Big Boy Spencer!

So I've been trying to think of the best way to update you on what's been happening given that I've missed NINE WHOLE MONTHS of blogging!!

Luckily for me, Ky, my partner has been blogging - well actually, she's been blipping - the whole time so I have a good record of what we've been doing all year! Blip is a photo blogging website where she posts a photo each day and writes about stuff, it's really great and Ky's pictures are awesome! So I'll give you a little bit of an update on things, but if you have a few hours to spare and want to see all the pics and read all of the details of our lives you can check out her blip at www.blipfoto.com/cracker.

Hmm...so rather than a chronological update, I'm going for the category based update!

Work Stuff
This has been an interesting and stressful area of life this year! Early on in the year I read a book about online entrepreneurs and this has been the start of a massive learning adventure this year. I've been learning about how to start an online business and about internet marketing. I now have about 14 half baked websites floating about and have been working my butt off learning and trying to get them up and ranking in the search engines. I've learnt so much and feel like I'm just on the edge of starting to make some money if I would just FOCUS on one of the sites rather than spreading myself thinly across all of the sites!

The reason I've been pushing it so much to try to start my own successful online business is that I want to have a business that makes money in a way that leverages my time rather than trading dollars for hours are you do when you work for an employer. I'm still working with my employer whom I've been with for over 5 years now, this is three days per week and I work on my own online business and do some consulting 1 day per week plus countless hours in the evenings as well!

Sailing
The last time I wrote in this blog was way back in January when I was off to the Geelong week regatta! I had such a great time in Geelong, the weather was awesome and I had a great time sailing and eating and drinking with my friends! I've been doing a little sailing here and there over the winter - but to be truthful, winter sailing just isn't as much fun! Hopefully the warm weather is on the way again as sailing is just so much more fun when it's hot!

Spencer
Well little Spencer has grown up to 'big boy Spencer' - he's two and a half now and is going great! His language is awesome for a two and a half year old and he comes out with the funniest things sometimes, it's really cute! About two months ago we moved from the cot to the 'big boy bed' and that went really well....for about 3 weeks.....since then we've had to deal with a few hiccups:

a) Getting up really REALLY early - like about 4am - and coming into our room! We started to train him to look at the digital clock when he came into our room and read the first number. If the first number wasn't a seven then he had to go back to bed (we had to take him back, where he would cry his head off!). After a while we put the digital clock in his room - the idea being that he could look at the clock and if it wasn't 7 then he wouldn't get up. All good in theory, but in practice he still just gets up and comes in....oh well...we'll keep trying!

b) He doesn't stay in bed when you put him in there at night and he just keeps getting up and coming into the hallway. He knows that he's not allowed to so now he just lays down in his own doorway with his head poking out so he can see and hear us in the loungeroom! We put him pack - about 10 times a night - but he just ends up back in the doorway and we find him asleep on the floor in the doorway! Strange little thing - we're hoping it's a phase....

Hmmm...I spend most of my day with a look like that on my face whilst working at my computer - amazing how he has this look down pat already!! This is his little laptop - it was actually a really tiny laptop we bought but never used, so now it's his first computer!

He's such a cute little dude!

At a visit to the Firestation!



Singing happy birthday to mummy kaz!

Holidays
Back in April, we managed to have quite an adventure when Ky and I went to Thailand for 10 days - without Spence!! We had been waiting for the IVF laws to change in January so that Ky could have IVF for us to have another baby, so we decided before we had another baby we would have a nice holiday! After all, it's easy enough to get one child looked after but no one would want to look after two of them so we wanted to take our opportunity whilst we could!
Ky's sister and my mother looked after Spencer at our house, so he was still in his own environment and we took a laptop with us and talked to him over Skype using video so he could see us! We had a great time and Spence was just fine with Aunty Nik and Nana Choop!!
We ended up making a book of some of our photos from Thailand - you can view it here at:

THAILAND by KY & KAZ | Make Your Own Book

We're just about to head to Queensland for a couple of weeks, which I'm really excited about. It's been a cold winter up here in the country and we're in desperate need of thawing out in the sun! We head to the Sunshine Coast usually once or twice a year and each time we go it's more fun because Spence is that little bit older and we can do more fun stuff!

Life in the Country
We love it here in the country! We have awesome neighbours and have made some friends nearby with young kids as well as some with older kids who Spence adores! It is such a beautiful place and when the sun shines up here there is no better place on Earth to be!
I'm planning on getting the vegie patch going again this summer - it's grown over in the winter so it'll be time very soon for me to get out and dig up the ground in readiness for this year's crop!

I've been running quite a bit too, I was in training for a half marathon but realized about half way through my training plan that all of the sessions were just getting too long for me to fit them in , so I've cut back and am now just training for a 10km run instead.

