Merry Christmas
Wednesday, 23 December 2009
Merry Christmas Dear Reader! 
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A night alone
Friday, 18 December 2009
On Sunday night the girls had their first ever sleep over, at Grandma & Grandpas, and we had our first night in about 19 months without at least one of our daughters. We were pretty excited about it actually but to be honest the overwhelming thing was how quiet the house was without Abby & Zoe. It was very very quiet. What's more we slept just as poorly as usual and both woke up early at the kind of time Zoe has trained us all to wake up at. As Grandma said to me later - I think you're cursed with that now. And how did the girls go? Well by all reports they woke in the morning and just got on with normal business. The only catch was Zoe woke at 5.15am and Abby at 6 - very early by their standards! Ah well I don't think Grandma had slept anyway, checking they were still breathing on several occasions and worrying about how teddy bear placements might be effecting breathing. Sounds like Grandma is cursed by parenting also!
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The Coast December 09
Friday, 11 December 2009
Busy, busy, busy so no
time for blogging but have finally grabbed some time to blog something that
happened a few weekends ago – another trip to the Coast! We went down with our
friends the Manning-Keightly family, renting a house in the quiet hamlet of Longbeach
which is in the bay part of Batemans Bay without being in the town part of
Batemans Bay. If that makes sense. The house was over the road from a very
kid-friendly beach and we basically spent the weekend on the beach retreating
to the house when it was too hot or too windy or for naps (the kids & Greg
had naps). Abby & Zoe seemed to get the hang of the beach although found it
a lot to take in, getting tired quickly from all the action of…… sitting on the
beach. As a family we also went into Batemans Bay (the town) for fish n chips
(see one of smaller photos) and Belinda, Greg and I got to go for runs at
various times during the weekend. Abby enjoyed her first ever taste of fish n
chips while Zoe proved she has the Allison taste for all things sour by
immediately biting into and consuming the quarter of a lemon that came with the
fish n chips. The beach highlight for Zoe was probably sitting and playing with
the sand & shells while for
Abby it was running back and forth towards the water with Belinda (see photos).
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Progress?
Friday, 4 December 2009
 Initially I thought this was progress when we left the coffee shop this morning and the girls insisted on pushing the pram. They pushed it slowly through Jammo with only a bit of straightening from me. The catch was by the end of Jammo Zoe was ready to sit in the pram herself and be pushed but Abby was, shall we say, "dissapointed" when I suggested she get in the pram also for the walk home. Still once in a few pram-games and was all good again.
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Another traffic update
Thursday, 3 December 2009
Two days in a row! This mornings, which I heard myself, was for motorists to be careful as there was a herd of camels running down Mullgians Flat Rd towards Amaroo. Camels!
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Traffic Update #2
Wednesday, 2 December 2009
I've mentioned before I love a good Canberra traffic update and today Rob Walt & Grandpa Allison reported they heard a cracker. Apparently it went along the lines that motorists should slow down on Northbourne Avenue as a galah was mourning the death of its mate which had recently 'passed away' on the roadside.
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So what are we doing?
Monday, 16 November 2009
Well this blog is entitled bajase but as our regular reader knows it probably should be retitled A&Z. In the name of restoring a bit of balance I thought I might mention that we have been managing to do some things lately outside of parenting. This has mostly been because for the last few months Abby & Zoe have been spending an afternoon every weekend at Grandma & Grandpas thus giving us some time to have lives. This is especially possible as an afternoon on this occasion is defined as from 11.30am till 6pm. So what have we been doing with this time? Well Belinda has been using it to get into the garden. She's done a lot of planting, weeding, composting and also built a fence. The fence was actually more connecting a fence as there were sections of our block fenced in but sections not which meant toddlers could escape onto roads easily. We got Clayton from Jim's Fencing (Revelation: They're not all called Jim!) to put the posts in and Belinda did the rest. Her first assistant was her Dad and her second assistant was me - Belinda is definitely the handy one in our relationship. When I wasn't acting as 2nd assistant gardener/handy dude I have spent my afternoons mostly doing work such as writing reports and letters and that might not seem like much fun but its nice to have the space to think and get it done. I've also got out for a few runs, bought some new sunnies and well, to be honest, read the paper! Here's a before and after of Belinda finishing the final gate in the fence with Belinda cutting tin in between. She's a serious handy person! 
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Transportation 2
Sunday, 15 November 2009
A shot below of Zoe after having moved some stuff. It looks like on this occasion there is a cordial bottle, a container of sultanas and the food processor. If you look closely in the background the Majoram can be seen lying forlornly, once again dumped a long way from home. 
