At Work

Dear Mum,

It’s currently 19 minutes past two and I am sitting in the kitchen at work with my laptop. I don’t seem to have any very pressing things to do so I thought I’d give you a quick update (with some pictures).

Snuggles finally seems to have got over his earlier catty-mental issues. He is now going outside to wee and, on the occasions he needs to, going in his litter tray. He is still scratching the furniture a bit but not half so much as he was doing. He’s also become a lot more snuggly lately and has spent a lot of time sitting with, or on, us. Which is nice.

Our little mini-break to Gingin went well. The first picture is of the “black hole”, at the Gravity Discovery Centre, in which the balls roll round and round until they reach the bottom. The second one is the boy playing with the gravity spring, which shows you how gravitational waves travel.

The park at Gingin was good, although I was a little worried about the sign in the grassland nearby!

Slightly more recently, I took the young ‘un to the park and he had a bit of a scoot around. We also played with the new football (Australian) that Nanna and Poppy Richard brought back from their holiday for him.

I got a new review on Amazon, which is sparing with its word count but extremely positive. I’m quite pleased about it.

The last picture is one that I’m sure will bring back lots of memories for you (it certainly does for me) of when you used to make cakes and would offer us the spatula/whisk when you were done. I can’t remember what this particular sweet was, as we’ve made a lot of cakes and things lately, but he really enjoyed it!

As mentioned on Skype, we went out for a Father’s Day breakfast on Sunday morning, to a little bookshop near the river that has a rather good café in it, I had a full breakfast, which was rather filling. We might try and take you there when you visit, if we have the time. We then went to the park nearby for a walk, and so he could play on the playground. Bob came over in the afternoon and then we watched a film, which we haven’t done for ages. It was a lovely day!

Gotta go now, soon be time to get back to work.

Love

Dan

xxx

Snuggles, Reading

Snuggles, Relaxing!

The Gravity Discovery Centre – Gingin

Also…The Gravity Discovery Centre – Gingin

Near the Playground in Gingin

Scootering at Piney Lakes Park

A New Review

About to Lick the Whisk

Pictorial Highlights

Dear Mum,

It’s been a while and I’m about to go to bed, so just thought I’d chuck up a few pictures from our recent adventures.

Love

Dan

xxx

Joshua, swimming.

 

A flower, in our garden.

 

Snuggles, when he wasn’t feeling too well.

Joshua, in a big rubber ball.

Fairy bread.

Joshua, eating fairy bread.

Joshua now leaves his door open at night!

 

Penguin Book

Dear Mum,

Just a quick anecdote before I go to sleep.

After Joshua got ready for bed and it was story time I grabbed up his library book (from school, about a chicken, quite funny) and asked if he’d picked it himself.

He proceeded to tell me that Matilda, from his class, had originally had it and he had one about a penguin. He went on to say that Matilda really likes penguins and so he had offered to swap it with hers, so she could have that one for the week. Deanne and I were so proud of him.

When we popped in to check on him, before coming to bed ourselves, Snuggles accompanied us and tried to get comfy – hence the picture! We brought him out again but I think he would happily have slept in there.

Gym and swim tomorrow because Monday is a bank holiday so his gymnastics class was moved.

Love

Dan

  

Good Old Jamie Oliver

Dear Mum,

It’s been a big couple of days for Joshua. He lost his first tooth yesterday afternoon and called me up specially to tell me, on his way back from school. I couldn’t believe it, he’s only five! But I guess he’s just on the earlier side of the range. It’s one of the two teeth he grew first and the other one is seriously wobbly.

At tea time yesterday we were having pasta in tomato sauce (done in the slow cooker, thank you Deanne). It had tinned chopped tomatoes in it, as well as some whole cherry tom’s. Josh picked one of them up and asked what it was, we told him and said he could try it, or put it on my plate. He looked at it for a moment, then nibbled the end, after which he stuck the whole thing in, then asked if he could have more next time we make it. Amazing!

Today was Food Revolution Day at school, a Jamie Oliver driven healthy food initiative. The kids had to take some bits and pieces in, plus some money to pay for ingredients. They made sandwiches (using the ingredients from the picture below) and then ate them. Joshua had all but a little bit, which he brought home to show us. He also now has some exciting ideas for sarnies for school, including cream cheese, hummus and red peppers.

Swimming for Joshy tomorrow, I’m on call so no other major plans. Although we may be booking a weekend away. More about that another time though.

Love

Dan

  

A Bit Of Baking

Dear Mum,

Life is still hectic as anything, for Deanne, Joshua and myself. Deanne is putting an awful lot of hours into her University work, as you’d expect, I guess. She seems to be getting on okay with it and is enjoying the practicals.

Josh is powering along at school and appears to be teaching himself to read, mostly through the medium of dinosaurs. Not, you might think, the easiest of words to start with but he knows the creatures so well that he can start reading the words and guess from his immense knowledge of terrible lizards.

Because last Monday was a bank holiday and he was meant to be starting his new term of gymnastics, it meant he had both gymnastics and swimming yesterday. I was quite surprised to find he didn’t sleep in the car on the way home from the swimming, but I suppose he is growing up and becoming a bit more resilient. After getting home we had to shop, Deanne had a long day at Uni, then had coursework to do, so it was Josh and me all the way. Before we shopped we stopped for a drink and a snack, Joshua had a doughnut man and a babyccino, I had a Diet Coke and a hedgehog slice. The first picture is the boy enjoying his food and drink.

