Clowning Around

These are a couple of pics of Riley clowning around over the weekend. Spending time indoors meant that we watched more TV than we would usually do and so we caught up on a few episodes of Hannah Montana on the Disney chanel. Anyways in one episode Hannah's big brother Jackson, who is a sandwich short of a picnic, decides to draw a face on his stomach and make that his new best friend. Riley of course thought that this was a splendid idea and so had Brad draw him a friend also. He has lots of fun making his tummy talk to us.

Strange Stray.....

The weather here this weekend has been wet and cold so we have been spending a lot of time indoors. This afternoon I walked into Riley's room to turn his bedroom light off and I spotted what I thought to be a massive spider running across the bricks near our pool. I called out to Brad and we went outside to investigate only to find that our 'spider' was in fact a stray crab. Now considering we live inland and not near any major watercourse this was a strange find. Brad picked the little guy up in a container, as we did not want him to wander into our pool and be killed by the chemicals, and we took a look at him. It appeared that an animal, most likely a dog, has had a go at him as there was a considerable hole in his shell. We all got dressed into our wet weather gear and took a little family walk across the road to the watercourse on the golf course and let him go. The weather was not only wet but quite cold (12 degrees according to our car) and although we were all rugged up Emily looked less than impressed with the whole outing. I think our daughter is not a fan of the cold, man is she in for a shock when winter hits......

Gimme Gimme Gimme.......FOOD!!

Give me the spoon... now that is more like it.


What the heck do you call this? Where is the steak and veg I see you guys eating?

What? What are you looking at? Do I have something on my face?

Yep, our little girl is finally on solids!! So for the past 4 years I have somehow managed to convince myself that I started Riley on solids at 6 months. Turns out I was wrong (it happens occassionally). I was looking through his baby book and it turns out that I started him on rice cereal at 5 months. I consulted one of my many parenting 'bibles' and found the reason that I had done that with Riley. So I went through the checklist again for Emily and decided that I would start her at 5 months too. She was definitely showing interest in solids, well if you can call watching everything that went into our mouths and salivating as she tried to get some of it for herself interested that is. Right at the moment she has a real taste for Daddy's beer (definitely a Crosby hey!!). We started with the Rice cereal on Friday, can't say she was too impressed but she got the hang of it by Monday when we also introduced pear, more to her liking but a bit strong but mixed in with the rice cereal seemed to be more to her taste. This Thursday we will try carrot and see how she likes that. I think that Riley is just waiting for her to have pumpkin because he loves it and he knows that it was the first solid food that he really loved too and he wants his sister to be the same. Riley has enjoyed helping me to feed her too, I often say that he would breastfeed her if he could and we tried to get her to take a bottle (either of expressed milk or of formula) but it seems that our girl is a bottle snob, she is a boobie girl through and through when it comes to milk. Unfortunately in these pics you can see that she has conjunctivitis in her right eye which makes her look a little bit sad, this cleared up overnight and her baby blues are all clear again now.

Art Time

I bought Riley some new paints on the weekend so that he could expand his artistic creations at home (well that and the fact that the poor kid was trying to colour a carboard roll from kitchen towel with a black felt pen to make it a traffic lights pole). So we set up the paints outside and it occurs to me that Emily might like to join in (seeing as how she refuses to be left out of anything these days). I was right she loved every minute of it although she did have to make the paintbrush pass the taste test first..... although it looks like she was sucking on paint I can assure you that she just got it on her face and lips, I did not allow her to put it in her mouth although she did put up a fight when I tried to take it off her and let me tell you my girl has a pretty firm grip on her too!! I have kept her first creation and will find a way to stick it in her baby book or maybe her scrapbook like I have with Riley's school art (when I say kept I really mean salvaged as she was intent on taste-testing that too....). Riley also enjoyed doing the activity with his little sister and showing her how to paint properly, I think that she made need a few more lessons though.....

5 Months Old Now

Just a quick note on Emily's progress. On March 2 Emily officially turned 5 Months old. What a big girl she is too. She is really more and more beautiful every day and doing and seeing more things every day. Right at the moment anything that anyone is holding whilst she is in their arms is clearly meant for her, food, drinks, keys there really is nothing she won't take. This photo was taken on Sunday March 2 at a birthday party. I am also waiting on a picture that was taken on that day of Emily meeting another little baby, a 7 week old little boy who is as big as she is! She was very interested in him (hopefully not a sign of things to come.....) and leaned right in to get closer to him.

School Days

Riley is well and truly back into school this year and really enjoying his new class and the new challenges he faces. Last week I went in to Riley's school to answer a call for help from the Library to help with repairing old books and covering new books. Riley was very excited that I was at his school and at morning tea he ran in to give me a cuddle and then kept on bringing friends in to prove that I was really there. I also went back in later in the week to help his class do some cooking. I like to be involved with his school life and to know what he is doing at school each day first hand and so far Riley loves having me there too.

Every week Riley's school has a theme for the week and all the children are encouraged to bring in items from home for the theme table. Last week the theme was "People who help us" so Riley took in a book (as we do most weeks) and also his Fireman Raincoat. He was a bit of a hit in the playground (especially seeing as how it was a rainy day) and so the principal took a photo of him. The second pic is of Riley on "Messy Day" last Friday. All the children had to bring in old clothes and swimmers and they got to get all muddy and play with food and have water fights with each other and the teachers. It is a smart way to see what children may need monitoring for "Sensory Defensiveness" I think you can tell by this picture that there is no need to monitor Riley.

Riley's Art

This is a drawing of a traffic pointsman that we see each morning on our way to school. They are employed by one of the local insurance companies to help ease traffic congestion during peak periods. They do a wonderful job and are always happy and smiling and obviously take great pride in their work. They wear fluro green shirts and caps (I suppose in an effort to avoid being run over). Riley drew this one on Monday morning before school whilst I was getting dressed. On the way to school he had me wind his window down and he showed the man his drawing. Although the man was some distance away he could not miss seeing or hearing Riley and seemed excited to have had his picture drawn.

Riley has been spending a lot of time lately doing some wonderful drawings and creating road signs and putting them up on the walls for us. A couple of weeks ago Riley really wanted to go out for dinner (mostly because he loves getting dressed up etc), this was at about 6:30pm in the evening and I was just putting a really tired Emily to bed and dinner was already cooked and waiting to be served so I said no. Of course he was upset but then we decided to do some role playing (which he loves). So we decided to turn our Brekky room into a restaurant. Riley created signs with the name of the restaurant "The Dinner Room" and also "Montecasino" and also some signs saying that we were not allowed in the kitchen and that everyone must eat all their dinner. He is really enjoying writing these days and often gets me to write something on a piece of paper so that he can copy it. This is what he has done on this drawing above.