When Erin grows up...

... she is going to be a big sister!

Just a little note to announce that we are expecting another little Bird baby, due in July 2009! It is going to be a very busy month for us :)

All our love,

Jacquie, Roland, Erin & 'soon to be Baby #2' !

Other adventures...

Helping mummy vacuum...

Geeking with her Daddy...

Watching TV!

All our love,

Jacquie, Roland & Erin

Fun in the sun!

Erin pushing Dolly on our 'new to us' swing

Erin's turn!

Playing in the sprinkler

Our beautiful girl

More photos to come shortly!

All our love,

Jacquie, Roland & Erin

Just like her daddy...

You know those moments when you realise that your house is unusually quiet and your normally boisterous toddler is completely silent?






I wandered down the hall earlier today and found this...











Someone was very proud of herself - at least she knows it goes on her face and not in her mouth !!

Love from Jacquie & Erin xoxo

Congrats!

What better way to break an absence from blogging with BABY NEWS!

A huge congrats from all of us to Sheryl, Mike & Julia on the arrival of little Emily Mika :) We are so excited for you!

All our love,
Jacquie, Roland & Erin
xoxo

Whoops!

We haven't fallen off the face of the earth, I promise. At least not yet!

Life is extremely busy, but what's new? I do apologise for not updating more.

Anyway, just a quick note to say Roland is still working hard, Jacquie is training hard at the gym to prepare for the police fitness testing, and Erin is being, well, a typical two year old!

She is a very talkative and clever wee girl at the moment, and she has started to show us she is interested in potty training too. We will see what unfolds in the next few weeks, but won't rush things as it is still winter, and this is all pretty new territory.

I promise there are more Canada photos to come - I think I will just have to pick out a few of the best for this blog, and put the rest in an online album for everyone to see.

Speaking of blogs in particular, I have started up two new ones, well sort of 'new' anyway:

The Uphill Battle is Jacquie's new food and fitness diary - not very exciting, but more of a tool to keep me on track!

Mama Bird's Creations is a crafty type blog, mostly for Jacquie's stuff, but some of Roland's things might start making an appearance in there too ;)


That's all for now though folks, again my deepest apologies, and I will try to remedy our 'slackness' in posting again soon!

Love,

Jacquie, Roland & Erin

Whistler, British Columbia

We arrived in Vancouver, BC, and were met by Papere & Mamere (Maurice & Carol), and from there we drove straight to Whistler where we stayed for two nights.

The lodge we stayed at was great and the beds were quite comfortable, as Erin can attest to!


The next day we did some sightseeing, including going up and down Blackcomb skifield in an open chairlift!



There was also a bouncy castle in Whistler village that Erin enjoyed very much:


We drove on from Whistler to Salmon Arm, BC - we all became quite seasoned road-trippers!



Fortunately we took a few pit stops along the way to stretch our legs and enjoy the beautiful weather...


OK, that's all for now - more photos to come soon of the rest of our travels!

Love Jacquie, Roland & Erin

Canada 2008 Retrospective

Hi folks,

Apologies for the lack of communication (again) in the last few weeks - we have just been having so much fun on our holiday here in Canada that there hasn't been as much time to get on the internet as usual.

So, the plan is that we'll let some of the photos speak for themselves!

We're on our way back to Vancouver this afternoon, we'll spend one night there and then fly back home to New Zealand.

Love Jacquie, Roland & Erin

Quick update - we're off!

Firstly a quick apology for not updating much, if at all, lately. Things got left by the wayside, and then as some of you will know Uncle Ray passed away so that changed our plans a little. We miss you Uncle Ray!

Anyway, we are still off on our big trip to Canada tomorrow, so exciting!

We are pretty much all packed, except for a few last minute bits and pieces.

Speaking of whom, here are a couple of photos taken quite recently - she is getting to be such a big girl, can't wait for all you guys out there to meet her!

I don't know when we'll next have access to internet, as we land in Vancouver (BC) and then drive through to my Dad's in Cold Lake, Alberta - which will take a few days with Erin in tow. See you all on the other side of the world !!

Love Jacquie, Roland & Erin

xoxox

Bald and beautiful!

So for those of you that haven't caught the news already on Facebook or email - Jacquie took the plunge a few weeks ago on the 11th of April 2008.

As a fundraiser for The Leukaemia & Blood Foundation NZ, she shaved all her hair off and in total managed to get $750 in sponsorship.

Here is the before photo:

And after:

And if you're brave enough to watch, here is the YouTube video!

Even with the weather starting to cool off a bit it hasn't been too bad - there have just been lots of warm hats and scarves involved!

