Family Ties

Last Sunday, the day after Lily's party was a family reunion for Cameron's Dad's side of the family. Cameron comes from a very large family.

I must admit, it is something I wasn't looking forward to. We had moved house the weekend before, I had worked all week and prepared for Lily's party, I was very sick and we had had Lily's party on the Saturday.
To be honest, I was just looking forward to having a day at home to relax and enjoy our new property, and to try to get better!

Anyhow, I awoke early on the Sunday morning, showered and prepared the dish I was taking for the shared lunch.
We all begrudginly got in the car and set off for the reunion.

Surprising I had a wonderful day and thoroughly enjoyed meeting members of Cameron's family.
Family is very important to me and there was just such a warm, inviting atmosphere that day. Everyone was very lovely and welcoming, it was a very enjoyable experience.
Lily without surprise was very much doted on and adored, everyone thought she was just beautiful.

Lily is very blessed to be born into a large family and I really do hope that as she grows she can have contact and forge strong bonds with her family.

The community/area that we have just moved into is a farming area vastly populated by members of Cameron's family. Everyone was very excited that we had moved into the area and were able to provide us with lots of information about the community and even our property itself.

I seen some people at the reunion that I know from my childhood, well it turns out if Cameron and I marry, I will be related to them by marraige.

Coming from such a large family though we will have to be very careful that Lily doesn't accidentally marry a cousin!

When Lily was 3 months old Cameron's Mum requested a family photo from us to be published in a family history book that was to be launched on the day of the reunion.

It is a wonderful book that I have had great pleasure in reading thorough and looking at many old pictures of the area and Cameron's ancestors.
It is also nice to have a picture and our names in this book, I look forward to showing this to Lily when she is a little older.

Throughout the day there were many people speaking about their ancestors and family history, I thoroughly enjoyed hearing of peoples life stories.
There was one lady in particular that spoke of her families ancestors, in particular 2 ladies who did not marry.
As she spoke she said that if you did not marry and have children sadly your story wasn't told to anyone and in a sense you could be lost from history.
This lovely lady had done extensive research on these 2 ladies in hope of giving them 'a voice, albeit a faint one, however a voice none the less'

I thought this was such a lovely thing to do and honestly nearly brought a tear to my eye.

So all in all we all had a lovely day with family, met some beautiful people and drove home with a smile on our face and a warm heart.

Cameron's sister took this photo of the 3 of us, I really like it. My beautiful little family.

In the background, you can see a screen with a photo on it. Throughout the day photo's new and old were shown on this screen, it was such a lovely touch.

Here is Lily in her pretty dress. I couldn't resist taking a photo of her matching shoes, they are so gorgeous.
When we got home from the reunion Lily experienced her first chicken chippy, to say she loved it doesn't begin to cover how she felt!

I am very protective, often told to protective about what Lily eats. To me she doesn't know what chips, chocolate etc are so I don't think she needs those foods. However as an occasional treat I don't mind.

We then went outside to feed the horses, I can now have my horses at home which is great. Anyhow Lily just loves the horses and on our way out Lily had a play on her new swing set that her Nana and Papa brought for her for her 1st birthday, she really enjoys that swingset.

Where we are living we are unable to get normal broadband, we have to wait a few weeks before they can install satellite internet. For the time being we only have dial up and it is painfully slow! This entry and photo's alone has taken me over 2 hours to complete!

Happy Birthday Princess

This poor blog has been neglected for months, reasons behind I will go into in another entry, however this entry is to celebrate my beautiful baby girl turning 1 whole big year old! How did we get here?

As it turns out Lily's party was to be the weekend after we moved house, so it was quite a busy, frantic preparation.
We were originally going to have Lily's party on the Sunday, the day before her birthday. However Cameron's family was having a family reunion on that day so we moved it to the day before, the Saturday.

I was a litle apprehensive about how Lily would enjoy her party as she does not seem to enjoy being in a crowd of people.
I am though very happy to report that Lily loved her party and all her guests, she was quite the social butterfly.
She particularly enjoyed her cousins and other children that attended, Lily just adores other children.

I do think though that the part of the party that Lily enjoyed most was her cake, her first ever taste of sugar and indeed cake.
Lily thoroughly enjoyed her cake, so much so that she even carefully picked up and consumed every last crumb off her highchair plate!

Below is the cake that my Nana and I baked and decorated for Lily, a butterfly.
It turned into a bit of an ordeal, we baked it the day before Lily's party, and I was very sick. This alone was a recipe for things to not go to plan, however add in a new oven that I was still becoming familiar with an empty gas bottle, and well, what a fun day it was!

Anyhow, all things considered I was quite happy with the end product, and it was very yummy. There was not a peice of cake left over at the end of the night.

For some reason it will not allow me to rotate this picture, so this is a side view of Lily's butterfly cake.

The tall pink candle that you can see in this picture, is the candle that Mum purchased for my 1st birthday cake, therefore that candle is 23 years old! Thankyou to Mum for treasuring it for all these years. I will now take great care of it and hopefully it will last for Lily to use on her daughters cake. Lily's actual birthday was a relatively quiet affair, we had lunch with my Mum and Nana at Mum's house, Lily simply idolises her Nana and Great Nana and I realise how incredibly lucky both Lily and I are to have such a wonderful relationship and see these 2 incredibly important people on a very regular basis.

Mum has a ride on train set that Lily rode on for the first time on her birthday. She really enjoyed it and it didn't take her long to learn that if she pressed the button the train moved and she was soon riding around by herself, of course with her Nana in the middle ready to catch her if the need arose. However Lily was very balanced and only got a little wobbly a couple of times.

This picture below shows Lily riding on the train, trying to make it go faster, we may have a little jockey on our hands!

After working up an appetite riding on the train Lily lunched on a toasted sandwich, another first for her first birthday.
As you can sort of see in this photo Lily is quite the dainty eater and doesn't appreciate getting her fingers dirty or sticky.
Another first followed the toasted sandwich, Lily's first taste of fingerbun, after grapes of course! Lily really enjoyed the new tastes and I was most impressed when she ate the bun as well as the icing

I simply cannot believe that my sweet, beautiful little girl is one whole, big year old. Just where does the time go!
I love Lily more and more each day if that is even possible, each and every day I am amazed by this precious little girl I have been blessed with.
One of my favourite things to do is to hide and peek around the corner at Lily playing. I love seeing the animation on her face as she plays with her toys or if she is sure I am not watching she will sneak over, stand up at the DVD stand and pull the DVD's out, cheeky little lady!
Lily is incredibly well behaved though and once told no will always put down or move away from whatever it is she has been told to. I am though aware that this will no doubt change!

I just cannot explain the love that I feel for my daughter, it truely is a love and bond that no-one can explain, nothing can prepare you for the feelings that you feel for your child.