The Best Big Brother

Max has been so very excited along this whole journey. Before we were even expecting Grace he wanted a baby pretty badly after seeing most of his friends have babies join their families. Last year during his prayers he said " Dear Jesus, if you could send a baby to our family they would have the best time"

We waited a few weeks to tell him that there would be some one joining our family. From day dot he said it would be a little sister because about 80% of his friends have had little sisters. He has been very helpful in suggesting names he really liked Isabella which happens to be the name of Ethan's little sister.

With permission of the hospital I was able to take him up yesterday morning to visit Grace for the first time. He was very quiet and behaved so well on the way into the hospital. He whispered to Grace pretty much the whole time introducing himself and giving a running commentary.

He checked her out and made comments constantly about how cute and beautiful she is. Grace opened her eyes and appeared to check him out for a while.

Max was able to help give Grace a bath with the midwife which he thought was the best thing ever.

After daycare Max and I went and bought Grace and Mum some presents. We got a really lovely purple orchid and Max picked out a Hello Kitty as Grace's first teddy bear.

Welcome to Grace!

Tonight at 6.37pm we welcomed Grace Elizabeth Batkin to the family. She was born after a very quick delivery of around 15-20 minutes.

After dropping Max off and a pretty quick trip to the hospital we landed at the emergency department looking for a wheelchair as we didn't think Jo would make the delivery room because of the distance. I left the car outside at emergency possibly with the motor running. Once we got the attention of the triage nurse who initially just looked at us strangely while I kept saying we need to get to maternity and grabbing a wheelchair for myself.

We had a nurse grab the chair and run Jo to the birthing suite. After a couple of pushes Grace entered the world. She came out face up and was quite purple but after a bit of rubbing let out a lovely little baa sheep cry.

The midwives then cut the cord and was then that they saw that Grace had somehow put a natural knot in the cord. This can be very dangerous if she had tightened the cord at some point.

She weighed in at 3805gm or 8lb 6oz which is 300gms lighter than her brother. She is 52cm long which is 1cm shorter than her brother.

On the way to the hospital during a contraction Max said " It's ok baby this is your time to come out" he also kept asking Jo during contractions what was the baby saying to her. We said that the baby was telling her that it was on the way.

He was very excited at the news and kept saying to anyone who would listen that he was a big brother of a little sister.

After quite a lot of cuddles Grace had a feed and that seemed to come very naturally and settled her nicely. She also spent a bit of time in the first hours sucking her hand and thumb. After being very clumsily dressed by her dad she and Mum ended up in their room for some much needed rest.

Car Club Christmas Party

Every year in December Nanny and Poppy's car club has their Christmas party at the miniature train park in Nambour.

Max loves it because he gets to ride on the trains, eat yummy picnic food, see Nanny and Poppy, and get a present from Santa - what more could you want from a day out?

With 4 adults there to ride the trains with him, he could keep riding again and again without wearing any particular person out and have lots of fun. He was very excited to see Santa come riding in on the train, and I don't even think he noticed Santa's resemblance to Poppy as he received his present so everything went well.

O Christmas Tree

This year we thought it was about time that the Batkin family acquired a Christmas tree, since last year we thought it was too risky as Max may have destroyed and then eaten it.

Cam managed to find a great deal on one, so $30 and one Spotlight VIP membership later, we were the proud owners of our first tree including decorations!

Max has been getting very excited about Christmas this year. At Daycare they have been making decorations and he's seen the Santa and tree there, and always spots any Santas in the shops and Christmas trees at friends places. He is also getting better at waiting for things, and very patiently asks me just about every day - 'Santa coming today Mum?' to which I have to say 'No not yet mate, but pretty soon!'. We are also trying to teach him the real reason for Christmas and the presents, but there certainly aren't as many baby Jesus pictures around the place as there are Santas.

He was very excited to see our very own Christmas tree in its box, and took great pride in helping me assemble it and then place all of the decorations around and on top. We've placed it in the lounge room close to his high chair so he often looks at it while he's eating, and the first few days after we put it up he would come out in the mornings and say 'wow!' when he saw it still there from yesterday.

