18 Weeks Old and Getting ready to crawl....

Well having mastered rolling I think we are working on crawling next by the looks of things. Em loves to have a little tummy time chatting to the characters on her play mat these days and she is bringing her knees up under herself and then getting frustrated (I can tell by all the yelling coming from the floor) when she doesn't get anywhere. Her teeth seem to have settled down from all their moving about and although she is still drooling quite a bit I think it is certainly not as much as it was and she doesn't seem bothered by it at all (fingers crossed and touching on wood as I type this). I am glad that she does not have a tooth coming through just yet as her love for biting on things (like my body parts) would not be 1/2 as endearing with a tooth in the mix!

Drinking Water

Not quite as good as Mummy's milk but much more fun to get out, I can chew on this one...

Hmmmm not much left now, I wonder where all that water went and why my bib is all wet.....

This week I have started to give Emily her very own sippy cup with some water in it. I was so spuprised how well she took to it. When I first handed it to her she took it straight by the handles and then, not so suprisingly, put it to her mouth (everything goes in her mouth these days). She loved the sensation of the soft spout in her mouth but then when she got the water she was not as impressed. I think my girl definitely prefers her milk! It was a bit of a catch-22 for her as she was loving sucking on the spout but not really loving the taste of the water. She is still very interested in food (usually mine of course) and has been waking up one or two times a night hungry for a feed. After meeting my friend Michelle and her two very allergic kids (got the allergies from their Dad not through eating too early) I am determined to hold Emily out until 6 months before starting solids as I don't want to increase the risk of allergies.

All Played Out

So the other day I was chatting with Mum on MSN and Emily was playing, mostly happily, on her play mat then she started getting a bit whingy so I said to Mum "I had better go play with her for a bit and then put her to bed" just as I said this Emily went quiet so I looked over and saw her dropping off to sleep. I thought she looked so cute just sleeping away on her play mat that I had to take a couple of pics to share with everyone.

Boof Love

So someone, who shall remain nameless, had a bit of a whinge that there was only 1 measley photo of Uncle Boof with his newest (and so far only) niece Emily on my blog so I have decided to rectify this situation and I hope that this will satisfy that nameless person........

Brotherly Love

MWAH!

This was cute, Riley was coming in with his tickling fingers saying "I'm gunna get you Emily" and she was putting her hands up to his to stop him, they did it a number of times it was really very sweet.

Early morning cuddles in our pj's are the best.....

Riley is still totally in love with his sister which is just beautiful to watch. He loves to lay next to her on her play mat and play with her and her toys, teaching her how to do what the toy is meant to do etc. Em is becomming much more tolerant of his cuddles now too which is nice for me, perhaps because she is a bit bigger and older and not feeling so vulnerable. She likes to watch him from afar and beam lovely big smiles at him too. I am thinking that in another few months she will be his little shadow and he will be loving every minute of it, until she gets to the cruising and walking stages and decides that her new hobby will be to seek out and destroy any leggo creations that is.

17 Weeks Old (not today exaclty but hey.....)

Pretty in pink.

Smile for the camera!!

Ok so I have been a bit slack in getting this done but in my defence I have had challenges in the last week including power outages, flues and bee stings but here I am now. So 17 weeks old and just 4 months now too. Emily is really developing fast she loves to smile at people especially those closest to her. This week her favourite person to smile at has been my friend Michelle. Michelle is American and whenever she speaks, no matter who to, Emily always likes to look up and beam a big beautiful smile at her. Emily spent a couple of hours with Michelle at a local shopping mall whilst I attended an appointment baby-freeand the both of them had a lovely time. Michelle did tell me though that people were telling her what a beautiful daughter she had and her response? "I know!" she cracks me up. Emily has been practicing her rolling over this week also and at the start of the week if you were not in the room watching what she was doing you would swear someone was trying to pull her finger nails out with all the carrying on but eventually she made it over and after a couple of days of screaming her way from back to tummy she now does it with far more ease (thank goodness!). She really likes to be sitting up and being invovled in EVERYTHING going on around the place now too. When I take Riley to school she stays home with Motshabi and is usually in her highchair being wheeled from room to room whilst Motshabi cleans and they both love it.

Australia Day!!

Hard at work in the kitchen. Notice the tatt??

The finished product (about 6 hours before we actually finished....) Riley was a great help at covering the lamingtons with coconut and then stacking them in the container for me.

Lamington anybody??

Well we couldn't let Australia Day go by uncelebrated so Riley and I decided to make some lamingtons for some of our ex-pat friends and also for the lucky aussie guys at Brad's work. I ordered a slab from the local supermarket bakery and with my gift for being able to grasp the concept of space and quantity I ordered a 40x40 cake. Well I can honestly say I didn't really realise exactly how BIG that would be and it made 42 rather large lamingtons. The manager at the bakery was a little put out that I was making my own and not ordering from him but he was still nice enough to carry the rather large box with the slab inside out to my car for me. As much as we bag South Africa (and quite rightly so too) you really cannot beat the service here, Aussies could really learn a thing or two about hospitalilty from the South Africans.