Holy tomatoes batman!

This is what currently fills our kitchen windowsill / bench... and doesn't even cover the masses that we have already eaten, or given away to friends and neighbours! Our tomato plants have just gone mad - we're going to have to find a decent tomato paste recipe soon just to make a bit of a dent... there are at least 20-30 more still growing / ripening out on the vines too.

And some wee 'mini' capsicums that we discovered growing... I say 'discovered' because we thought the capsicum plant had been dwarfed by our uber tomato plants - but there are another two little tiny buds on the capsicum plant still to come as well.

Our only problem thus far has been stink bugs, but they haven't done *too* much damage fortunately. We also harvested some potatoes, broccoli and celery earlier in the season but no photos of those sorry.

Love from Jacquie, Roland & Erin xoxo

Creche!

We go to creche about three times a week here in lieu of daycare / kindy. Well, mummy goes to yoga / swimming / gym and Erin goes to creche... but anyway!

She absolutely adores it, the staff are great, the facilities are excellent, and this way we both get some time out doing things we like and are relatively undisturbed by each other.

Here are some snaps I took with my new fangled camera, of our big girl (and cheesy poser) on her way to, and at said creche.

If it's not too wet to go outside, Erin tries her best to monopolise the tyre swing... although not often for actual sitting / swinging!

There are often issues convincing Erin to leave creche at the end of the session, but more often than not the situation is quickly remedied by the promise of coming back again.

Love Jacquie, Roland & Erin xoxo

Happy Birthday Roland!! (6th Feb)

We celebrated Roland's birthday yesterday with cake in the morning (well, mid morning), an impromptu picnic lunch up at the beach, and then dinner out that night at the squash club bar / restaurant.

Happy 34th Birthday Roland !!

Love Jacquie, Erin & the bump xoxo

There's a baby in there!

Or at least it looks a little less like a blob than it did at our very first scan... (this one was done on the 13th Jan 09)



We'll hopefully find out on Feb 26th if this one is pink or blue!

Love Jacquie, Roland, Erin & 'Blobby'

Auckland Zoo Trip - 4th Jan 09

Elephants! No, not us... BEHIND us...

Balancing act...

ROAR says the dragon!

(More photos available on Facebook, these were the best 3...)

Love Jacquie, Roland & Erin

A couple of snapshots from New Years Day 2009

It was a real scorcher!

Love Jacquie, Roland & Erin

Christmas 2008

The obligatory Santa shot...

Raiding from under the tree...

Cuddles with Daddy... (I think Nana must have taken this one)

The BIG present from Santa...

A play kitchen!

The loot haul from Erin's stocking...

All our love from Jacquie, Roland & Erin xoxo

We'll miss you Papere...

So as most of you will know by now, my Dad & Erin's Papere, passed away on December 10th 2008.

We are so truly blessed and lucky to have had our our 'big' trip to Canada earlier in 2008 and spent a great two weeks with Mamere & Papere in Alberta.

I'm not sure Erin 'gets' it yet, but at times she will start talking about Papere out of the blue and it makes us wonder!

I traveled over for the funeral service which unfortunately meant I had to miss Christmas Day with Roland & Erin, but we made up for it later. I will make some more entries to catch up on things like this soon.

Erin & Papere, Cold Lake, June 2008

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