FAVOURITE THINGS

One of Alice's favourite things would have to be technology, I don't know if it is a case of 'nature' but it's definitely 'nurture'. She loves her 'puter and she's getting really good using the mouse!

THIS PHOTO JUST MAKES ME SMILE!

(large Flat Panda, still very precious!)

3 IN A MORNING

D and I decided to give the girls a treat and take them to the cinema this morning, A's been before but Alice hadn't.

Before we left I went to get some bottled water from the drinks' cupboard, when a bottle of rose smashed at my feet, then I cut myself clearing up the mess. I'd got up relatively early to put the rubbish out and thought I'd be organised and get the car out while I was in the garage, by the time we were ready to go it had iced up (yes, it's that cold).

The girls (and the other children in the audience) were quite restless - that's only a reflection on how awful the chipmunk film was. We'd planned to take the girls out to lunch after the film, but then changed our minds - we decided that they were probably too full of popcorn and had sat for long enough.

Instead I decided to go shopping - there was a N*xt just around the corner. I bought Alice some lovely clothes for the springtime but somewhere between the checkout and the car (less than a minute) we lost Flat Panda, I very quickly got Alice into the car (as I was halfway through the process when we realised) and then retraced my steps. No sign of FP anywhere, I asked every member of staff that I saw and frantically looked at everyone I passed. Nothing. It was a 20 minute drive home and Alice howled all the way, she wasn't even comforted when I found her one of the other FPs we have at home - it was the actual LOSS of FP that really distressed her. I spent a lot of the afternoon searching for another but it was discontinued a while ago and I can't find one in Europe or America online.

A traumatic and stressful morning. Luckily the afternoon was calmer. After Alice had recovered she found the other 3 FPs (and I'm still panicking that we'll lose the others!) and put them in timeout!

CHRISTINGLES AND CHRISTMAS EVE!

We made Christingles at our local church service nearly a month ago! Then Alice was ill for her school service, my school service was earlier this week and the weather made going to the service a risk, so we missed that one too. But today we finally made it to another service - with GMA and my old parish church in A'g, a very different service and a Christingle with sweets on it (beautifully made in advance) - I hadn't seen sweets on a Christingle for many years!

GFN came for coffee this morning, Alice ate his fudge cake for him and he gave her the plastic tat train - which he and I then took many minutes to assemble, we seemed to recreate the Christmas cliche of the adults assembling the toys whilst the child played with the box! We watched the DVDVD (as Alice calls them) of her Nativity - she looked like she had head lice as she scratched throughout the performance, she didn't (just a hot head from the lamb's costume!) Then this afternoon we went to the Christingle service, home for a simple sandwich supper in front of the TV (HUGE treat) before laying out the goodies for Father Christmas and hang the sack up, then it was bedtime with the story of the Nativity before I came downstairs to start preparing tomorrow's meal etc but also a lovely, simple supper of smoked salmon and avocado, yummy!

Happy Christmas, I'm off to check NORAD, have you?

LEARNING SO MUCH, SO QUICKLY

Alice loves her 'puter' (she has a Leap*frog Click*start that works through the television) I've just watched her use the arrow keys to navigate around a maze, something she couldn't do a month ago and just did with ease! The same system has also dramatically improved her mouse control.

(PS I'd recommend the LF CS to anyone considering it, we've had it since Alice Day on July 1st and it's one of her most played with toys! Alice is having the handheld LF Leap*ster for Christmas.)

These photos also show our favourite outfit at the moment, we both love this patchwork dress (why do I love patchwork so much?) from an auction site and her furry boots - which she wears at every opportunity!

WATER PLAY

Alice's love of water continues, only 2 days into nursery and they've noticed it too (she's come home soaking!)

The weather this summer has been so poor that Alice hasn't had much chance to use the water table - in fact T put it away last week (perhaps it should have gone away earlier!)

The top photos are from today (we had a PJ day!!) The others are from earlier in the week.

REMINDERS OF LITTLE SIS!

When I was waiting for Alice I read about an idea - having an object to represent the baby that you're waiting for, that object is then included in photos of key events during the wait.

For Alice I had a very soft and squidgy W*nnie the P**h, I took some photos with it and we've still got it - even though it's lovely Alice isn't particularly fond of it! For Little Sis I bought a lovely soft, pale grey elephant with a wonky trunk. I had studio portraits done last October and one of my favourite photos is the one of Alice sitting on the floor looking at the Elly.

The Elly is round the house and we find it occasionally. This morning Alice found it, nothing new there, but THIS morning she gave it a cuddle and said, 'For my sister!' and handed Elly to me, a poignant moment!

ALICE'S NEW DOG!

Don't panic, this one's far cheaper and quieter than the others!

Alice has a large Jellycat Truffles Panda that we use as a travel rug in the car. She adores flat panda but he's 18 months old and is showing signs of age, so flat dog has arrived to give flat panda a rest! Alice was delighted to see him and dragged him about all day yesterday. Luckily this morning she demanded that he came in the car to nursery, when I got home (alone) I hid flat panda.

I have to say that flat dog is beautiful - so soft and cuddly, he was my second choice, I would have bought another large flat panda but, sadly, he's been discontinued and I couldn't find one. Alice doesn't seem to mind, but she has called him flat panda quite a few times! I've tried to encourage her to give them each a name but she reverts to descriptions, more importantly she's declared many times since opening the box yesterday lunchtime how much she loves flat dog.