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The Y
Friday, 13 November 2009
Every Wednesday, sickness allowing, Abby & Zoe head off for a day at the Y, otherwise known as YMCA Child Care. Last Wednesday we encouraged the girls to carry their own bags to the Y. As can be seen Abby was willing and able with back pack on and 'Sheets' in hand (Sheets is her special friend equivalent of Molly). Zoe was less willing to pull her own weight and can be seen in the background inspecting her bag but certainly not carrying it! 
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Duck Walk
Friday, 13 November 2009
When she gets very excited and happy Abby has, what we have christened, her 'Duck Walk'. She throws her chest forward, her arms go back and she walks very quickly with her mouth wide open and an excited "Ahhhhhh" (time does not allow me to type the number of "h"s required in the "Ahhhhh" to explain it fully). It is both cute and funny and we are very lucky to see Abby's duck walk quite often as, much to our delight, Abby is often excited and happy. Below are some photos capturing the Duck Walk. 
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Transportation
Friday, 6 November 2009
Zoe is right into things at the moment. She's into everything. Basic pattern is to get somewhere open (eg cupboard, draw, basket etc), get an object out, walk round with said-object that has been found and then dump it, presumably when its no longer interesting. As a result over the last week or so I can think of the following things that have been found, moved and dumped: books, toys, plastic cups, plastic plates, plastic bowls, keys, biscuit packets, sultana packets, nappys, spice containers (for some reason Majoram is the favourite), mobile phone headphones, mobile phones, remotes, wallets, watches, rings, bath toys, a box of earrings, hand creams, savlon, shoes (adult & child), bags, balls, buckets, feminine hygiene products, saucepans, bibs, wash cloths, teddy bears, sunglasses, packets of chips, batteries, a coffee plunger and a food processor. That's off the top of my head. Clean up at the end of the day is taking a bit longer at the moment. Abby is less into investigating and moving things (with the proviso that anything Zoe has is automatically interesting to Abby and possibly something to be snatched). Abby's interest lies more with books at the moment. Abby's book reading approach though is driven by her attention span and thus involves bringing a book to myself or Belinda, sitting down to have it read to her, the book reading commencing and then somewhere around page 2 Abby wandering off to get the next book. End of the day cleaning currently also involves putting a lot of books away!
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The Big Day
Monday, 2 November 2009
The forecast was for a sunny 30 degrees. Zoe was playing happily after breakfast. We had plans to be out in the morning. Molly-the-loved-Bear lay unnoticed on the kitchen floor. Conditions were perfect. I (Belinda) seized my moment.  Epilogue: Molly had peanut butter toast for lunch, about 5 minutes after reuniting with her best friend Zoe.
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Child Proof Fence
Tuesday, 27 October 2009
 We've done a bit of toddler-proofing of the house such as moving knife drawers higher and locking cupboards with dangerous stuff in them, but in the scheme of things not a lot. One thing we did do though is put a playpen fence round our (very stylish) fake-log gas heater. Lots of sharp corners and some slate flooring which would be very painful and dangerous should little heads fall on it. However, as can be seen, our little cherubs have treated this amateur piece of child proofing with disdain. Zoe thinks there is nothing funnier than to go in behind the fence and laugh uproariously at the world. And anything Zoe thinks is funny, Abby thinks is funny - although more in a zoe-did-this-and-everyone-thought-it-was-funny-so-now-i'm-doing-it-everyone-will-laugh kind of way.
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Twin Tip #3
Thursday, 8 October 2009
We seem to have observed a pattern: Yoghurt for dessert at tea time = sleep till 5.30am Rice Pudding for dessert at tea time = sleep till 6.45am!!!!!! (I'd buy some shares in rice pudding ingredients if I was you Dear Reader as Abby & Zoe are going to be eating it for dessert until they're 21)
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Orienteering holiday
Thursday, 8 October 2009
We've just got back from an orienteering holiday! It was 1 part fun, 1 part hard work and well I'm not sure what the other parts were. We travelled down to Daylesford and stayed at Nan & Pa's house, orienteered in Castlemaine, spent 4 days pottering round Daylesford and then came back to Benalla-Wangaratta (its similar to the Sunshine Coast) for more orienteering and the trek home. We were most fearful about the driving after being scarred from a long drive with the girls last Xmas but the drive(s) went great with reading books, playing, eating, sleeping and a little hand from a borrowed portable DVD player :). The orienteering was really enjoyable while racing but cold and wet weather made the usual hanging round playing in the dirt a bit less fun. Abby & Zoe had a great time getting a big dose of Nan & Pa although Zo had a bad sore throat which made her a bit grumpy some of the time and us a bit grumpy some of the time (particularly between the hours of 11pm and 6.30am). Great to get away from the normal routines, see some friends and spend some time with Nan & Pa. Oh we also got to go to Melbourne Zoo with the cousins. 
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