What a great Christmas, we actually got to have Christmas twice. They boys thought that was fantastic because there was lots of presents and lots of visitors.
Yai Yai and Grandy came on Sunday18th to cellebrate
Then Uncle Ash came up
And Nanna and Granddad drove up Christmas eve/morning
The big boys (Lachlan, Daniel & Noah) and I went to the beach today. We left Mum and Josh at home. We took our boogie boards with the intention of catching some waves.
Lachlan and Daniel rode waves by themselves on their boogieboards at the Agnes Waters beach. Noah and I caught a couple as well. We then went and had calamari and chips for lunch followed by another swim at 1770. After that swim we had icecreams and drove home.
What a fantastic day.
Joshua Thomas Mahoney arrived with a rush at 2:17 am Wednesday 30 November 2005.
What a wonderful experience but wow!!!
Joshua's vital stats are:
Born 30 November 2005 at 2:17am
Weight 9lbs 4 ozs or 4.215 kgs
Length 51cms
Head 36.3 cm
Born at home 107 Flora Drive, Beecher
To set the record straight
Catherine woke up at 1:00am with her first contraction.
At 1:30am Catherine woke me up and said she was going to have a shower to assist with pain management.
At 1:40am I called Di for her to come and baby sit the kids.
At 1:45am I called the hospital to advise we would be in shortly.
At 1:50am I call Carolyn for her to come and baby sit the kids as it was obvious that Di would not make it.
At 2:02am Rod arrived in place of Carolyn
Catherine and I started to make our way to the car stright away.
We took a minute or two to get to the car, and when we got there Catherine tried to get into the car but couldn't
I called 000 and asked for the ambulance at 2:08am (from phone records).
The operator/controller from Rockhampton was excellent. She told me what to do and I did it.
After a couple of pushes all of a sudden a head was looking at me. His cord was around his neck so I lifted it over his head and then with one more push Joshua was born at 2:17am.
Then I can remember clearing his month and nose of the yuk and rubbing his back to get him to breath. Finally after what seemed a long time but it was only 20 seconds he let out his first squark.
The next 10 minutes are a bit of a blur. It started to rain so Rod helped me move Catherine from the carpark back to the front of the house. Then the boys came to the front door, first Noah then Lachlan and Daniel. I told them that Mummy had just had a baby and to come and have a look.
Daniel passed a comment "wow why all the blood?" and "geez he's messy".
Rod went to the front gate to flag the ambulance down.
Finally the ambulance arrived at 2:28am after the longest and most amazing 20 minutes of our lives.
The ambulance took Catherine & Joshua to the Mater, got all checked out and cleaned up. They came home on Saturday afternoon, after receiving lots of flowers, presents, visitors and media attention. Thank you all so much!!! Very glad to be home and he is a wonderful, contented baby.
Daniel completed Kindy this year at Kookabura Creek Kindergarten. His teachers were Miss Phyliss and Miss Karen. He really enjoyed it and is looking forward to going to prep every day next year (so is Mum!!!). He has his uniform and is really excited about going to Lachlans big school. He thought mum was mean for not letting him go to kindy every day.
Daniel is learning to ride his bike without training wheels and doing really well, riding halfway around the house already. He loves playdough and drawing on his magnetic drawing board
As well he has started to learn to ride his horses.
Lachlan completed grade 2 this year. He was in the Treefrogs at St Johns.
During the year Lachlan played soccer for the Clinton Chipmunks for the second season, the kids improved so much throughout the season winning all bar 2 games - much to there delight.
He started playing golf at the Calliope Golf Course and and really enjoyed it, loves to go out with Dad - they just need to do it more often.
In the last term he had tennis lessons at the Gladstone Tennis Centre. He is getting better and strikes the ball well sometimes - but can't seem to stop talking long enough to get it all together.
Noah has grown into a real little man, including an attitude and a wicked temper.
