A couple of photos from today. We had Nan round for a belated 94th birthday morning tea















Byron has discovered he can walk around by pushing an upturned box.

We took Connor to MOTAT today (Museum of Transport and Technology), which is full of old trains, fire engines and trams as well as lots of other interesting exhibits. He absolutely loved it as he's totally into trains at the moment (he adores Thomas the Tank Engine). Here are a few pics from the day:




















Spent ages watching the miniature railway















Stopped for lunch and a crawl around for Byron, who is loving his new mobility. He gets faster every day and I'd forgotten how much trouble a crawling baby can get into, which is why a big mat on the grass was great!















His latest trick is pulling himself up to stand, then letting go with one hand. I found him standing up in his cot for the first time this morning.




















It's such a great museum as you can climb on a lot of the old trains and vehicles. Connor thought this old engine was like Henry (from Thomas) and was pretending to be his driver















Connor taking Byron for a drive in an old fine engine




















We're at the everything goes in the mouth stage - autumn leaves seem to be a favourite

It's been quite a day for Byron today - he started crawling forwards and cut his first tooth (I was wondering when the tooth was coming, as he's nearly eight and a half months old and seems to have had all the teething symptoms for ages!). The cool thing was he did his first forwards crawl at Bruce's work, as we caught the train in to visit, so Bruce got to witness it too.

Had a great day seeing trains and all manner of diggers, trucks, rollers etc which Connor absolutely adores! It might be a pain for most people that the main street in the centre of Auckland is being dug up for refurbishment, but to a two year old boy all those machines are a dream come true!! Here are a couple of recent pics...

Byron loves his food - that new tooth will definitely be put to good use!




















Hammering plastic nails and screws into playdough, much better than in the furniture!















No comment, except that Bruce was responsible for this...

Poor Byron is getting himself into all sorts of corners by only being able to crawl backwards. He's now going from his tummy back up to sitting again and starting to pull himself up onto his knees, but still hasn't found forward gear yet...




















He's just as ticklish as Connor too
















Connor's first Easter Egg was a very serious business - pausing to look at the camera would have been a waste of valuable eating time! He never has sweets, and chocolate is an occasional special treat, so I don't think he could believe his luck!

Yes we are still here!! We lost out internet connection for about a week, then after it was fixed I couldn't log in to the blog (something to do with cookies, but that doesn't mean a lot to me!). Anyway, hopefully we're back online now for a while! Not a lot to report - the boys have both had nasty colds and poor Byron is still trying to cut his first tooth. He's drooling constantly and has had all the signs of teething for months now, but still no teeth! Despite that and having some nasty infected insect bites he never stops smiling, he's such a ridiculously happy baby! He's desperately trying to get moving, up rocking on his hands and knees all the time and managing to cover quite a lot of ground by pushing up on his hands and sliding backwards. He made his way out of the lounge and halfway down the hallway earlier today and I don't think it will be long before he finds forward gear...

































Connor's talking is coming along every day and he does keep us amused with some of the things he comes out with. The other day he commented that Mummy's shoes were cool, but Daddy's shoes were not cool (much to my amusement and Bruce's indignation!). He's quite particular about things eg he won't let anyone far inside the house without making them take their shoes off, and gets very worried if the car is started before everyone has their seat belts done up.

We have a zoo pass that enables us to go along whenever we want. I'm not a fan of zoos generally as I don't like seeing animals in cages, but Auckland zoo has really lovely enclosures and is a beautiful park, very relaxing to wander around. Got very close to the tiger last week as you can see below - there is very thick glass between them!!