Sam's Word Count

For a while now we have been worrying that Sam hasn't started talking yet. He makes lots of gestures, and understands everything we say, but he just won't talk.

Today I sat down and wrote a list of the words he says. It was surprising. He says a lot more than I thought. Though probably only me or Kel could understand some of them.

1. Hello
2. Ta
3. Up (but he misses off the p)
4. Yum
5. Yuck
6. Mum
7. Dad
8. Ayyyy (as in when you do a thumbs up sign, Fonzie style)
9. Nan
10. Yeah (almost whispered)
11. Hot
12. Cheese

Rocky: The trollop

My cat is a trollop!
Rocky came home last night smelling of perfume... and he had a full belly.

I think he has been seeing the lady next door...

My new desktop photo

I thought it was time for a new picture... since the old one was from July 2007!

The Winner

Josh has a psychic ability... today (well I actually wrote this a couple of weeks ago) I had a look in the letter box and saw there was something in there. I didn't have the key, so I went inside to grab it. Josh said that it was a letter for him from his friends. Inside the letter box was a letter addressed to Josh from his friends at 'Little Coles'. (We have two Coles stores, one used to be BiLo and is smaller than the other one).

A couple of weeks earlier Josh spent the morning colouring in a picture of the (Cadbury) Easter Bunny for the local store colouring competition. He was so proud of his picture and watched them as they hung it on the wall. Each time we went to Coles he checked that it was still there.
We were all very excited while he tried to open the envelope. We got impatient in the end and opened it for him and read out that he had won! He was jumping up and down and had the biggest smile on his face. We had to go down straight away to pick up his prize.

Walking up to the Service Desk he saw Ros and Anne (his two Cole's friends) and they were very excited that 'their' Josh had won. I think nearly all of the Coles staff know Josh and Sam... especially the full timers, but even some of the weekend, younger staff now too. Josh will talk to them all, and ask them their name. They used to reply with their name and ask his name... now they reply with "I bet your name is Josh". Then he usually says "that's my brother, Sam". And depending on who is with him... "that's Mum / that's Dad".

They handed Josh an envelope with a $20 gift card in it as his prize. He wasn't too thrilled about that until we told him that he could go to Kmart and buy a Thomas train with it!

A windy, windy day

Today we experienced winds of up to 100km/hr and this was the result!!! It looks like the wind tried to pick up our trampoline and throw it across the backyard. Lucky it didn't end up on the carport roof!

We also have a whole packet of white plastic knives all over the backyard, which looks pretty strange. That is because our outdoor cupboard that I kept all the BBQ / picnic stuff in crashed over - the door broke too, so that is no good now.
My swing chair got knocked over, the cubby house is demolished and the small bird avairy got knocked to the ground.

Luckily the big avairy with the finches in it was ok.

I was at work when the brunt of this storm hit. At the 26th floor you could almost feel the building moving around. I swear I saw snow out there - but others said it was just dust.

I ran from work to the train station in the wind and the rain, got on the train, and an hour later I got off the train to a calm day. The only signs of a storm were the branches lying on the roads and the puddles on the ground. What a strange day.