To bring you all up to speed.

Hi all,

I have not forgotten you, however I have become hooked on playing with facebook. Feel free to track me down on it and nominate me as a friend if you haven't already done so. A fair bit has happened since my last update. The main highlight being Sabrina turned 1!!!! Yeah we made it!!!! Here are some pics of the said birthday girl. I must confess that this year has gone very quickly. She is now the proud owner of 4 teeth. Two of the top ones finally came through the other week. We are still working on the other 4. She is into everything, loves reading and playing with her books, phone and putting things into other things.

My One year old.

Maddie is doing really well at school and is enjoying it immensely. She is currently up to home reader level full pink and is on list 40 with her sight words. She is constantly striving to get to that next level. This is a good thing now but I am alittle worried if she doesn't grow out of this obsession as it could come back to haunt us later in her schooling. Here is a picture of her in her winter school uniform.

Nathan update... same as always. Work, Work, Work.

My update... I am currently in the middle of the Annette theatre, weekend away and live show season. A few Friday's ago a group of us went to see Mums the Word 2: the teenagers. (Even though I don't have teenagers yet) it was very funny. We all had a great night. On last Saturday night I finished Christmas. Nath got us tickets to see Phantom of the Opera at the Lyric Theatre. This is a show that I have wanted to see for many, many years. (since it was last in Sydney) I had a truly wonderful time. It was all that I had expected and then some. Alittle dark in parts but that is what the story is. Nath wasn't that into it. We managed to get a really good deal at the hotel Menzies in town for the night which turned it into a great weekend. Next weekend a group of us are going away for the weekend, a MeTime Ladies Retreat. Should be really good, am looking forward to it.

Hope this blog finds you all well and safe. Catch up with you really soon.

Love

Annette

My Easter Bunnies

Hi all,

Hope you all had a great Easter and enjoyed spending time with family and friends. Here are a couple of pictures that I took of the girls on Easter morning. The Easter Bunny delivered bunny ears and toy rabbits to our house as you will see.

We celebrated the Easter Sunday with Mum, Dad, Louise and Michael having a BBQ in the back yard. It was a very enjoyable way to spend a Sunday afternoon. After lunch Nathan swapped the swing set combinations around so that Sabi could also enjoy a swing. As you can see she does enjoy it.





On Easter Monday we packed ourselves off and headed over to Jill and Bruce's for a Webber roast and catch up with Terry and Lyn, Steven and Deepa and their little one Amy, Andrew and Karissa and of course the hosts. It was great to catch up with them all again.

Quick update... Nathan is still super busy at work. Maddie is now up to List 18 in her sight words and is loving school and is getting over her cold. Sabrina now has 2 teeth (if you look carefully on the first picture of Sabi on the swing you can actually see them), is crawling lots, starting to pull things off the furniture and is coming down with a cold. (oh how I love it when they get sick... NOT!!!!) and I am surviving and haven't got the cold yet, touch wood.

Catch up with you again soon.

Love
Annette

Jill and Bruce's 60th Birthday Party

On Friday night we held Jill and Bruce's 60th Birthday Party under our outside entertaining area. It was a really good evening. There was Jill, Bruce, David, Janette, Kathryn, Danielle, Pam, Zoe, Hayley, Andrew, Karissa, Marjie (Karissa's mum), Nathan, Maddie, Sabrina (in spirit as she was already in bed) and myself. Fortunately the weather was relatively kind to us and whilst jackets were required it was not too blowy, cold or wet.

Andrew did a Weber of roast meats whilst Nathan cooked up the baked veg in the oven and on our bbq. We had birthday cake and cheesecakes for dessert.

Here is a pic of the birthday cake that I made for the birthday boy and girl.

And a couple of pics of the birthday boy and girl.

Love
Annette

The Boats!

As you may have read in blogs further down, Nathan and I went out on a B and B sail boat on the weekend of the 23rd February. It was absolutely perfect. We could not have asked for a better couple of days. It was sunny but not hot, breezy but not windy or rough. Nanna and Pop kindly watched our girls while we were away. I think they all had a good time (well they tell me they did). We caught the train in and had lunch with our friends from Melbourne that were up in Sydney to see the Cunard ship - the Queen Victoria. (Oh did I mention that she was in Sydney on the day that we chose to do the B and B. I am taking credit for the day however if the truth be known I didn't know until after we had booked it.) It was great to catch up with Silv, John and Mon. We then caught the light rail around to the fish markets (wasn't as good as what I remembered from years ago when I last went) so that I could get some prawns for the boat. At 4.30pm we got to our boat. A 38 foot cruising yacht called Sha Meduza.

