion and Tony. About one third in from the right and one third up from the bottom is Mount Buller. It was a bit of mammoth Photoshop cloning job because as locals would be able to tell you telephone lines and power poles run straight through the shot from the position where I shot it! It's not perfect yet, there is a bit of tidying up to do, but it's most of the way there.

Mitch running

Over the weekend we went down to country Victoria to visit Auntie Marion and Uncle Tony in Mansfield. We had a great time and Mitch absolutely loved it. There was a lot of fun and playing.


I haven't had much of a chance to process the pictures I took because my laptop is on it's last legs and I need a new one because it keeps turning itself off in the middle of doing things. Very annoying. I did manage to process this series of Mitch running on the back deck:

Created with flickr slideshow.
More to follow!

Good news!

Some very good news. After the tests on Monday and the results of other tests coming back, the doctor has concluded that Mitch doesn't have diabetes. This obviously comes as a huge relief to us and a huge answer to prayer. His explanation of Mitch's higher than normal Blood Glucose readings is that they are normal hormonal fluctuations. There is still one test to come back which might say that Mitch is more prone to diabetes, but at least for the time being he doesn't have it.

Thanks to everyone who has been praying for us and Mitch, we have really appreciated your care and concern and especially your prayers.

New achievements and a big test

Sam took a while, but he has finally caught up in crawling ability to his (slightly) older brother. He's not as quick as Lucas (who is getting much quicker everyday) but he gets there eventually. Normally they crawl around doing their own things, but they often come together and sometimes you hear them complaining because they're trying to sit on the same piece of ground. They have the whole floor to sit on and they end up  sitting on each other! They like to follow Mitch around too which is both a source of delight and frustration to him. He likes it when he wants them to follow him to his room and play, but he doesn't like it when he is playing his own game and they come and interrupt and try to play with "his" toys. We're trying to teach him to distract them with alternative toys, which usually works! They also like to watch him when he is in the bath. They can't pull themselves up to standing yet, so they sit on the floor of the bathroom reaching up to the edge of the bath and try to look in. It's very cute. I'll have to get a photo soon.

Here is a very quick video of Sam clapping and crawling (and me making a goose of myself).


In other news about the little boys, Meeks weighed them both the other day and they were both the same at 10.3kg. Little chunky boys!

In news about Mitch, he has a glucose tolerance test tomorrow at the hospital. Basically he can't eat or drink after midnight tonight (Sunday) and then he has to go to the hospital tomorrow morning for a 9:30am session where he will get a glucose drip put in and his blood sugar will be monitored for the next two hours to see how his pancreas is working. Obviously it is going to be very hard for the little guy to not eat for hours and have a needle in his hand and sit around not doing much for hours. Meeks is going to the hospital with him and I am staying at home with the twins. We're going to try and make it as fun as possible for him by taking DVDs and Meeks' Netbook so he can play games, but he is going to be sooooooo hungry. Poor little guy! Meeks is quite apprehensive about it all, as you can expect. His Blood Glucose Test readings this week have continued to be a bit high, but nothing too out of the ordinary, so who knows, maybe it isn't diabetes, tomorrow will tell us more but still may not be definitive.

More photos

Another slideshow of the little boys. Lucas is in the greener top and Sam is in the lighter top

Created with flickr slideshow.If the slideshow doesn't work you can view the set here in Flickr

One for their 21st Birthday

You might remember Sam and Lucas enjoyed a bit of niggle right from early on.




Well now they have graduated to using weapons!

 

It always seems to be Sam doing the biffing! 

Update: I should actually add, that despite what it looks like in this image, Sam is not actually hitting Lucas. Rather he was just holding the golf club and Lucas leaned into it. Makes for an amusing photo though :)

Mitch's diabetes - progress update

After Friday's events we spent the weekend doing fairly regular blood glucose tests. Mitch is such a good boy and is being so brave and good about it. All we have to say now is "Which finger?" and he offers up one (usually the same one so we have to suggest a different one!) and then he helps take out the little test strip and put it in his glucometer. He still is not fond of us pricking his finger (no surprise there) but is being such a good boy about it. We have had to bribe him a couple of times, once with a toy car and normally with a (sugar free) lolly. We think it is still a bit of novelty at the moment,  but hopefully he will remain okay about it when the novelty wears off.

His tests over the weekend were generally pretty good. They were slightly higher than they should have been, but none were dangerously high, which means he is somewhat borderline. We also changed his diet quite a bit to cut out a lot of the sugar he had been inadvertently eating (did you know Uncle Tobys sweetened muesli is 30% sugar!) so that in itself may be contributing to a bit of a honeymoon effect (that is the term used whereby after being diagnosed with diabetes a change in diet or commencement of insulin use gives the pancreas a "rest" and allows any still active cells to produce insulin, it is only a honeymoon period though and eventually ends) with his pancreas. Obviously we will know more later in the week when we get the results of the blood tests performed in hospital.

