Staying at Uncle Toot & Aunty Annie's place

We are finally heading down to Rotorua but will only be staying with Tony and Annie and then with Dad as Brett and Michelle are going to Australia. They are taking their 3 kids and also Jack who is Tony and Annie's youngest for a week of themeparks and fun so we will see them next time.

In the washing basket playing with the pegs - day before we headed down to Rotorua

In Nana & Pops bed

In her gorgeous outfit - a present from Oma Doris

Watching telly with a mate - Graham

Reading her book

Ohhh.. Loves those rusks.

Bits of rusk all over her face. :)

Cuddling on the couch with Pops

Then we jumped in the car and headed down to catch up with family in Rotorua...

Jumping jumping jumping...

In her favourite seat at Toot and Annies - the fruit basket. Eating banana. :)

Waiting patiently for Mummy to get her food ready.

Playing with Poppa

Who is copying who here???

Growing so fast!!!

On Tuesday, 08 September, Lilli said BA-BA and MA-MA!!! She was in bed with Nana and Pops when she said it but later in the day I heard her too. Soooo sweet.

Each day since she has been saying it more and more. I was putting her in her carseat yesterday and she didn't want to be strapped in and she's like Ma-ma. I know that she's not actually associating it with me or ba-ba or da-da with Max but it's so sweet anyway. :)

Nana Dot is staying with us at the moment which is awesome. It means that Lilli and Mummy are sharing a room which I think is helping with getting Lilli settled. She is now sleeping reasonably well - from about 8pm to 10.30, then til 12.30 or 1am, then 4 or 5am. Getting better slowly but surely. The difference between going to Germany 3 months ago and now is that she is so much more alert now. She really takes note of her surroundings and of the people around her so it's much harder to settle her than it was before. Plus I think she misses her Daddy (and everyone else of course).

We are staying out at the farm and are actually in the process of moving out here which will be lovely for Lilli when the weather gets warmer. Nana Dot and Aunty Jean will be out here for a couple of days over the weekend as well which is great. We are expecting heaps of visitors this weekend - it seems everyone is coming at the same time! Graham and Fiona are comming on Sunday to stay for the night and Willie's rellies are stopping in on Sunday afternoon. Plus, Helen and Keren are coming up to pick up Nana Dot and take her home. Of course they can't wait to see little Lilli!!! Then Lilli and I will probably head down to Rotorua next Tuesday or Wednesday. I have taken this time to concentrate solely on Lilli and getting her settled and happy but I think by next week we should be able to go and catch up with everyone in Rotorua.

Lilli sitting in her kitchen helper seat.

Helping Nana & Pops.

Checking to make sure Nana has enough water for the veges. :)

With Pops & Nana Dot.

Riding on Nana Dots walker.

Helping Nana bring in the washing.

Having her dinner in her kitchen helper seat! :)

Shopping time! :)

Last Friday we went shopping with the money from Lilli's taufe. We got a portacot with bassinet and change table features, a mobile for her cot and portacot, a highchair (already seen in my last blog), a carseat, and another sipper cup. We came home and put the highchair together and put Lilli in it. She loves it and happily sat in it playing until her food was ready. Lilli went to sleep on the couch on Friday night so we decided that I should go to bed and get some sleep while I had the chance. That was at 8pm and I had just nodded off and Lilli woke so I had to feed her. Then Mum looked after her for me until midnight when she woke again for another feed and then Mum & Willie went to bed and I got up to Lilli during the night. She woke about every 2 hours so I was grateful for the few hours sleep I got earlier! Each night she has been getting better with her sleeping which is great because it's freaky seeing Lilli zonked every day when she normally only has a couple of catnaps. Check out this beautiful pre-dawn sky that we saw on the Saturday morning. It was the first dawn that Lilli has seen so far.

Last night we went over to Bronwyn & Laurence's for a bbq. It was great and Lilli enjoyed herself immensely out by the bbq with Pops. There were a few of us there and the food was lovely so it was good.

Safe and sound.

The flights both went really well. Lilli slept for approximately 7 hours on the first flight so I managed to eat my dinner and then get some sleep myself. We played and had fun when she woke and got to Hong Kong feeling reasonably good. We only had to stop over for 3 hours so we wandered around the airport getting lots of looks and smiles. Everybody loved the cute baby in the frontpack. :)

We boarded our next flight and found we were sitting next to a lovely girl originally from England who is now living in Arapuni! Her name was Meg and we all got on really well. She got me drinks and snacks and really looked after Lilli and I. I could even go to the toilet without having to get a stewadess to look after Lilli which was great. I have to say though that Air NZ were fantastic, the head steward came to me before we took off and said that he noticed that I was travelling alone with an infant so if I needed anything at all, if I wanted a break they would look after Lilli, or if I wanted to go to the toilet, I was to let the staff know. It was great, however, with Meg there I didn't need to bother them. Lilli was happy sitting with Meg while I went to freshen up so it worked out really well. Having Meg to talk to when we weren't asleep made the trip go that much faster as well.