Here is a couple of pics...

Craig, our skipper sailed us around for a little while past Queen Victoria so that I could get some pictures. She is one huge vessel a definite to go and see.

Then he moored us in Balls Head Bay for the night and left us to return again at 9.30am the next morning. It was such a perfect night that we were able to eat our platters (part of the package) up on deck and enjoy the city lights.

The next morning Craig returned to fetch us and then take us back to Darling Harbour for breakfast at a local cafe.


All in all a brilliant weekend. A once in a lifetime, must do experience.

Love Annette

Here is what the girls look like this week.

Hi all,


As it has been a little while since I have put up some pics of the girls here are a couple.


News time...


We survived the week and weekend!!! It was one huge week and weekend for us beginning with the boats (I will do a separate blog for this) and ending with parties galore on the weekend (separate blog for this one too), with all the prep work in the middle. Needless to say I am hoping to get back into my normal week pattern this week and catch up with all my friends.


Maddie now has her home readers happening and so every afternoon we now need to read and journal comments in our home reader manual. (I thought blogging was all the creative writing that I would have to do... ha!)






Sabrina now has a tooth!!!! After a sleepless Tuesday night we cut our first tooth on Wednesday afternoon. When it is fully through I will attempt to get a pic of it to prove that it finally happened. She is also getting bolder every day. She now knows what the word "No" means and chooses to ignore it completely. If you retell her no then she promptly waves at you as if to say "I am going to do it anyway and if you don't want to see me do it then you may wish to turn away now."




Have a great week.

Love
Annette

Quick Update

Hi all,

I am just coming up for a quick gasp of air before life begins again. The last couple of weeks have been hectic to say the least. All is well in our Mackay household. The littlest member and Mummy went to stay at Tresillian for 5 days earlier in the month to sort out her sleeping and feeding issues. It all went really well. Sabi is now sleeping through the night Yippee!!!! and is eating properly now. Was a very worthwhile thing to do. In hindsight we 1. should have gone when Maddie was little and saved a whole heap of pain and 2. should have gone in earlier with Sabi. The good thing is that she has pretty much kept the routine that we established up there. She is now crawling and getting into everything, saying hello and waving, still no teeth but who needs them anyway.

Maddie is doing really well at school. She is now on list 7 for her words. After we finish list 8 we get our first home reader. This is the goal that she is trying really hard to achieve. She did however get the student of the week award yesterday in chapel. So she is really proud of herself, and rightly so. I am not sure what we needed to do to get the award but we will gladly take it.

Nath is really busy at work as he has picked up some more responsibilities.

Tomorrow we are going on a B and B on a sail boat on the harbour. Can't wait!!! Hopefully the weather holds out and is nice and calm and fine and the girls are good for Mum and Dad. The other good thing is that the Queen Victoria and the QE2 are in port this weekend so it will be good to get a look at the boats from a different perspective.

On Friday night we are hosting a 60th birthday party for Jill and Bruce. So we are headlong into yet another busy and full on week.

Hope to have some pics of the girls and boats up for you all soon.

Love
Annette

My Little Girl is not so little any more

Well, it had to happen. Maddie had her first day at big school today. A big day for all the family. Maddie must have been pretty excited as this morning went off without a hitch. Pretty much back into the same routine that we had used for preschool. ie Have everything ready the night before so that all you needed to do in the morning was get up, have brekkie, brush hair and teeth, get dressed then out the door. Ma and Pa came over to see us off and to take some pictures. Then we were off. We got to school nice and early so that we could see what the routine would be for tomorrow when we have to line up for assembly. Mummy was doing ok until it was time for Mad's to go in and then Maddie started to cry and well her mum couldn't let her cry by herself so joined her, which left poor Daddy to actually take her into the room whilst Mum babysat Sabi in the pram outside. I promise to try harder tomorrow and will not cry!

Maddie's school day for the first 2 weeks finishes at 12.30pm. So at 12.30pm her two parents and sister (who had missed her all morning) were dutifully in attendance. She was all smiles when she came out and was very proud of her home reader bag which had her homework. (Yes HOMEWORK on the first day of school) and other notes for us in it. As a treat for surviving we took her up to the donut shop for a milkshake and a celebratory donut.

Here are some pics of the momentus event. (PS note the snail with THE bag)

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.