Alistair Lattimore » Photos

Evie, No More Bottles

Al — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 12:59:57 +0000

Over the last couple of months, Claire and I have been adjusting Evie’s bottles.

According to the formula, her age and weight she was meant to have two 250ml bottles a day however that rarely happened and she seemed more comfortable with around 200ml.

During September we thought it was time that she moved on from formula and onto cows milk so we made the switch. Of course that didn’t go down all that well, so we reverted to formula and started weening her off it by reducing the amount of formula per bottle from four scoops to three and then to two.

While all this was going on she was quite inconsistent with her bottles as well, sometimes she was drink all 200ml and want more and the next time she would protest after 50ml. As we got down to two scoops of formula in 200ml of milk, we thought it made sense to reduce the volume down to 100ml as well.

Not that long after we were down to a single scoop of formula, started introducing cows milk and Evie was happy as a lark. Next we stopped adding the scoop of formula all together and Evie didn’t seem to mind to much but another month or so later and she decided that she’d had enough of the bottle all together.

Claire and I miss giving Evie her bottle but they can’t stay little forever. Now we give her a sipper cup with milk in it and she is happy to drink smaller amounts of that periodically throughout the day and in the evening after she has had a bath.

Now it won’t be long before she is out of the cot and into a big girl bed!

Shh, The Dinosaur Is Asleep

Al — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 02:10:41 +0000

Returning home from work on Tuesday evening and Hugo meets me in the garage like normal. However instead of ”Hi Dad!” followed by something very interesting that he has been busting to tell me about, he raised his index finger to his mouth and said “Shhh, the dinosaur is sleeping!”.

At the time I had no idea what he was talking about until I walked inside and discovered his kids sized dinosaur costume sleeping on the tiles with a blanket – it makes perfect sense really, dinosaurs get tired too you know!

Je m’appelle Evie

Al — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 09:30:53 +0000

One evening recently while getting Hugo changed, Evie was playing in the room with us.

Evie loves exploring all of the nooks and crannies in the bedroom, opening cupboards, draws and unpacking virtually anything she can get her hands on.

One of Evie’s favorite things is hats, they make her smile every time she or we put one on her. Of course, a hat to a toddler is a very flexible concept & is quite easily interchanged with undies as needed.

Basal Cell Carcinoma

Al — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 13:18:09 +0000

A couple of months ago Claire mentioned to me that she thought a freckle on my right forearm looked different. As a general rule, the skin cancer organisations say that if a freckle or mole changes size, colour or teture that you should go and get it checked.

After several reminders from Claire, I booked an appointment with Doctors @ Cavill which is conveniently located across the road from my office and went and got checked out. It was the first time I’ve ever had a skin cancer check and I was pleased that after a full body assessment, none of my other freckles or moles raised an eye brow. However, the funky freckle on my arm was cause for a skin biopsy in the same appointment.

A week later I received my results and the doctor confirmed that it was a basal cell carcinoma. I had no idea what that was, but after asking the doctor about it and researching it online, basal cell carcinoma’s are the most common and least dangerous skin cancer, are typically located on the upper body and are a non-melanomo skin cancer.

Nearly as soon as the doctor had given me my results, we were walking back down to the surgery room where I had the initial skin biopsy done and was being prepared to have the carcinoma cut out. Roughly 15 minutes later, I’d had a local anesthetic and the doctor had cut a section of my right forearm out about 3cm long and a few millimetres wider than the carcinoma on each side. The specimen was placed into a jar with fluid in it to be sent to pathology and five minutes later I had three nylon stitches in my arm to pull everything back together.

I’m certainly not going to win any awards from the Cancer Council of Australia for diligently applying sun smart practices. That being said, I’m always aware of the fact that I have fair skin and don’t go and lounge around in the sun. People that know me will often hear me joke that the sun and I don’t get alone very well and this has been a stark reminder of that.

Next time I’m at the shops, I’m going on the hunt for a wide brimmed hat to wear when working outside to give my face, neck and ears a better chance of avoiding going under the knife in the future.

Meet Finnegan, A Crown Tail Siamese Fighting Fish

Al — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 07:25:26 +0000

Anita dropped in yesterday to wish Hugo a happy 3rd birthday and gave him a spectacular present, a crown tail Siamese fighting fish!

When Anita asked Claire what a cool present might be, Claire suggested a pink fighting fish because pink is one of Hugo’s favourite colours. Of course, not knowing what colours fighting fish come in, we were shocked to see a beautiful pink/purple coloured fighting fish arrive.

Needless to say, Hugo is very excited by Finnegan and regularly stops to gaze into his bowl and drag one of his chairs over to get a closer look. Throughout the course of the day, Evie managed to say “fish!” a few times as well. In case you were wondering, the exclamation point is there deliberately, Evie says fish with gusto.

Hugo, 3 Years Old

Al — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 15:03:25 +0000

On Sunday, Hugo turned three years old and we celebrated in the usual fashion for our household with presents first thing.

When I went upstairs go get Hugo from his bedroom, he initially wanted to run downstairs to our bedroom to say good morning to Claire. I had to convince Hugo not to go downstairs (we had his presents set up in the lounge room) and to come and say good morning to Claire as she got Evie out of bed for the morning festivities. Hugo made me laugh as he walked down the stairs, saw the pile of presents wrapped up and said ‘ohh, parcels!’.

Claire, Evie and I sat around Hugo while he took great pleasure in opening all of his little presents. Hugo received a few different types of presents from some books, a cricket bat & ball, Cars DVD but was particularly interested in his new three-wheel scooter, helmet and sunglasses.

For lunch we dared to venture out to the Coffee Club at Oxenford. Claire called to check if we’d need a reservation and they didn’t think we would; fortunately for us when we arrived while it was busy, it wasn’t manic. To my surprise and delight, even though it was quite busy, the food was served in a very reasonable time – so congratulations to their staff for getting through everyone’s orders.

Between lunch and mid afternoon while Evie was sleeping, Sterle, Lorraine & Jean came back to our place ahead of Hugo’s ~~party~~ small gathering of people. This was a great opportunity for Hugo to receive a present or two from Sterle, Lorraine & Jean – a work bench with tools and a wooden toaster – my goodness he loves them to pieces! After the present, he realised it might be a good opportunity to get a head start on some party food, try out some of his new toys in greater detail and generally have a good old time.

With near perfect timing, Jude, George, Emily, Oliver & Milla arrived to get our small gathering of people started. Last year Hugo had a barn yard party but this year it was time for a dinosaur party. There was a fantastic dinosaur cake, fierce dinosaur figurines and cool hanging dinosaur decorations for Hugo’s dinosaur themed birthday party. Claire assures me that while the delicious dinosaur cake looks quite straight forward, it was actually quite a challenge to make – particularly getting the different pieces to stick together and the icing to look pretty!

The little people had a fantastic time playing with one another, charging around the house, playing with the new toys, eating plenty of party food all the while trying their hardest to stay out of trouble.

I now have a new found respect for parents who have climbers for kids. I’ve heard plenty of stories from Emily about how fast Milla is but I really didn’t appreciate it until I saw it first hand – she can practically run. While speed is definitely one of her strengths, fearlessness and ninja-esque stealth definitely play a huge role in her ability to get into mischief.

Thank you to everyone that was able to make it to Hugo’s 3rd birthday party, phoned, sent emails and SMS’d us and especially those that traveled; it means the world to Claire & I. Hugo had a fantastic day hanging out with his extended family, was spoiled beyond belief with some absolutely beautiful presents and was completely exhausted by the end of it.

Next up, fabulous four!

Hugo, Mini MasterChef

Al — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 14:14:22 +0000

I’ve mentioned countless times before that Hugo loves to help and be involved in the various activities that happen in our household and one of those activities is cooking!

Hugo certainly doesn’t need to be incentivised to take part in baking chocolate chip biscuits or making pikelets, however with his new chefs hat and apron he sure does make a cute mini MasterChef.

A few other action shots:

Evie 1st Birthday Party, Ladybugs Abound

Al — Sun, 22 May 2011 02:05:24 +0000

Yesterday we celebrated Evie’s first birthday with a bit of a do at our place, it kicked off at 10AM and we closed up shop around 1:30PM when the candle was well and truly burned down with most of the little people in attendance.

Claire decided that a ladybug themed party ought to do the trick and set about creating a whole swag of items to boot, starting with cute handmade ladybug invitations, leaf garlands featuring tiny ladybugs, a not to scale ladybug cake and much more – very cute!

In attendance we had:

Andrew, Belinda & Ben
Anita
David & Karen
Emily, Will, Oliver & Milla
Lorraine & Sterle
Lucy & Michael
Nigel, Trudy & Noah
Phil, Tammi & Grace

Everyone spoiled Evie beyond belief with some of the most gorgeous presents getting around. We’ve been really lucky actually, only the other day Claire and I commented to one another that Evie doesn’t really have that many purely girly toys. After her 1st birthday, that has changed with some beautifully unique looking dolls, knitted toys and much more.

The boys had a great time playing together and between them managed to pretty much disassemble the play area in the living room and all of the toys. Suffice to say, it looked like they’d had fun! Watching Milla & Noah toddle off around the house was great, little people have such cute walking styles! It was nice to catch up with everyone, however briefly and have a quick chat. I think we need to find a way to do it more regularly that doesn’t revolve around a birthday, they don’t come frequently enough.

Thank you to everyone that was able to make it today, Claire & I really appreciate it and realise that you all needed to drive a distance to make it. A special thank you to Phil & Tammi for attending, they brought baby Grace along for her first birthday party and she is only a tiny we dot of a girl and around 10 weeks old.

Next up, a whopping second birthday this time next year. If we end up going down to the park again like we did for Hugo’s second birthday, we’re bound to have a great time again.

Evie, 1 Year Old & Gorgeous

Al — Fri, 20 May 2011 14:57:26 +0000

Time sure flies when you’re having fun, it is hard to believe that Evie Charlotte Lattimore has reached her second major milestone – turning 1 year old!

The last year has been amazing with Evie in our lives, Claire & I have certainly been blessed. When Hugo was born, Claire & I couldn’t believe how lucky we were that Hugo was a good baby and figured our luck would run out on our next one for sure. As it turned out, I think Evie is even more relaxed than Hugo was and just goes a long to get along. We break her routine and schedule regularly and she doesn’t mind, misses a morning sleep semi-regularly and doesn’t seem to care too much and from time to time will even miss an afternoon sleep as well for special occasions and just keeps on trucking.

Evie has been a great sleeper, just like Hugo was – in fact I think better as she tolerates even more noise around the house and it doesn’t unsettle her. We followed the same basic strategy from Tizzie Halls amazing Save Our Sleep book again and it all just clicked. We pop Evie down for her naps, put her music on and give her a favourite bunny and usually within a few minutes she has self settled & is sound asleep – fantastic!

One thing that Evie has dropped the ball on compared to Hugo has been her movement, the concept of crawling for Evie just seems foreign. We’d been told by countless friends that girls do all of that much sooner than boys do, so we were expecting to have Evie crawling around feverishly from 6 months but it didn’t happen. We’ve now just passed the 1 year old mark and she is a proficient bottom scooter but refuses to crawl. In the last week or two she has been making a few attempts that kind of look like the beginning of crawling but no actual movement has happened as a by product yet. On the flip side, she does love standing and walking along hanging onto a little finger – so maybe she’ll walk before she can crawl.

So far we’ve been really lucky with food, Evie will eat anything we put in front of her, even cream cheese as I found out by mistake! With Hugo, we started out quite well but by his first birthday his eating became more and more fussy and simply refused to eat foods that he’d loved previously. We don’t have any idea why that happened and Claire tried countless different things to get him to eat the food that we wanted but it just didn’t happen unfortunately. At this stage, Evie is still going gangbusters eating everything so hopefully that’ll continue into the future.

Watching Evie and Hugo play together has been great, Evie absolutely adores Hugo. To begin with Hugo wasn’t all that keen on Evie joining our family but soon warmed up to the idea and now Hugo gives Evie kisses all the time. As Evie has matured and her personality has developed, their interactions have become more complex. For reasons only known to Evie, Hugo and only Hugo has the ability to make her laugh, chuckle and cackle like no one else can. I can only imagine what is going to happen when Evie gains her independence with walking, she’ll be chasing Hugo around the house constantly and wanting to do everything that he does.

I really can’t wait to see what the next year brings with Evie, it is going to be exciting to see her continue to develop and I think that she is going to be best friends with Hugo.

Hugo Helping Mow The Lawn

Al — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 10:54:43 +0000

This afternoon Claire mentioned on facebook that she loves watching Hugo and I do things together, in this instance it was Hugo helping me mow the lawn.

A friend asked if Claire had a photo and I was going to link to an old post of this photo but for the life of me, I can’t find it – so I apologise if I’ve posted this before.

This is an old photo taken in April 2010, so Hugo was just a little fella then and Evie wasn’t born yet – seems like a lifetime ago already!