Family
We are trying for another baby at the moment, doing the whole IVF thing again. It's funny because that's how this whole blog started in the first place. I had a really rough time with IVF and pregnancy and I wrote about it on here as a way to get through it all - as well as record interesting shots of my massive pregnant stomache!!
Of course, Ky lives a charmed life, so she had no side effects of the IVF whatsoever! In saying that though, we haven't had success with it yet. The first embryo didn't work out and we've just had the second one in two weeks ago. Ky had her pregnancy test today and it showed really low levels of the HCG which is inconclusive, so she has another test on Monday. We have fingers crossed but not getting our hopes up too much.

Phew...well there's the round up! I will try to get back here and post at least now and again but if you want to know all the details everyday - I can recommend you head over to read Ky's blog - she writes and posts a photo everyday - www.blipfoto.com/cracker.

I hope everyone out there is well and happy and life is going good!

Kaz

Back by popular demand!

Ok - since thousands of adoring fans have been contacting me and wondering where I am (thanks Michaela!) - I'm making an appearance to update you!

I can't believe it's been 9 months or so since I wrote - I think I'll need a good hour at least to give the low down on the last 9 months - but it won't be today! Just preparing to go to New Zealand on Monday for a business presentation, but stay tuned, I'll give a big update in a few days.

Geelong Week

Ooh, I'm a bit excited. I am going away all by myself for a sailing regatta for four whole days!! The regatta is the biggest in Australia and is a great place to be over Australia Day weekend. I haven't been since before Spencer days - so long ago now!!
Ky and Spencer aren't coming at all - so this will be the longest i've been away from Spence and one of the longest away from Ky.

Here's a picture of the boat I used to sail on - just to inspire you! This picture was taken at the start of the Melbourne to Hobart Race in 2005 - I'm the one in the....ahh, doesn't matter!

Now it really is the night before Christmas!!

Gosh, I can't believe it's Christmas tomorrow! Time has really flown by! I have been flat chat working, we've been away to Queensland for two weeks then down to Waratah Bay for a week, life has been hectic and great!

Spence is going great guns! His speech gets better every day, he has new words and strings together sentences, it's amazing to watch! I don't think we'd be able to count his vocabulary even if we tried now, he has just picked up so much over the last two months. And he says and does such funny little things, it's quite amusing.

We are having a big Christmas at our house tomorrow with family. We're so excited, our xmas tree is nearly covered up by the presents stacked around it!!

Merry Christmas to everyone!

Here's a few pics of pits and pieces:

Little vegie gardens when I first planted them





And what they look like now!! Plus the big vegie garden I'm making:








This is the toybox that I made for Spence:



Ky and Spence - we went for a picnic to Tarago Reservoir the other week:





Here's our stacked up Christmas tree!



Macadamia nut parfait at The Big Pineapple in Nambour!



Spence loved swimming everyday up in Caloundra



Port Welshpool

We're here!

Yes, we're here! In the country!! We're loving it!

It's so great to have so much space around us, space for Spencer to run around and play outside. We even have room to kick the footy in the backyard, how cool is that?
We've met a few of the neighbours and they've all been really nice. I've been out walking a few times, discovering places to go with Spence in the pram. - we even pass cows, horses and sheep along the path! Speaking of animals, Spencer has just suddenly learnt a heap of animal names and noises! Just one day all of a sudden - we suspect they might have worked on animal names and noises at daycare or something because although we've been saying them alot, he just got it one day out of the blue! It's really cute, you say 'What does the cow say?' and he gives a funny little shy look and says 'Moo moo'. His 'oink oink' is really cute! I'll have to try to get some on video - but he goes shy when the camera goes on!

Someone told us that a child of 2 should have a vocabulary of about 50 words, so even though Spence is only 19 months, Ky and I wrote down all the words we think he knows (without prompting or just copying) to see how close he would be to 50, so here's our list in no particular order(I'm sure we've missed a few):

Hot
Gate
Chook
Up
Crash
Bird
Ball
Spoon
Bibby (Bib)
Heart
Flower
Daisy
Pakka (Makka Pakka - children's show character)
Ta
Uh-oh
Ugg boot
Sock
Shoe
Eye
Nose
Nana
Mummy
No
Book
Bikkie (as in biscuit)
Apple
Bee
Car
Bike
Door
Drink
See ya
Bye
Hi
More
Baa
Moo
Neigh
Woof
Oink
Sheep
Fish
Kitty
Puppy
Horse
Cow
Pig
Broken
Pea
Pee Pee

And wouldn't you know it - 50 words! He's a genius!

Twas the night before christmas.....

