Well, little James had officially turned 1 on the 8th January... but we celebrated his birthday in style last Sunday, 21st January, with lots of guests, presents and food!! He had a changed quite a lot while big James and I were away, but he is still just as gorgeous. He also had his first haircut last week!!

Here are some pics from his big birthday party...

On one of his favourite presents, a little bike from one of his Grandmother's

Opening one of million more presents he received, most of which were bigger than him!!

His "Spot" birthday cake

Blowing out the candle with Mummy and Daddy

On Daddy's shoulders, having a great time!

We also had a great time at the party- I got the chance to meet lots of people I had heard a lot about and also catch up with some old friends! James seemed more than a little astonished at the number of babies / toddlers there (My reply: "Umm honey? It is a first birthday party after all...") but he busied himself with barbecue cooking and stayed out of the way of most of the kids. I think he's actually becoming a bit of a softie though, he almost seemed to like being amongst all the baby cuteness :-) Don't tell him I said that!

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In other news, I am sick yet again, my third bug in around 5 weeks. It's getting a little boring I must say. James wants me to go to the Doctor but at this point I've taken a couple of days off of work and am trying to rest and recuperate. James is fighting fit and his usual, naughty self!

James has gone back to work with mild enthusiasm- oh, and I have to tell you that a very good friend of ours and someone who James works with, Stephen, went around to their other workmates and took up a collection after he found out about our house. He presented us with the money on Saturday night. We are both feeling very overwhelmed by this huge show of generosity and cannot than Stephen and the other guys enough. What an amazing and exztremely thoughtful thing to do. We will put the money towards our insurance excess when we finalise all of the details on Thursday of this week. Anyone who reads this and contributed towards it: we appreciate the gesture more than we can say!!

What else is new? Not much really. I was planning on going to see Nana last Saturday but with being sick and all I decided to wait until I was feeling better, so it might be towards the end of this week.

We are psyched about the Australia Day barbecue Matt and Emily are hosting on Friday (a touch of irony there perhaps!?) so I have to make sure I'm well before then! I'm working all over the weekend which is fine, after not having done a weekend of nights since early December I think I'm pretty well overdue :-) James is on his second week of afternoons again this week and is looking forward to his public holiday and long weekend!!