Christmas and Coolum

Had a great Christmas break with the family. We knew that it was going to be a special holiday as it would be the first season with the two new beautiful babies. Alison and I had only seen Thomas in pictures on Facebook and the occasional Skype session, so it was really great to finally be able to give him a cuddle (especially when he's so soft and squishy compared to Nelly!). The two babies hit it off immediately I think, although Eleanor did spend some time trying to inspect his eyeballs with her fingernails while Thomas tolerated her abuse with great patience.

It's interesting to see what a difference three months makes at this age and how each baby can have their own personality. This is the longest time I've seen Eleanor in the company of another baby and you really get an idea of what makes each kid special. I think Dora put it best when she called Nelly "spirited" as she was a bucket of energy and noise through the whole week compared to the Buddha like calm and happiness we saw in Thomas. I also got to see how easy it was for Nelly to cry and complain for the smallest things so that little girl is going to have to swallow some cement and harden up soon.

All tough talk but it's hard to stay cross at her when she looks so cute. The first few nights in Toowoomba were a little restless, though we'd like to think that she was just excited about trying to catch Santa putting presents around the fireplace. She woke us up pretty early on Christmas day and was in a chipper mood to get to church. No idea where she gets all her silly faces from. 

Opening Christmas presents after church for the past few years had become a minor affair as all Alison's younger cousins have grown up. If this year is any indication I'd say there will be a sharp increase in the quantity and size of pretty, wrapped packages to tear open on Christmas morning. Nelly's favourite is her new cookie jar shape sorter that Grandma and Granddad bought for her. We noticed that she has the cutest technique for choosing a shape to take out which I happily captured on video for posterity. 

As an aside, we never thought we would be a Fisher Price family but our collection of beeping and singing plastic toys appears to be growing at an alarming rate. Anything to keep the little ones entertained I suppose. 

On the boxing day holiday we packed the cars up and drove up to Coolum to spend a week at a house that James and Dora rented for the family. It was a great location, only ten minutes walk with a stroller to the beach and shops. The house itself was also perfectly equipped with all the creature comforts one could ask for; multiple kitchens, numerous fridges for drinks, a small pool, TVs in the rooms and best yet... complimentary wireless internet access. It didn't take me long to set up the PS3 for a little bit of gaming goodness. Ah bliss.

I've never been a big fan of the beach, but I had to make an exception to take little Nelly down to play in the water. The waves were pretty choppy so we didn't head out too far and the water seemed pretty cold to me, though no one else seemed to mind. The biggest challenge was probably timing our trips to avoid the harsh morning sun and align with the sleep schedule for the babies. Sleepy kids tend to wake up when dangled in the waves it seems and she even appeared enjoyed it after a while.

The other issue, which should be obvious if we had thought about it, was that Nelly kept trying to eat the sand on the beach. That made building sand castles a little tricky so I guess we'll have to postpone that activity for another beach holiday. At least she was fine and had fun in the surf with Granddad John and cousin Thomas.

We all got some lovely photos of the babies which can be seen on this album here.

Coming back to work was challenging after spending so much time with our little girl. I can't believe how much she's grown up even in the last month. Her latest trick is being able to sit up in her cot and wail miserably until someone comes into the room to play. She has also become pretty adept at extending from a sitting position to reach out to fetch her toys, but still appears to have no interest or aptitude for crawling significant distances. Probably a blessing really as she'll be a handful to look after given how energetic she is normally even without mobility.

At least there won't be a long wait till the next holiday as we're back to Malaysia in the next three weeks for Chinese New Year to see the other grandparents. In the mean time we'll just have to lose as much of this Christmas weight as we can before gorging ourselves on food again at the end of the month.