That's what it feels like! We are moving house tomorrow and it feels like the night before christmas, you know when you have a million things to do and you know that the next day is going to be long and exhausting and hard work, but you're really excited??! That's where we are at right now!

Spencer is at his nana's house for tonight and tomorrow night so we can do lots of work. We have picked up the keys to the house, taken two car loads up, met the neighbours - all this whilst I've had two teleconferences, written a meeting agenda for work, reviewed software issues, written meeting minutes up, organised the boat crew for tomorrow night's training (will talk about that one in a minute!), eaten lots of junk food and finished packing at our current house as well!!

So the boat thing - well, very excited to be making my big sailing 'come back' - doing the women's series racing over the next six months on a lovely big boat. I am the 'crew manager' which turns out to be quite a job! I'll post some pictures of the boat when i get some.

Just an update on Spencer's modelling career - he was due to be on the front cover of a government organisation's annual report - well, he was bumped!! And you know why?? Get this - he was 'not ethnic enough'!!!??? There's a bit of reverse racism for you! So poor old Spence, looks like he'll just have to get an education and a real job like the rest of us!

Anyway, busy busy, better get back to packing now!

10 days to go!

Yep, just 10 days until the big move (and only 8 until settlement!).
We've done quite a bit of packing now and just waiting for the big day! Very exciting stuff!

On the home front, Spencer is doing great...as you can see from his funny picture! I've just had a birthday, so we had 'birthday weekend' (I like to devote a full weekend to birthdays, a day just isn't enough). Had a great weekend, we went and kicked the footy, threw the softball, went to a friend's place for dinner, went to Gold Class movies (gotta love Gold Class!). Spencer stayed at Nana's house for the weekend. It was great! So now I'm another year older! Life is good!

Gosh, it's been ages!

Yes, sorry for that interlude in transmission.....just so much happening...where to start:
1. We're moving to the country - yes, we've bought a new house in 'the country', a little town with a population of only 500 in Gippsland, Victoria. It's pretty close to a much bigger town and only an hour and a half from Melbourne, so it's not too drastic. We're really excited, we have half an acre with a nice house on it. It backs onto someone elses farm so we get to see the cows and stuff and feel like we live on a farm, without having to do all the hard work associated!

2. We've started a business - just a little one and we're just going slowly doing all the setup required. It's a website development business.

3. Spencer is lovely! He's almost 18 months old and saying some words, like Mummy, More, Up, Pakka (Makka Pakka - a character from a children's show), Car-Car, Bikky, Nanna, Fish (he says Shish), Duck, Turtle (he says Ter-Ter), Crocodile (he says Croca), Drink (he says dink), cheese...and some more that i can't think of right now! He also babbles alot and has quite detailed conversations that we can't really understand!

4. Spencer is going to be on the front page of a magazine...well, ok, it's not really a magazine as such, but the annual report of a government department! A friend works at the Office of the Child Safety Commissioner in the Victorian Government and she saw a pic of Spence and asked if they could use it on their front cover, so of course we said yes!

5. We are going to be on television! After me giving a very successful presentation at a Property investment seminar recently we have received alot of positive feedback and somehow this went back to a property investment celebrity who hosts a show on foxtel. She is going to interview us for the show next week!

Gosh, well that's lots of news for now!

Winter colds

I think he's got another one...damn. Woke up coughing and sneezing and with lots of snot today. I was kinda hoping three in a row would do, but nope...another one.
Other than that, he's going great. Running around, playing with stuff, saying words, reading lots of books. Books would definitely be his favorite thing to play with.
He's such a lovely little thing!

I do wish, however, that he'd just sort the sleeping at night thing out a bit better. He seems to be crying often these days at night. He'll wake up about 10 or 11 pm and often cry for ages, we go into his room and pat him a bit every ten minutes or so for an hour and a half and often that doesn't work and we give in a give him a bottle - the only thing that seems to get him back to sleep. It's a tiring business and I'd kinda hoped he would have it sorted by this age, but it appears to be usual after speaking to others in my mothers group. So, spending a lot of nights frustrated and tired.

Kylie gave him a haircut the other night. His beautiful long girly locks are gone! He did look a little like Mr Spock at first, but we're getting used to it now!

Count your blessings

A work colleague of mine lost his little boy on the weekend. He stopped breathing and although he was resuscitated, he had been down too long and his 'life support' was stopped.

His son was just a few months older than Spencer and although he had been sick over the past few months and undergone a major operation, he had returned home and was on the mend. Then...bam...he's gone.

I don't know how anyone can manage to cope, to go on with life after losing a child. I am just so so sad to think of my poor friend and his wife and it brings tears to my eyes to just think about it. I cannot imagine the pain they must be feeling and I just hope that they can manage to keep going.

Count your blessings, because you just never know.....