Merry Christmas

It took four tries, lots of tears and promises of chocolate but I finally managed to get a photo of Ella and Alex with Santa. Christmas day was very merry and Boxing day is going to be huge. We have about 20 people coming to a bbq at my parents place -- they have a pool! Merry Christmas everybody.

Painted Baby

We did some painting today. Lots of hand prints, foot prints and a bum print. I have lots of great shots of a painted-up naked baby, but decided that they wern't suitable for publication on the internet.

Alex the Builder

Alex loves building things with his blocks. He did this all by himself. I keep telling people that he's a genius, but no one believes me. Bill was so impressed by Alex's engineering skills that he took took a photo -- it must be a boy thing.

Dancing in the Kitchen

Alex has improved his dance steps since his last boogie moment. Make sure you check out the big finale finish at the end.

Learning to Shave Already?

Here's a good picture of Alex with a fist full of shaving cream. This is the sort of fun stuff we get up to in playgroup as well as lots of painting and collage and generally getting really messy.

Ella, our little fish

Ella loves the pool.

Summer Begins in Brisbane

We spend a lot of time hanging out at my parent's place cooling off in the pool. Ella is a little fish and just loves the water. Alex is a bit more cautious, but once he's in he'll stay in until he's all wrinkled and his lips turn blue!

Happy Brithday to Alex

Alex turns 2. We had a little party on Sunday with a few of his friends and a few of ours. Alex's birthday cake was a replica of his new cubby house which is now fully functional and was 'test driven' by 10 crazy kids at his party.

Bongo Boy

Alex is a bit of a boogie machine. Check out his rythum!

Alex and Crew

Alex and Ella (not pictured as she was asleep in the stroller) spent a lovely day with some very good friends Lachlan, Joshua, Piper and Harrison.

Wide Mouth Mason

Ella loves the jolly jumper. I think she's gonna be a bit of a thrill-seeker as she loves it when her big brother gives her huge swings and helps her to jump higher by pushing on the jolly jumper.

Oooh.. that's nice

We spent a day at the Sunshine Coast with some friends who were camping there for the weekend. Alex got a bit of a thrill sitting on the water fountian.

Happy Birthday to Bill

Bill turns 37 and celebrates with lots of presents, a Homer Simpson birthday cake and having happy birthday sung to him about 10 times so that Alex could blow out the candles.

I'm 6 months old now

Ella in her cute spring dress on a lovely day out in the park for a picnic and to feed the ducks. She's six months old now, is trying really hard to sit up but seems to have some balance issues.

Yummy yummy in my tummy

Ella's first taste of 'real' food. She's now eating three meals a day of all sorts of pureed fruits and veggies. She's an eating machine and lets out a bit of a yell if you're going too slow.

Work on the cubbyhouse continues

The roof is mostly done and the cladding is on. All we need now is a ladder to get up to the top, a slippery slide to get down and the railings around the upstairs deck. A few curtains and some shutters might not be a bad idea too. You may also notice the trees that have gone missing since the last picture. We've been busy and now we're sitting in our kitchen watching the grass grow (you can just see a faint fuzz of green starting to grow).

Old Joe Grady had a farm

ee-i ee-i oooo. Mum and I took Alex and Ella out to Chinchilla to visit my uncle and his family on their cattle farm. Alex is no longer frightened of the sound of cows mooing. He had a ball, chasing dogs, jumping on the trampoline and getting up close and personal with the cows.

The biggest cubbyhouse on the planet is being built in our back yard. A friend of ours is a carpenter and he brought his two apprentices over to our place and worked for two days putting up the frame of the two-storey Taj-Mahal of cubbys. I'll post more photos as the project slowly gets completed.

What a loving big brother. Alex gives us all lovely big kisses accompanied by a big 'mmmwahhh' to let you know what's coming.

We had some studio photos done of the kids last week. Here are some of the choice pics.

Ella and mummy the day that we came home from the hospital.

Here she is. Elizabeth Rebecca Mason -- we call her Ella for short -- born on 5 March 2007. She's a happy, healthy little baby and Alex loves his little sister.