Long awaited Pictures

Hi All,

I have figured out the camera, so here are some pictures. Hope you like them.


Our water baby at the coast house


Maddie being Maddie


"you make my head hurt"


"see I do make a mess"


"I am coming to get you"

And here are some photos from Christmas Day.















Love


Annette

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Hi all,

I hope you all have had a great Christmas. Our girls (and us) have really enjoyed it this year. Maddie got into the whole Christmas thing with much encouragement from preschool. She has been very spoilt with the gifts that she has received. Sabrina just liked the fact that 1. people came over, 2. you got to play with lots of wrapping paper and 3. there is new toys to play with now that the people have left. According to her I can do this... it ain't half bad.

(Pictures will be coming. I got a new camera and it has all the Christmas pics on it, I now need to spend some time and figure out how to get the pics off it.)

So much has happened since our last blog. So to quickly bring you up to speed here goes...

Nathan - busy at work. Need I say more. We have a couple of days in January that he is on holidays so this will be good. He is working this year between the Christmas and New Year period. It is the first year in quite a few that he has done this at it is sort of "his turn". Still didn't make it any easier this morning when he went out the door. He has also had to be quite busy looking after his girls. (further info, further into blog)

Maddie - has now finished preschool and is now waiting till the 30th January to start big school. This is going to be an exciting time for her. Mind you in saying that this morning she wanted to get dressed to go to preschool as "it is Thursday Mum, its preschool day" none to happy that she isn't going today to catch up with all her friends. We got Maddie as her big Christmas present this year a proper keyboard, so in the new year I need to find someone who I can get to teach her as I am not doing it, I need it to be external to the family so that she will actually listen to them.

Sabrina - has gained some mobility. Over the past couple of weeks she has each day been surprising us with the amount that she is doing. First with rocking to get her toys, then rolling to get them now dragging to get them. Our house is about to enter kiddie lock down again. I keep forgetting how much work there is in having a little, little person. She still doesn't have any teeth however produces enough dribble to go through many outfits in one day, so I would say that they are not too far off. She is getting over the flu at the moment, which has meant a couple of scary. long nights for her parents with high temperatures and lots of crying and not much sleeping. We also had Sabrina's dedication at the beginning of December. This was a special day for us. It was also good to have our family and friends around us for this event. She has been getting into her toys that she received for Christmas in a big way. She really enjoys them.

Me - existing. I have had a bad case of flu following the Dedication. (Nath has needed to take time off to look after all his girls as I have not been able to do it) Last night is the first night where I haven't coughed all night and actually slept (with Sabi's usual feed me breaks, but they don't count). I was also really spoilt at Christmas and received a new camera plus other bits and pieces.

Hope you are all well, and I will pop some pictures up shortly.

Love
Annette

Very Quick Update

Hi all,

Sorry, I only have time for a quick update. We are in the middle of planning for Sabrina's Dedication service on Sunday and the following get together/lunch.

Maddie had her orientation day at Bethel a couple of weeks ago. It looks like her class will only be small but that is a good thing. It will mean that she won't be a number and can be herself. She is currently devouring any activities that I can give her and is constantly pushing herself. She is starting to get excited with the prospect of Christmas being just around the corner.

Sabrina has been alittle challenging since my last blog. (One of the reasons why I haven't blogged recently) I had forgotten just how long the nights can be. And with having Maddie as well I haven't really been able to catch up on sleep. Who says sleep deprivation is not torture!
She has started sitting up by herself, rolling over, reaching out to get her toys, getting stuck and screaming to get unstuck please. She has also started wriggle / comando crawling very slowly when she is in the mood. She is now eating "proper" food and is slowly growing.

Nathan update - working hard!

Annette update - trying to survive!

We had a really good weekend last weekend. We went down to the coast house. FINALLY!!!! It has only taken us since last Christmas. Mum and Dad have done a really good job at the renos and have turned it into a really comfortable place to be. It was so good to get away from Sydney! We needed to break.

Over the last couple of weeks she has been busy meeting the rest of the family. Ie we had lunch with Nath's Nan and Eck the other week as they were up from Melbourne, and this meant that we did the show and tell in the office as well. Fortunately both girls behaved on the train, in the office and at lunch. It was a rather big day for all. Then whilst we were down the coast we caught up with GG (my grandma). I am now pleased that all have now seen each other.

Hope to put up some more pics soon.

Love
Annette

OK lets bring you up to date

As promised I will now attempt to bring you up to date with what has been happening in the Mackay's lives over the past couple of weeks.

