A New Tooth!

A new little toothy peg is FINALLY making its way into the mouth of Miss Madeline after 3 long months of taunting! Was giving her gums a rub this morning as she was flushed in the cheeks last night and what do you know, there is a sharp little white edge poking out! :) Will take some photographic evidence in the next few days if she'll open her mouth for Mummy & her camera....have to admit, I went all sooky Mummy and almost cried I was so proud.

So much happening in the world of Maddy, what with being 6 months old last week, sitting up on her own, nearly crawling (well, we like to get up nice & high on our hands and knees and rock, but can't seem to move forward. We do inch backwards and swivel around quite well now however!) and now finally, a tooth!



Maddy spent an afternoon over at her Aunt Leah's while Daddy & Mummy had a 'date' but was extremely happy to get her parents back. Seems she wasn't impressed that her Aunty couldn't produce a lactating breast! *LOL*

Mummy's Westlife ticket arrived in the mail, much to her relief and delight. So now that's two events to motivate Mummy to get off her rear end and lose those irritating last few unwanted pregnancy pounds.

Meanwhile Daddy has another interview lined up for next week that sounds quiet promising, so hopefully July and the start of the new financial year will bring some much needed financial assistance to the Petersen household!

Today was Mary's birthday and tomorrow, Erin's; so lunchtime tomorrow we're off to the beautiful New Farm Park (a picnic ground) with all of our friends & their families for a leisurely picnic. Will hopefully take some photos of that event too.

Keep well everyone and will update soon!

Becka

Looking forward...

Tickets to Westlife, Birthdays and Anniversaries in the air!

As mentioned in the last entry, I was hoping to see Westlife in concert. Well on Thursday, I manged to grab myself a ticket to the only Brisbane concert on Friday, 22nd September, 2006 to the floor area in row 5. So incredibly close to the actual stage! :) Very excited about being able to go, and although I bought my ticket on my own, I have a number of friends from the message boards who I met in Sydney who are going too.

That particular weekend in September should be alot of fun; as I'm hoping to head to Caloundra on the following Sunday & Monday to watch the National Clubs championships which double as the World Gymnastics Championships trials for the Australian team.

We've had a busy last few days, John's parents came back to Brisbane on Wednesday so we were able to spend some quality time with them before taking them back to the airport this morning. They've headed back to Rockhampton where they'll be working for 2 months and then we'll get them back for 6 weeks following that particular job stint. Maddy really enjoyed her time with her grandparents and I know they enjoyed spending time with her.

On Friday night, John & I spent the evening a big fun park called Dreamworld, located on the Gold Coast. Every so often they open the park on for about 4 hours on a Friday evening and label it 'Screamworld'. This involves turning the lights off on all of the rides to enhance the thrills! *L* It was the longest stretch that we'd been away from our Madeline, however she apparently had a ball with her Grandma Chris and Papa Ian. We returned home just in time for a feed and plenty of cuddles before she went down for her 'big' sleep.

Yesterday (Saturday), we made the trek up to Toowoomba to see John's brother & sister-in-law and their two children. Young Hunter is now a bundle of energy and moved on from his 'Lord of the Dance/Michael Flately' obsession to loving the 'Dukes of Hazzard'. At 2 1/2, he has an amazing grasp of vocabulary and a very impressive ability to recite entire parts of books. His baby sister, Portia; is about 7 weeks younger then our Maddy and is just beautiful. Was great to see them all again and the girls had a great time beating each other up! :) Was very glad however, to get back to Brisbane in one piece as we got hit by a tremendous storm on the way home.

So what's up for the next week? On Tuesday, Maddy has her 6 month immunisations a few hours after I wake up to watch the Aussie Soccer team (The Socceroos) play Italy in the 2006 World Cup 2nd round. Friday night is date-night, so Maddy will be spending a few hours with her Aunty Leah so Daddy & Mummy can spend some quiet time together. Saturday we are catching up with my friends to have a joint birthday picnic at New Farm Park. Mary's birthday is this Friday, Erin's is Saturday and then in mid-July we have Melissa, Ambah, John (Daddy) and Zoe all in a row. In the middle of all of that, is our 4th wedding anniversary on the 13th.

