In a month’s time, Josh is going to be 1 and tomorrow, Caden, his cousin in the UK, is going to be 2 years old. It is actually quite scary that this time last year, Caden was the age Josh is around now. How time has gone by.

Over the past few months, say 2 or so, we have seen Josh grow into this little boy with a wide smile, a heart of gold and a total love for us and the dogs. Although his little legs have grown a lot, walking is still about 2 months away, but is more than happy to run around using his walker or getting onto his feet to open and close the drawers in the kitchen, bang on the toilet, flush the toilet, stand up against the nightstands and pull off various objects that are in reach. Oh, and that does not exclude the toilet paper when we’re not looking.

We so enjoy hearing his little giggle around the house, which will soon turn to little words, more laughts and happy times indeed. So, as we head towards his first year, here are some pictures and videos that will put a smile on your face.

He is an outgoing and lively little boy and enjoys life a lot. He has his first 2 bottom teeth and it looks like the top 2 should be out very soon.

Josh loves his food and gets so excited when breakfast, lunch or supper is upon him. Not to mention the snack as well. Finger biscuits, dried mango, toast and Flings are his favourite. At daycare, he is also eating all sorts of food like chicken nuggets, fish fingers and other yummy foods too. Josh is a bit of a piggy at times. Our daycare can tell you many stories.

Although he is still eating soft foods, I somehow don’t think a big piece of steak is not too far away from now. I cannot wait to teach him how to braai. Oh wait, that is still many years away.

I’ve also included a video of the fun with his grandparents, my folks for that matter. Yep, fun with Oumie and Oupie.

And here are the pics.

Mass last night, I hit the SA Blog Awards site to see that they were announced and by surprise, The Verran Family Blog was short listed as a finalist under the SA Parenting Blog as well. We are super stoked, Josh has been gleaming with excitement – well, we like to think so.Not only did the Verran Blog make it, but our podcast The ZA Show made it too.

So this is how you can make a difference in the life of a cute little boy named Josh. He’ll be super happy if you can please take some time of your day and vote! Click on the dog tag on the right which will take you straight to the website as well as check verran.za.net under Parenting blog as well.

So, we ask you, beg you, to please vote for our little blog on the net. We’ll be so ever greatful and Champers will give you a huge lick for your troubles.

So, back to the family. Josh’s crawling escapades are surely keeping us on our toes. A short vid that proves that big things amuse small minds.

Here is a vid.

He has even sat at the restaurant table in his little chair for the first time on Valentines Day while we were having a meal at the Tavern in Gordon’s Bay.

2 weeks ago he went from the crawling to the sitting position for the first time at my parents house. It was awesome that he did this as they witnessed their little grandson do something for the first time in front of their eyes. They loved that a lot !! He have a “doughnut” at home, which is a round cushion, padded around the outer edge. We put him on that with some of his toys to entertain himself. We felt safe thinking that he can remain there while we watch TV, make supper or whatever. It worked wonderfully – until now!

On Friday, he started to crawl. Yep, the dude is crawling now and it is time for us to have our hands full from now on. We place him on the doughnut and within a few seconds, he is on his tummy and making plans to get off the doughnut and make his way to the closest dog and if he has his way, a tail or fur will be pulled. But his mission is to get to the dogs! Needless to say, they are not particularly amused at this new development. But little do they know, that Joshua is going to chase them around the garden right into their dying days.

But he had another trick up his sleeve! He managed to pull himself up onto his legs against Bridgitte who was lying down on her side. The dude surprises us every day.

But he has remained a very happy boy and happy with life as we know it. He has been at day care during the latter half of each day during the week and enjoys it very much. He loves being around people. While in church and face him to the back, he totally jumps with joy as he attempts interaction with the children and people behind us.

We are seeing our baby grow – not only physically, but mentally too and it is awesome – such a proud moment and it is these things, that make parenting a real reward.

Below are a couple of pictures and a video for you to see. Wait until the slide show has loaded below. The video is also included within the slide show.

Josh surprises us everyday! On a Saturday and Sunday at 3pm, the dogs start demanding their walk. We were having a snooze last Saturday when the dogs came in and demanded that we take them for a walk. The demand is pretty much a mix of jumping, barking and running. Josh found this rather amuzing and just burst out laughing. See the video below.

Josh is at that age where the smallest little face pulling, noise, sound, etc coming from us entertains him 100%. It is by this video below, that you can get a real feel for his character.

But, this holiday is giving me time to think. Think about the podcast, think about the blog, think about how I am going to handle situations at work and no, I did not think about work at all. Gosh, when I get back, I have 1 1/2 months of e-mail to browse through and probably many problems to solve.