The party season continued with all of us having one more family party to celebrate Nathan, Maddie and my birthdays. We had a BBQ in the backyard with some of the relos. Here are some of the pics. As you can see we had a perfect weather day.

My final birthday cake for this year! (refer to blogs below they are getting less fancy as we go on)

The following weekend we went to Andrew's 30th Birthday Party. It was a dress up in the theme of A or M so we went as Mikey and Minnie Mouse and the two girls went as Angels. I had a very busy week making costumes. The costumes themselves weren't to hard it was finding the time to do it. Whilst Maddie understands that Mummy needs to sew and can't play Sabrina is yet to learn this.

Since then we have started digging in the back garden again. Not as much as the great wall of Mackay but it brings it rushing back. We need to protect the back of the house from the grass crossing over the termite barrier so we are laying pavers to limit its access and to give Nath something to use the trimmer up against. This is part one of the outside refurbishments. I will keep you posted as to the remaining parts as they come up.

Maddie is now in her final term of preschool and is looking forward to going to big school next year. We have achieved our final "things to learn before big school" item. Maddie can now tie her shoe laces!!! (And anything else that has two strings relatively close to each other) This means that our shoe choices have now increased as we don't have to keep doing the shoes up. She is producing huge amounts of art at the present time her pictures are getting more and more intricate each day. She is also wanting to spell alot of the words that she uses every day and is now reading the time off the clock.

Sabrina has made 6 months!!! (yesterday) She is growing at a rapid pace as well and is taking in her environment and appears to be learning alot of how this place works. She has begun solids and is showing typical Mackay traits in wanting to eat what ever is on our plates. I think we are not too far away from mobility as the last couple of days she has been starting to roll and push up and move to where she can reach her toys. Although her every helpful sister normally gets them for her. Tomorrow I will try and take her back to the clinic nurse (she has been away) and see just how much bigger she has got. Friday is immunisation day. This comes around way to fast, it doesn't seem that long ago that we were having our 4 month ones.

Hope you are all doing well and this brings you alittle more up to speed with what we are up to.

Love

Annette

I Know, I know

Hi all,

I know it has been a while since I last update. I am very Sorry!!! We have been experiencing severe computer problems. ie. we got a virus and Nath had to take the box to work for repairs. Fortunately they were able to get all my data off it. Since then we have bought and created a weekly backup of all files. Talk about scary when in today's day and age all of the photos that we have of Sabrina were on the hard drive and we were looking down the barrel of losing the lot. There are some days that you just can't bring back. Like the day she was born etc... So please if you like us had only the pics on the hard drive get a back up copy of them happening, I would not like any one else to go through the last couple of weeks.

Will post some more updates really soon, (once I get Sab back down to sleep :))

Love
Annette

Look who is 5! (we made it)

Well we have made it through 3 of our parties. That means we only have 1 more to go and who said a girls' birthday can't go forever. You will find a few more pics this blog than normal as we have more photo opportunities in the last couple of weeks then normal.

On the 4th September we had our first party. This one was only a small one with Aunty Sam, Thomas and Brianna. We always have just a small one with these guys sort of a warm up to the big one. We just had little frankfurts and fairy bread and birthday cup cakes (sorry forgot to take a pic of these ones). I discovered a cheats way of icing these ones... you melt Maddie safe choc and just spread it over the cake. It sets hard and tastes really good.

On Maddie's actual birthday (5th Sept) we had a small family party / supper with Nath, Maddie, Sabrina, Nanna, Pop, Ma, Pa, Aunty Lou and Uncle Mike. Here is a pic of the cakes we had that night.

Cake No 2.

Maddie got some really cool pressies... from Daddy, Mummy and Sabrina she got a CD player, some games and a book. Needless to say she is enjoying having the ability to play her own music in her room. From Nanna and Pop she got some CD holders and some books that have a CD with them. From Ma and Pa some more books that come with a CD. From Aunty Lou and Uncle Mike an Angelina Ballerina book and mouse dressed as Angelina.

On Friday (7th Sept) we had Maddie's friends for a Hi 5 Pizza Party. She invited Cleo, Sarah and Cooper from Preschool, Thomas, Brianna, Tahlia and Caitlyn from Church.

Cake No 3.

Our Birthday Girl...

The Room set up...

