The future's so bright..

Ruby has survived her first camping experience (including 3 storms), her first Christmas and first New Year celebrations.

On top of all of this, the day mummy and daddy finished work to start the holidays Grandma and Grandpa moved into their brand new home. The ever helpful Abbott's rocked up at the end of the day and sent Ruby into to play in the pile of empty boxes and rubbish of wrappings from all of Grandma's new furniture. The neat pile was sent from one end of the house to the other.

Then off we went to Kingscliff to start our two week camping holiday. To accommodate our ever growing family it was decided years ago that we would camp and Uncle Jamie and Aunty Emma would set up a mobile caravan opposite the family van. On the first day of our holiday mummy and daddy put up our 2nd hand tent (thank you Aunty Porsha), without instructions and with two broken poles. Our accommodation was great. It was nicknamed the palace as it is big enough for daddy to stand up in. Unbeknown to mummy and daddy the two broken poles had been put in the front half of the tent, which we were so happy about when the storms hit and only the front half of the tent got wet and the back half - where we were sleeping - was perfectly dry.

Ruby decided early on that she much preferred sleeping on the air mattress with mummy and daddy. There might have been one night she stayed in her port-a-cot the whole night. During the day sleeping for Ruby was a little bit of a problem as the tent was like a sauna (very hot summer days) and the family caravan was getting constant traffic. By the second week we had our daily routine down pat. Up at 5am - too hot to sleep- brekky, then to the beach. After showering and snacking, Daddy would take the rest of the family fishing while mummy would get Ruby down to sleep in the van. The afternoons would mainly consist of a trip to the shops, trying to work out what everyone was doing for dinner and then have dinner and baths before Ruby got too cranky and was ready to go to bed for the night. This was the most difficult part of the day, as once Ruby went down to sleep someone had to stay with her or near the tent in case she woke up (the family van was too far away for us to hear her). So most nights, daddy would stay with Ruby while mummy had her shower, then mummy would jump into bed while daddy usually got his fishing stuff ready or hung out with the family.

Ruby's first Christmas was huge. Ruby got very spoilt, (thank you to everyone OS who sent her gifts, she is sooo very lucky). Unfortunately, Ruby wasn't the happiest that day, having issues with her teeth. But we still managed a swim, two naps and a parade around the caravan park in tinsel.

New Year's Eve we all went to dinner early in the evening, thinking Ruby and Isabelle would be to tired to eat later. But when we got back to the caravan park and all the kids were running around with fluro sticks and noisy toys the girls went hypo. Ruby managed to dance her way until 10:30pm before crashing - only just missing out on the first fireworks display (mummy was devastated).

The weekend we got back home we got to do Christmas all over again at Grandma Sheila's house, where Ruby got her first horse. That's right Grandpa Norman brought her a Fur Real horse, which we have named Neddy. He Neighs, eats and gallops when you hop on his back....very cool!

Ruby also got 4 more teeth while we were away. Only two more to go - the right hand side top molar and the right hand side bottom canine - and that should be it for a while. Both of these two remaining teeth are showing in her gums and don't look to be too far away either.

Ruby also finally started waving while we were away. She knows to say bye bye and waves (mainly to her dadda) all the time at the moment.

This week (as per previous post) Ruby has started to walk. She is getting more and more confident on her legs and today walked all the way from the kitchen to her toy box on the other side of the house (about 10 metres). Mummy and daddy are also madly organising the birthday party event of the year. Mummy did a test run of the birthday cake last night and Grandma Sheila and Grandma Dianne have been baking all week as well. Stay tuned to see all the photos from the celebrations.