Joshua’s Christening Service

Today we had our beautiful boy Christened at St Bede’s Semaphore, the Clark family church.

The Service

Joshua and Mummy

Joshy cried the whole time! (lol) clearly he didn’t like the lace on the dress, or wearing a dress!! The dress Joshua wore was my Christening dress and was worn by Taylor and Daniel too as well as some of my cousins. It was very special for me to see him wearing it too.

Omi and Opi with Joshua

I will let the photos attached speak for themselves.

Rev Ali Wurm with us

Before Joshua

Before Joshua was born, John and I went to have a photo shoot done to celebrate the soon to be birth of our son. Here are two of the wonderful photos we had taken. There are a couple more that we are keeping private for ourselves but these two are really nice. The one of John kissing my tummy is my favourite.

The great bake off

Apple pie

We have been having a few bake offs since the week or so before Joshua was born. I made an Apple Pie for the first time in my life.

John made a Banana Cake that was sensational. Here are the pics!

The Baker!

3 Weeks Old

Show and tell at Daniel's School

On Monday Joshua was 3 weeks old. He has been giving us lots of joy and just having him around makes us all very happy.

It has been very cold here in Melbourne and so the early mornings are no joy when he wakes up and this has made him a bit unsettled, but compared to some newborn babies, we are still very lucky, because he is pretty good.

We had friends from Adelaide visit and stay with us this week. Julia and Ian (Daniel’s God Parents) came with their 3 beautiful little girls. The last time the girls saw Joshua he was “inside my tummy” and they were very happy to meet him in person. It was great having them to stay.

Mummy sleeps like this too

Ailie and Joshy

At the same time Anne and Felice and their 3 girls were in Melbourne for school holidays so on Tuesday night we had 14 people for dinner which was such fun! 9 kids (including Joshua).

Maidlin with Joshua

Wednesday – Friday saw us take Joshy into the City for our Not Just Papers Shop for Mary Kay Seminar. We had lots of people visit and Joshua charmed them all.

Several of my Mary Kay friends from Adelaide and New Zealand came to see him, so it was great to catch up with them and show him off.

Joshua'a God Mother Aunty Julia

Thursday Night we went to Stalactites Greek Restaurant in town with Anne and Felice. Great food, but noisy and Joshua was beside himself by the time we got home….:(…it took us over an hour to settle him.

Friday night was our nephew Jordan’s birthday so we went to John’s sister’s house for cake and coffee after Seminar. All the Chiminello’s were very happy to meet him and once again showered us with lovely presents.

After a busy week, we had a very quiet weekend. I didn’t go out at all and kept Joshy at home to resettle him again and for me to rest. I was very tired after all the Seminar shop activities.

With Daniel in big bath for the first time

Joshua’s first week

Joshua’s first week at home has been very relaxed and peaceful. We have taken lots of time to get to know our beautiful little boy and we have had lots of visitors drop by and see us.

John’s sister Julie and her daughter Samantha came to visit for the school holidays. So it was great to see them and introduce Joshua to them.

Aunty Julie and Joshua

Samantha and Joshy

John went back to work on Monday but one of the benefits of being in business for ourselves was he came home early each day and left late each morning! lol

I have spent the week resting and getting over my operation and each day getting stronger. I am losing weight faster than I put it on!! and am already 10kgs lighter, so I am happy about that. (Only put on 13-14kgs for the whole pregnancy).

Aunty Cheryl and Joshua

On Wednesday Joshua went for his first walk in the pram. Omi and Daniel took him to the shops on the only sunny afternoon for the whole week. On Saturday Night Joshy went to his first party at Matt and Melissa’s “Christmas in July”.

With Nanna

He is sleeping and feeding well and is only waking up mostly once a night sometimes twice, so I am pretty happy about that. We are all getting enough sleep so far.

Only time will tell as the boys go back to school next week and my mum goes home, so I am going to have to get super organised for the early morning starts!!

Daniel and Amy playing with Joshua

I will report back next week on how things are going. We are once again having a Not Just Papers Shop during Mary Kay Seminar so we will be busy.

Michelle

xxxxx

Baby to Arrive Tomorrow

The Baby Nursery - all ready

We are all packed and ready to go to bed…tomorrow our beautiful baby arrives )

Christmas – New Year 2007/2008

I think for the past few years we have started our Christmas letter by saying we can’t believe how quickly the year has gone and this year is no exception. In fact Christmas came so quickly our Christmas cards printed in America didn’t make it on time to send before Christmas but I wanted to send them anyway, even though a bit late.