It was decided that the main part of the lunch would be having the kids make pizzas. To make it alittle creative we had Nath make pizza bases in the shape of the Hi 5 hand. Each of the kids were given a plate with various pizza toppings and let loose to create there own pizza. (A good way of getting them to eat the food that goes on there plate) It was one of the only times at the party that there was silence. Much concentration is obviously needed with this task. To keep them clean from the pizza toppings I had also made aprons.

Making the pizzas...

Playing pass the parcel. Each of the kids got a sheet of stickers and a lollypop with our birthday girl getting a Hi 5 poster and sticker set.

Opening the pressies. I think Jo summed this up pretty well on her blog by saying you could liken this to a flock of seagulls at the beach.

So we are left with having only one more party to get through on next Sunday for lunch with the extended family. Cake No. 4 on its way (I think I might just buy this next one!)

In other Mackay family news we get the rest of our carpet in the new section of the house tomorrow morning. The guy rang today and said that he would be here at 7 am (not quite sure how Sabi is going to cope with this early in the morning as her normal roll out of bed time is anywhere closer to 9 am)

Will catch up soon with you all.

Love

Annette.

Wednesday Update

Hi all,

Yes I know... I missed doing the blog on Monday. Sorry! So here is the next installment.

We had another busy weekend. I think Nath is just about ready to drop as between work and home he hasn't had a break in weeks. We bought another bookcase on Saturday. (Any of you that had seen our study would understand why we needed to do this) So after staining the big back room's skirting boards (tell us why we built such a big room) we built said bookcase and started to move some of the books off the old bookcase so that Nath can find what books he is looking for and they are not stacked 3 deep. Nath finished off the back room staining on Sunday and then we rearranged the study. It is amazing how swapping bits of furniture around a room you can get more floor space.

My cold has developed over the past couple of days so that we should have bought shares in Kleenex with the amount of tissues I have gone through. I am looking forward to the day that I have a cold and can actually take something besides panadol for it. What with last year being pregnant and this year feeding. Sabrina is also suffering with a cold. Maddie is getting over hers and Nath hasn't got it and hopefully doesn't.

Here are a couple of pics to keep you all happy. I know I promised in the last blog to take pics of the girls carpet however, it doesn't photo well so you will just have to visit to see it.

Sabi is now paging me so I better go.

Love

Annette

Love

Annette

PS We went to the clinic on Thursday last week and she was 6.2Kg and 60 cm long definitely getting bigger!

Well its Monday again

Hi all,

Well its Monday again! They are coming around way to quick. I finally have my voice back. It didn't really make an appearance till Friday last week so this made for interesting times with Maddie who can't read hand written notes yet so there was alot of charading going on. As we were all sick over the last week we didn't really do anything of interest during the week and saved it all for the weekend.

On Saturday Nath and I went to one of his work mates wedding. It was a gorgeous day bit windy but that was OK. They had the service on Shark Island and the reception at Pier One. Very Flash!!! So we had to be at the wharf at 1.45pm to get on our boat to go out to the island. Kim looked stunning. Just after the vows and while they were signing the register a pod of dolphins decided to come and frolic in the waters around the island. This made it very special as not everyone could say that they had dolphins at their wedding. Kim said afterwards that the dolphins had actually joined her when she got in the water taxi to go out to the island and had followed them out. Maddie and Sabrina had a Nanna day. Big thankyou to Mum!!! Even though I called a couple of times to check on them it meant that we could enjoy our day out as well.

On Sunday Maddie had a birthday party for one of the boys in her preschool. It was held up at a play centre in Penrith. She had an absolute hoot as you can see from the pics below.

Sabrina has started gripping onto and "playing" with her toys. Note the outfit is actually the one that we took photos in whilst we were still in hospital (see blog on 14th May) we have grown just a little.

Here is another pic of someone playing with her Dad.

Today we are getting the new carpet laid in the girls rooms. I will show you pics next week.

Have a great week.

Love

Annette

It had to happen

Hi all,

Thought I had better update the blog as it has been a while.

The Mackay's are unwell! Maddie got a cold last week and had to miss a day of school (one very UNHAPPY CAMPER!) She kindly shared it with Sabrina and me, with Nath coming down with it by the end of the weekend. Today has been an interesting day as the cold has caused me to lose my voice. Maddie and I are getting better at charades whilst Sabrina can't understand why I won't talk to her. She has been exceptionally cute trying the get a reaction. She is starting to roll from her front to back ie. if you put her down on her front she can flip herself over. This one is not as scary as the other way. So I am please she is learning this one first so that when it comes time for the other she can get herself out of trouble.