Well, it's been a very long post and I'm going to sign off for the day. :)

Bec

P.S - A big shout out to my Nanna (Anne) who turns a very impressive 93 years of age today! Love you Nanna, and hope we can make it down to Newcastle soon to visit you and the rest of the family!

Mummy's dream is coming true...WESTLIFE are touring Australia! :)

Anybody that knows me (Bec) will be aware of what a huge Westlife fan I am. After 7 LONG LONG LONG years of being paid-out for being a sappy boyband fan; it looks like I will finally get to see them in concert. Maddy & I flew down to Sydney in March this year to see them sing live on 'Sunrise' and then meet them in the CD signing session; but Australia has never gotten a proper concert tour. The 'lads' have sold in excess of 70,000 copies of their single 'Your Raise me Up' and over 30,000 copies of their latest album in Australia.



So come 22nd September 2006, (if Bec gets her desired ticket to the BEC - Brisbane Entertainment Centre - which go on sale 26 June) I will be screaming away with 10,000 other Westlife fans! :)

So what else has been happening around here? Maddy is getting very close to crawling (she's going to be 6 months old on the 24th of this month) - she's been getting up nice and high on her hands & knees and rocking. She just hasn't quite managed to get moving yet! *L*



John finally heard back from that law firm he interviewed with. Would you believe they LOVED him and we're practically all ready to offer him the job when they had a head/lead programmer resign so now the position John applied for (which is a newly created position within the IT department) is on the backburner until they get a replacement for the lead developer! ARGGGHHHH!!! They told him they'll be getting back in contact in a month's time but John already has another interview lined up for Wednesday afternoon. So the big question will be whether he accepts another position in the meanwhile as that law firm hasn't given us any formal offer as yet!

Long Weekend Fun...

Tuesday, 13 June 2006

Taking advantage of the long weekend after the stress of John's interview, we spent Saturday and Sunday catching up with friends and then headed to the Mt Cootha Botantical Gardens on Monday morning (Queen's Birthday Public Holiday) as a family. Somehow Maddy managed to sleep on the way there, despite her Mummy driving! We finally got there (seems the turn offs are different since the refidex we have was printed!) despite taking an accidental detour on the Western Highway! *L*



Although we were only there for an hour plus, we took Maddy up through the tour of the plants including ferns, cactus, flowers and shrubbery from all around the world; and into the dome to see a round pond full of fish and other flora that grow best in the humid temperature.




Afterwards we took a stroll down to the big duck pond where there were bush turkeys, ibis and ducks dotting the edge of the pond and out on the water. It was amazing how many people there were out-and-about, feeding stale bread to the ducks but it was after all a beautiful sunny day after quite a few drizzly days of rain. Aside from the petrol, it was a free day which Maddy really enjoyed. We have plans to go back soon with my sister & niece and take a picnic lunch. :)




Love,
Rebecca

Friday 9th June 2006

John goes for an interview...

Well, John went for an interview for a multi-national law firm in an IT project manager role today. We wont know the result of the interview for a little while yet but John found the experience quite positive and is hopeful that he will proceed to the next round of interviews.

Thought I would take a few moments while Madeline is bouncing away in the 'Jolly Jumper' to start up this blog. Thanks to a Blog of my 'big sis' Courtney, I decided it would be a perfect opportunity to steal some space on the web so that our family both at home here in Australia, but also overseas can read & see what we've been up to.

Will try to drop back later and add some photos but for now, cheerio. :)

Becka

Edited to add: You could say the day went downhill from my post in the afternoon. After preparing a lovely Roast Lamb dinner with all the trimmings, I left Maddy momentarily in her pram and called John out to watch her. Before he could get there she managed to slide herself out the bottom of the pram and land on her back and then head on the ceramic tiles. She screamed, I blubbered and then couldn't sleep last night for fear of our little precious one having concussion. :(