Lots of Love,

Jacquie, Roland & Erin

Serious Girl

A great big belated THANK YOU to Grandma Sandra for the pyjamas and other beautiful clothes we received the other week - they are gorgeous! And clearly, getting ready for bed is serious business...








More photos to come soon of a few new bits and pieces in Erin's room, including a beautiful new butterfly hanging from Nana Trish.


We will also have photos of the great new fence Roland and our neighbour Noel, put up last weekend.


Mostly, we are still busy working, and slowly organising things for our holiday to Canada - only five weeks to go!

Lots of Love,

Jacquie, Roland & Erin

Photo update!

I didn't want it to have become April and I'd only made one entry for the month before, so I have sorted out a bunch of the most recent photos for everyone to enjoy.

Back on the 24th poor old Jacquie turned 26 and we had a lovely pre-birthday dinner at mum's the night before - it was a lovely evening so there was BBQ steak, lots of salad, and cake!

Erin also loves to potter around at her nana's house and generally be a goofball... here are a couple of examples...

Erin was also very clever and picked up very quickly how to help nana clean all the slobber off the windows!

We have also been having regular demonstrations of how clever Erin is at getting into her big bed all by herself, and then tucking herself in with her favorite 'baby'.

Seeing as it was also Easter Weekend we had Erin's first ever 'egg hunt' planned, which she greatly enjoyed - no photos of that though, sorry :( I think that will be the first and last time Erin ever has chocolate *before* breakfast too.

In other slightly bigger news, we have a new car! Unfortunately our poor old Honda has come to the end of it's lifespan, a little prematurely, but it was better for us to fork out for a car we could rely on AND wasn't going to cost us more than its own value in repairs and maintenance (not to mention the price of gas / petrol). No photos of the actual car that we bought, but here is a photo of the exact same model - a Toyota Corolla FIELDER (2000):

It drives really well and has a bit more space than our old car, AND best of all (well, sort of) the air conditioning actually works!

Last but not least, the preparations for our trip to Canada are still slowly coming along, lists are being made and suitcases are soon to be dragged out of the basement and dusted off.

Anyway, in my efforts to lose a little bit more weight before we do head off on holiday in a few weeks time I had best sign off and get going on our exercise machine for a while :)

Take care everyone!

Lots of love,

Jacquie, Roland & Erin

Slide!

So thanks to Erin's nana signing up at a toy library for us (thanks Nana Trish!) we now have access to a plethora of different toys for two weeks at a time. Our latest picks have been a GIANT slide (at least to Erin), and this thing called a 'Spring Bug' - here are some photos!

In other Erin news, she now has her top two eye teeth and the bottom two are still making their way up. She is also starting to fit some size two clothes - unbelievable!

In Roland & Jacquie news life is much the same, flat out during the working week and then catching up together on weekends! The weather has been interesting though, sunny and hot some days but there has been a lot of rain lately too. We are back down to a single car, which is manageable - although we really appreciated the loaner from Nana Trish too while it was here. Roland is considering cycling to work a little more often now, and is still playing squash at least once a week. Jacquie is continuing to learn the ropes with her job but enjoying the challenge, and hoping to secure something full time in the near future as well.

That's about all from us for now though, take care folks!

Love Jacquie, Roland & Erin

Chomp Chomp!

So it looks like Erin is at long last cutting her eye teeth, there are three out of four poking through the gums now that we can see. Not an easy task getting a peek in there though! All that is left after these are her two year molars, we may even have a full set of chompers by the time we go on our trip to Canada.

Speaking of trips, Roland is off to Sydney this afternoon for a week - lucky him! Mind you, it is for work so probably not *that* exciting. It will be an interesting week here at home, but we should manage OK.

Anyway, here are a couple of (very) recent photos of Erin in her new big girls bed! :-)

That's about all for now folks, take care!

Love Jacquie, Roland & Erin

Grr !!

Silly old blogger just ate our big update post, grr !!

So here is a photo in the meantime and a bigger update will be coming soon - promise !!

Miss Couch Potato


Take care,

Jacquie, Roland & Erin

Things we have been doing lately!

Playing with Mega Bloks



Folding like a pretzel



Learning to brush our teeth



Playing in our paddling pool





Daddy has been busy doing more work in the back yard, and is installing a new rotary clothesline, photos of that coming soon.

Mummy has also been busy sewing and organising all her crafty things, here are a couple photos of her 'sewing nook'.






The holidays will be officially over soon too, we (Roland & I) are back to work this Monday, so we will do our best to keep updating things.

Take care,

Love Jacquie, Roland & Erin