What goes up must come down

Someone rather famous once said that any idiot could get up Mount Everest - but it took real skill to get back down again. George can now pull himself to standing, as you can see in the photo sequence below.  Unfortunately, getting back down to his backside is the real challenge.  At the moment he just pulls himself up and then wails until someone helps him back onto his bum.

Unsurprisingly, this approach does seem to be working for the little tyrant...

.

.

.

Not much else going on really - here are a few shots I took this morning of the little man playing on his birthday car from Suki and Queenie.  He's not quite self-powered yet; he can go backwards with no problem, but moving forward is a bit of a challenge at the moment.  He does love riding it though:

.

.

.

Bath shenanigans

George's latest bathtime game is taking whatever he's playing with and helpfully passing throwing it over the edge to me or Rachel (it gets a bit messy when the plaything is a half full plastic cup of water...) .

.

.

Post-bathtime snap | G's birthday drinks | Puppy love

This one was from an hour ago, just after G's bath. He's giving me the "Am I about to get a Hairy Maclary story soon?" look (yes - he got one about 5 minutes later) .

.

.

And here's a photo (for posterity) of the Chateauneuf Du Pape before we demolished it.  Richard B gave it (with two gorgeous red wine glasses) to us on our wedding day in 2007, and we were saving it for a special occasion.  I decanted it yesterday afternoon, and at 7pm last night - exactly one year after George was born - we toasted the little man.  Yup - that's Ben in the background.

.

.

.

And here's a sequence taken this afternoon, as George flirted with one of his Hong Kong girlfriends, Sophia:

.

.

.

The Birthday Boy!

One year old today! The little man has had a ball playing with his new toys this morning: .

Playing with the trolley and blocks from Godparents Ross and Ang

.

Playing on the toolman's truck (from Aunty Suki and Aunty Queenie at Daddy's work)

.

Mummy insisted on a family photo. Yes, we're in pyjamas.

.

Cruisin' in his new wheels

.

.

Bathtime, screaming time, posing time

.

.

.

A few leftover phone photos

The first was taken yesterday when Bunky came to visit me at work, and the rest are randoms from New Zealand: .

Playing on the grass outside my work

.

A random church that we walked past (in Havelock North)

.

In the plane from Napier to Auckland (that's George's hair on the left...)

.

Aunty Momo and Rachel talking in the kitchen while G busies himself with Lego

.

Reading time with Paddy

.

.

Early birthday drinks

Although Bunky doesn't turn one for another nine days, we decided to have a few early birthday drinks (and cake) for him today in Auckland.  The little piglet managed to scoff cake, part of a sausage roll, some rice cracker, more cake (with cream) and he washed that all down with some delicious leaves from the back yard. Here are a few from the day - once again without the benefit of any Photoshop magic...

.

 

.

.

A few more photos from New Zealand

As much as I miss using Photoshop, I couldn't resist uploading a few photos from our last few weeks of touring.  We hit both Wellington and Hawkes Bay (both very briefly) and we're now back in Auckland, dreading our return to Hong Kong on Monday night. Eeeek. iPhoto has seemed to have done a pretty decent job of tweaking the RAW images and exporting them to jpeg - I may have another go when back in Hong Kong, but for the time being... here you go:

.

Taken from the Koru Lounge at Auckland Airport, waiting for our Wellington flight

.

A (fairly rotten quality) photo of George being stalked by his grandmother

.

A dog named "Dog"

.

George in a pool with (one of) his Godfather(s) and Lucy

.

Enjoying a swing push from his mate Ella

.

Uncle Godfather Ross

.

Dinnertime with Lucy

.

Jump time with Ella

.

Watching an outdoor movie at the Blackbarn Vineyard Amphitheatre

.

Lucy braving the sprinkler

.

Ella taking on the sprinkler

.

.

Low humidity = Floppy hair

Despite Uncle Sam's assertions to the contrary, it is rather cold here (maybe our blood has thinned over the years).  With the cold comes an extreme drop in humidity, and with the drop in humidity, the hair of certain household members becomes a little... "floppy": .

.

Ok, so the middle one wasn't so floppy, but I threw that in there to show you how he can make plastic objects levitate.  He's clever like that.

.

.

Sunday fun at the park

This morning we took the Bunky down to Cyberport to eat grass play in the sun. No need to really say anything else - the photos speak for themselves.  Kiddo had a lovely time (except when his chin met the concrete step during his ascent of said step...) .

.

.

Saturday: Tears and Beers

Saturday was a funny day - we went to gorgeous little Ava's first birthday party in Kennedy Town, where Bunky proceeded to burst into tears every 15-20 seconds.  Someone nudged him - tears and wailing.  Dropped a toy - tears and wailing.  Someone looked at him in a funny way - tears and wailing.  It was most uncharacteristic of the little munchkin, and we can only really put it down to it being a little bit loud for him.  Or he's a bit of a wuss.  Probably too early to definitively tell on that front. Anyway, a few photos of the beautiful little birthday girl (oh - that's George's curly hair on the left in the first photo...the only photo of him not crying):

.

