Winter Projects

The winter weather combined with never ending coughs and colds has meant a lot of time inside. Stella and Mark started a paper mache project (Stella calls it paper mashing), they have done two layers now, although today Stella left Mark to it so her interest may be waning until it comes time to paint it. Stella is enjoying writing on the whiteboard and often imitates her kindy teachers, asking us questions and showing us how to do things. She has started to draw people and clowns (pictured), the good old head with arms and legs sticking out, we think it is genius however it appears to be quite standard for children her age!

Poor Celeste has been under the weather since her birthday in mid July and has been looking pretty droopy and sorry for herself. Her spunky little personality has taken a back seat and she really has been miserable. Croup is the latest thing, a scary illness accompanied by a terrible barking cough, very hard for her to understand what is happening. She has persevered with her walking and now very rarely crawls. I often do a double take when everyone is rushing around to get ready and she is standing up in the midst of it all rather than crawling around on the floor. She is definitely communicating a lot more directly, bringing us books and handing them to us to read. She babbles all the time so I am trying to take the time to listen to see if I can pick up any of her 'words.'

Celeste Turns 1!

Yes, have been a bit slack on the blog front lately. Winter ills continue to hang around, roll on spring! Our baby turned one in July, we had a lovely celebration and she enjoyed her first piece of cake. Stella was super helpful opening up all Celeste's many presents saying that Celeste was "sharing them with me."

New Shoes and Other Stuff

Celeste has taken her first steps over the past week so she now has a new pair of shoes, here is a pic of her modelling them plus another one of her that I thought was cute. She is now taking up to three steps at a time before crashing into the couch, me, the floor. She'll then pick herself up and start again although by the end of the day she often cries with frustration.

Stella has a new haircut which is very easy to manage, she loves to play with her hair clips and ties at home but still refuses to wear them out so short hair it is for her for now. As you can see from the picture, Celeste closely watches everything that Stella does and was itching to get her hands on the clips and hair ties, however they are a bit little for her to play with at the moment. Stella continues to be not so keen on clothes, I let her choose this Dora dress the other day and she will at least wear it around the house so maybe getting her to help choose is the key to success. Although in saying that she chose a nightie with Nana last week and won't always wear it, perhaps she really doesn't feel the cold.

Also a pic of us dressed up for Mark's mid-year work function. A lovely meal at Hammerheads and a fun night out, the girls behaved for Nana which was a relief as Celeste is still a bit unpredictable at night time.

Milestones

Celeste spends a lot of time standing like in this picture. She likes to do bouncy mini squats and has just started to take a little step before collapsing to the ground so we're not sure when she'll actually take a few steps, maybe before her first birthday? We're finding that when the girls are up together that a fair bit of our time is taken up mediating who is playing with what. Stella is so used to everything being hers that she does sometimes , struggle with sharing. She is learning to define what are her 'treasures' and to put them in a place where Celeste can't reach them. She can also be very generous at times, especially if Celeste is upset she will give her one of her treasures to help her "feel better." Stella is growing up so fast, she continues to be very entertaining and is always trying out new words. Her turn of phrase can be interesting, the other day she was (pretend) milking her rocking horse (I didn't have the heart to say that horses don't get milked), she proudly came in stating that she had a "milk of pail." She is very interested in counting, words and letters. Getting through a book can be a bit of a mission if she is in a curious state of mind as she asks what letter each word starts with. It is great to have such an inquisitive little person around, it does make you slow down and appreciate the smaller things and not rush so much to get to the end of things.

Had to upload this little clip of the girls, Celeste was a bit off colour at the time with tonsillitis so isn't that happy, Stella thought she'd like to help feed her the rest of her apple custard, she really takes charge and seems to enjoy giving a commentary on what she is doing.

Rainy Days

As it is winter time, we are keeping busy inside, a bit of a challenge sometimes to find something that keeps both girls happy. I put the tunnel and tents up the other day and they both had a great time chasing each other around the place. Celeste loves to watch Stella bounce on her mini-tramp, not sure what we'll do once she is big enough to climb onto it and want a turn herself!

Update on Celeste

Celeste has not been having an easy time of it lately. An ear infection that wouldn't go away resulted in her getting grommets in each ear. This does seem to have helped her ear pain but she is still not 100%. We're in the process of trying to figure out what is causing her to wake screaming in the night, proving hard to placate. Needless to say it is wearing everyone down and we tend to lurch from day to day, some being better than others depending on how much sleep we've all managed to have.

Fairies Everywhere

There is lots of dressing up going on in our house, needing to find things to do inside now that it is so cold. Stella is still not keen on wearing clothes around the house but I think the cold is getting to her so she often ends up in one of her collection of fairy dresses. Celeste is very good natured about being dressed up too and seems to like being involved.

Happy Birthday Stella

Stella turned three in May and is now very aware of birthday parties and what they entail. We had a small gathering with a jungle party theme, she was a 'jungle fairy'. Note that the fairy dress is now purple instead of pink due to the original being swapped because of a fault with the fabric. She was spoiled rotten and got some great pressies.

The next day was Mother's Day so we had a lovely lunch at Aunty Linda's and enjoyed a sing a long with Linda and Nicky.

New Camera

I cleverly managed to drop our camera on the kitchen tiles a couple of weeks ago which gave us a good excuse to by a new one, however due to us all being sick it has taken a while. I have therefore missed out on documenting Celeste's first tooth, crawling properly and pulling herself to standing, what a bad mother! Here are some pics showing off her teeth, playing with the keys at the door, and hanging out with Stella, one of her favourite past times.

The Fairy Princess

Nana came over the other day with an early birthday present for Stella from the aunties and her. It is a beautiful dress from the Ponsonby Fairy Shop and Stella is so in love with it. She has worn it twice to the doctor and most days around the house. The other morning she hopped into bed with us then spotted it hanging on the door handle, she jumped out and brought it back into bed and lay there cuddling it for a while before stating that she wanted to go downstairs and do some dancing to Dancing Queen (Abba).

We recently joined a local Toy Library and came across a hopper that Stella loves to use, funny to see a bouncing fairy!