Thursday, December 31, 2009

New Year's Eve

This has been the most wonderful year of our lives. A decade ago Rich and I were on a beach in Spain, ringing in the millenium with my parents and thousands of Spaniards. This year I'm on the couch with the laptop and Rafi - who has been very poorly this past day and a half - who is snoring away on my lap. Rich is in the kitchen washing up.. Boy, are we living the high life!

I have never felt quite so contented and happy even with all the chaos of a newborn. We have so many loving people in our lives and I'm thankful to you all. I have many post brewing for tomorrow(!), but for now I want to say how grateful I am to you readers - some of you friends and family - some of you who have just happened upon our blog somewhat by chance.

We love receiving your comments and I hope that you'll continue to leave your words, and those of you who read and don't comment, I'm grateful to you too, though please don't be shy as it's lovely to have your voices and words documented here.

So some things I was randomly grateful for today:

1) Rafi being lots better and sleeping!
2) My Group Power class at 5:30am and a very brisk (cold - not fast) run afterward
3) my new Beco carrier I ordered as our family gift from my parents
4) my lovely, lovely animal dyson vacuum cleaner
5) My culdy-women folk
6) CC
7) Rafi's smile
8) Googlewavw
9) Burn Notice marathon (reminds me of the summer marathons I had on the couch with Raf!)
10) new Marks and Spencers pajamas from my sister, Melissa
11) audible books and especially, at the moment, Swedish mysteries.
12) This picture:



I was going to write 10 but those audible books make everything so much better! And Dave sent this very sweet picture of Raf and Taylor.

happy new year, all, and please do sometimes leave a comment when you visit the blog.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Holiday visits

We've been doing some holiday visiting... a couple more visits this week - hopefully - with Jen, David and Sage, Fia and LL, and our friends Gill and her son Matthew in CT. But on Boxing Day we saw Kate and co (remember the story about the little boys and their new friend the baby?).

Look at how much Taylor takes care of Raf. Hugging him, rubbing his head and tummy.. so sweet! An extra treat was seeing Kate's sister Molly and her husband Tim, who have a very cute little 2 year old boy.



Getting ready to walk!



Little Thomas





Rafi opens his present with Taylor.




Rafi enjoys a hug with Molly.


We had a lovely visit with Renate. She hadn't seen Raf in quite some time!




Saturday, December 26, 2009

sam's present!

I sound like a complete lunatic!!!!!!

Rafi's first Christmas

We had a lovely day, despite Rafi being a bit under the weather still. I woke up with a sore head and throat so I wonder if that's what is up with the little fella. We had to cancel plans to visit Jen, David and Sage, so we stayed at home. We took many pics - as usual!! - and it felt like a very special day. Cultivating memories that we can document is a really fun thing to do, so even though Raf will have no memory of Father Christmas coming for the first time, we'll certainly have stories and pictures (and blogs) to share.

Happy holidays, all.

Still in his sleeping bag, Rafi experiences his first Christmas morning!



Are those for me?



Showing Raf that Father Christmas has been to our home and left some pressies and a stocking :)


Father Christmas and Rudolph have been here... half eaten mince pie and carrot and a spot of (soy)milk.


Everyone's waiting to open presents. Come on mum and dad!



Breakfast first, son! Homemade waffles with blueberry sauce and yummy fruit.


Getting ready to open another gift.


Rafi did seem to like his new book, though he cried and was terribly ticked off when we took the paper away... he was much more interested in sucking the probably toxic wrapping paper!


Some time out from opening presents and some lovely, lovely shots of Rafi with daddy.




Rafis new giraffe from great aunty Linda




Helping mummy in the kitchen whilst daddy cleans the dining room.



We had English Christmas crackers which come with funny hats and not so funny jokes.



Another Tofurky (seriously, it is really good), roasted potatoes, mushrooms, and parsnips, peas, broccoli, mashed cauliflower with vegan cheese, Yummy.


One of Rafi's stocking gifts was a very lovely organic avocado :) He's not 6 months yet, and we were planning on waiting until at least 6 months to give him any solids, but frankly he seems to be desperate to eat. Really, desperate. He grabbed a handful of my salad, even, the other day. We are, though, planning on doing baby led weaning. Not weaning from nursing but weaning onto solids. I plan to write a blog about it as I'd love your feedback. But it basically means that you begin your baby on finger foods - no purees or cereals - with the goal of creating less picky eaters. Avocado seemed to be a good food to start with.



More interested in the plastic thing that comes with the highchair. Though Raf was very clever.. he would smush the plastic thingy into the avocado and then suck it off the plastic. I'm sure this is a) not very hygienic, and b) a bit toxic.


I thought I'd try and help him with a spoon. Well, he took the spoon right from me and started shoving in the avocado himself!! He did have the wrong end for some time, though!




I did good, mum and dad!


Very pleased with himself! Not much went in, I don't think, but plenty on his mush and clothes!


.. and in the bath Rafi went!




Kiltie and Sammy had their Christmas dinner, too :)


Granny and Grandpa called from Spain... here's Rafi and Horsey (Ned?) talking to them!


Playing with the beautiful soft horse he received from our friend Matt.


He likes to roll from his front to his back!



Opening some presents before bedtime. We took off the paper for Rafi as we learned from the morning's experiences that he doesn't like having the paper taken away from him!




Rafi bought me a lovely gift...



And he tries to....


eat it!