Quick update

It was Eli and Zac's fifth birthday a couple of weeks ago and they had a birthday party at Auntie Joyce's. Megan and Eve were there, so Michaela was very delighted. She thought she could play like the big kids and luckily for her, they were all really good with her. Here she is with Eve, Ronan and Megan.
Auntie Carol's birthday present from Australia arrived and Mommy mentioned to Michaela that we could maybe wait for Daddy to get home to open it. Well, she got her tool (a pronged fork from her play kitchen) and managed to open the parcel herself, even opening the card from it's envelope!
Michaela has finally learned to go down the slide at the play park by herself. But she has to go down on her belly. Mommy spent ages trying to get a good photo of her actually going down the slide and this is the best I could get. She goes down very fast!
And finally, another belly shot. This is Mommy at 30 weeks. Sometimes I get fooled into thinking I'm not that big, but then I see myself from the side! People comment that it looks like I've got a football or basketball stuffed up my top. I suppose that's better than all the weight going everywhere....
Potty training is going quite well. Usually the accidents we have are to do with pooping, but I'm sure we'll get there eventually. Michaela is just loving getting to play outside and is really good about listening to instructions. When we go to the clothes line, we don't have to worry about her leaving the garden and running onto the road. And she's still good at getting off the road if a car's coming - something she learned when we were in California.

Other than that, not much going on. We're just starting to prepare for the twins coming. Mommy goes to Aberdeen in just over two weeks, so it's all starting to sink in now!

My mind is blank

I suppose there's lots to catch up on with the blog. The months of May and June were very hectic with birthday parties. It seemed like we were going to a birthday party every weekend (apart from one weekend where we had three!). So, turns out Michaela loves to sing happy birthday and eat birthday cake!

On Father's Day, we took a trip up to Mossbank to see Auld Daa and Granny Mam. Uncle Michael happened to be there too, much to Michaela's delight! She's taken quite a shine to Uncle Michael recently, so was pleased to be able to take him out into the garden.
She also got to take Granny Mam out to the garden because Granny Mam just loves to spoil Michaela!

A few weekends ago, Auntie Julie, Uncle Ingram and baby Lottie were down from Unst, so we went along Cunningsburgh to see them. This is the best picture we managed to get of Eve, Michaela and Lottie.
And on another weekend, Michaela got to spend time bouncing on the trampoline at Granny Pat's. You can see how much fun she was having!
This past weekend, we had Phoebe's first birthday party to go to. On the way, Michaela and Daddy had to get off the road for the sheep going by.
They did eventually make it to the party, where most of Michaela's pals were there to play in the garden. It was such a beautiful day, the kids just ran around outside for ages having a great time.

Then on the same day, Daddy and Michaela visited Auntie Jean and Uncle Hop before the big 5th of July barbeque (couldn't fit it in on the 4th!). Here's the best picture of Michaela and Luca playing. Daddy said they moved around far too fast for him to get any good photos.
Michaela also helped out by watering Auntie Jean's plants, while Uncle Hop is in the background barbequeing for us all.
It was the first day Michaela got to play with her sandbox she got from Auntie Laura and her gang for her birthday. She loved it, so the next day, Daddy and Michaela went to the beach to collect stones and shells to put in it too.
Since Saturday was such a lovely day, Daddy and Michaela were outside from about 10am until 7pm. Unfortunately for Daddy, he's got sunburn, but Mommy and Michaela have got lovely tanned arms.

Michaela loves to follow Mommy and Daddy around with her mini-Dyson when we're doing the house cleaning - wonder how long that'll last?!?

We're working on potty training Michaela at the moment. Think it's probably a silly time to do it, because according to all the books, she'll just regress when the twins come, but she seems quite keen to work on it. We do have accidents every day, but in general, she's pretty good about it. It's not quite been two weeks, so we'll see how we get on.

Mommy's belly is growing quite rapidly, so we'll try to get another belly shot on the blog soon. We've had the 28 week scan and regular visits to the midwife and all's going well.

Michaela's now 2!!!!

Sometimes Daddy lets Michaela play in our bed before she goes to her own bed. This night everyone had to come along. Usually big teddy and ducky go to bed with her, but she seems to have brought little teddy along too.
On Sunday, 8th June, Michaela turned two! This year the party was at our house (we are taking turns with Owen). In the morning, we invited some of Michaela's friends along and everyone played really well together and seemed to have fun. Here's a picture of the spread of food. Take note, the small, round chocolate cake was the one Mommy made (with the football candles Michaela chose).
And here's the close up of the cake Lesley made. Please no comments on which one was better....

We invited family to come along in the afternoon. Granny Up-bye bought Michaela her first trike and she just loves it!

