The Beach

Last weekend we also managed a visit to the beach. Good practice for Stella to get used to wearing her hat, it has been going much better than expected, especially when we have hats on too! She loves scooping up sand and letting it run through her fingers, not too much eating of it thank goodness. Here she is with Nana, she loves to crouch down and find treasures although they are often discarded quickly once she finds something new. A rare family portrait included, as well as a shot with Dad. The last pic is of her sound asleep in the car after a visit to church on Sunday. Doing the zoo and the beach both on the Saturday wore her right out as she was asleep in the car after church before we even got onto the bridge - very unusual for her!

The Zoo

We decided to treat ourselves to a trip to the Zoo last weekend. Fortunately with Stella's sleep now being at around midday, we were able to be there pretty much on opening when the weather was cool and the crowds were minimal. She just loved walking the boardwalk and seeing the giraffes, zebras and rhinos. Further on she was entertained by the elephants, hippo then the kangaroos. We've taught her to make elephant noises which are accompanied by lifting one arm in the air as the trunk - too cute! After an hour or so of constant walking, she happily settled into the buggy for some sightseeing before heading home.

New Tricks

Stella has had back to back viruses which have dragged on over the past few weeks. Definitely not been her usual chirpy self so its nice to come out the other side and have the 'real' Stella back. She says seesaw (seesah) now and her animal sound repertoire is expanding with lots of meow meows, moos and cock a doos, when she isn't sure of a sound, her fall back answer is beep beep beep! She is also starting to do actions to songs from her videos, when she is in a funk all Mark and I have to do is put on a live show of Skinny Marinky or some such tune (along with actions, of course) and she is entranced.

While our section is the size of a postage stamp, it is easy to access as our ranch sliders open on to either the deck or the courtyard and our patch of grass. To make things more interesting outdoors over the weekend, we bought some sand from Mitre 10 Mega (she loves that place - eyes as big as saucers as she is trundled around in the trolley) and filled up one of her blue shells. She wasn't too sure of the sand - we haven't been to the beach for a while - so while Mark and I got stuck in making castles and tunnels, she tottered back inside, picked up her favourite jigsaw, brought it out and played with it in the other, empty blue shell!

This last pic was taken this morning of Stella in her new sleepsuit looking like an angel playing with the bag of tricks we have upstairs for her in our bedroom.

Hijinks at Home

After the events of this past week, we spent a quiet weekend at home. Stella is still recovering from a virus which was accompanied by a nasty cough. Stella loves Mark's guitar playing, she toddles over to the guitar, points and says 'oh oh oh' until he picks it up and starts playing. She spends a fair bit of time sharing her drink, food, toothbrush with various toys which is very cute to watch. Here she is giving Ivanka a drink with an old Coke bottle. Every toy in the bath gets a teeth clean and rinse now, we think she even said 'rinse' the other day! She also loves bubbles and does her finger point and 'oh oh oh' at the bubble bath and various bubble blowing bottles that I have stashed around the house.

We spent a very low key Fathers Day at home, Mark didn't have to do too many chores and we had a lovely visit from his folks. Stella is quite taken with her Grandpa at the moment!

Last weekend

Here are some pics taken the weekend before this one. We visited the Aunties house to say happy birthday to Aunty Claire. Stella had a great time chasing and patting the cats Nixon and Smudge and was intrigued by their cat door. When we got home we dressed Stella up in her garden clothes and she helped sweep up the leaves. Then it was time for a play in the tent.

Granny

My dear Granny Betty passed away earlier this week hence the lack of blog updates. This is one of my favourite pictures of her, it was carried around by my late Grandpa when he was stationed overseas during the war. She was a beautiful lady in every way.