I am firm believer of working to live and not living to work. First of all, when you walk out the office door, you leave that mindset behind. I am a full believer in a balanced lifestyle and making sure that when you leave work, to go home and enjoy your time with your family and not trying to solve the millions of problems that your day job brings to your table. I used to be like that, a very long time ago. A time when I was single and didn’t have much to do at home and spent hours writing code at home or thinking about how to solve various problems. But life has changed, I’m married, I have a family now and that is where my priorities lay. There are times, when push comes to shove, you need to put in a little more time to meet deadlines, but it has always been a goal to manage that and try and prevent that as much as possible.

Some goals for 2009 so far.

• To maintain this balance, but still to chern out as much code, and even more that I did in 2008.
• Be the best dad that I can for Joshua and be a role model that he can believe in.
• Write more regularly onto this blog. Yeah, I’m not the greatest with words compared to the many blogs I read, but hey, nobody said that in order to blog, you need to have a Ph.d in English.
• Keep up The ZA Show Podcast. Since the birth of Joshua, the episode frequency has drastically decreased. What is good about a podcast is that you don’t have to maintain a schedule, but it is always good to try and put out a show a bit more regularly than once every 2 months.

Joshua is just over 5 months now and it is amazing how far he has come. He has become a real chatterbox. Making noises, screams, talk like a dolphin, amongst other noises. He reaches out for objects and enjoys putting his toys in his mouth. He gets excited and has an awesome giggle! Peek-a-boo is a winner as well as other weird noises coming from daddy and mommy. But the giggle, you must hear it. It is so cute! He has also started on solids too with the introduction of rice porridge. He is doing so well and although he is starting to master the tongue action, he is doing well eating.

Joshua had his first Christmas this year and that was celebrated with my parents. We stayed over at their house for two days and that meant bringing the dogs with us. So you can only imagine the amount of luggage, and the fact that I sat at the back of the bakkie with the dogs and a beer in my hand on the way there. But we had a great time and Josh really enjoyed it, but Christmas was a bit daunting for him.

Unfortunately, we had some bad news on Christmas eve. Bridgitte’s 92 year old grandmother passed away. It was a long time coming and the family is relieved that she is parted from the pain and suffering during the past few months. But we managed to have a good Christmas Day with pressies opened in the morning and an awesome Christmas lunch that afternoon with chicken, gammon and leg-of-lamb – amongst other firm favourites like potatoes, veggies and the works!

Two days after Christmas we left for Durban. Our luggage exceeding the weight allowance by 17 kg, we only had to pay for 7, but on the return flight, we exceeded the baggage allowance by 25 kg. We got off scot free without paying a cent. Durban was hot and thank goodness, we could cool oursevles down in the pool – Josh also got the chance to do that too. On old years day, we had the funeral and after that, we headed to Port Edward for 9 days. It was pure bliss and relaxing. Eating more than usual and drinking lots of the beer the order of the day.

Josh handled the heat and humidity much better than what we expected. Thank goodness we had air-conditioning in our room.

But all in all, an awesome holiday and although mine is not at an end as yet, it was still a one to enjoy. As usual, here are some pictures from the holiday.

Last weekend, which was the 8th of November, was Joshua’s baptism and we had all the family and friends over for this awesome ceremony. We trekked all the way to Melkbos to our sister parish, the Church of the Ascension, where the baptism took place. Thank goodness I called on Friday to confirm from Saturday and was told that the church in Table View was double booked. But to put a long story short, we made another plan and everything turned out just fine. Thank goodness Michele’s plane was a bit late (she flew in for the baptism) since Godfrey, who performed the baptism, was running a little late too. It was great to see all the family celebrating with us.

Afterwards we had everybody over at the house for drinks and snacks after which my parents stayed on and we had two chickens in the Weber. Yum, yum!

I would like to use this opportunity to thank those who were there for coming and for the wonderful gifts.

On Sunday, we received some AWESOME news! My very good friend, Sven who now lives in Denmark with his wife Jeanine became parents of a new bouncy baby boy named Daniel. I know that when Josh and Daniel meet one day, they’ll become very good buddies, just like their dads became so many years ago at school.

Josh is one determined little boy and I am hoping this is something of his personality that is due to unfold during the next couple of months, years .. we give him some tummy time often. It was only this past week or so that he has decided to attempt to turn his body on his side. He turns the top part of his body, but has been struggling to get his leg over. This afternoon he was able to get his leg over. Not sure if this is fluke, but hey, he did it. Then us turning him on his tummy, the determination to crawl is huge! He really, really tries so hard to crawl forward. You can see he is figuring out how he needs to place his hands, arms, legs.

Bridgitte has gone back to work now, which means that Josh is now in daycare. The good thing is that mom only works during the afternoon, so the time spent there isn’t long at all. But he has adapted very well and his teacher is getting to know him, his bottle feeding, burping and sleeping habits. It is so rewarding picking him up at the end of the day to be greeted with a smile. Then off home, bath time and feeding time. By 7:30 for 8pm, he is in bed, fast asleep.

That’s it. I hope there isn’t a huge delay until the next post.

Oh, and not to forget, some pictures too.