Over the last couple of weeks we have been busy catching up for meals with some of the relos. On Friday 27th July we hosted a dinner party for the parents and parents-in-laws to help us celebrate our 10th Wedding Anniversary. (Can't believe it has been that long... doesn't feel it some days). We have also managed to finally catch up with David, Janette, Kathryn and Danielle. Was great to see them. It had been a bit of a saga finding a date that 1. we could do and 2. all were well enough to do. And yesterday we caught up with Andrew and Karissa for lunch. There was also a chance that Nath was having to go back to NZ for work this week but fortunately he didn't need to.

We have been busy once again around the house. Seems like this is what we do around this time of year. On the weekend we went and choose our carpet for the back rooms and the girls rooms. Hopefully the girls one goes down this week. As for the back room we need to finish staining the woodwork. (Much to Nathan's horror that we are not painting it but my argument is that the rest of the house is stained and so the new section should be too). He has filled in all the holes in the back room and so now only has to do our room and the robe. We also need for the weather to be just a little bit warmer so that the stain will go off. Then we will be able to tell the guys to come and lay the carpet.

Besides this we have just been surviving. Will write soon.

Love

Annette

Look who is getting bigger...

Hi there,

I took these picture of both girls on Tuesday last week (3rd July) as they were going to Thomas' Birthday Party. It is a bit hard to figure out who is more besotted with who.

On the weekend we bought ourselves a new high chair. The one that Maddie had used was a hand me down that had definitely seen better days. And we know now how long they actually use it for, so we indulged ourselves and bought a "fancy" one. As it reclines we decided to see if Sabrina liked it. (I can't believe she is already able to sit up in her high chair - she is getting to big, to fast!!! We are 12 weeks old today, time is definitely flying) See for yourselves her response.

On Sunday we finally got together with Phil, Jen and Ryan for lunch. It has been a saga trying to coordinate diaries... we have been trying for a couple of months now. We went to the Ettamogah Pub at Rouse Hill. Was a really good spot. On Sunday's at lunch time they have kid activities. So Mad's and Ryan got to play in the jumping castle and generally run around like mad kids. Good idea to let them burn off some energy.

I finally got my sheer curtains for the back room, which means I can now open the heavy curtains and the neighbours can't see in. We are also hoping that it will keep the temperature up a little. Besides this we have just been surviving. Hope you all are doing well.

Love

Annette

Sorry it has been a while

Hi all,

Yes we are still alive. Sorry that I haven't posted for a little while. We have been pretty busy in the past couple of weeks. I needed to get the diary out to see what we had done.

Okay... here goes.

Nathan update

Since my last blog Nath has become quite the jet setter. On Sunday 17th June he went to New Zealand for a day of meetings on the Monday and then came home that night. Makes for a pretty big week. Then on Sunday 24th he went to Melbourne for a week. Got back on Saturday. His girls are very happy to have him home. We have now decided that 1 week is way to long and hopefully he won't need to do another one. While he was in Melbourne us girls packed ourselves off for a holiday of our own. When the going gets tough... the tough go home to Mum and Dad's. We had a great time. I don't know about Mum and Dad though. There were times when Sabi was letting it rip that I am sure they would have preferred if we had stayed home. But I appreciated having some "grown ups" around to help with my sanity.

Maddie update

Maddie had a great week over at Nanna and Pop's she loves all the attention that she gets over there. The only problem for her is that she doesn't get away with anything. Because there is normally either Mum or I there to catch her out. She has got a cold at the moment so this is playing havoc with her, she is getting really tired at the moment and is going to bed really early for her.

More preschool dress up from last week. Every week at preschool this year the kids have been learning about a letter of the alphabet. Last weeks letter was "S" so the teachers decided to have a week of dress ups. (oh what fun!!! especially when you need to get completely organised because you are not staying at home.) Here is a picture of Maddie going on Thursday as a Star princess.



And here is Maddie on Friday going as a Singer... the ultimate in 'Oh I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair'



Tomorrow one of Maddie's friends Thomas is having his 5th Birthday Party. (I can't believe that they are turning 5 this year). Thomas is having a McDonalds party. Maddie is really looking forward to it. Birthdays are really exciting when you are this age.