Entertaining Visitors

Last month we were fortunate to host Dan and Janet Reinhart at our place for a few days while they were visiting Australia from the US. Dan is an expert in Bible quizzing and was visiting Australia and NZ to share from the wealth of his experience and give us some tips on how to start up a similar program in our local churches.

We had a great time meeting them and getting to know them. Janet loves to knit and brought Max a hand-knitted blanket all the way over here, which he loves to have on his bed at night even when the weather is a little too warm for blankets. After the Bible quizzing workshop we thought it would be a good idea to give them a mini holiday by going up to Bli Bli to visit Nanny and Poppy so they could see the beach and the beautiful spots around the Sunshine Coast hinterland.

On the way up we stopped at Humble Pie to give the Reinharts the essential Aussie meat pie experience, which Max thought was pretty awesome as well.

Once at the coast we couldn't pass up the opportunity to have fresh fish and chips at the beach, so we went down to Mooloolaba. Max also loved the chance to play in the sand before dinner.

The next day we headed back down to the beach again, to take advantage of the beautiful sunny weather while it lasted. This time Max got to get all of himself wet instead of just his feet, and we had fun burying him in the sand too, while Dan and Janet got to relax and take a walk.

The next day was a little less full of sunshine so we went for a drive and saw some local attractions instead. We went to the Ginger Factory at Yandina to buy some souvenirs, sample the tasty ginger products, ride the train and take the tour, which everyone really enjoyed.

Next we went for a beautiful drive around Mapleton, Maleny and Montville, and stopped for a picnic lunch at Mary Cairncross Park while admiring the view of the Glasshouse Mountains.

After a quick stop at Kenilworth for some ice-cream, we went back to Nanny and Poppy's house for a relaxed evening meal and then drove home so that the Reinharts could catch their plane early the next morning.

We all felt very fortunate to meet and spend time with such a lovely couple and hope that we can keep in touch in the future.

Face Painting

Yesterday we all went along to a fundraising event that our church had organised to raise money for victims of the tsunami in Samoa, called Touch 4 Samoa.

Even though none of us actually played football, we all had a great day after helping to organise it and it was great to see all of the support that was given to such a worthy cause.

Of course Max was a bit oblivious to that side of things and was much more interested in seeing all of his friends, eating some yummy food from the BBQ and cake stall, playing on the jumping castle and also having his first face painting experience. He behaved very well for this by staying nice and still the whole time and not immediately trying to wipe it all off.

These photos were taken several hours after the painting was done so hopefully you can still see the Spiderman resemblance, but what's more important is the fun after all!

Children's Day

As many of you may know the church we attend is made up mostly of People from the Pacific Islands and of those mostly from Samoa.

Traditionally the second Sunday in October is known as 'White Sunday' it is basically the children's day to celebrate and be the centre of attention. Each Sunday School class does a small song or skit from what they have been learning for the whole year. Afterwards is a massive lunch with lots of kids friendly food and then dessert and lolly necklaces.

This year we even had a jumping castle for all of the kids which was very popular. During the week a long list of food was provided so parents knew what food to bring here is briefly what was involved to feed everyone. 8 x pots of Chop Suey and Fried Rice, 147 pieces of KFC, 8 x XL bowls of Potato salad, 20 pizzas of various flavours, over 30litres of ice cream, 150 ice cream cones, 5 large fruit platters, punch and a large chocolate cake. Other food that was not on the list also magically appeared like donuts and mussels. All of the food was packed into individual lunch boxes and labelled for each class. For Max's class all we had to do was pick up the 12 lunch boxes for the kids his age. A count was also done of the parents and special parent packs were also done. It was such a good lunch. After lunch the kids had a small break before cake and ice cream. Then class by class was presented and Jo and I gave Max his lolly necklaces. He thought this was the coolest thing ever, he has seen Jo and I get these at Mother's and Father's day.

For the item of the Playgroup kids which Max is a aprt of they stood on the stage and said Jesus Loves Me. There was also a video with each of the kids name and birth date and some pictures and some video of them. Max joined in with some of the big group songs for the whole Sunday School. He loved being in the limelight and was so excited he kept jumping up and down which is a real sign he is having a good time.

The pictures below are a glimpse of his day. Enjoy!