December 2008
Birthday and Christmas

Jasper making an amazing scissor feather ornament for the tree and Sequoia discovering the joys of glitter glue!

Working together they were adorable!!

in the first week of December they decorated the tree all by themselves!





Sequoia turned two on December 8th. It has been such a big year of watching her grow and change from such a tiny prem to this boisterous two year old. She couldn't hear much for most of the year and didn't speak, but in October had surgery to insert grommets into both ears and driving home from the hospital sang to the radio for the first time EVER! Since grommets she has talked more and more and is now telling us what, where, when and how for everything. It has made such a big difference to her moods and also her general pain threshold and balance, she doesn't fall over or topple the way she did, and she doesn't hold her ears and cry or bang her head on the floor anymore, hooray!

For her birthday we had a family lunch. We were going to have a little party for her little girlfriends but that couldn't happen in the end, but mother's group happened to be at our house that week which was fortunate so we made that into a little celebration.

Pass the parcel in the living room, cake on the deck and Ring'o'rosies in the back garden.




Sequoia in her party dress posted from Aunty Jessi!

Mum and I spent hours decorating cupcakes as her celebration birthday cake.


Family lunch on the deck


Great grandmother Malihe with Sequoia

Great grandma and great uncle with Sequoia

Baba (Zoran's mother) and Sequoia

Jasper had a last day of school singing performance with much wriggling and giggling!

Here is j with his preschool posse!

And Sequoia wanting to be a big kid too!


AND because it is summer mother's group all decided to go camping. It was so much fun, the four of us in our little two man tent. Alan and Daniella brought their canoe which everyone loved and the best bit - we were only twenty minutes by car from home in the local river reserve!



This year I made a gingerbread house as a fundraising night for preschool and the kids had great fun with the hammer breaking it up and eating it!




Christmas. Mum and Jessi and Supratim came to stay. It was a special christmas as two days after christmas Jess and Sup flew to india to get married!!!

September, October, November 08

Sequoia is loving imaginative play, babies are dressed, walked and "creamed", food is pretend made and pretend eaten and everyone is given a voice.

They both love the computer and the baby and preschool games and sites are a real hit. Jasper does spelling games and lego games, and sequoia navigates playschool.

Halloween.
The kids went trick or treating.

Jasper's costume was great as this Dracula Wizard combo, and as he had plaster casts on his legs, it just added to the costume! So I spent a day sewing capes, painting singlet tops and making skirts and wings. Sequoia went as a moth and we picked up Chloe who was dressed as a witch to go to a Halloween get together and them trick or treating along the street.
They all had such a great time!!






Jasper's feet relapsed in August and he started casts in October, going into hospital once a week for cast changes and foot manipulation. He was great through it all, although it meant there was lots that he couldn't do. The first casts were all the way up to the tops of his thighs and he had a walking frame as movement was hard. The later ones were just to the knees so he could move around much more in them. When they came off in December he had a lot of muscle atrophy so walking was painful, but now, in early Feb he is almost back to normal and we see his surgeon in 6 weeks for a reassessment. it has been a big six months but hopefully he feet will be better behaved for him now! He wears a brace at night for 13 hours and will for the next year.
Water play was attemped with me stickytaping garbage bags over J's legs and his casts fitting into Daddy's plastic garden shoes!

Kelly was great with Jasper and he was so brave, here she is using the fibreglass saw to cut off casts - he was the only boy who laughed while all the other kids screamed!

In November Zoran grew a mustache for the month


The kids out for dinner with Tanya (my mum) and Zoran and I to celebrate Mum's birthday.

Evening play...

And a book with nana,


And finally the weather is getting warmer so we made it to the beach, which I have missed so much.




Hopefully this is just the first of many sandcastles this summer, now that Jasper is out of casts!

August 08




It has been so long since I have been able to updat this blog, apologies to all our family and friends. Here is an update of the last six months...

Back into winter after being overseas and a visit to feed the ducks with our friends Jenny, chloe and Holly.






Jenny with baby Holly

Jasper and Chloe


Sequoia loves playing with Jenny's dog Rosie.


And life gets back into it's everyday rhythm -
Jasper looking all grown up in a lovely jumper knitted by Susan who, with Peter, showed us around Denmark.

Toothbrushing is the latest rage in our house, Jasper HAD to take a pic of me brushing and I felt likewise as I watched their ebullient brushing!!



And into winter pygamas and some last minute play before bed...

Lunch here at home, with Grandma Salehian, and her children my Aunty and Uncle.



We went down to Shell Cove on the south coast of NSW where Zoran's brother and family live, about 2 hours drive from here. The kids went with their Aunt Anita (ninna Anita) for a walk to the park where the drinking fountain was a highlight...



Keeping busy and trying to stay away from the mall, which is the main place to go out up here in surburban Sydney, the kids and I spent a day exploring in the Kuringgai Wildflower Garden, a reserve on the edge of a huge forest which has pathways focussed around the flora of the local region. Here are the kids walking and a couple of shots of some of the flowers which were bloom.



Sequoia looking up at the tall trees.

Jasper deciding which way next.

Sequoia letting us all know that ants are very tiny and you have to get down low to see them.



And there ends August 08.