Bloobs… wanna take a wild guess? Blueberries, that’s right. Abel loves berries!

Besides eating ‘bloobs’ we’ve been playing outside more lately. It is spring now and some days are really warm. I’m planting a veggie garden this year so we’ve been outside preparing that. We have lettuce planted, and I’ve started some cucumber, courgette/zucchini, tomato, capsicum/pepper, chives, spring onion, and strawberries. They’re inside and I’ll put them in the ground when they’ve grown a bit bigger. The capsicum isn’t really growing but I’ve heard they are hard to grow so I’m not too surprised. We’ll see if any of the seeds germinate. I also have some squash seeds I saved but I think I will plant those later in the season, and focus on the cucumbers and courgettes for now.

Abel loves helping dig in the dirt and he loves having a bath afterwards to get all clean.

Yesterday we spent the afternoon at the beach, and it was so nice. The wind was a bit chilly and it was overcast but it was so nice to get out and enjoy it. I took some fun photos as well which I’ll share later! We visited the same beach last September so I have some cute comparison photos to share. Ok I’ll just do a sneak peak now. So cute…

It’s hard to believe there’s only a year between these photos!

I’m making an effort to be spending time outdoors lately and it’s so nice! Since we moved to this house, we’ve been busy with a newborn and it’s winter so there’s been lots of cold rainy days. Recently it’s been warmer during the days and I’m taking advantage of it!

Don’t worry, it’s really not too cold, I was barefoot as well. I’m doing some gardening, mainly just weeding and preparing a garden bed so I can plant in a month or two. I had this bright idea to turn the edge of the yard into a garden, where the grass wasn’t growing due to the fence leaning wonky (one more problem to fix, haha). Then I realised that if the grass wasn’t growing, my plants probably won’t grow either. Huh. Bright one, right? Anyways, I guess we’ll find out.

There’s another area near our driveway that gets lots of sunlight and I just took out a ton of weeds so hopefully I can grow something there! I love growing a garden, and it’s been a while since I had a successful one. Gardening isn’t my strong point but I really love it, so I’m trying to learn!

I’m planning to grow tomatoes, squash, courgette/zucchini, and cucumbers.

These wild ducks live right behind our house, and they wander around every property except ours, which isn’t accessible to them. I’m kind of sad to miss out on the ducks, but at the same time, walking in duck poo isn’t very nice, and they might eat the garden? Some day I want to get chickens!

The house where we used to live had a large variety of plants and there was always something blooming! Our current house is not like that but we have a few and like I said before, I’m excited to plant a garden. I currently have a few things growing in our window sill, which I’ll plant outside once it’s warmer and hopefully they’ll be established enough not to die…

Being a toddler is hard, right? And getting molars is especially hard.

I was just looking back at these photos of Abel… less than a year ago and he is already SO much bigger!

I noticed a bit of an issue with the sidebar of my blog so if you notice wonky text, I did too, but I can’t figure out how to fix it, so just bear with me.

Abel just adores playing outside, whether it’s at our house or at a park. I know I’m biased but for real, I think my kid is so dang cute! His little outfit today was just too much, so I took him outside for some photos. I love taking photos of my family especially as Abel is so little and changing so quickly. That said I have barely any photos of Jared and myself, but hey, we pretty much look the same right? 😉

His romper and cardigan are both from Primary.com – my mom’s favourite place to shop for kids clothes! She sent a package for Abel’s birthday which included this romper. I was so excited when the weather finally turned warm enough for him to wear it.

Abel has been walking for about a week and a half now, and it’s the. cutest. thing. ever. Oh my.

He’s still learning to be steady on his feet and so he still enjoys crawling at times. However, he’s taken up this weird monsterish crawling on his feet and hands, with his bum in the air. It looks like it belongs in a haunted house, just saying.

It might look kind of cute in the photos but when you actually see him crawl, it’s hilarious and so weird. 😉

Since Abel loves playing outside – just in the grass, or on a playground – and my midwife is encouraging me to stay active during this pregnancy, we’ve been going for walks to the park pretty frequently. We have one that’s not far from our house so we visit there often!

Abel is also absolutely happy exploring our own little yard, which is great!

Yesterday I was working on putting together a photo book (with Diamond Photo, I have been really happy with the quality of their prints and books!) and looking through all the old photos of Abel from this year was so fun.

Well, we have been busy lately and I haven’t been focusing on my blog. June was busy for us and in July we spent two weekends in a row away at weddings, one in Rotorua and one in Palmerston North. Somehow we’re already over halfway through August… this has been the weirdest year that’s for sure. It feels like it’s been so slow and yet so quick at the same time.

Last week I took Abel for a walk to a nearby park and took some photos of him.

He is doing really well! He’s not walking yet but he loves cruising around on furniture and he is a super fast crawler. He figured out how to get off the couch himself, and he could spend hours every day just looking at his books. And eating them. He likes eating them too.

Abel loves listening to music and singing along, and he enjoys standing at the piano and ‘playing’.

Abel enjoys going in the creche on Sundays and playing with all the toys and the other kids.

He had a Plunket visit this morning and he’s just under 11kgs and is 77cm tall. He can say ‘mama’ and ‘dada’ and a whole bunch of gibberish. The other day my niece Grace and I were playing a game and she said ‘Abel am I going to win?’ and he yelled ‘No!’

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