He's football crazy, he's football mad

Thought you might enjoy some real football enthusiasm....enjoy the video clip!

Gabe seems to have football in his veins, whenever he sees it on tele he shouts "Goal!" he doesn't really get the concept of a goal, but its cute that he recognises the sport and is enthusiastic about it.

Funny story - I'll just give you some background first, Gabe has had a bit of a cold for the last week so we've been blowing his nose frequently. I was folding laundry in the living room the other day and Gabe was helping out, he wasn't exactly folding but I let him join in anyway. So he was walking off with a pair of my trousers and sneezed, he lifted the trousers to his nose and proceeded to wipe it all over the pant leg! It was so cute I couldn't tell him off, I just had to laugh.

Spot the car...again

We had some snow over the weekend, somewhere in the region of 29cm fell between Friday night and Saturday night. We had lots of fun clearing the car repeatedly on Saturday, Tim and Ryan were busy hammering and cutting our new door way. It looks great and just needs a lick of paint and some skirting board and then we are finally finished in the living room. Ryan also put up the tile back splash in the bathroom and grouted it – more fantastic progress!

While the boys were working on the house Gabe and I went to the gym for the morning. Unfortunately I don’t have pictures of him in the pool, but he does love the class. Especially at the end when the floor comes up to knee level and he can walk around. He gets a pool noodle to steady himself then runs all over the place, in and out of the shower part and after any brightly coloured ball. It’s lots of fun to watch and I take him every week because I can see how much he enjoys it. Hopefully that’s a vivid enough description that you won’t mind the lack of photo!

On Saturday night lots of snow fell and the driveway disappeared, the snow plough went by and drowned our only exit…with yucky slushy heavy snow! So here is our personal plough trying to make a dent in the mountain. This was my valiant attempt to get to church on Sunday morning…probably should have started half an hour earlier!

Gabe just figured out how to use a fork effectively this evening so I had to put this up!

"Look Mummy snow!"

This is Gabe's attempt at construction - while the boys were
building the door, he was building a tower as big as himself.

As you can tell Gabe still refuses to wear a hat - even when his head is getting wet!

So this is the car sitting in the snow...it had been cleared of snow several times already by the time I took this picture...and it was cleared several times after this photo too!
I still don't mind though I love the stuff.

Buttons and things

Gabe has discovered clothes...yes he has been wearing them since day one but things have changed. He now wants to help put clothes on, take clothes off, pull up zippers, pop the poppers and do the buttons. Unfortunately he is rather slow and his help is really a hindrance when mum & dad are trying not to be late for work.
On Saturday I decided to let him play with clips instead, to defer some of the interest away from the stuff that slows us down. While I was changing my clothes after swimming he sat in his pram and played with the clip...I know you should never leave a child unattended but I'm complacent and I know he doesn't want to go anywhere he just wants to put the three pieces together like a jigsaw. He happens to be rather good at this, it's the taking them apart again to start over again that doesn't seem to make sense to him. Why would they make it so hard to undo I think to myself...oh yeah kids aren't supposed to get out of the straps d'oh!
Later on we were shopping and Gabe decides to throw his cheerios across the supermarket floor oops! Now the entertainment is gone and there is still lots to buy argh! Oh but mum saves the day by remembering the fascination with clips! Yay for trolleys that have seat belts! The next twenty minutes were spent in a calm enjoyable manner while mum finished the task in hand. Oh what fun it is having a curious toddler, who by the way never gets to play with his car seat clips - you have to draw the line somewhere!

"Look mum I found some buttons to press!"

Here's Gabe helping Grandpa clean his bike,
I'm not sure why he chose to clean the tire but I wasn't about to discourage him.

Clean bike - now we can pose for a photo!

I just realised we haven't shared many photos from our trip home so I'm putting a couple on at a time so you can enjoy them bit by bit.

Happy Birthday Dad

Today my dad is a year older! Some of his glory was stolen by a random collision with Mother's Day, but we didn't forget. Hope you got our message. Happy birthday Pops!

Happy Mother's Day!...In the UK!!

I just wanted to say Happy Mother's Day! to my mother especially and of course to my mother-in-law and Caroline. I hope you each had a lovely Sunday of rest and relaxation.

We've had somewhat of a roller coaster ride in the last few weeks and we're at a low point on the ride where we can start planning that next renovation project. I now have a fully functional washer and dryer and have delighted in the simple activity of washing my own clothes! So the next thing will be to finish the back splash in the bathroom and the door frame in the living room (both pretty quick jobs) followed by a plan and demolition of the kitchen....oooh the fun awaits!

Anyway enough about the house, we've had visitors who are far more interesting. Last weekend we met baby Diana (apologies no pictures yet) for the first time and had a great night of fellowship with her parents Tim & Sujin and her Grandparents Steve and Patty. Gabe really enjoyed having everyone over so he could show off how loud he can be and how much mess he can make. He wasn't really sure what to make of Diana as she isn't big enough to compete for toys or noisy enough to distract him much. Hopefully Diana, Tim & Sujin will be back this weekend for a play date and DIY fun, so we'll see if he remembers her.

We just said goodbye to Dawn & Lynn who visited us this weekend. Dawn lives and works in a group home with adults who have special needs, so she has lots of great stories. Lynn also volunteers in the home so they both know the joy of spending time working with people. Dawn doesn't get much time off so when she does its good to get away from the house...unfortunately Gabe loved all the extra attention and insisted on shouting up a storm every morning to wake them up! We really enjoyed having them over and it was so nice to have weekend where the house didn't demand our undivided attention!

Gabe has learnt a couple of new words recently and we said we'd keep you up to date, so here are the newer ones:

Bath (pronounced Baff)
No (sounds more like neh)
Food (sign language)
Cookie (pronounced ce-ce..with a huge smile on his face! Today he mimicked the sign for it too)
Bobbin (he usually comes out with it at some point when singing and doing actions to "wind the bobbin up")

I believe this is Gabe doing the actions to "wind the bobbin up"

Usually when we're warming his milk for bed we count down the last ten seconds on the microwave and yesterday I was distracted so I didn't count. Gabe proceeded without me, using grunts and random vowels in exactly the same tone I usually count down in. He has also learnt to dance...I believe we can give Mack some credit for this new trick as I hear he dances around with Gabe at daycare. Ryan and I have had many a giggle as we watch Gabe get excited and stamp his little feet around in a circle or on the spot! He particularly likes it we join in with the stamping, dancing fun....I'm quietly glad we haven't filmed any of these silly moments!

I just had to add this photo because it is totally random,
1. Gabe has a sippy cup with him in the bath
2. Ryan is also in the bath - fully clothed may I add
3. Ryan is offering Gabe a refill with a jug of bath water
4. There is definitely no washing going on here

Can you see anything else wrong with this picture?