Hopscotch... and Elise

I just love the facial expressions as she throws her leg round in her take on hopping :D





Elise loves Lottie Ladybird - thank you, Granny!





She's giving us lots of big grins, and copying us when we poke our tongues out at her...









She doesn't much like tummy time, but she tolerates it for a few minutes if she's in a particularly good mood ;)

At least I have an excuse!

Sorry I haven't been updating but, of course, we were in the UK for a while over Christmas and New Year. We've been back a week and are just about recovered from jetlag.

Just a few pictures from the garden yesterday - enjoy!

The simple pleasures...

Never grow old. Like blowing the seeds from a dandelion clock...

Even Mummy Dinosaur had a turn!

Daisybows

I've never been a huge fan of bows and ribbons on babies. However, Maya can certainly no longer be classed as a baby so the time has arrived for me to start girlifying her. To that end, I bought some hair adornments from a friend of mine - check out her Etsy store; she has some seriously beautiful bows and clips. They're priced reasonably, well made and very, very cute.

It's taken a while, but Maya is finally starting to get into the hang of actually leaving them in her hair for long enough to have a few photos taken!




On a side note... I seriously need to do something about this girl's hair. I'm amazed she can actually see through that fringe!

Maya 'exercising'

I swear, this is the most adorable age ever! I know each period during a child's life has its own sweet moments, but it just seems like everything she does at the moment is completely, sickeningly, diabetes-inducing downright gorgeous. Or maybe I'm just biased.

Dadu, Thamma, Maya and I were all out in the garden. Thamma started doing a few stretching exercises and Maya immediately began to copy her. The result was a very cute set of photographs!

Here are a few more from the same session. It's great having someone else on hand to get Maya smiling!

My first post

Ok, not a very original title, I'll admit, but I'm stumped as to how else to start this off. I've resisted blogging for so long that I can't quite believe I've finally bowed to the pressure. It remains to be seen how long I'll keep it up for, of course...


Maya and I went into the garden this morning to play sandcastles. The weather was nice and sunny which led me to consider the fact that her paddling pool, which had lain dormant during our two months absence, was in desperate need of a clean. It was too close to lunchtime to do anything about it then, so I promised her that I would clean it out and she could put her swimming costume on after her nap and go for a paddle.


In my excitement (ok, not excitement - after all, I was contemplating a major cleaning job. Maybe stupidity would be a better word.) I forgot rule number one of parenting: never promise what you can't deliver. During the afternoon the winds picked up and it became too chilly for Maya to have her promised swim. We did get the hose out and clean the pool anyway, though, so she didn't seem to mind!


Mummy... where's the water? She obviously couldn't connect the tap at the other end of the garden with the water coming out of the hose, so she kept dipping the hose into my bucket to make water come out of it.


So I turned it on and the inevitable happened...


And then the pouts...

"Maya berry berry wet"

"And Maya berry berry cold"

One quick change of clothes later and the smiles came out again. Along with the Dora shoes, which didn't please me quite as much ;)

And the last photo of the day, which needs a little explanation. One of the Dora shoes having fallen off, Maya insisted that she could put it back on herself. Placing the shoe on the step next to her, she attempted to pull her foot over and put IT into her shoe. The logic of a 2yr old never ceases to amaze me :)

Oh, and in case you've been wondering what that is in her hand, it's a fireman. If you have (or have ever had) a 2yr old, there's probably no need for further explanation ;)