December 2010!

Still late, but not as bad as before!

December has flown by for us. Daddy started a new job at the end of November, so December has certainly been a learning curve for Mommy to work out how to do everything with four kids! But, we're getting there, albeit with lots of help from Granny Up-By.

The older three kids are brilliant with Lena, as you can see from the photo of Alex holding her. Both boys just dote on her and seem to be really gentle with her as well.

Here's Lena at about 5 weeks old. We see her very much like Michaela. But, she's got blue eyes, so Daddy's happy there's finally something from him in the kids!Michaela helped Mommy bake a cake for Granny Up-By's birthday. She's very good at baking, but we just don't get the time to do it very often.
On the 13th, it was the Toddler Group's Christmas party. The older three kids absolutely loved it! And Lena slept through the whole thing - amazing. Here's Alex eating up.
And Isaiah.
Cheeky monkeys still eating while everyone else was busy playing. You would think they're never fed at home!
And now Isaiah and Michaela eating all the adults' food leftovers.
Alex getting his present from Santa. The other kids were far too quick in getting the presents for Mommy to take a photo!
Michaela and loads of her pals getting their photo taken with Santa. Can't believe it's Michaela's last year going to the Toddlers' Christmas party - but I guess we've got loads more to go to with the other three!
On the 15th, it was the school Christmas plays. Michaela was Mary, but thought it was boring and wanted to be a sheep! This is her noticing where we were sitting to watch it.
And on the 18th, there was the Bigton Christmas party. Here's Alex getting his present.
And Isaiah getting his.
And Michaela getting hers!
Alex got a policeman's outfit
And Isaiah got a pirate's outfit. Lucky for them as all the dressing up clothes we have in the house are for girls, so now they don't have to wear dresses all the time!

Michaela got a jelly mold as part of her Christmas present from Auntie Nan and Uncle Lionel. She was so proud of her cat jelly!

Our little cheeky monkeys on their whale see saw.
Christmas Eve and Alex (and Isaiah) got sledges from Granny Up-By. Before even opening it, they both said sledge, how cute!
Michaela had to go out on Christmas Eve to sprinkle her Christmas Dust! It had oats for the reindeer to eat and sugar to light the way to our door. And it worked, as Santa did visit our house!
Christmas Day!
Now, who drew with their markers on their noses and not on the paper?!
Lena has been an amazingly easy baby for us - thank goodness with three others under 5! Here she is in her Christmas outfit on Christmas Day.
And the boys still wanted to wear their hats on Boxing Day.
Auntie Ivanna was home for Christmas this year (although nearly not making it with travel delays due to the snow!). Beautiful pic of her and Lena.
And Alex is our little climber. He's been in a bed for a good few months now since he could climb out, but not back in, to his cot. And now he's mastered climbing over the stair gate - what a fun game he's discovered!
What else to say? We're getting on really good as a family of 6. New car, well not car, but minibus, has been bought so we can take the whole family out. Daddy now works at Sullom Voe. Good that he's got a job, but the travelling means less time at home for him, which is hard.

Alex is potty training and, as all kids, has ups and downs with it. The week before Christmas, only two accidents in five days, but since Christmas, loads of peeing accidents! We'll get there eventually I'm sure. Isaiah is showing signs of wanting to potty train, but Mommy is not able to potty train both, along with a young baby. Hopefully he'll start soon, once Alex has really cracked it.

Anyway, thanks for bearing with us over the lack of blog posting. Will try to be more up on it in 2011. Happy New Year!

Only one year late!

Okay okay, so I kind of forgot about the blog since I've become too addicted to Facebook. But I've had a few requests, so will try (emphasis on the word try) to be better at updating. We'll see.

So in the past year a lot has happened. We had the first ever South Mainland Up-Helly-Aa which had the procession through Bigton. That was amazing! We took part in a Come Dine With Me with three other couples during the winter months and somehow didn't come last! Michaela and Mommy had a short holiday in Scotland together - went to a friend's wedding and stayed with Owen. We had our family summer holiday in Unst, which was fantastic and we'll likely go there again next summer. Mommy coxed for the women's rowing team and actually managed to get them a first place at the Aith regatta. On a sad note, Daddy got made redundant from the job that he loves, but luckily he has a new job, which he starts on Monday at Sullom Voe. But, the biggest news of all is that we welcome Lena Marie Christie to our family!!!

Mommy had to go to Aberdeen again to have Lena. Luckily Lena was only 5 days late, so in total, Mommy was away from home for two weeks. This was the best birth ever (quick and in a birthing pool!) and these pics are of Lena just born, maybe an hour old. She was 7lb 13oz and was born on 2 November at 9:38am.

So far the other kids are great with her. Michaela really wanted a little sister, so is over the moon. Isaiah loves to speak about Lena and Alex is obsessed with touching her. But both boys are being very gentle and love her already. Phew, that's a relief!

