The beautiful South

We just got back from a weeks vacation in Christchurch (Mark's home town in the south island).

We rented a house about 15 minutes out of town right next to the beach. Unfortunately, being winter and not very good weather, not much beaching was done other than 'wrapped up for Antarctic temperatures' beaching.

A really cool week though, and we did a heap of fun family stuff including: Orana wildlife park, Port hills Gondola, a fav Cambodian restaurant, Spagalimis pizza, and Mark's highlight - an Afghan restaurant where he got to eat Afghan food and speak Dari for the 2nd time in about 4 years. A very happy Mark.

Now back to reality. Sigh.

Orana Park

Introducing Milan to Mark's 97 year old Nana

Laila would spend all day at the beach if she could!

Stylista

Laila has recently shown some remarkable interest in, and raw talent in the world of fashion.
She loves to parade around in a variety of outfits from fairy wings, to tutus with plastic high heels, plus a few other quite unique ensembles of her own design, which she insists on modelling herself in the hope that these trend setting designs will take off.

I love the slightly cocked leg!

She has also taken to sharing some of her accessorising secrets with her sister, as Marnie found out the other day.

After hearing a period of quiet (always suspicious) Marnie called out 'what are you doing Laila?' to which she replied 'playing with Milan'. What a good and kind sister!

After a few more minutes of quiet Marnie came out to check and found this:

Looking proud Laila said 'good sharing huh Mommy!'

Back to the present

A few photos from them past couple of months:






We keep looking back at photos of Laila at the same age as Milan and are amazed how much alike they look - here's two photos of them at the same age:



Family lawn mowing session

Is that a wedgie with that wild hair?

I'm two!

3 weeks after Milan's birth Laila had her 2nd birthday. Both sets of grandparents were there (Marnie's folks came over for Milan's birth and stayed a month) and we had a cool party in the park with some of her friends.


Laila's pretty birthday dress


Grandma and papa - lifesavers during a tough 1st month with Milan!

#2 and a bit of a catch up

Sigh...I've been maening to update this for ages. I actually had a blog written 4 months ago but it crashed just as I was posting it. I'll try again.

Most of you know that we had another little girl on Jan 30th this year - Milan (yes...as in the Italian city) Grace Anderson. She can almost a month early and weighed in at 6lb 1oz. Despite being early and a bit small we were able to take her home after a day or so, and though she lost a bit of weight and flirted with needing to come back to hospital for a fer days with jaundice, she everntually picked up and got healthy. Here's a few photos:

She came out pretty fast - faster than Laila even (about 25mins) and had some pretty seroius bruising - looks like she has a goatee!

Big sister Laila has had a few jealousy issies but has been pretty good, and now loves her sister to bits

Babies,weddings and that kind of stuff

Marnie's was picked up early the other Saturday by her friend and taken to have her hair and nails done (she had no idea why at that stage). After that I picked her up and took her down to the church where her friends had organised a baby shower for her. The had gone to heaps of trouble contacting people from the states so that they could send gifts and cards, and even arranged a live skype hook up with a couple.

In other news, we celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary on Wednesday! One of these years we'll be able to celebrate it without Marnie being heavily pregnant, but despite that we had a really cool day...spent the whole day together just hanging out...it was really fun. I love my wife...she's beautiful and smart and loves God and is a great mother. I am amazingly blessed to be with her - love you babe!!

Some more cool kiddie shots from the last month or 2...

The waterfront at Kaikoura

Marnie came out one day to find Laila with her toy lamb stuffed down her top. She asked her 'what's that in your tummy?' and Laila replied 'sister'. How do they pick this stuff up?

Out cruzin' with the boys

Who do you think she takes after as far as hair colour goes?