Sabrina update


We had our follow up visit to the paediatrician on the 21st June. He was really happy with her progress. She had put on 2Kg since discharge and had grown 7 cm. She behaved really well in his surgery. We were expecting her to scream the place down as he needed to strip her down to her singlet and normally she does NOT like this but fortunately she was fine and didn't even whimper. As the pead. is in the same building that Louise works at Sabrina did her required show and tell to all the nursing staff up in day surgery. Which at least lets them put a face to the stories that Lou goes and tells them. As she had been so good at the pead. we decided that we should take her for her 2 month immunisations as they were due on the 23rd. Any good behaviour that we had previously displayed went out the window. To be expected she was rather unhappy about the prospect of someone jabbing two needles into her legs and voiced her opposition. Need I say more. We then paid for the next 48-72 hours with a irritable little girl. But she has got over that now.

She has started to hold her head up by herself for extended periods of time and is beginning to recognise people that she knows. (You need to be seeing her daily for this) She waves her arms around and giggles and gives you big smiles. Completely makes your day when she does this. She has also started playing with her toys. She likes to bat them with her hands and watch them swing but gets frustrated with herself when she misses or can't coordinate to actually hit it.

Here are some up to date pics of the girls chilling out. Hope you enjoy.



I hope you are all keeping well and safe. Catch up soon.
Love
Annette

Our first "Proper" smile

Hi all,

Good news!!! Sabrina has learnt to smile. Yippee!

As you can tell I am rather excited about this. It has only taken 7 and a half weeks to achieve. She gave me a pretty good scare last night and decided to sleep for 9 hours straight. I only dozed for the last 3 or so, thinking that she was going to wake up. We will see how we go tonight as to whether it was just a one off or the beginning of a new routine. (Here is hoping- would be very nice to have an uninterrupted sleep for something a bit different!)

Maddie had to go to preschool the other day dressed as a princess. Thought you might like to see.

Hope you are all well. Love Annette

Clinic sister update

Hi all,

As promised in this morning's blog...

We have put on 1.4kg since discharge weight. This is a true measure as it was a bare weight. And our head has grown 1.1cm in 2 weeks. We need to go to the clinic to get the length measured, will try and get there soon.

Love
Annette

Its been one of "those" nights

Hi All,

Well it had to happen. Sabrina has also read the same books that I have on the whole feeding every 2 hour thing. The books warned me that at 6 weeks expect 2 hourly feeding. Guess what today we are 6 weeks. So last night we took to 2 hourly feeding. Mummy NOT happy!!! Hopefully it doesn't last too long. So if this blog is a bit all over the place you know why. Here is a pic of Sabrina whilst I am working on this blog. It would be nice if I could join her! I guess being up a fair amount of the night takes it out of even the littlest of household members. One thing I did discover is that Bronte has taken to sleeping outside our window acting on guard for Sabrina. (She was there every time I got up last night and ran off the minute the light went on - so I wouldn't see her)

Weekly highlights:

On Wednesday we had lunch with Jill, Mon and Fabi. It was good to catch up and do a show and tell. Here is a picture of the cross stitch that Mon did for Sabrina's wall. She did an Angel for Maddie when she was born. Maddie thought that Fabi was simply the best and has been telling anyone who will listen that the next time she sees Fabi that they are going to play dress ups and be fairies.

On Saturday we took ourselves off to the Blacktown City Festival. It has been many, many years since I have been to the show. It hasn't really changed in all this time. We wandered around the street stalls and then watched the parade. Maddie thought the parade was pretty good. Sabrina managed to stay awake for the parade and didn't seem at all worried about the noise.

Yesterday afternoon was another date with our freezer and cooking for it. We are definitely getting the hang of it. After living with the concept for the last couple of weeks can recommend it. It makes the whole dinner thing a lot easier!

The rest of our week has been pretty "normal" in terms of places and people we have seen.

The home visit clinic nurse rang this morning at 11am to tell me that she would be coming sometime between 12 - 2pm today. So much for my take it easy morning. I will post again later with the weigh in results from this visit. Hope you are all keeping well.

Love

Annette

Louise and Michael's 30th Birthday Party

On Saturday night we had the double celebration of Louise and Michael's combined 30th Birthday Party. Michael's birthday is earlier in May and Lou's is the middle of June so a middle ground date was required hence Saturday. The party was out at the Farm (new farm anyway). All the usual suspects were in attendance. It was really good to catch up with Susan again. The party provided a show and tell Sabrina event for a couple of people that had yet to met her. Namely Susan, Mrs B and Mel. One thing though, it was very cold by the end of the night. Fortunately with having Sabrina I was able to earn passage to the "nursery" (lounge room with the fire place) much more comfortable than freezing outside.

Cake cutting... (they should be getting used to doing this by now)

Maddie had a great time. Caleb and little Jen were there and so she ran and ran all night. She wore Jen out by the end of it.