My not so little Girl

I really don't know where the time has gone. Jemima just seems so much older than 20 months, her tantrums are certainly reminiscent of the Terrible Twos! Her language skills are more advanced than Max's were at the same age, her vocabulary is constantly increasing and she just makes us laugh all the time. Her latest fad is sitting up at the table with Max and playing games, doing puzzles and the always popular Fuzzy Felt.

Chopsticks and Noodles

Whenever we have Asian food, Andrew uses chopsticks. He's actually quite good at using them and when he was in China for the past month, the locals were quite impressed with his ability.

Max has decided to emulate Daddy's prowess with chopsticks and last night when we had stir-fry for dinner, he refused to eat with a fork. It was chopsticks or nothing. We do have children's chopsticks but they weren't good enough apparently. So Max ate his dinner last night with regular old chopsticks, or should I say chopSTICK, it was easier to use just the one stick.

The fun of dressing up!

It was Dress-Up week at Kinder this week and there was only one rule... NO Super Heroes or Action Figures. *sigh* All Max wanted to be was Batman, or Superman, or a Transformer ( Lord knows how I would have made a Transformer costume!) The staff had organised the special days as a fundraiser for a local family whose son has Leukaemia and because Max goes to Kinder 2 mornings a week, we could dress up twice. Nobody said we had to choose 2 costumes but Max decided that he needed to be 2 different things, just to make it harder for Mummy.

I managed to convince Max that he would make a fabulous Bumble Bee and Dinosaur and thankfully he was pretty excited on both mornings. Here is the result.

We need to remember...

We need to remember to put the Nutella and the left over pancakes away after breakfast as soon as we leave the table. Otherwise, somebody who shall remain nameless, will decide to help herself. Apparently dipping pancakes directly into to the jar is rather delicious.

She's a chocoholic just like her Mama.

Marvellous Melbourne Museum

We went to the museum yesterday with some friends and the kids had an absolute ball. The children's section is sensational, everything is hands on and all designed for little explorers. There are hidey holes to peek in, little display cases built into the floor, things to touch and play with and climb on and well...have fun with! Jemima spent the entire time going from one area to the other and not knowing what to explore first. Her reactions to things were priceless. Max loved seeing the dinosaur exhibit and exploring the bugs and spiders area. It really is a great place to take kids.

A Wonderful Weekend

We've just spent a lovely relaxing weekend in Charlton and it was bliss. Freezing cold outside mind you but when you're surrounded by family and a well stoked open fire, it seems pretty damned warm. Being thoroughly looked after by someone like Marj makes it a very relaxing time and as much as we don't want to create more work for her, if there is one thing I know about Marj, it's that looking after family and friends is what makes her happy. So we were spoiled with a roast dinner, casseroles, sausage rolls, soup and of course, the much drooled over Strawberry Sponge Roll. Sorry Jan...there's none left.

Grandparents.

I love them. I really wish I'd had the opportunity to spend proper time with my grandparents when I was growing up. Watching Max and Jemima with their Nana and Poppy is just priceless.

This little piggy.

Jemima is in love with this little animatronic pig that belongs to Aunty Nicole. It grunts, wiggles its nose and tail and walks along the floor. She is obsessed with it and her favourite thing all weekend was to lie on the floor and get her face as close as she could and let the wiggling pig nose tickle hers. It was so cute to watch.

Musical geniuses? Somehow I don't think so.

Max and Jemima were allowed to have a turn on Nana's piano for the first time. It's amazing how much noise...I mean music...2 little people can make when they are presented with a piano. Nana tried to teach Max how to play 3 Blind Mice and while he was happy to play the first couple of notes, the rest of the performance was completely improvised. Somehow I don't think we'll be getting a call from the Conservatory of Music, not anytime soon anyway.

Riding on Poppy's tractor

It was all Max could talk about on the way up to Charlton. He asked when we got there, he asked when he got up in the morning. "When can I help you drive your tractor Poppy?" If there is one thing that Max loves about going up to visit Nana and Poppy, it's riding on the tractor. Luckily for Max, Poppy is very obliging, he even lets Max steer by himself. Even though she is very unsure of the noise the tractor makes, Jemima had a couple of turns this time. She wasn't too thrilled when she first sat on Poppy's knee, but once the old Massey got moving, Jemima calmed down and seemed to enjoy chugging along. Well...maybe she just wasn't crying as much. She did clap though, so that's a good sign.

Finally...

I've finally started scrapping some of the old photos to put together in a Heritage album for the kids. My aim is to put together photos from both sides of our families and create a book of history that can hopefully be kept for a long time after we're gone. I started with a couple of photos of Marj, they aren't finished yet, but I thought I'd add them to this post anyway.

Just for Jan

Jan is always nagging me to put some pictures of my scrapbooking layouts on here. So this post is just for her.

I went to a crop on saturday that was organised by my favourite shop as a fundraiser for Beyond Blue. 12 hours of child-free uninterupted scrapping time. It was absolute bliss, and a whole lot of fun as well. We managed to raise just on $2,000 which is a fabulous effort.

During the course of the day I managed to get 7 layouts finished, 2 for the shop and 5 just for fun. So here they are...don't judge them too harshly, I was under the influence of chocolate!