Nearly Christmas

Christmas is nearly upon us and I can't wait. I love it and this is our first Christmas as parents so that makes it all the more interesting although Henry is not quite old enough to open presents yet.

Well so much has happened since my last post, Henry is cawling properly fulltime now which is good because his clothes aren't getting so dirty. He says mum all the time and can say 'ta', he is very noisy all the time, he stands up at any furniture he can and just yells and kisses, he wants to give me kisses all the time. He is at the most amazing age so far.

We went to the Christmas Tree at playgroup on Saturday which was fun and Henry sat on Santas knee and got a present.

Jacko is still with us, we wont know what to do with ourselves once he leaves on Saturday. We went to the beach on Sunday and took the four wheel motorbike and the Jetski. The boys played with their bigboy toys and towing each other on the biscuit. I lay in the tent reading and Henry ate lots of sand.

Chevy has had his operation and the leg seems to be healing well. I am going to take off his bandages today.

We have had some bush fires near hear the last few days, Damon has been grading some tracks today and yesterday so they can back burn. The fire was beside Ross' although was heading in the other direction.

Well I got my period back on Sunday morning, I forgot what it was like seeing as I haven't had one for a year and a half. We have decided to start trying this month for our second baby. I got pregnant straight away with Henry so we will see what happens this time.

Moving along

I just put Henry down for his afternoon nap, I'm afraid I am getting into a bad habit. I realized the other day that he can hold his own bottle, so I can put him in his cot with his bottle and off to sleep he goes once botbot is finished. I am a little worried that he will become relient on his botbot to get to sleep.

I had planned to get pregnant this month so we could have a September baby. I want to have the kids close in age so this makes for an 18 month age gap. I talked to Damon about it the other night and he wasnt sure that we should start trying just yet, I don't think he thinks he has spent enough time with Henry let along add another child to that. I did remind him that it would be nine months before the next one would be born. He asked did I think we could handle another one, I had to laugh at that.
I introduced the bottle at 6 & half months and he has been slowly weened since then. He has been only breast feeding once a day for the last month and is not really interested anymore. I would have stuck with breast feeding only but I have been planning to get pregnant in December so felt that I needed to wean him in order to get my period back although its not back yet. Not sure what to do about that.

Yesterday we got Henry's first tractor with farm points earned from buying chemical. He is a bit little for it just yet but he will grow into it. Dad loves pushing him around on it. He still comando crawls but he is pulling himself up on the furniture much faster now.

Chevy goes in for his operation tomorrow, they are going to remove 1.5cm of the bone that is not growing, then the bone should grow back longer to replace the removed bone. So hopefully all will be ok after this.

Boy does time fly, Henry is almost nine months old and it only feels like yesterday we had him, although I hardly feel like there was a time we never had him.

He had his six month vaccination on Monday as he had a chest infection at 6 months, it was also his 8th month checkup. Sheree (health nurse) did a test with a little light, Henry should follow the light in a circle which he did but he is such a little genius as he followed the light in a cross as well which Sheree said most babies cant do until there 12 months old. When I told Damon he asked Henry if he was going to be a genius like his dad......

On occasions he does crawl properly although most of the time he commando crawls. He spends most of his time pulling himself up on the furniture and he is learning to walk around the furniture. Sheree said it wont be long and he will be walking.....oh my god.......

We had an inch of rain last night, not good, could have given it to use two months ago.... We haven't finished harvesting the wheat yet. Doesn't matter much to the barley as that has already been down graded to feed. they wont take the barley off until the buyer is ready to come and get it.

Looks like we will be finished harvest in the next week or so, so should be going home for Xmas, I cant wait I love Christmas....... I hope to be pregnant by the end of December, I spoke to Damon last night about getting pregnant again and he doesn't think we should have another baby quite so soon. I guess we will just see what happens........

Up one

Well Jacko arrived on Monday and has been working flat out ever since. He seems to enjoy the farm work so far and even mentioned he wouldn't mind a farm of his own one day. I managed to get the room ready in time which was a huge mess and now all the mess is outside the room. Damon really enjoys having him to work with and they get along so well and even play jokes on each other.