Meeks had to tell Mitch's Pre-School about it today. Their policy is that they will do blood glucose tests on Mitch at a prescribed time each day or when his behaviour is unusual and if there are any issues will ring Meeks. They will not however administer insulin, if it comes to that, which we're fine about. Overall that is a pretty good situation. Some Pre-Schools wont even do blood tests.

It is amazing how much Meeks and I have to learn about given Meeks has been a diabetic for so long. Having a small child with diabetes is a completely different situation from when she developed it as a teenager.

Diabetes

As many of you know Meeks has Type 1 Diabetes and due to the increased likelihood of our children having it we have always kept a fairly close eye on the boys. Earlier this week Mitch started exhibiting some of the classic symptoms which are frequent urination and needing to drink lots of water. Meeks did a blood glucose test yesterday and he was higher than normal although not long after it had returned to a more normal level. This morning we did a test before breakfast and it showed a much higher level than it should have been after not eating for 12+ hours.

As a result we have spent the day talking to various doctors and the last 4 hours or so in the children's hospital. At the hospital, the blood glucose test they did returned a normal result which is good. They took some blood and will do a bunch of tests to find out what is going on. In the mean time they gave Mitch his own glucometer and we will need to test him about 4 times a day over the next week or so to see what is happening with his blood sugar levels. His normal reading in the hospital indicates that he is not 100% certain of diabetes, but is a borderline case. Either way it is very good that we have appeared to have caught it early.

It has been a very stressful and teary day as we have been considering the consequences of having an (almost) 4 year old with insulin dependent diabetes. Certainly there are worse medical conditions to have and he will still be able to lead a long and largely very normal life, but it is a chronic lifelong condition with no cure. Mitch is only 4 so certainly doesn't understand the consequences and impact on him, but he does understand that something is not right and having Mummy and Daddy do pin pricks on his fingers for blood glucose tests is no fun at all. We are trying to get him interested and involved, but at the moment he just wants us to leave him alone. He loves attention but when that "attention" involves pricking his fingers to get blood, he'd rather not have it! We get the blood test results next week and will keep you updated.

Keeping up

Sam has decided he has had enough of watching Lucas crawling around and he started doing it himself this afternoon. Good boy Sam. I'll have to get some footage soon!

It has been a "fun" week watching Lucas crawl around. His favourite things are the wine rack and the dishwasher. First thing in the morning he will always head to the wine rack to play with the bottles. That potential disaster is averted by placing the bean bag in front of it. If you're in the kitchen and you open the dishwasher shortly afterwards you hear the slap, slap, slap of Lucas' little hands as he crawls towards it. Interestingly Mitch was exactly the same (scroll to the bottom of this post). Lucas also likes going to visit Mitch in his room which is very cute. This morning while I was having a shower he crawled down pushed open the door to see what was going on. It will be interesting to see whether Sam and Lucas will follow each other around or crawl around doing their own things. They have been forced to share each other's company for the first 10 months of their lives!

Crawling

Lucas started crawling this morning. Before breakfast he couldn't do it. After breakfast he decided to crawl around and see what Mitch was doing in his play area. He wasn't quick and I don't think he realised what he was doing but one minute he was in one place, the next he was going around the corner. Sam just watched him go. The rules have changed again! :)

Update:
A video! (here is a direct link)


Sam is not totally static he manages to get around the floor, just not really crawling.

More photos

I took a bunch more photos of the little boys today, just playing around at home. I have uploaded the set to Flickr and you can see it here. Here is a slideshow for you! (if the slideshow doesn't work click on the link)

Created with flickr slideshow.

Another one of Mitch

Another shot of Mitch eating a chocolate biscuit. A suitable reward for sitting still while I took photos of him. Do you think he enjoyed it?

A new trick

Lucas and Sam have learned to hold their bottle by themselves.

 

 

This is a great time saver for us because we can just give them their bottles and they drink until they've had enough and then they put their bottles down. Unfortunately, they still haven't learned to roll over and crawl yet so they kind of just lie there until you sit them up so they can burp. Speaking of crawling they're getting closer, but still not quite there.

Mitchy

Mitchy is very rarely willing to sit and let me take photos of him, so when he does, it's a real treat. Here are some from today.

 

  

  

There was a bunch of funny faces too!

He's growing up so fast. He is at Pre-School 2 days a week this year and loves it. Yesterday he came home in his "spare" clothes because his first set of clothes were covered in mud (which did not come out in the wash). Apparently, "dirt cars" is his favourite game and after all the rain we have had, "dirt cars" became "mud cars".

Bathing baby boys

We took a few snaps after Sam and Lucas had had a bath today. They are very cute little boys :)

Lucas (and me)

 

Sam

 

 

 

 

More teeth and general news

It seems there will be a rush of new teeth over the coming week or two. Lucas already has his top four poking through and Sam's seem like they're about to pop through too. It is very cute, but it looks weird after getting used to Lucas' gummy open mouth smile.

Neither of the boys are rolling over or crawling yet, although Sam is looking like doing it first. We quiet often come into their room after a sleep and find Sam facing sideways or even completely rotated around in the bed. Lucas remains pretty much exactly as you left him. In fact there is generally a dent in the bed where his head was. Perhaps that is the issue, his head is too heavy! Once they're on their belly the are both fairly mobile although not in a crawling sense. Both boys rotate on their bellies and Lucas goes backwards, but no sign of getting up on their knees to crawl. Sam is getting better at moving from a sitting position onto his belly, but he always seems surprised when he does it!

