Breathing Barracuda

I'm SO PROUD of my little man!  After 2 years of faithful diligence at swimming lessons - he can do freestyle!  I love experiencing these milestones with my 5-year old.  Almost as fun as seeing him start to read for the first time...

EJ also started swimming lessons - Little Dippers.  I think he may favor breast stroke - check out that froggy kick.

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Hobbiton

 SO SAD to say goodbye to my mom on Friday.  We had SUCH a wonderful time together!  It's so hard to believe that her trip literally began with the birth of Isaac and what an amazing time it was.   For her last week in NZ, we planned a road trip up the North Island.   We needed to go up to Auckland to sort Isaac's passport and US documents and also to get his circumcision (they don't do it in Wellington!).   We added a stop to Hobbiton and a stop in Taupo with the hot springs.  It could have been really crazy with the hours in the car with 3 little kids, but everything went extremely smoothly and it was fun!

Here are some pictures from Hobbiton in Matamata, New Zealand.   It was a great 2 hour tour of the Hobbiton village set that they used in both Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit.   It was incredible the attention to detail that went into creating Hobbiton.  I was especially amazed by the Hobbit-sized vegetable gardens that they continue to maintain.  There was something almost "Disney" about it, but more subdued.  The tour finished with a drink in the Green Dragon pub.   It made me want to trace the other LOTR/Hobbit filming spots around the country to provide to visiting US friends.

Curious Charlie: Belly Buttons and the Birth Canal

Both boys are enormously enamored with Baby Isaac.  Here are two precious videos of Charlie that we took the first day we brought baby Isaac home from the hospital.  Charlie was so fascinated by Isaac and had so many questions and tried to work out all that had happened with Baby Isaac being in my tummy one day and outside the next. 
Here Charlie talks about the "treasure" of Isaac's umbilical cord stump.  He also surprised us with his in-depth knowledge of the birth canal (thanks Nana for the "So You're Going to be a Big Brother" book). 

This is a LONG video, but it was so fun to see Charlie's wonder with Baby Isaac.  He had so many questions and was so intrigued by his brand-new little brother.   In one part, Charlie explains how he wanted to make a craft project out of mommy's collection of umbilical cord stumps.  Apologize for the sideways video. 

Family Fun Run

 
Wellington holds a full marathon only once a year in June.  It tends to be the worst weather with horizontal wind, rain and even sleet.  Fortunately, we had a storm on the Thursday before the race with 200km/hr (125mph) gale force gusts that pounded the city (fish in the washed out streets, roofs missing, uprooted trees, massive power outages) and the weather was quite pleasant on the day of the run.  The running race also included a half marathon, 10k and 1 mile kids run.  Jason and my mom ran the 10k and I took the boys to run the 1 mile kids fun run.  I pushed Liam and Isaac in the double BOB stroller and Charlie ran alongside me.   The last run I did with Charlie was quite miserable - as he wanted to poke around in the dirt and look for insects and couldn't understand that we were trying to run a race.  He ran the ENTIRE way this time and had such a great attitude.  It was so much fun and it made me look forward to future family runs.  Jason and my mom did fantastic with their 10k run and it was fun that everyone participated.  I think next June's marathon may be my post-Isaac marathon - despite its reputation for terrible weather.   

Here is a video of us crossing the finish line. (we are at the end of the clip)

Here is a link to some pictures

Big Brudders

Liam and Charlie are fascinated with Baby Isaac.  Charlie keeps saying, "He's so CUTE!" and Liam echos Charlie.  They both are (surprisingly) extremely gentle.   So far, there doesn't seem to be an iota of jealousy, but if I remember correctly, jealousy seemed to erupt when baby started taking in interest in big brother's toys and started to attract gobs of attention with first walking steps and other initial milestones. 

 

Liam has decided that Baby Isaac sounds like a little piggy.

 

Charlie, our emerging reader, reads to Baby Isaac

Baby Isaac

We were thrilled to welcome Isaac Nathan Roberson to our family last Monday 10 June at 2:45pm weighing in at 8lbs 15oz.  We were beyond blessed with a really wonderful midwife and everything with the labor and delivery went very smoothly.


We had MANY funny conversations with Charlie leading up to the birth and the days following baby Isaac's arrival. Both of the boys are a hoot with Isaac and it's made the experience of bringing home baby all the more fun.

Here Charlie explains the "teeny-tiny" pain of labor the week before Isaac was born. 

You can see Liam's lovely pink eye that he developed the day before Isaac's birth.

Nemo's Fury

We've massively enjoyed snorkeling around the beach at the resort. Jason went diving and said the snorkeling just was as good. Charlie just loves to snorkel. The best snorkeling is around the yellow pontoon boat behind Jason in the picture above. I swam the boys to the yellow pontoon and then we watched all of the exotic fish around the pontoon. I think the fish are attracted to a drainage pipe that ends at the base of the pontoon. It's a little gross if you think about it too hard. Charlie and I snorkeled around the drain and what felt like 250 "Nemos" encircled us. Charlie was frantically excited and I was a little panicy about the fish mob. I think it relieved a fear of fish rooted in a childhood experience of falling off the lake dock and being scared to death of the "crappies" eating me alive.
Feeding "chippies"to the fishies. Charlie loved it, Liam was scared.

Sunset photography session

Pretty purple sunset
Charlie at the torch lighting

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