Today Josh and I did various bits of cooking, first of all I did some bread in the bread machine so we could have sausage sandwiches for lunch. I was so excited by this that I took the second picture, it’s been ages since we had homemade sausage sarnies! In the afternoon we did a big bake, made some oatmeal raisin cookies, followed by some lemon biscuits. That doesn’t sound like a lot but it took most of the afternoon. Joshy also wanted to watch the making of the Walking With programs, after I accidentally put the wrong disc in the DVD player, he asked me to play it anyway. He was entranced, then ensconced!

Gotta go, back to work tomorrow.

Love

Dan

Saturday Shopping

Sunday Sausage Sandwich

What’s Going On???

…is pretty much how I feel at the moment. The last few weeks have just flown by, mainly because one of my colleagues was off work for a month, so I’ve been doing every other week on call. Quite tired!

On the bright side, I had the day off work yesterday, mainly to look after Joshua as Deanne was busy. In the afternoon I took him out for an ice cream and a babyccino, I had a Diet Coke. Afterwards we took a ball to the nearby park and had a kick/throw/run about, as per the picture.

Not much planned for the weekend, although I’m swapping weekends with one of the other guys so will be on call (again), although that’s a pretty good thing as it leaves me free for Joshua’s “friend” party next weekend.

Deanne and I have both had man-flu this week too, I even had to come home early from work on Tuesday because I felt so grotty. I thought I was better but was not so great again this morning. Nearly over it now though, touch wood.

Will probably Skype at the weekend.

Love

Dan

  

Happy Zombie Jesus Day

Dear Mum,

I saw the title of this post on a social network somewhere, referring to the fact that if someone is raised from the dead you tend to refer to them as a zombie! Well, I thought it was funny! I shall now use the acronym ZJD when talking about Easter.

I tried calling you a couple of times this weekend but seemed to miss you somehow. We have had an utterly bonkers few days, I was off work on Friday and today. The first day off was spent preparing food and going down to visit Janice in Mandurah. There was lots of food and good company, plus we got to meet (Richard’s son) Kasey’s girlfriend, seems like a nice lass.

On Saturday I took Josh to Garden City to exchange a new alarm clock that has issues with the display, works otherwise though. Deanne stayed at home and did some coursework. We swapped the clock, then had a look in Myers at the Octonauts toys (think that was the highlight for Joshua) then stopped for a drink, Joshy had a babycino and a heart shaped shortbread biscuit, mine was a Diet Coke.

Yesterday Bob popped over in the morning at about ten, he had a cup of tea and we all chatted, while Joshua played with his Lego and did some colouring, then went outside to play on his trampoline, while Bob and I threw his frisbee and a couple of bouncy balls over the top at him. He thought it was great. After Bob had left we went to Julie’s for lunch. Donna has been down for a few days and she was leaving this morning, so we went over to spend a bit of time before she went. However Joshy stayed the night so he could go to the airport with them this morning.

Today Deanne and I got a bit of a lie in, only waking up at about half eight, which is almost unheard of these days. I got up and made some sausage mix to start preparing for Joshua’s family party next weekend, I froze the mix then not long afterwards Julie and Rick dropped the young ‘un off.

Donna had given him a sort of big roll of paper which has dinosaurs on to colour in, most of the day was spent doing that while Dee did some more work, although we did go for a walk at about four, during which we happened upon one of Joshua’s classmates, Chloe, who only lives a couple of streets away.

The pictures are of Joshua helping to make a cake, along with the shopping list he wrote, for 320 grams of caster sugar (plus a picture of a balloon with Joshua’s face and hair) which he and I bought on the way back from Garden City on Saturday.

Love

Dan

ZJD Cake Bunny

Josh’s Shopping List

They Have To Mate First!

Dear Mum,

Life is barrelling along at the moment. Deanne is busily learning at University, Joshua is learning at school and I’m working. I hope you got the pictures I chucked in the dropbox the other day. Josh’s swimming lesson was fantastic, watching him walk into the water with his pyjamas on was hilarious, and he did such a good job of his life-saving exercises, paddling on a surfboard, pulling other kids out of the water and generally having a huge laugh the whole time.

He’s also preparing for his birthday party, he’s been getting out of bed a bit early and drawing and cutting out Octonauts vehicles, as he’s having an Octonauts party. He ran in the other morning to show us a bunch of them. He has also written a rather exclusive list of who he would like to come to his party, although it’s not on for another few weeks because a lot of people are on holiday over Easter.

I mainly wanted to tell you about the conversation Joshua and Deanne had when Joshua brought home the rather fine model of a Triceratops he made at school today. After getting in he got a marker pen and drew a baby Triceratops on the Mummy. Deanne said that not all female animals have babies inside them, to which Joshua, quite seriously, pointed out that “no Mummy, only after they’ve mated”!

I have, of course, included a picture of said Triceratops. If you look carefully you can see the fetus just above the cereal bowl.

Love

Dan

A Pregnant Triceratops

Growing Boy

Dear Mum,

After getting home from work tonight we had tea, then we started Joshy’s bedtime routine. However, for some reason Joshua seemed to want to have his independence today. First of all he washed his own hair, I only helped out a bit with the rinsing right at the end. He finished bathing, after setting up his experiment (he does a different one every night, it was stuffing a flannel into one of his plastic test tubes this evening) he got out and took his towel, drying himself and then telling me that he would get himself dressed.

He opened the door to his room a minute later dressed in his pyjamas, without anything back to front or inside out. Then he went and brushed his teeth (while I dried his hair). Afterwards he went through to the sitting room to tell Deanne all of the things he had done on himself, he was very proud.

I’ll leave you with the picture he brought home from school.

Love

Dan

Big Joshua

Happy Mothers Day

Dear Mum,

Just wanted to say, I hope you have a great day today.

Here is a picture of a fork lift truck that Joshua built the other day.

Love

Dan