After all the rain we had last month, this month has been positively dry in comparison. Although I do prefer this type of dry to the bushfires at home at the moment ... no complaining here. Most of the lights are up on the house again, so once again we are a beacon of light for those driving uphill on the main road past our house ... and Andy's trying to one-up the neighbours again .

We had our final Latte lunch on Tuesday in Tukwila, which meant I could duck quietly into work and get a couple of admin forms signed and witnessed - have to make sure the personnel system at home officially knows that Isobel exists. We did a christmas ornament exchange, everyone drew a number from a little bag and got to choose a wrapped ornament, or you could 'steal' from someone else. In these situations someone usually ends up as the designated 'victim' purely by chance - and that person was me . Mind you I ended up with some gorgeous silver leaf decorations, so it was all for the best in the end! We're doing a similar deal for the crochet guild in a couple of weeks, with a scarf theme - it's a fun twist on the theme.

Isobel and I are starting to work towards developing a nap schedule during the day - its a bit hard sometimes because her night sleeps are still a little unpredictable. Last night I put her down for a nap in the portacot downstairs around 8.30pm, thinking she'd nap for about an hour and then we'd put her upstairs around 10-11pm as we've done in the past. (No, this doesn't match what all the parenting books say, but it's a routine that works for us so far and that's the important thing!!) We managed to get all the christmas presents wrapped and under the tree, and she still hadn't woken up - by midnight we decided to move the baby monitor down to the portacot and call it a night. She was still asleep at 9am this morning, and only woke when I popped the velcro tabs on her blankie ... we're so lucky that she's sleeping so well already! My next goal then is to start defining a couple of nap times during the day - the 'reactive' method has worked well so far, but I try to be a little proactive when I can.

Isobel is also getting *so close* to being able to roll from her back to her stomach - her little legs kick away and her head is arched all the way round, we're just waiting for that last little oomph and she'll be there. Of course that means she'll officially be 'mobile' then, and we'll have to start baby-proofing the lounge room ...

Andy also had a few of his fellow Mustang owners around this afternoon for the great heart/lung transplant - the engine has been out being reconditioned, so today was the day to start putting it all back together again. Didn't quite get to the point where we could fire it up, but it's looking far more complete with the engine back in the engine bay again.