Amy!

A quick update on our little girl – not so little any more at 7.5 months!

Amy is going great guns on her food (apparently I’m not allowed to mention her thighs, and I’m definitely not allowed to call her “thunder thighs”… oops! ) and as a result is looking very healthy on the charts. She’s a happy wee girl and with Lou recently returning to part-time work I’ve had the pleasure of some daddy-days with her of late.

While still not crawling, she does do a good beached whale impersonation, and can sit fairly well now with her first vocalising sound being “ba”. She’s also found her toes, loves anything with buttons (has her own cell phone as a result) and thinks her crazy brother is hysterical.

Finally, here’s a recent vid (~6 months) having fun with Mum,

Triple trouble

A little belated, but here’s a video from Jo taken last weekend at Cate’s 1st birthday party – Matt, Amalie and Cate playing with balloons in the bathtub…

I’m sure one of those girls was the ring leader…

Links:
- www.bobandjo.gen.nz
- www.russandsarah.gen.nz

Recent YouTube additions…

By me! Two of the little guy in fact.

A while ago Matt figured out he could move his little plastic chairs to help him reach things – including the door handle,

Initially however, his cunning plan was flawed as the door swings inwards – right to where he planted the chair. HA! That didn’t last long. He now knows to leave a small gap, open the door a crack, climb down, move the chair, then open the door. Luckily, we have a last line of defence – all our external doors have deadlocks that can only be opened by keys (now hidden!)

And this vid was taken a couple of nights ago when Matt was having a great time singing “row row row your boat…” with his mum in the bath,

Enjoy.

Approaching Two

It’s been a while since I’ve thrown up some comments and photos of the little guy – who’s not quite so little these days!

Matt is almost two months off his second birthday and is getting more and more helpful – which is a good thing with a brother or sister for him on the way.

So what’s he up to? Plenty as usual, and always at full speed! Matt has taken to running everywhere and climbing over anything or anyone (including the cat) to get to what he wants – normally while saying “want it. want it!” He loves creche and the other kids there – as evidenced by him frequently reciting his little friends names when he wakes up. He’s also taken to reciting the alphabet and counting – although these are probably not fully understood and simply rope learned from us. Here’s a quick video of part of the alphabet…

On the scary front, he showed me today how to drag a chair across the room to climb up to grab something – seems nothing is safe in our place anymore. All in all, he’s a fun little boy who keeps us on our toes. And needless to say it’s going to be doubly interesting in November when he has to share Mum and Dad with another baby… or will it be October? Preliminary due date is Nov 6 – place your bets…!

Holiday snaps

The photos and videos from our holiday in the Marlborough Sounds are now online.

As well as learning to drive a tractor, Matt discovered there was much fun to be had in trying to throw his toys off the rather high deck at the bach – or at least constantly racing mum or dad to the edge with a toy in hand! As with our Christmas visit, he remains obsessed with the fan there, and delights in turning switches on and off at every opportunity. He can now climb up onto chairs, kick a ball, and stood up from sitting for the first time without needing to use a table or chair to pull himself up onto his feet.

Most importantly, he passed a major milestone while on holiday – he fetched his father a beer! Sweet. Just have to teach him how to use the lawnmower and wash the car and I’ll be set.

Here’s a sneak peek at one of the short videos – Matt playing Humpty Dumpty on the edge of the swimming pool with Mum,

For more photos and videos, click through to the photo gallery and my YouTube profile.

Enjoy!

10,000+ Photos

I recently clocked up 10,000 photos and videos on my little Canon IXUS 400 compact digital camera – quite a milestone with a single camera now over 4 years old!

No, I didn’t count ‘em all, instead the camera uses a sequential numbering system, starting 100_0001, 100_0002, 100_1003… with the hundredth photo numbered 101_0100 and the thousandth photo 110_1000. I’m now up to 202_0248 and the astute among you will have already figured that should be 10,248 presses of the shutter button.

Here’s the camera that has served me so well,

…and continues to do so! While it doesn’t sport the higher resolutions of newer models, the picture quality at 2272×1704 is absolutely superb and plenty good enough for the printing I want. The movie mode also gets a good workout, with it recording 320×240 AVI videos at 15fps with sound. Storage is onto a Compact Flash card, of which I have a couple, and it takes a proprietary Lithium-Ion rechargeable battery.

Speaking of batteries, I always recommend getting two if you’re buying a digital camera and mine have lasted very well – from June 2003 until August 2007 when I decided they weren’t holding charge as well as they should. The original batteries got me to around 9500 photos/videos, with replacements purchased via dc-battery.co.nz who I would happily purchase from again.

Given that the camera is still going strong, I don’t anticipate having to replace it anytime soon. When I finally do, I’m pretty sure I’ll be sticking with Canon given the sterling run I’ve had with this one. If anyone is interested, here’s the specs as listed at dpreview.com (Digital Photography Review – a most excellent website by the way).

Finally, a topical plug for my photo gallery at noble.gen.nz and shared videos at YouTube. There you’ll find most of the pics and vids I want to share, but in the future I expect to make more use of Picasa for photos.

Thank you Canon. My camera rocks!