Mitch starts at his new Pre-School next week 2 days a week (Monday and Tuesday). We're hoping he fits in well and enjoys it. He has been there for an orientation and enjoyed that, but I think he thinks that his friends from his old Day Care are going to be there. I hope he's not sad when they're not. Meeks is looking forward to having one less child to take care of for a couple of days a week, and we're hoping the little boys' sleeps will fit in to the Pre-School schedule.

Meeks and I are going to have a garage sale next Saturday afternoon to try to sell of some of the clutter in our house (think books, clothes, DVDs, CD, videos, high chair, platters, more platters, other stuff). There is just so much of it and we really don't have any room for it. We have just been putting more and more stuff up into the roof. So if you like garage sales come and visit us on Saturday afternoon.

Sandpit games

Lucas and Sam got a sandpit for Christmas. Mitch loves playing in it, but Lucas and Sam do get to have a play in it occasionally.

A different view

 

Little cutie boys!

Mitch the Tiger/Dinosaur!

Sometimes you have a conversation with Mitch that just has to be recorded or it will be forgotten. For Christmas Mitch got Ice Age 3 which he loves and has watched many, many times since then. He really would watch it a couple of times every day if we let him. Anyway, one of the characters is Diego the sabre toothed tiger. Mitch loves either pretending to be Diego or one of the dinosaurs. Today he decided he wanted to be a tiger or a dinosaur when he grew up. We asked him, how would he pay for food for his wife and children if he was a tiger? His reply that he would catch his food with his mouth and eat it with his paws and teeth! He said it with a completely straight face while crouched like a tiger and imitating how he would eat it. Hilarious!

Along with the acting like a tiger or a dinosaur is a habit of either bounding up and down the hall way on his hands and knees (in tiger mode) or stomping up and down the hall like a dinosaur. Very noisy when anyone is trying to sleep! It is also accompanied by loud roars which are amusing at first for the babies, but quickly become a bit scary. Mitch needs to reign in his inner dinosaur/tiger!

Reptile World

Well, for starters it's not really called Reptile World it is really the Australian Reptile Park. I go back to work tomorrow (boo hiss!) after almost three weeks off, so we decided, on the spur of the moment late Friday afternoon, to take Mitchy up to Reptile World near Gosford as we had been planning to do sometime while I was on holidays.

We got there at about 3:30pm and had missed most of the demonstrations (boo!) but as a result got a discount on the entry price (yay!). The first thing we did was watch a demonstration about spiders. The guy was playing around with a couple of Funnel Web spiders. You can see one here on the esky in front of him.

 The guy presenting was quite amusing and we learned some interesting things about funnel web spiders and how to avoid and/or capture them. I personally hope not to have a run in with them at all, but if it did happen I would know what to do - in this case apparently I'm supposed to get Meeks because the most commonly bitten people are young boys and men in the age group 25-40!

After the spider show we wandered to where there were a bunch of kangaroos sitting around waiting to be patted. Mitch loved it!

 

 

Mitch even stared down an emu!

After that we went and looked at the reptiles. They were in these large enclosures - lot's of lizards and snakes and turtles

 

Mitch loved it! Then inside the main building there was another reptile display with crocodiles and snakes and spiders! Here is the biggest, hairiest one I could find

Don't worry it's in a glass box, in a room with a viewing window.

All in all it was a really good afternoon and we were very impressed with the park and Mitch had a great time. We will have to go back again sometime earlier in the day to catch more of the presentations like the crocodile feeding.

Raspberries and cheeky smiles - A video!

Just before Christmas I ordered a new DSLR camera to replace the faithful and still very good Pentax K100D. It is the new middle of the range Pentax K-X. It has a number of advantages over the old camera. One of the fun things about it is that it does HD video as well as stills. I was playing around with it today and shot this little video of Lucas making raspberries (which he loves to do!) and Sam just being cute!



Enjoy!

Capturing the moment

One of the moments I love is when you manage to capture the essence of a personality in a single shot. Sam and Lucas although identical twins are developing quite different personalities. Lucas is more full on, where as Sam is a bit more quiet and perhaps thoughtful. Lucas gives you a wide open mouthed smile and Sam gives you a smaller, more cheeky smile. Lucas laughs out loud frequently and easily, Sam still laughs but you have to work a bit harder for it.

Here are a couple of pictures which capture moments which express those differences.

 

They're not perfect photos from a technical point of view. There is a bit of motion blur and noise, but one of the things I'm learning at the moment is that a picture doesn't have to be technically perfect to capture the moment perfectly.

Cousin Lilly's Party

The other day we went over to Mike and Mandy's house for Cousin Lilly's 4th Birthday Party.

Mike and Mandy's backyard has done a lot of growing. This is March 2008

And here it is now.

Meeks made another amazing cake. It is rare she gets to make a girly cake

Lilly loved it