We landed in Auckland and once again all credit to the staff there. When I came to passport control they told me to go through the lane for cabin crew only so I only waited for about 2 minutes and then I asked for help with our bags from a security guy who then directed us into customs through the crew line again meaning we jumped in front of about 200 people. :) We were through and on our way within about 20 minutes! Fantastic. Nana and Pops were waiting for us and we all got into the car and headed home.

We spent the day relaxing and getting prepared for the few nights to come with Lilli being jetlagged again. I was hoping that it wouldn't be as bad as last time due to the sleep she got on the plane but so far it is pretty much exactly the same. Poor little girl. She's really zonked but is finding it impossible to sleep so exhaustion is probably going to eventually knock her out. Last time it took 4 days for her to sleep at all at night and this time it took about the same. We are working through it.

Since we got home we have done quite a few new things:

New bed which she has yet to spend an entire night in. We have now put her into a portacot until she is settled again.

Nana feeding her baby cereal and fruit on the second day. She likes the cereal but not the fruit! Haha.

Drinking water from a sipper cup.

She really is an amazing wee girl. I fed her the cereal and she just opened her mouth and ate it. No problems, no stress. We were all saying that she would be a good eater when I was in Germany and we were right. She loves baby rice cereal on it's own but isn't all that excited about it when we add fruit. As for fruit on it's own - no way. She screws her little face up and shudders. Hehe. We have tried it a couple of times but she still doesn't like it. Loves her veges though and eats them all up! :) Poor Max would like to be here to feed her too but it won't be long now. Then when Nana gave her water in a sipper cup she handed it to her and showed her once how to lean back to drink and that was it, Lilli pushed her hands away and held the cup herself and leaned back to drink. It was so funny! She took too much on the second sip and gagged a little but she learnt straight away not to tip back too far and hasn't had another gag since! Amazing. So clever our little darling! I am so proud.

The other thing she loves is something Max and I knew was going to be a hit - her jolly jumper. She just adores it and is a real show off. She talks and shouts and laughs away as she's jumping, then she stops still before continuing. Of course she's always looking to make sure she's being watched. Haha, sooooo cute. Oh and see the little chickens in the left of the picture - she talks away to them and looks at them - see below picture. :D

Last grill party, tears and goodbyes, then the big plane trip.

Doris and Al organised a last grill party for the family and also Tobi and Evi came. It was great as usual with lots of yummy yummy food and plenty of meat. Absolutely everyone was there so we got family photos done which was great.

And the Warrens.

On Sunday we hung out most of the day with Doris & Christa and then Tobi, Evi, and Emu came around in the afternoon for a last catch up. After the friends left Lilli and I were on the balcony with Oma Doris and Tante Christa talking and I smelt someone's yummy smelling dinner, which smelled like schnitzel. I said that I would love one last schnitzel and so we decided to order some from Aufham. We all ended up getting cordon bleu mit pommes. Yum yum. Everyone was there again and we enjoyed our last evening together but then unfortunately after dinner it was time to take our wee girl and get her ready for bed. There were lots of hugs and tears as we all said our goodbyes and Lilli was looking very upset by it all. I don't think she knew what was happening but she knew that something was up.

Shower baby in her bath hood with Papa. :)

That last night she kept waking up about every 1/2 hour so I ended up putting her into bed with Max and I so that I could try and get some sleep. I was still trying to get over my cold and really needed the sleep because I figured that I wouldn't get much on the trip home. I had to repack our bags a little as I had 46 kgs!! Hahaha. I got it down to about 40kg and just decided to wing it and see if I could get them checked in.

On Monday morning I put Lilli back into her own bed and Max and I got up and got ready to go. We got Lilli up and put everything into the car ready to leave for Munich before saying goodbye to Ur Oma Elfriede. Another very sad tearful moment.

We had a good trip to Munich and got all Max's medical stuff done for his immigration application. Then we went to a friend's place to hang out for the afternoon which was great. It meant that we could all relax and chat. We ended up having brot seit for dinner there before giving Lilli a wash and changing her ready for the trip. We said our goodbyes to the guys and headed to the airport.

We waited for ages for checkin because they didn't have automatic infant boarding passes and so it took a while to check in. The lady asked me how many check in bags I had and I said 3 so she printed out the tickets and we put the bags through and boom, it was done. I got 40kgs through! Yay. I thought that I would have to leave the smallest bag behind! So lucky. Max, Lilli, and I hung out at the airport and cuddled until it was time to say goodbye for now. It was so awful looking back through the glass with Lilli and waving goodbye to her Papa. I hope these next 3 months go really fast for both of us. We have both said that this will be the last time we will be parted from each other.