Ru's Welcome Party, Kindermusik and Today in General

[imported from livejournal and backdated]

Ruan's Welcome Party

Unfortunately I didn't get any photos as I forgot my sling and the floor rug and thus had my hands full of Ruan pretty much the entire time. Bit unfortunatel but you get that.

Was nice and intimate and a lot of fun, and reminded me a) how much I like small group situations and b) how much I hadn't caught up with the people that rocked up, didn't have nearly as much time as I wanted to spend with everyone. But I guess this happens around silly season especially when everyone is busier than what they would normally be.

We were running late as per usual and Josh and I had a very brief spat centred around how he had to do everything for things I organised and everything around the house in general. I get that he had quite a load on when he had to do my chores as well as his a lot of the time because a lot of the time I felt mostly dead from being pregnant, and shortly after giving birth, and these days I feel much much better but I seem to be spending about 80% of the day breastfeeding. Still between us (with Josh doing everything as per usual etc, except for packing the nappy bag and keeping the guest of honour happy which I did) we managed to get our act together, get the car loaded up with stuff, get the kids loaded in the car and go.

Of course I forgot my fricken phone which made it hard for people to get in contact with us, forrtunately a few people had Josh's number and things mostly worked out from there. Also realised (after we were well on our way of course) that we'd forgotten the floor rug we were going to bring along in case any of the kids wanted a nap. We were hoping no one else would be on time. Scarily enough though we made it exactly on time and found a few things.

Firstly it was the first day of summer so there were three other functions on around the park, but exactly none of them were where we wanted to be, so this was a good thing. From observation we eventually worked out that one was a wedding, and I found out from a mother that was keeping an eye on her kid in the playground that one of the other ones was a staff party. They weren't as hardcore as our reception had been, they were just roped off areas with signs and some outdoor furniture inside it.

The second thing we noticed was that the reasonably good playground that had been there two years ago when we had our wedding reception just above the playground on a flat area had been taken out and replaced by the most awesome playground I have seen for a long time. If I hadn't been hanging on to Ruan for pretty much the entire time (except for a moment where kowren took her so I could do something or other, can't remember what) I would have run around on it. Might have to bring Tao back there to play sometime so I can clamber on it and take some photos as well. Bloody awesome playground. Tao ran over to have a play on it, he loves playgrounds and climbing and stuff. I sat on the wall surrounding it (keeping the sand in) to keep an eye on him and feed Ru (after changing her nappy) while Josh set up.

There were some Japanese people occupying the table closest to the barbeque we wanted to use but they were leaving so we claimed the table after they left.

firvulag was first to rock up and not that late in the grand scheme of things, but he had to work that night. He and Josh played a little bit of cricket and then got cooking so Rat could have some food before taking off to work.

Shortly after Lukas rocked up and hung out for a bit, though he wasn't interested in playing, he wanted to sit with me and drink his beer.

Steve was next to arrive on the scene, looking more wolfish than I remember seeing as he's been growing those sideburns out. He joined in the cricket game for a little while.

Then there was jassalol, shrydar, Greg, Heather and Will all rocking up within not too long of each other. For some reason though they'd all decided to go near the Pt Walter Cafe down the bottom of the hill rather than up top where we were. I don't know what Jared's excuse was as I had said in my journal when I announced the party that it was the same place as our reception, the other guys have the excuse of they didn't come to our wedding :P

Heather brought loads of nummi salad which got picked to death at by everyone. She only had 2 year old Will with her as 3 year old Jasper was off with his dad. Tao and Will played together and i teased Steve about "daddy mode" when dealing with the boys. It's kind of cute, he's like Josh, very easy and natural with kids.

Had a bit of a chat to shrydar whom I have seen at a few parties but never really talked to (kind of amusing considering like everyone else I know through this group of friends, we have similar interests but never got around to talking much). Josh had a bit more of a chat to him when he found out that Chris has worked on games in the past and the codemonkeys are working on a game demo for April. I wish them luck getting there and I should probably try to do a few more sketches and models of organic stuff seeing as I'm still currently the only organic modeller. Also need to get him the gambling money, though I forgot to hit up terrycat while at the party. This is what we get for having too much fun.

Jeremy and Elle rocked up later (with KFC coz they were too slack to do a barbeque) as did terrycat and kowren. Karen has a cute little belly! Apparently according to Terry she's finally accepted the fact.

The cookup was great (thanks to Master Chef Josh and his assistants and Heather the Salad Maker Extraordinaire). Steve, Greg and Elle took turns running after Will and Tao, who later in the evening ended up running around nudiebum and loving every glorious second of nappy freedom.

As the sun started thinking about going down we invited everyone back to ours for a little while. Jeremy and Elle had to get back to the mountain of work they were taking a break from to come to Ruan's party, Jared had some stuff to do at home, and Christopher had buggered off earlier for I can't remember what reason, think he had some things to do as well. Everyone else came back though. I had to put Ru on the boob shortly after we got back, Josh ran the bath for the boys. Karen was jumping up and down coz I'd asked her to keep an eye on the boys while I ran off and fed Ru and as Heather was coming back, and she objected to being subjected to that much cute in one go apparently :)

The boys had a great time in the bath, they initially were stomping on the bubbles and when Heather went in they were all splashing each other. It was quite cute. When both boys were out, we set them up in front of one of Tao's Wiggles dvds with some mango and didn't hear a lot from them for the rest of the night. We didn't go too late as everyone was pleasantly tired from the outing. Both kids went down easily, I gave Josh a massage, we did our chores and we went to bed. Only problem we had really after that was Tao woke up cranky at some ungodly hour of morning and screeched for ages. Bit unfortunate seeing as we were sleeping quite soundly and might have gotten a night of really good sleep if not for that. Good thing he's cute and we love him ;)

Kindermusik

While at our neighbour Karen's place (not to be confused with kowren ;), Tao got onto their piano and started playing it. He didn't do too bad a job, really. He came up with a good melody, and the timing was only a little out. This got me thinking about toddler music classes and whether or not they were worth thinking about and if Tao would enjoy them. I stumbled across these people and thought may as well give it a go next year, if he likes it we'll keep going and if not then we won't (same as everything really).

Today in General

Been quite relaxed and lazy which is nice. We had riast lamb and salad sandwiches for lunch. Heather's leftoever salad went great with our leftover roast from dinner the night before. Josh and Tao slept for quite a while which was also nice for them. Josh managed to get Ruan to sleep for me which was good, I think she was getting bored with me seeing as I carry her around all the time.

Soon we're going to be heading off to Bunnings to find some herbs or a decorative cactus or something for Pip, and possibly a Tao&Ruan tree, then off to Pip's for a Christmas dinner.

Must run coz we both suddenly realised we should have left 10 minutes ago! :)