Kate, I love 'tramp stamp' LOL. I can just imagine how you were feeling when you saw her up there too. Don't fret about it too much, she didn't fall and hurt herself and these things happen, so you're not a bad mummy

Leanne, so how are you liking the new washing machine? I'm still loving mine LOL. And excellent news about his ears too!

Marydean, I'm sorry but I had to stiffle a small smile at the thought of H thinking it was too much effort to hold E for photos. Don't you know that once they get to a certain age EVERYTHING is too much effort? LOL. Great to hear that the petting zoo was a real hit.

Noni, I'll have to have a looky at your pics.

Ok, so now it's my turn to host the gastro bug. Poor Erin woke up at 10 last night and came out to me in the loungeroom with vomit all through her hair because she'd been sick in bed (and wasn't that a joy to clean up). There was no warning of it coming on at all - she was fine all day and ate all her dinner last night. So then she spent the next few hours to 1am throwing up or running to the loo poor kid. She seems fine today and is keeping everything down and in but her tummy is very tender and delicate though. I am just really hoping that the other 3 don't get it. Great way to spend the holidays otherwise

Paige had a speechie appointment today and I asked her speechie about what is expected for 1yo's etc (remember we were talking about that a while back) and she said that they are only expected to know around the 5 word mark and it isn't until around the 18mth mark when they should have about 50 words that they will repeat most words as part of their vocabulary kwim? So if they say something and you can't get them to say it again, that's normal and when they get to 18mths and if they still aren't saying much, you should start to pay attention to how their speech and language/communication skills are developing. I asked her mainly because once you have a child with speech issues, it makes you more on the ball for the future kwim? I didn't even think about it with the first two because they were both such excellent talkers at a young age.

ETA - LOL G, I do kwym. The biggest problem with my DH is that he can't ever say no when someone says 'stay and have a beer'. Plus when you live as far out of town as we do, there isn't anything I can do about it if he decides to stay in after work for a few beers. Glad to hear that L is a lot better today though.