He loves to play soccer, golf and wrestle. His co ordination is amazing, anything with a bat and ball. He loves books, especially fish or car ones. He is just starting to say a few more words, it is really cute. He has just discovered Bob the builder and is very impressed.
This year saw the coming and going of several new critters at our farm.
Animal presents were a strong theme this year, Nisey gave Daniel a lovely ginger kitten for his birthday. Miss Rosie is very loved and very tolerant and loves Molly dog and Oscar cat. Lachlan got a lovely green budgie in a huge cage for his birthday in July, he was named Harry Potter and has a terrible temper, luckily he is cute and makes a nice noise!
The largest of our accquisitions are two 20 year old shetland ponies. "Viscount and Comanche" Whoever thought shetland ponies would be called large! They are well behaved for the most part and do a good job mowing. Much better then the sheep last year. The boys are having some lessons and are really enjoying it all.
The loudest additions were 2 bantam/silky chicks that turned into roosters which grew extremely impressive vocal cords which unfortunately after much persuasion from Catherine were severed. We also got a whole bunch of different breeds of chicks that are hens - mainly bantams, very cute. Noah loves spending time in the chook pen with them - actually all the boys love the chook pen, poor chooks.
Early in the year we inherited a half grown peking duck - Jemima Puddleduck. She was lonely so we thought we would get a couple of ducklings. Of course they both grew to be huge Muscovy drakes Dee Dee and Lightning, they are very placid and just wander around the paddock. We also got a female muscovy, Lucky, from friends. But she could fly and must have got sick of the boys and left home, followed not long after by Jemima. So now the boys are lonely, one day we will get some more girls.
We also inherited 2 meat chooks - the funniest lokking things I have ever seen, certainly not bred to live out of a cage. Jeff and the boys butchered them and we cooked one - it was good but we haven't worked up to eating the second one. Daniel loved the butchering, he just wanted to "pull their guts out and cook them", Lachlan was a little upset, but facinated as well. Not something we are in a hurry to repeat, hopefully we don't inherit any more bizarre critters.
Saturday night was the bi-annual St John's Moonlight fair. Thank god that is over but it was great success.
Lachlan's class had the coffee shop and as I am the class mum, got to go to the meetings and organise it all. Had a lot of lovely helpers and it went well. The whole fair looked really good and lots of people about so hopefully we raise heaps of money and everyone had fun - our kids sure had fun. Now I can vege out and just finish growing our baby!!!
This week has been a great week with Catherine and I attending the AIM Queensland Management Excellence Award State Final and Gala dinner. Although I did not end up winning the award category I was in it was a fantastic night.
Mum & Dad, Ash & Lisa, Brendan and Belinda, Mark & Ros Moran and Catherine and I attended. There was great food, great wine, great entertainment, and great music. Catherine and I even got on to the dance floor, not bad seeing Catherine only has 4 weeks before baby 4 is due.
Yai Yai and Denise came down to look after the boys, who had great fun and did not even miss us.
During the year Granddad Brian and I built a fort and sandpit for the boys. After some hair raising balancing by Granddad Brian the roof went on.
We are currently planning to put in a pool. Can't wait.
This year we spent Easter down the coast. We stayed at Kirra. The boys just loved the beach and the pool.
Lachlan went in an easter egg hunt and nearly found the most eggs, just 1 short.
The resort had free bike so we all went for a couple of bike rides.
We found time to go 10 pin bowling which was great. 
The boys did really well.
For our Wedding anniversary this year I suprised Catherine with tickets to Swan Lake ballet. It was beautiful.
Noah turned 1 on January 27. He had huge fun with a great big Noah's Ark cake that Catherine made for him.
We had a surprise birthday party for Granddad Brian at Maleny. Nana booked us a shared unit at Treetops. It was lovely as Ash and Lisa also came up.
We had a visit to Australia Zoo which the boys just loved, as well as a trip to the beach at Caloundra.