So I guess that means our Christmas letter is really a Happy New Year letter! Once again we have had a busy year. Our family holiday in January to Dromana Beach, where we hired a beach house was great fun and the kids got to spend lots of time with John’s family, who have a holiday house and boat shed down there.  

March saw my 40^th Birthday celebrations. We had a great party at our house with lots of family and friends coming from Adelaide to help celebrate.  The boys started at Mill Park Heights Primary this year, we are 8 houses from the end of the street and the school crossing almost on the corner, so it was fantastic to be able to walk them to school each day and to also teach them some independence by walking to and from school some days by themselves. 

Both Taylor and Daniel did really well at school this year. Their reports were great and Taylor’s was the best of his entire school career so far. We are very proud of how well he achieved and improved in his final year of primary school. In Victoria kids got to high school in year 7 and so we will be of to Ivanhoe Grammar next year. The Mernda campus is co-ed and is located in the northern suburbs and our block of land is in the estate next door to the school. Next year we hope to build our house and so he will be able to walk to school then, with Daniel to join him in 2010. 

Amy continued with her drama this year and towards the end of the year took up kick boxing. She finished her first year of high school and will be in year 8 next year. James completed year 11 and will do year 12 in 2008. He will need to work hard (harder than he realizes!!) to complete the year. He continues to do well with his music and his band “Charisma Effect” played at a few “gigs” during the year. We really enjoy seeing them play and James and his mates love it. 

The boys continued with their sport this year. In March they finished their first year of cricket here in Melbourne. Taylor was Captain of the side and they were undefeated for the year. He got the Batting Award and Daniel got the most improved award. They were both very proud of themselves and rightly so. Winter saw Taylor play football again. His slight physique is starting to catch up with him and the kids around his are getting bigger and bigger (which makes him look even smaller). He had a good year and got 3^rd Best and Fairest, which he was stocked about. Summer this year as seen them both play cricket again and Daniel has been bowling and batting well and is much improved from last season. He is still in the Under 12 Development team but has tripled his previous batting high score and continues to spin-bowl better than a lot of kids in his age group. Taylor made the Under 12 Div 1 team this year and score 48 (not out) in his first game. That magic 50 still eludes him but he is aiming hard for it. He is wicket keeper and 3^rd batsman for his side and is playing really well. He was asked to try out for the District Cricket side and was chosen as one of only 24 boys in his age group to play in the State competitions in January. He is in the Josh Brown Plate Side and it is from here that they choose boys to train or the State Team. He is so excited, we are very proud and he has done so well in being chosen no matter what happens when he plays. 

John and I have been traveling a bit again this year. We went to America again in September for a conference in San Francisco. It was an in and out trip. We spent only 5 days there and 2 days traveling! So only away a week. But it was terrific and we learnt lots at the Internet Marketing Event. We made numerous trips to Sydney and went to Brisbane/Gold Coast for a workshop with people we are joint venturing with. We have started a membership website: www.RaisingGiftedKids.com which helps parents raise gifted kids and gives them tools and tips to do it. Our internet business has been developing well this year and in March I had a friend start working with me at home full time each week. Melissa and I work steadily each day on developing our ideas and keeping the websites running. Not Just Papers continued to grow this year and we had a very successful “store” in a hotel room at Crown during Mary Kay Seminar in July.

Our biggest news of the year came towards the end of it. After trying for well over a year we found out we are having a baby in July next year. The children are very excited and can’t wait. John and I had given up thinking it would happen and so were a bit shocked at the beginning, but now (as my stomach grows) it is becoming more of a reality. So far everything is going well and I am not having the morning sickness I experienced with each of the boys, so we are all hoping this time it’s a girl!! I feel sorry for the baby if it’s a boy….a girl is wanted all round so far!!! Lol 

We have set up this family website, if you would like to keep abreast of our news. And as always you can contact us by email or mail or phone. We would love to have visitors for our friends in Adelaide who want to come for a holiday. I have included some photos of our year, look forward to keeping in touch next year through our website here.

We hope you had a lovely Christmas and wish you a happy and healthy New Year and 2008. 

Love John, Michelle, James, Amy, Taylor, Daniel and ???

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Welcome to our blog

Our first post is our Chrismtas / New Year Letter we sent to our family and friends

Enjoy