.

.

In the evening we went to Sam and Mary's for pre-Christmas drinks. Had a lovely time and a great meal - and Sam and Mary had even organised a secret santa for everyone as well.  They're about to take Christmas Holidays closely followed by a short sabbatical holiday, so we won't see them again until around April next year.  We met some lovely people, including a Canadian vet whose cousin I worked with in Canada in 1997.  It's a small, small world...

.

.

.

Special guest photographer: Mummy

A few photos that Rachel sent me from her phone during her day with Bunky. Scribbles on the photos are obviously mine: .

Lunch at Chez Bunky

.

Helpfully rearranging things in the lounge

.

.

An afternoon in the sun

A few from this afternoon down at Cyberport - towards the end of the afternoon the lawns looked a little less green.  Mainly because Bunky ate most of the grass. .

.

.

A few random phone photos and a pre-breakfast window stare

A few completely random photos from my phone: .

I took this in near darkness - it's Ben and Poppy on the back of our couch.  Surely this can't be comfortable for poor little squashed Pop?

.

.

I couldn't resist - this is from one of the toilets of the Cathay Pacific plane we flew on over the weekend.  Is "choke" really the word they were looking for?

.

.

This is from this morning - it looks posed, but I promise it wasn't.  I just wanted Rachel to hold still, and for some reason they both ended up looking out the window.  It doesn't take much to get George's attention (birds, ships, pieces of toast and random dust particles are all rather exciting to him), but I'm not entirely sure what Rachel was looking at...

.

.

Morning monkey face

Not exactly sure what his face in the first one was for.  In the second he was deep in concentration, wondering whether he could actually get the little yellow tag on his trousers into his mouth (answer = yes). .

.

.

.

Singapore

On Sunday night we got back from a fantastic long weekend in Singapore - Bunky was pretty good on the flight over (although we had a few tense moments due to a delay in feeding him), but he was pretty sweet for the rest of the flight. Ditto on the way back - a bit scratchy to start with, but after dinner and a nice long nap (during which his Mummy watched a few trashy episodes of "Gossip Girl"), he was in great form at the end of the flight and during the landing. Bedtime was seriously late thanks to some slow baggage handling (he didn't get to bed until around 10pm) but that of course didn't stop his lordship from his usual wakeup shenanigans at 6:45am (a deep and meaningful discussion of world politics with his bedmate Flat Ted). I took a pile of photos and have posted few below - I would have liked to have taken a bit more time sorting and editing them, but I have already started receiving not-so-subtle messages regarding the absence of photos of George over the last four days.

The photos probably require no explanation - they are mostly of Paddy, Bella or George. I also took a few at the outdoor market where Kirstie occasionally sells clothes. We went there on Saturday morning, and naturally Rachel couldn't leave without buying his majesty a few little bits and pieces (including what she now calls his "Yoga Pants").

Thanks to the Challis clan for being such fantastic hosts, yet again.

Oh - and before I go... Happy Birthday to Uncle Sam in London! Hope you have a great birthday and we trust that Aunty Katy will spoil you rotten.

.

.

.

Happy Birthday Granny B!

A few quick photos of the little man, who had a tough day yesterday (a slightly elevated temperature combined with a massive sense of humour failure...) .

Posing on the window seat.  Daddy's mental note - taking a photo of George in white pyjamas sitting on a white cushion with a white backdrop is a pretty stupid idea

.

On the phone to Granny B for her morning birthday telephone call

.

.

Might not be much going on here over the next few days, as we're off to Singapore for a long weekend (flying out tomorrow morning).  Hopefully George is ok on the four hour day flight, but I guess we have the overhead lockers as a fallback position.

Just kidding.  Sort of.

.

.

Humpty Dumpy got cold tootsies

It's a bit colder out here in Hong Kong (or perhaps our blood has just thinned over the last five years), and it's time for the winter woollies to come out. Unfortunately, George got caught a little short on the sock front - plenty of shoes, but no socks for kicking about the house with (unless he can squeeze into his "up to one month old" socks).  As a result, he had a curious pair of Eskimo-like laced socks this morning - while showing them off,  he managed to do a Humpty Dumpty impersonation: .

HIs greatest discovery of the morning was that if the laces were untied, he could lean forward and eat them. He's so smart. Anyway, here's another from this morning - check it out, FOUR teeth.  He's like a little can opener with an afro:

.

.

We're so hot

Taken on the computer just before we went out for dinner for Rachel's birthday last night: .

.

.

Happy Birthday Rachel!

It's Rachel's birthday today!  Here is a photo of George wearing his mummy's hat in celebration (it was taken with her brand new birthday-phone): .

.

Oops - I didn't realise you could see my manky foot.  Sorry.

.

.