A big night out at the NZ Music Awards last Wednesday where Chris was personally thanked ("especially Chris Guzzwell my man on the ground") by awesome NZ legend Dave Dobbyn, and all round nice guy, in his acceptance speech - YAY go Chris!! And didnt he scrub up well...

The next day it was time for us all to pack up - Chris was off to Boston to see the Red Hot Chilli Peppers (a new blog with his photos coming soon) so James, Chili and I took off to Pauanui to visit Mum. We picked up my niece Lauren on the way down and all we heard in the car on the way was; nana nana nana in between the occasional digger, roller and corker of course. We had a lovely few days - running, swimming and playing at both the beach and the estuary as well as the playground. A primo beach shot of James, Nana and Lauren here ...


But the highlight of the trip for James had to be the arrival of his new best mate Bailey the dog. Bailey is my sister Michelle's old lovely placid family dog who puts up with a lot more than Chili does! James was beside himself with excitement to see "Baila" and spent most every waking moment trying to cuddle her, sit on her, kiss her and generally just hang out with her. It was very cute even if it did lead to a few scratchy allergy moments.
We are all back home now - stay tuned for Chris' posting of his USA adventure soon. Cheerio, Camille x

New words, new clothes and new skills... James has reached a new level of achievement in his swimming lessons, he is now officially allowed to submerge! Very exciting stuff for Chris, who does the lessons with him, plus James simply loves going under - check out the photo from his lesson on Saturday.
Favourite new words he has learnt recently include - cool, I don't know, corker, bubba roller, wow and two. Hearing him say corker is hilarious especially when he mixes it with a "wow" but one of his favourite is still digger. Of course.

He scored some gorgeous new Gap clothes from Uncle Grant (& Auntie Helen of course) including the most gorgeous pair of PJ's for next winter with planes on them -soooo cute.
We spent another weekend in the garden with James helping out immensely with spreading the new compost whilst Chris contructed the most amazing vege garden, bring on the bounty!!

Cousin Blair from Tauranga is staying at the moment and has been caught up to speed on the latest Hairy Mclary books as well as drawing some brilliant chalk artwork on the pavement with James. Good times in the Guzzie household.
Today James did one of his most brilliant decorating jobs yet; the entire contents of Mummy's lip balm all over the rug, nice. Not quite finished he decided to empty the contents of my aromatherapy oil all over the floor and then walk it all over the floors - a lovely greasy effect. The joys of children! Camille x

Weekend family fun - bush walking & gardening. It was a pretty gorgeous weekend which meant a great opportunity for us to get outside and appreciate nature. Firstly we headed off for a bush walk to the Waitakeres where we squeezed James into the backpack for what could be his last time, damn, he is nearly 14 kilos now which is not great for Chris' back!!
Still it is a lot quicker that way rather than walking with him ... he tends to get distracted and pick up bark, stones and dawdle in the bush. Very cute though.

Then while I went off to do my radio show Chris set himself up to do some gardening with James "helping". His idea of helping was to throw some rocks, massacre a few plants with Chris trying to gently persuade him to dig in the soil rather than the lawn in between kicking the ball around. Oh well I am sure it will get better with time. Here is a picture of the gardeners resting!
All of a sudden the weekend was over and back to the week. James caught up with his mates Ruby and Amelia where they had a ball playing with a blackboard and chalk - not sure how much chalk actually ended up on the board as there seemed to be a lot on each of the kids! That'll do for now, touch base again soon. Camille x

Gotta love yoghurt!!
I thought it was time to share with you all how much James LOVES yoghurt ... in his tummy, his hair, his face, ears and all over his clothes. The joys of watching them try to feed themselves!
Chris came home from a busy (ie. drunken) couple of days at conference straight back into full on family times - swimming on Sat was fabulous, bonding one on one with James and a traumatic brunch experience on sunday am. James had some of his hair completely pulled out by a nasty little girl who was older and bigger than him at the sandpit at Atomic Cafe in Ponsonby Rd - he was sooo upset it took him 30 minutes to calm down. (It took me all afternoon!) Phewee ....
Here he is spinning around the house on his ride on cow!



Tuesday was a busy day with catching up with friends in the morning and James spending some quality time with Yaya (greek for grandmother) at St Lukes in the afternoon. Mariana completely spoilt James rotten with news clothes and a very cool set of plastic rackets and ball which he loves to bits.
Today we did the cafe with Auntie Yo and met Grandad who took James out for some fun at the garden centre - particularly in the water fountains!! Check out the photo for proof!



Anyway off to meet a new baby this afternoon with my gals - will post more pictures soon. Camille x