Cooler Weather = Happiness

Real fall weather has been here for a couple of weeks now and it is delightful!  It's so nice to be able to take Charlie outside during the day to play and not be dying of heat (it's been around 25 degrees during the day).  And it's cooler at night too (8-9 degrees or so) which means snuggling under blankets!  We've even had the heater on a few nights in Charlie's room, because he doesn't keep on a blanket, and we're all much happier now with the temperature change - who knew cool weather was so exciting?!?!  Nothing much exciting has happened in the last few weeks, and I've been really bad at taking pictures lately...  We'll blame it on pregnancy brain - and when I lay down to sleep at night I think of all the pictures I wish I would have taken during the day!  It's quite annoying sometimes, and I feel all guilty like I'm slacking!  But here are a few that managed to get snapped:

(Again, they're all out of order!  And this time I even tried to just add a few at a time and they all came on at once.  ANNOYING!!!)

Day trip out to Wivenhoe Dam on ANZAC Day - Charlie was terrified of the water, but loved eating EVERYTHING and then playing at the park afterwards!

It's a Girl!  Baby Cahoon #2  Charlie wasn't quite sure what to make of this helium balloon...

The Thursday night before Mothers Day the hardware store had a free Mothers Day celebration!  There was a BBQ, games, face painting and a bouncy house for the kids, and crafts for the Moms!  I got to plant a succulent and make a "command" centre (see later picture)

Instead of getting his face painted, Charlie got a BUS painted on his arm!  He is so obsessed with buses these days its nuts!  Even after it washed off he would still point at his arm and say "BUS!"

Broadbeach Gold Coast - So I went to the Gold Coast Ultrasound school to try and get another peek at the baby to find out what it is, but when I got there a little before 2pm they told me my appt wasn't until 3pm!  So I had time to kill.  Luckily the beach was only a 10 minute walk from the school, so I got to go to the ocean!  It was lovely out and as much as I love Andrew and Charlie it was nice to have some alone time!

My little shadow belly shot (20 weeks)

Everything is all islands and waterways on the Gold Coast, this was the bridge I had to walk across to get to the beach from the school, there were tons of fancy houses and you could see the hinterland in the background!  It was so pretty.

Charlie loves the train museum!

This was also at Wivenhoe Dam, after playing at the park

21 Weeks!

I went to a Toy and Book Sale at a local church and got a bunch of great stuff!  Like $0.20 books and a whole bunch of trucks for Charlie!  (I can actually pinpoint this event to when the bus and truck obsession really took off!)  The night
we got them he would try and carry them all around at the same time - I never managed to get a really good picture of it - where Charlie is carrying 4 trucks tucked under his arms and in his hands plus one in his mouth!  He is so entertaining sometimes!

After church one Sunday Charlie fell down the stairs onto his face!  Poor guy, but he is actually so brave and never cries a lot.

Another "It's a Girl" photo - this is at Queens Park, they have some really cool trees there!

Helping out at Bunnings (not really...) so we had this mouse and it was really smart, never getting caught despite having 6 different traps, so I went and got a really good trap.  A few nights later what happens?  Andrew hears some scratching in my wardrobe while I am putting Charlie to bed, so he pulls the drawer in and out a bit to try and scare the mouse out.... well CRUNCH he squished it!  All those traps and the new expensive one and it gets killed by fluke!  It had a really long tail FYI...

I bought this little stroller for Charlie, because they have a few at playgroup and he is obsessed!  This is the next day - he pushed it around all morning at the park (letting go of it at the top of hills etc) and then all afternoon at the splash park, he pushed it though all the fountains!  He is so funny

First playtime at the museum - DinoTrain!  They had tons of cool dinosaur stuff, and a couple of little sandboxes with dinosaur bones for the kids to find!  I love how much neat stuff they have for kids in Ipswich!