Crop is not very good, canola has averaged 0.4tonne per hectare and I think we should be getting 1.2t per hc. today they moved home to Kalinda. They have finished at the block except for wheatly (barley mixed with wheat) that shouldn't exist.

Yesterday I took Chevy to town to have his leg looked at. Annmarie (vet) took heaps of x-rays of his leg and found one of the bones in his leg isn't growing, that's why it sticks out to the side. He will need an operation very soon to fix it although we need to wait to hear what the specialist is Perth says once he has received the x-rays. The broken bone and the spider bite have healed beautifully.

Henry cant stop saying his first word, he started saying it yesterday and hasn't stopped since, dadada daddy dad dad dadadday............ I'm not at all disheartened that he doesn't say mummy, I'm sure it wont be far away.

Well what a busy week and it doesn't look to be getting any lighter over the weekend. Megan's second birthday tomorrow and pub for lunch on Sunday.

Help Coming

I have been getting the room ready for Jacko to come as he is going to be our workman for the rest of harvest. Since the other guy who was helping out left on Thursday Carol has been very busy helping the men. Jacko should be here tomorrow arvo.

HP is nearly crawling properly although he finds he can get around faster commando crawling so he tends to revert back to that. He is so affectionate and loves to give me cuddles and heaps of kisses, it really is so amazing, to think we made him. He is going down for a nap at 10 and 3, he doesn't cry anymore and happily sleeps for 1.5 - 2 hours each time. (touch wood)

Chevy still has a sore leg and doesn't seem to be getting any better. I will ring the vet tomorrow and tell them the problem and see what they say. Molly still itches, I really should get her allergies checked.

Chevy

Wottapud Chevrolet is our chocolate and white border collie whom I bought from the other side of Australia, I want to breed from him and use him as a sheep dog. He is seven months old and a real drama. Chevy has had a broken leg and with his cast on he was bitten by a white tail spider which caused a huge sore under his cast. We happened to be away at the time so my mother in law who was looking after the dogs while we were away noticed something wasn't right so she drove two hours to the vets who found the wound under the cast. What happened next was a leg saving operation, four more visits to the vets and everything looks fine, leg saved.

The last few days Chevy has been limping and holding the leg up and it sticks out to the side. I don't know what is wrong with it but I'm not impressed.

I had planned on getting a female border collie next year for breeding and as a sheep dog but with my luck I think I had better not get anymore dogs.

Molly our English Staffy only has three legs, when we first moved to the farm my father in law accidentally ran her over and broke it, so a two hour mercy dash to the vet at 9pm on a Saturday night during a storm. Our road out was closed due to flooding so we had to take the long way out. She has only had three legs for a year and a half now and she never misses a beat.

So we nearly had two three legged dogs........

Grain samples

Today I did my first ever canola samples, I took two yogurt containers full of canola to the farm next door who have a thingy (have to find out its name) to test for moisture. If the moisture is to high then they cant harvest until the moisture to comes down. One was to high but the other was ok although had heaps of bugs and sticks in it.

HP has another tooth that explains the restless nights. So that's his seventh tooth and he's only eight months old. Maybe I don't mash his food enough and he thinks he needs more teeth to get through it. He has been commando crawling for a while now and doesn't look like he will crawl properly as he pulls himself up to standing on what ever he can so we think he may walk before he crawls properly, oh who knows.

In the begining

I probably should have started this when we first moved to the farm but better late than never. DP was a fitter and the workshop supervisor at the mining maintenance company we both worked for, I did job costing in the office. Damon proposed on a beach in Phuket then we got married in Dunborough WA and moved to the farm. His parents have been farming in the south of wa for about 27 years. They purchased the farm behind them for us to live.

Well what a shock. I thought I would adjust well and I suppose I did, I just didn't realise how isolated it was. 60kms to the nearest small town and a two hour drive to the major town for groceries and what have you. First of all we had to get the house up to scratch to live in so my mother in law and I spent all our days painting, sanding, more painting and you would be amazed at how much a coat of paint can change a room.

Just three months into our marriage we discovered we were already pregnant, we had planned it, just didn't expect it to happen in the first month. Nine months later HP arrived by emergency cesarean. HP is now 8 months old.