Well the time came and Toby was showing signs of readiness to sleep in the toddler bed. He started with his day sleep and hasn’t looked back..
Only thing is he is much cheesier than Will and so gets himself out when he wakes or isn’t asleep and wants something!! Let’s call that a work in progress! Haha…
Taken on Hastings Street Noosa:
With great excitement this trip has been anticipated by Will particularly, he has asked ‘how many more sleeps now’ to Mummy and Daddy and the day has finally come. We will be getting to the airport via Pa Pete’s place where we will pick him up in the ‘Muxy’ and he will drop us off, then we we fly off @ 0930hrs.
Our awesome pool at 5/43 Albert Street at Kings Beach!
Uncle Janek came to spend a day with us before he makes the big move to London to live!! It was great for him to spend some time with the boys and us:
We found this beautiful blue tongue lizard just sun baking on the grass as we walked down to Kings Beach: 
So we set out at the beginning of the day to visit Australia Zoo. There was heaps of anticipation and plenty of excitement, led by William, and not far behind the rest of us. This was one of the best ‘tourist visits’ we’ve done in ages and it exceeded our expectations. Whilst it cost us $130 for two adults and William it was worth every cent. The park was clean, tidy and the staff (which there were plenty of) were sooo friendly and genuine! We started off in ‘Africa’ which we were taken to via the shuttle bus, up there we saw Giraffe’s, Rhino’s, Meercats…Zebra’s.
On our first stop off, there just happened to be two staff members exercising a leopard out and about – talk about good timing! 👍
This little water dragon was really attracted to Nattie and wanted to chase/follow/be close to her haha! Geoff got down close and personal Steve Irwin like and took this snap:
Two very worn out boys in the car about 5 mins after leaving Australia Zoo:
So we decided we’d get young Jack away to start experiencing camping!! With him being just one month old we packed up the Eagle Outback behind the ‘Muxy’ and travelled for just 2.5hrs south down to Easts Beach Big 4 (site C16). We are so far impressed! Getting the boys to sleep on the first nigh had been a challenge but we are both now enjoying the serenity and a quiet drink! Yahoooo!!
We ended up leaving on the Sunday as the rain came in overnight and was torrential. Nattie and I got drenched as we tried to pack up as fast as possible. The boys were generally really good sitting and waiting in the Muxy
We finally got sorted and on our way. Pa Pete and Granny Jude so kindly offered to take Will and Tobes when we got back to alllow us to unpack and then setup the camper trailer again to allow it to eventually dry out.
The boys had a great time with PP and GJ then were delivered home to us, fed and showered. Such a help.
As a complete surprise Nick the owner of our home in William St discussed with me a few weeks ago whether we’d like a pergola out the back?! Of course u wasn’t going to say no so within a few days of that discussion the builder was here to quote and then a few days after that it was action stations!!
This will be a great help to use when BBQing and to be protected by rain too!!
The biggest event this year has been the arrival of Jack – in a very pleasant way..pls see the birth story blog.
We feel very lucky and blessed to have 3 beautiful boys… who would have thought when we revontacted through work we would find ourselves married and now parents to more than the average family!!
We are very happy and life moves along well, Geoff and I work really well as a team to make life work and play fun!!
Will has started at Harbord Community Kindy Mon-Wed and is loving it! His teachers are Shannon, Ann Maree and Jo.
We have already started to notice a change in his persona with him being a little older and more mature which is nice as we certainly have had some tiring months of hitting, kicking attitude. We are hoping as the year progresses it only gets better and this new found maturity ensures he is able to able to use his words and rationalise life a little more easily as well as sees him identifying his emotions and how he manages them.
He currently is tall and skinny, loves anything sporty and his favourite is swimming, soccer, surfboard, scooters and paddleboarding. He runs at 150% non stop and tires himself by the end of the day, sleeping well in his bunk beds (on the bottom at the moment). He is inquisitive and has an eye for cars, pointing out different cars and inparticular ‘Muxy’s’ as Dad loves ours and this rubs off on him….he is a sponge also asking lots of questions, learning at a rate of knots and weeks go by and then he spits out some information we wouldn’t expect he would remember …impressive to say the least. He is currently managing a day, date, month calendar to learn the days of the weekend how the dates and seasons work – he’s doing very well with it.
He recently left Harry (his bestie) when he moved on from OAC Freshwater and is now with Harley again. They are having a great time together and Harley being a gentle soul is good for Will, he also likes to play with Riley..He turns 5 in July which is unbelievable as it was just yesterday he was born.
Toby is currently just over 2 and a challenge in life. He has amazing eye lashes and is a cutie pie though knows how to have a tantrum and give some two year old attitude!
He is talking so much more now with cute words like “K” and “yook” instead of look.. he follows and copies Will like a little puppy, it is very cute and they are very affectionate brothers.. he is stringing together a few words and so conversations are coming along and very interesting to chat with him and his recall of events and information. He counts and says the alphabet as best he can, learning all from Will, a sponge at this age… he also likes to talk about poo poo and bum bums 🙄. Being a parrot to everything his brother says he really is learning so much and his speech and discussion are of value and clear mostly.
Toby is a climber and has no fear, being the first to scale a pole, water slide stair, park climbing wall etc. and also the first to fall.. he only has little short legs and this of course makes his plight so much more difficult at times..
He LOVES food, dummies and playing in water and dirt.. the messier the better!! He is a good sleeper mostly, still needs a big daytime sleep as he is a busy little man most the time!!
He is going to OAC freshwater 2 days a week and has a great time, is very social and likes other kids, babies and the staff… his little friends are Dusty, Poppy and Luka.
He is a boys boy and so his favourite people are Poppy, Pa Pete and Uncle Paul when he is around.. oh and our neighbour Nick! Constantly calling out “Hi Nick”!
He is currently kinda toilet training, weeing on the toilet when prompted though a while to go to be confident in undies..
The older boys are loving their little brother and are mostly gentle and sincere with him, showering kisses and cuddles on every available occasion.. warms our hearts… 💙💙💙
Nattie’s gorgeous card to Geoff:
Red Reflection Week 1 Term 1 2018
http://www.geoffsphotos.com.au/Toby-James-Yates/i-ghzjSFz
Finally the glass for our table top that we bought as an old but very good condition wooden table that we sanded back and painted is done!!!
And what the table and chairs once were:
Will got:
Hot Wheels Garage
Lightning McQueen swimmers.
Smiggle Transformers Backpack
Inflatable Row Boat (both – from Hugh)
Charades Game
Toby got:
Hot wheels truck
Glow mine Thomas The Tank Engine
Hungry Hippos (joint)
Sprinkler Game
After a very long wait for Santa and getting there and 0830hrs for a 0900hrs start it took an hour and a half!
Will aged 4.5yrs and Tobes 2yrs and one month.
After what seemed like a very long wait we finally took delivery of the new 7 seater 4×4 Isuzu MUX!! We got it from Sutton’s Northern Beaches and paid a cool $50k for it. The dealer stuffed up in a good way and installed the Tow Pro Elite at no cost to us!!
We went for what I thought would be a standard ride from North Steyne around to Shelly and back but when we got to Shelly I thought I’d see if I could push Will a little beyond his limits…did he ever!!! We went up the steep car park at Shelly, around the top onto Addison Rd then left onto and up Darley Rd to the North Head Cafe. Whilst I got a tiny bit of whinging and ‘my legs hurt’ – we both got off and walked (whilst Toby stayed in his seat on the back of my bike) we made it…all the way past Manly Hospital and around to the North Head Bella Vista Cafe!! Amazing effort Will. The fun part was rising back down into Manly!!
Site 65!!