Kind of a boring picture to end off with - the command centre!  There is a chalkboard upper left, a notepad upper right, cork board lower right, clothespins to hang things lower left and key holders in the middle!  It was the first crafty thing I've done in a while and it was so fun and who doesn't love free?!?!

Mid-Semster Break

Well now that Andrew's midterms are over I get computer access once more!  And therefore can continue plugging away at this blog.  We did a few fun things during Andrew's mid-semester break, when Andrew wasn't busy studying!  (For some reason UQ decided to do their midterms AFTER their mid-semster break giving them lots of time to study and no time to have a break...)  But I managed to convince Andrew to do a few fun things!  (All the pictures are out of order, not sure why since I upload them in order!  So annoying... I apologize...)

First baby bump picture!  18 weeks

Springbrook National Park is where Charlie re-discovered throwing rocks into water!  It was hard to tear him away

This kid loves being outside! 

Super creepy spider we came home to one night

Cooling off at the local splash park!

This kid it so cool

We bought a pass to the Railway Museum, its actually very kid friendly and I plan on going there a lot in the winter!  Charlie is so obsessed with this dolly, he pulls and pushes it around for as long as I'll let him!

He's such a good little worker.  At home, whenever he finds clothes on the floor he takes them straight to the dirty laundry bin!

Charlies little makeshift poncho for Andrews soccer game

Andrews holidays started off with the Easter long weekend!  We had our upstairs people come down for breakfast (elephant ears which we were calling bunny ears for the holiday, fruit and hard boiled eggs)

Then we set up a little egg hunt!  Charlie was liking it until he thought all the eggs were gone, then he would take them out of his basket and put them back!  I think so he could find them again?  

Charlie is obsessed with Andrews socks.  So finally I put them on him...

On the hike to the Natural Bridge

If you go at night you can see glow worms!

Purling Brook Falls

Going on the little hikes with Charlie took a while.... he sure likes to take his time!

This kid is the greatest

Cool roots

Charlie loves climbing on rocks!  

View from the "Best of All Lookout" I'm not even kidding, thats its name

This was the coolest - Canyon Lookout!  You can only see one waterfall in the picture but there were actually three, and you can do a hike down behind them!  

Every time we go to the mall Charlie likes to play in the rides.  I never actually put money in to make them move, but he doesn't seem to mind! (And hopefully it stays that way as he gets older and learns that they actually move...!)

One of Charlie's favourite places to hang out - in the fire pit!

Baby Cahoon #2!  He/she had a full stomach and a smile on his/her face (we're not 100% sure on the gender as of yet...)

We headed to Southbank one day and then got some food - Charlie was just so tired he couldn't wait for the food...

At the mini zoo, Charlie loved the bird sanctuary, he even tried to climb into their open cages!  We have been reading A LOT of animal books lately and he loves to point out the things he knows!

Typical boy.  Whenever we go places old ladies always comment that Charlie is a real "boys boy"  not sure what that means but he does like sticks and rocks and carrying heavy things and he is SOLID

At the Ipswich Multi Cultural festival - Charlie and I were at the park earlier in the day and whenever a food truck would pull in I would look it up on my phone to see what I wanted to eat that night!  I ended up getting poutine - how Canadian eh?  It was delicious....  and they had live music!  Charlie got into the dancing for a bit, so cute.

Well there you have it!  I'm officially caught up.  I wonder if I'll ever just stay on top of this thing?  Probably not...

The Beginning of Autumn

It's only been 23 days since my last post!  I'm going to say that's pretty good (but really, I'm just trying to make myself feel better about being so slack...)  So it's fall here in Australia!  I think the first week it hit 40 twice.... but this week is looking pretty good!  Highs of 27-29ish and lows of 17-19ish. We just went for a walk today after church (our ward ends at 5pm...) and it was quite delightful!!  It's funny to me that I used to like the heat so much, but when you're chasing after a toddler, aren't near water and pregnant, it's not so fun.  I've actually been missing Canada's weather quite a bit!  It must be nice to go inside and have it be comfortable... and snuggle up under a blanket...  Soon enough, winter will be here for a few weeks and I'll enjoy it before it gets hot again!  But on to the good stuff a.k.a - Charlie!  