The big holiday, part 7

And now on to the final instalment of the big holiday. The boys seemed to get a lot more on the move while we were in California and just in to absolutely everything. Here they are climbing into one of Auntie Ivanna's shelves - surprise surprise that it was Alex in first. Little scamps!
And towards the end of the trip, we discovered how brilliant 'Cherry on Top' was. It's a frozen yogurt shop where you help yourself to all different flavours of yogurt and all kinds of toppings - and it's only half a mile from Auntie Ivanna's house. Ignore the person in the photo below, but this is the frozen yogurt wall.
And Michaela's camera skills in the shop!
On the way home from Cherry on Top is another play park. Here's Isaiah enjoying the swings.
And Michaela climbing up the ladder, which she learned to do all by herself.
On one of our last nights there, we went to the neighbours' house for a barbeque. It was great and their daughter helped Michaela play dressing up. Here's one of her many costumes.
Both boys seemed to like playing in Akilah's bed, much to Akilah's disgust I'm sure! Isaiah left, Alex right.
And a picture of Auntie Ivanna's house.
And little Isaiah enjoying playing with Daddy's cap.
All in all, the holiday was fantastic. It was a bit of an effort with the kids, but thank goodness we had Granny there to help us out. Not sure we'll be going again any time soon, but you just never know....

The big holiday, part 6 - Disneyland!

Now on to probably the best day of the holiday - Disneyland! Unfortunately for the boys, they weren't included - Granny took care of them while Mommy and Daddy took Michaela. Shelby, Dave and Samantha also came. For those of you who don't know, Disneyland is only about a 20 minute drive from Auntie Ivanna's house!

Very first ride was the carousel, or as Michaela calls it, the horsies! Here's Michaela and Samantha enjoying the ride.
And Dave and Mommy too!
Next stop, the tea cups. And Michaela chose that we went into the pink one. Quite a squeeze with Mommy, Daddy, Shelby and the girls, but we just made it in.
Then Michaela met the Mad Hatter. He was absolutely brilliant and even shouted at Captain Hook when he tried to come near us. Even though Michaela doesn't know who he is, she absolutely loved meeting him and looking at his big, green shoes.
Here's Sammy and Michaela on the 'It's a small world' ride. They both just loved it. Michaela spent most of the ride waving to all the people singing. And, it was nice and cool, which made all the adults love it on such a hot day.
We got to go in a Dumbo ride, which flies around in a circle, but you control how high or low it goes. Michaela loved that we went higher than Daddy's elephant! Poor Daddy had to sit by himself and take photos of us.
And lucky Michaela got to meet Mickey Mouse, after walking though his house. She was so excited, but told us later that she forgot to give him a kiss!
Michaela also got to meet Rosetta (one of Tinkerbell's fairy friends).
But the absolute highlight of the trip for Michaela was getting to meet the real Tinkerbell!
After, Michaela asked us if she'd held Tinkerbell's hand, could they have gone flying together. How cute. The other highlight of the day for Michaela was getting to go on the Finding Nemo ride in a submarine, but no flash was allowed so we didn't get any pictures.

We were so amazed at how much Michaela enjoyed Disneyland, but also how much Samantha did (who only just turned two). We can now totally understand how people have a five day trip just to Disneyland. Maybe EuroDisney will be on the cards for another year?

The big holiday, part 5

As I said in an earlier post, Alex and Kali became really good pals. Here they are playing together. For a dog that's never normally around kids, she did amazingly well!
And yet again, Isaiah playing with a ball. He loved these balls so much that we ended up buying some to take home - and they both still love playing with them.
Here's Michaela walking Akilah at the park. We were amazed at how many play parks seemed to be in the area and how well-maintained they all were.
Our boys just love eating fruit (as does Michaela and Daddy), so they were really spoiled with so much fresh fruit to choose from in California. As you can see from Isaiah below, it does normally end in a bit of a mess.
We were pretty good at getting everyone adjusted to the time difference and normally the boys were in their usual routine of one nap a day. But some days, they were just too knackered close to tea time, so Mommy let Alex have a short snooze while reading her book.
Still trying to get a good family snap in the pool - Left to right, Isaiah, Daddy, Michaela, Alex and Mommy. We tried to get in the pool quite a bit as the kids are really good in the water. The boys particularly will just splash and play for ages!
But, too long in the pool leads to wrinkly feet! Isaiah's
And Alex's
Here's Shelby playing with Sammy and Michaela on the float. Generally the girls were really good together and it was so cute to see them playing.
Daddy and Mommy got a day shopping to themselves as well, while Granny and Auntie Ivanna watched the kids. We managed to buy loads of things; for ourselves, for the kids, for gifts and as special requests from friends. Not surprisingly, we went out with three suitcases and came back with six - full to the brim!