NURSERY TREASURE

Alice made the wolf and 3 little pigs at nursery - she loves playing with them. (She was eating the Gingerbread Man that she'd made there that day!)

AND IN THE AFTERNOON

. . . we spent more time in the garden, it's lovely now that the weather is warming up, unfortunately the forecast isn't looking too good for the next few days!

Alice continues to love playing in the water, she is really enjoying filling up buckets for the dogs to drink from, especially Fu'dot (Fusspot!)

RIDING P2!

On Tuesday we went shoe shopping to get Alice new shoes (the old ones were falling off as the V*elcro had failed!) The shoe shop had a black rocking horse like Alice's white one, she rode it for over 15 minutes and adored it!

So when we got home it was time to rediscover her rocking horse - it'd been put out to pasture in the drawing room since her birthday in October. In October Alice couldn't ride it, she was too small but enjoyed it when she was pushed on it, in the shoe shop she was able to rock the horse by herself (after some quick tuition).

Alice was delighted to see her horse again, T and I repeatedly asked her what it was called but she was adamant that it was called, 'Neigh!' (said very expressively!)

It's clear to see that she had great fun with Neigh! Her legs are still too short for the stirrups but at least she can reach the top of them now.

RIDING!

FUN WITH BEADS

At the end of supper Alice spotted the tub of beads on the kitchen table and asked to play.

She picked out 2 blue beads and started singing one of her favourite songs, 'How Do?' It's a T*ick T*ock song about teaching introductions, as they ask 'How do you do?' in the song they use a castanet in to tap out the syllables (that's what Alice is doing with the beads). She had great fun with the snakes (laces) and beads, she built a snowman (stacked one bead on top of another) and was very confident with her colours.

NOT QUITE WHAT I EXPECT . . .

when I think about Alice sharing!

I LIKE DRIVING IN MY CAR

. . . well, sitting in it and waiting for a soft touch to push her around!

THIS ONE NEEDED A POST OF ITS OWN

At first glance this photo isn't particularly special - it's the way that Alice was playing that made it so special.

Alice put her baby to bed. She took great care to make sure baby was put to bed this way - going back to tuck baby in and make sure that baby's arms were over the covers - just like Alice likes to be when she's in bed. I'm amazed at the sophistication of her play.

WHAT A CARING MUMMY!

GMA bought Alice a dolly's cradle for her birthday - I wish I could have captured the look on her face when she saw what was in her parcel!

These are the photos from the first evening playing with it, what a caring Mummy she is:

• hugging her baby,
• kissing her baby,
• rocking her baby,
• giving her baby a dummy,
• reading with her baby,
• making sure her baby is comfortable (pulling the sleeves down)
• giving her baby Pickles to sleep with (baby didn't' sleep long - Alice wanted him back!!)
• watching TV as she gives her baby a bottle (NO idea where she got that from!!)
  

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MORE THANKS!

Alice received a parcel - we should have had it on her birthday but it was a relief postie that day and he didn't know the arrangement I have for leaving parcels. Her parcel was loaded with goodies just for her from a special friend and Alice loves everything you sent, it was very generous and not just the toys but the thought and care put into the whole thing were very much appreciated, thank you!

I think you would also have enjoyed the work out that I got trying to take these photos - playing with Alice by the dishwasher before distracting her to run away before she caught up with me, so that I could capture her catching up, lots of giggles!

ALICE IS 2!

OK, nearly 2 weeks late and now I'm having trouble with Alice's Happy Cake (her name for anything Birthday is 'Happy'!) (the photo is landscape on preview but portrait when uploaded?) Anyway the Happy Cake was Mummy's homemade fudge chocolate cake.

We did our usual things on the morning of her birthday - dashing out of the door in time to go to T*ick T*ock 20 minutes away, we were late enough that she didn't even notice the strange rug covered monstrosities in the playroom! They sang the Happy Song to her at TT and she even managed to stand at the front (with Mummy) through most of it before taking herself back to our place to sit down (the only time she sat there during the whole class!)

When we got home she unveiled her pressies - an easel from Mummy and a play kitchen (initially a 'chicken') from Grandad - she knew exactly what they both were and played appropriately with them from first sight (I thought that that was pretty incredible - especially the easel, how on earth did she know what it was?)

While she snoozed after lunch I got ready a Happy Tea ready. She wore her spotty outfit for the afternoon and discovered the tea table almost immediately after her nap and proceeded to graze for most of the rest of the day. By mid afternoon her little friends started to arrive (though all 3 of the other mums were working that day), the children played and then ate, Alice unwrapped some of her presents and the grown ups chatted, drank tea and ate too!

It was a lovely day and it's amazing to think back 12 months and reflect on how much she's changed in the past year - I miss the baby stage but I love the walking, talking, playing and independence that is Alice aged 2 (I hope that I don't live to regret that statement!!)

PL*AYDOUGH PLAYTIME!

This afternoon we got the pl*aydough out - she's used it this term with M but it's been a while since we've played with it.

It's noticeable how her play has changed - she's becoming even more aware - selecting her own cutters, identifying them and beginning to use the tools too. She uses the cutters but still needs intervention to press hard enough to cut all the way through. She's developing her own ideas and directing play more and especially loves it when those around her play along to her directions - and she's so charming about it that they're usually happy to do so!!