Happy Birthday, Georgie!

Georgie turns 1 today. She seems a bit bemused about this new song we keep singing at her ("Happy Birthday"), but otherwise is having a lovely day. Owen is looking forward to opening Georgie's presents. (We told him that isn't how it works, but he's yet to be convinced).
We're also enjoying some torrential rain, which seems to have rescued us from experiencing the driest March on record. After 3 weeks of no rain, we're now at average levels and may even get to above average. The trees are thankful.

Happy Easter

Easter is a 4 day holiday in Australia! We enjoyed a wonderful, moving service at St Mary's on Good Friday morning. And we've been consuming our share of hot cross buns.

Georgie discovered chocolate this week -- Serena let her hold a foil-wrapped egg for a few minutes and was looking in the wrong direction when Georgie bit through the foil and sucked down some of the chocolate. While the egg was speedily confiscated (to Georgie's great displeasure), the merest glimpse of colored foil now triggers a baby mutiny. Oops.

First steps

Georgie's taken her first steps in the past week or so. A couple of days ago, she took more than 10 (consecutive) steps on her own. It helped that she had a drink coaster in each hand, distracting her from what was going on with the legs.

The photo shows her with a walker we borrowed from the toy library. Her love for this toy is only surpassed by Owen's -- he takes it for long spins up and down the hallway, and can't quite understand why we aren't more excited with his walking prowess. But, well, he is three. We figure he should be pretty stable in the walking department. Georgie's steps earn a bit more enthusiasm on the parental front.

Zoo

Mandy Hildenbrand is visiting us, which is great, so we've been doing a few touristy things. Last week, Mandy & Serena & the kids took a trip to the zoo -- Owen especially liked the elephants, orangutans and meerkats. We went to the beach for the weekend, and have done a lot of traveling by train, tram and automobile.

One of Owen's new things is that he thinks Serena can somehow speak on behalf of the voiceless (namely Georgie and his extensive collection of stuffed animals), so she's sometimes asked to respond in as many as 5 or 6 funny voices in the space of 10 mins. "Percy?"... "Yes, Owen". "Monkey?"..."Here, Owen" etc etc. And he gets very annoyed if the voices are the same: "No, I was speaking to Monkey, not Percy". Sigh!

Thomas

Saturday was a beautiful day, and we drove into the nearby hills to ride a steam engine. Not just any steam engine either, this was A Day Out With Thomas! Owen was quite star-struck by the whole experience -- unsmiling (as you can see from the photo), silent, taking it all in. At the end, he pronounced himself very pleased, except for slight disappointment that Thomas didn't actually talk. We followed it up with a picnic in a lovely park -- while we were eating by the lake, 3 kookaburras (native birds) came and sat in the tree over our heads.

Georgie has just decided that it's time to walk, and spent most of the weekend dragging us around (she still needs a hand or two to help, but is getting quite steady and speedy). While walking, she "talks" non-stop, muttering away to herself. It's pretty cute.

Tech Owen

Like many 3 year olds, Owen loves machines of all kinds. Anything with buttons he can push will do, but he's especially keen on DVD players, cameras and computers. He insists on putting his DVDs into the player all by himself, and getting them going. He's also taken a few photos -- here's an example of his art. I guess it has a certain something...

A new church

It looks like we've decided on a new church, after about 5 weeks of visiting different places. The church (St Mary's) is Anglican and is about 10 minutes drive from our house. There are maybe 150 people there, and lots of kids. Serena & the kids go there for a community playgroup on Wednesday mornings too. Anyway, it's nice to have a regular church again, and we're starting to get to know people there.