Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone!  [Edit - stupid website clock is set to US time... I'll fix it later] It's still a bit weird waking up to a cold New Year's Day, after spending most of them in a New Zealand summer. I've only ever had one white Christmas, and that was in Canada when I was living there in 1996/7. Shyte that was colllld. We had a lovely night at Paul and Leslie's last night - they put on some great food and we saw a load of their friends who we met at their Australia Day BBQ earlier in the year.  We were the only childless ones there, so got lots of good advice about babymaking in Hong Kong (including quite a handy warning from one guy who got hit with a HK$350,000 bill after his new son spent 10 days in intensive care - must check our insurance terms and conditions).

Lazy morning here - I woke up early, but couldn' force myself to leave the bed as Poppycat was snuggled up next to me under the blanket.  Rachel just made us bacon, eggs and hash browns, and we're not quite sure what to do with ourselves.  Called and texted everyone we wanted to, and now we're listening to a NZ radio station (thanks to the clever old internet and Wifi iPod magic).

Rachel has recalculated her due date and seems to think it has slid forward by a few days - now 16 January.  Who knows when the little mite will turn up.

A few photos of the boys that I took this morning (I only took them so that I could upload something):

SPACESPACESPACESPACESPACESPACE

And before I shoot off, Happy Birthday to Tim Ma(n)hood who turned 33 yesterday.  Here's an old photo to revive some bad memories Timbo (from Taupo golf weekend in 2006 - that was the year where I managed to have a sleep between dinner and dessert):

random sunday night facts

. .

1) Rachel doesn't have to go to work again until July

2) I have to go to work in the morning

3) Cracker (aka evilspawnofnarly) now weighs 6 pounds (just over 2 kilos)

4) Cracker (aka evilspawnofnarly) is due to grace us with his/her presence in 3 weeks

5) Although we don't actually know it, I firmly believe - as does 99% of the HK population that has seen Rachel - that Cracker is a boy

6) There is absolutely no scientific basis for 5)

7) The names are pretty much sorted.

That's all really - I'm about to go to bed, so I leave you with a photo of little Freddie Cary sleeping peacefully under the NZ wool blanket that Uncle Narly and Aunty Rachel sent him (thanks to Daddy Cary for sending us the photo!)

A few more photos from today and last night

Nothing to report - the Challis clan have successfully departed and as I type this, they should be sitting on a plane waiting to take off.  We had a lovely dinner at the Peak Lookout Restaurant last night - just the grownups - and this morning the clan came upstairs for coffee, banana, biscuits and a bit of TV action. Now it's just the four of us again (I include the cats in my calculations).  Rachel is lying on the couch reading, and I'm just sorting through some photos from the last few days. Nothing planned for the next few days, although we have a few baby things to purchase.

I had a play with the baby monitor yesterday, and it appears that the only thing it can't do is make my coffee in the morning. There is this super weird 'tic' feature on it that makes a little 'tic' whenever the movement sensor goes off - the same movement sensor that screams like a banshee if it detects no movement for 10 seconds.  Hell it's loud.

Right - I'll leave you with some pictures.  First two are of course Robin and Kirstie at the restaurant last night, and the last three are Arabella and Paddy in various positions while watching cartoons on tv this morning.  I love the huggy one - Paddy is transfixed with some stoner running about in a colourful costume, while all Bella wants to do is give her big brother a hug.  Sweet...

merry christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! We're at the tail end of Christmas day and it's time to kick back and do... nothing.  The Challis clan invaded and we survived (it was a close one).  We had a great day of food, fun and friends, and the little ones loved their presents (well, Arabella was all about the food).  I took a few photos, so here they are - naturally, mostly kiddie focused (I love the last one - Arabella was so excited by the morning's events, the loss of a shoe didn't bother her in the least).  It's our last Christmas as a four member family (me, Rachel, cats x 2) and next year we'll be entertaining an almost-one year old.  Eeeek.

cracker's room - work in progress

As you can see, there's the cot, changing table, bassinet and Rachel's feeding chair thingy.  The alphabet stops and starts on a new line partly because an unnamed person (not me) didn't leave enough space to finish the alphabet on the same line (!) and partly because we intend to put a large dresser in the spot that Rachel is sitting in (I'll probably get her to move before we put it there...)

i almost forgot!

the world welcomed little bella lonsdale hayes last week - congrats to kieran and anna.  kieran of course being the mostly naked man in the pink apron featured right here just a few days ago...  here's mum and baby stolen from bella's blog:

getting closer to christmas

...and that deserves christmas cat photos, and a random photo of a cool coloured cup (from FUEL espresso, here in HK). but before that, big news. just kidding - nothing really going on at the moment.  challis clan arrives on saturday night and before that we have a whole lot of nothing going on. shopping is almost done and rachel is down to 5 days of work before her extended "vacation".  we got woken up by baby crying in the apartment upstairs at 6am this morning. good practice i suppose...

as i type this, rachel is lying on the couch with poppycat purring away (pop is doing the purring, not rachel), and ben is skulking around the room, looking for attention.

right, those photos i was talking about: