The newest member of our family....Toffee!!

Well, we're thrilled to introduce you to our new baby.... the Toffee monster! She is a Tenterfield Terrier and very similar to the little dog that I had for 17 years, Titch, who was a mini foxie. This kind of came about out of the blue after chatting with Judy about them and next thing her friend Rebecca in SA has found a puppy for us! I couldn't think of a better time to do it considering life is relatively easy (ish!) at the moment, before we have to start worrying about things like kinder and major hip surgery so decided to take her. She is such a lovely little thing and adores the kids, even tries to get into their rooms when they're asleep. Loves chasing and playing with Lucy however the teething stage means there's a lot of biting and 'Mummy, put her in her cage!!' at the moment but we're getting there. I'm keen for Jack to explore a relationship with a dog and after only 3 weeks, I think Toffee is starting to realise she needs to behave with him and take it a bit easy, to the point where she seems to like laying over his neck but can't help but have a quick chew on his toes on the way past. I'm even hoping to explore the idea of encouraging her identify if he's ever having a seizure to alert me to it. Jack another seizure last Friday and she was with me while I was waiting with him and quite interested. It only ever seems to happen when he's asleep and he's had 5 in the space of 12 months so not sure if it is something she'll catch on to but would be great.

Anyway, whilst it's challenging to say the least to have a new puppy, we just love her and hope she'll be a part of the family for a long time to come!

Someone's in trouble...

Young Jack has been doing extremely well getting to know how to use his new communication book that the fantastic speech therapists at CPEC have given to us. We started out with a very simple version which Craig is holding in this picture and we now have one that has a lot more words and options but a lot more challenging to use - just ask Craig and I! And if it's challenging for us, you can only imagine what it's like for Jack. However I've learnt more and more about our little munchkin this year and one of the things that blows me away is just how much he understands. It's almost scary sometimes! However he's started to play up a little excessively during our sessions at CPEC because he doesn't want to do the physical work or for whatever reason. Anyhow, the therapists always encourage him to use his book to tell us what the problem is or what he wants to say. This particular day that the photo above was taken, it was the first day Jack was 'banished' from the room by the head physio therapist! He got quite upset during an activity, wouldn't use his book to say why and then proceeded to scream at the top of his lungs. So Lyn told him that he was being too noisy and that if he didn't stop, then she'd take him out of the room and his Mum would stay and help someone else. He continued to scream and so she took him out of the room. (I felt so much like I had the naughty child in the class!) I could hear him crying next door as I did start to help another mum however after about 5 minutes, she brought him back and he did the next activity as good as gold!!!!!!!!!!!!! Couldn't believe it!!! So here is Dad, telling Jack with his book that screaming in class is 'bad/naughty' and he needs to try harder or use his book to say what's wrong. The head speech therapist has told me that she thinks he's very smart, judging by the amount of speech he understands. His response time to requests are normally very quick, unless he wants to think about it. He still gets upset during sessions which we're going to continue to work on however we keep telling him, he has to use his words so we can help him. So one of the last sessions he had, with the help of the speech therapists he told me that 'he was angry & grumpy at me because I put his arm wraps on and put him on his tummy'.

Good on ya buddy!

The first nasty head bump!!

The long weekend also meant that we were lucky enough to have a long line of sleepovers from Angel, Lucy's cousin Jazmyn's Cairn Terrier. We love Angel and we love taking her for walks. Unfortunately on this particular day when we took her for a walk, Angel and Lucy started up a bit of a jog and seeing as Lucy was holding on with both hands to the lead, then when she tripped, she head planted into the footpath! Poor baby, it sounded awful and the lump and graze were nasty. But as she says, 'it's all better now'!

A day at Healesville Sanctuary

The long weekend in June saw us take the very charming Tommy Loomis of Texas USA to Healesville Sanctuary for a good look at our lovely wildlife. Tommy was over here for a few weeks doing some work with a connection through Renewtek and obviously we were keen to help show him the sights. We had lunch at the Healesville Pub which was very enjoyable and then had a really nice afternoon wandering around the Sanctuary and managing to avoid the rain. We were lucky enough to have a keeper take my camera to take a terrific shot of a koala (as I was only managing to get their backs!) and we also really enjoyed the Birds of Prey show. Finished it off with treating Tommy to one of Belgrave South Take Away's magnificent pizza's! Lucy and Jack really enjoyed the day too which is always a plus!

Looking forward to meandering around the wineries next time Tommy is in town!