And Nicola came with a little Dyson for Michaela to be able to hoover with Mommy. And amazingly, it is just a smaller version of our actual one!
Michaela's been to that many birthday parties in the last 4 weeks, I think she imagines we go to one every week! Which is actually true this time of year, we've got one this weekend and probably one the weekend after too. Can't believe our two year old has a better social life than her parents!

Oh yeah, quick update on the twins. Went to twin clinic in Aberdeen on Tuesday and all's well with me and the twins. They were both lying head down and are measuring pretty normal in size. The doctor has told me I go to Aberdeen on August 12th, but if everything's still going well he'll send me home for another week, but no longer than that. I have to pack as if that's me down until the babies are born though. Fingers crossed I'll still be keeping as well as I am now!

May pics

Trying to catch up on the blog, so I thought I'd get the rest of the May pictures on. May was a brilliant month, weather wise, for Shetland, so we made the most of it by being outside a lot! Here's Michaela in the Bigton yoal - can't wait for her to join the under-16s team!
And she's started having to take teddy bear most places with her. A favourite is to put him in the stroller and push him through Bigton. This day she met up with Owen who took his baby along to the play park.
Daddy had to go away on a course for a few days, but he tried to phone as much as he could. This evening he caught her just before bed and I didn't think I'd get her off the phone!
Next blog should have birthday pictures as our little girl is now 2!!!!

Quick belly shot!

As we've had a few requests for a belly shot, here are a few. I think they were taken when I was just over 22 weeks (I'm now just over 24). Think this was about the size I was when I was 8 months pregnant with Michaela, so I dread to think how huge I'll actually get!


All's well though. Off to Aberdeen next week for my first 'twin clinic' - scary!

Skip to the holiday!

Again, not really any excuses for not blogging as Mommy's finally over the sickness. Loads has obviously happened in our lives in the last few months, but I'll just skip all that and move on to our holiday to California to visit Auntie Ivanna.

Michaela was pretty good travelling to America. Unfortunately, on night one, she went to bed at about 11pm and woke at 2am - poor Daddy had to get up and it took hours to get her back to sleep. Daddy had a hard first couple of days, but Michaela soon settled into her normal routine.

We went to Sea World on our second full day there. Michaela enjoyed it, but was a bit grumpy come the afternoon, so we cut our visit a bit short. But we did get the purchase of the holiday for Michaela - her new sunglasses! Here she is touching a star fish. Auntie Ivanna has a pool in her back yard, so a lot of days, we got to go swimming. Michaela really enjoyed that and was getting confident enough to push herself off from the side (wearing her arm bands of course). This is one of Mommy's favourite photos of Michaela. I just love the little look on her face! Also, just up the road from Auntie Ivanna's is a play park. Most mornings Daddy would take Michaela and Akilah (Auntie Ivanna's dog) to the play park. Michaela thought it was her job to walk Akilah to the park. Luckily Akilah was very patient with Michaela.
We went to San Diego's Wild Animal Park too. It was very hot there and built on a hill, so a bit rubbish for Mommy walking around and Auntie Ivanna pushing around, but we still enjoyed the day. Michaela's favourite part was getting to touch the animals in the petting zoo. She soon discovered from some 1st graders that the animals liked to eat the leaves!
We also managed to get to Disneyland. I think this was Michaela's favourite day because there were so many children to see! I think she would have been happy just to sit in her stroller and people watch. Her favourite ride was the tea cups, so we went on it twice.
She also seemed to enjoy the carousel. She wasn't impressed with any of the rides that went in the dark though. And best of all, we all managed to get in for free!
Near to the play park, there's a primary school, so they have another play park there too. Michaela loved the big slide, but Daddy had to go down it with her too. We even managed to get Akilah to go up, but she wouldn't come down.
Owen's dad wanted us to go to Denny's while we were out, so we did and had a massive brunch there. This was just Daddy and Michaela's food!
And after seeing us take so many pictures on holiday, Michaela decided she'd like to try too, so here's her best effort at photography.
Great holiday, but unfortunately, it's likely to be our last for many many years - we just cannot imagine taking three kids on holiday!

Quick update on Michaela- she's started talking in sentences, definitely started with the terrible two tantrums, has the most amazing memory and is generally just turning into a little girl now. Much to Mommy's disgust, pink seems to be her favourite colour. And at the moment, her favourite number is five.

We'll try to get a picture of Mommy's belly sometime soon - we think it's about the size Mommy was at 8 months with Michaela, and we're only at month 5!

Excuses, excuses

I know I've been really bad at blogging recently, but I hope the photos above are a good enough excuse! We're expecting twins - due date 24 September! Mommy's been feeling very poorly for the last seven weeks and can't wait to get by the sick feeling. We've not explained much to Michaela as she's quite young, but we'll explain more as Mommy's belly grows.