He hit 18 months on the 25th of this month, and he's getting so old and smart!  He says "eat" and does the sign language at the same time, which is really funny, he learned them at the same time, when really he could have just learned one!  But when he does the sign he kind of bends at the waist and sticks his bum out too!  It's really funny.  He has also started walking around on him tip toes sometimes, and he has a really funny little prancing run that he does... I've tried so hard to get it on video, but of course the timing never works out.  He also does this really cute surprised face, sometimes with his hands out to the sides if he can't find something.  He'll put things under couches, cars etc and then try and fish them out with his hockey stick or any stick really, because he's seen us do it.  He folds his arms and bows his head for prayer (although only for a minute, and then he usually starts to eat in the middle of it!)  

One of his favourite pastimes is playing with pom poms and transferring them from one container to another,  he also loves having a bunch dumped on his head!  When we go to the pool he loves to go down the slide, and can climb up and everything by himself - there are often kids and parents who are surprised at it, and one man even got his little girl who was like 3 or 4 to come and watch Charlie do it (because she was scared) and eventually she could do the slide too!  He's such an awesome little guy, and it's amazing to me how fast he learns and how smart he is!  Now I know why parents are so obsessed with how awesome their kids are!  Because it's true! We got Charlie a little trike too, and he loves going for rides on that, I feel bad for our stroller - it's been neglected for a long time!  But now for the good stuff - pictures!

We went to the drive-in movies!  We saw Annie, but left before the second movie- it's so hard with Charlie!

Charlie playing around the giant screen

This kid loves his pasta!

He's saving some down there for later...

New trike!  Well, new to us, we got it at a baby bazaar 

First trike ride?  He falls asleep!  It was funny to watch him bobbing around!

Walk down by the river

We took Charlie to Southbank a few Saturdays ago and he LOVED it!  He was quite upset to leave, and loved especially running through the fountains!

So brave

And of course while he was triking back to the car he fell asleep again!  

We're prego!  We took a bunch of pictures after church 2 Sundays ago, and these are the ones Charlie was co-opertive for:

I love his face progression in those last 3!  Funny guy!

PomPom explosion!

I got Charlie 2 little soccer balls and he rarely lets them out of his sight!

Sometimes Charlie likes to stick stickers on his face!  And hair.

This kid loves pushing around the broom!  Too bad he's not useful with it (yet!)

We have a little friend that lives in our kitchen.  We used to have a baby one too, but it got squished in the window, and it's dried shrivelled little body is still there...

Got something heavy to carry?  This guy will take care of it for you!

So we were getting all ready to go to playgroup, and I put Charlie's sandals on him.  He proceeds to take one sandal off, and brings me his little croc, so I put it on him and away we went!  He was quite the topic of conversation with all the moms at playgroup!  They thought he was quite a character

Easter egg hunt at Friday playgroup

Charlie was quite stylish with his homemade bunny ears and Easter basket.  Too bad he was the littlest and too slow, and that the other moms didn't listen and let their kids take more eggs then they were supposed to!  There were none left by the time we made it all the way out!  Luckily, there were a few spares that one of the leaders went and got after all the kids had gone back inside, so Charlie got to find a couple of eggs after all!

One thing I don't have a picture of, but is a tradition we have going, is Saturday night barbecues!  Every Saturday with our upstairs housemates we have a BBQ in the backyard.  It's really fun and we all really enjoy it.  Last night we had chicken hearts (ok EVERYONE else had chicken hearts, and I had some chicken skewers - they're just so creepy with all of their ventricles and what-have-you jiggling around!)  But Charlie loved them!  He was popping them like candy.  Like father like son...