What a cutie!

Theme of the week: Bubbles!

Maya and I discovered the wonder of bubbles last week - bubble bombs with baking soda and vinegar (only 1 of the 3 actually exploded but never mind!), bubble art using food colouring in the bubble mixture and, of course, lots and lots of bubble blowing! We tried different mixtures and blowers and found that the very best bubbles come from a mix of 3 parts Johnson's baby shampoo to 1 part water with a bit of glycerin thrown in for good measure, blown through a paper cone. The bubbles were so strong that Maya could even catch and hold them, and they were absolutely huge!

Slightly later than promised

But here nonetheless!

Theme of the week: Transport!

Quite a timely choice for our TOTW, being as how we bought a new car today!! Pictures of that to come tomorrow (hopefully...). We had a lot of fun this week - I hope that comes across in the pictures :)





Maya and Elise also loved opening their parcel :D

Elise

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 ;)

School update!

Maya is thoroughly enjoying school so far. They seem to have a very varied curriculum and she's doing lots of art, singing songs, playing in the playground, touching snails and generally having a fun time! I'll have to take some pictures of the things she's brought home so everyone can see what she's getting up to :)

In the meantime, here are a couple of other pictures which made me wonder how on Earth she managed to get so grown up all of a sudden! More of Elise to come later :)

My baby's growing up!

Today is Maya's first day at pre-school! She's been so excited about it :)

Here are some pics of her going - I'll come back and update to let you all know how she enjoyed it :)

We bought new clothes yesterday which she insisted on wearing, despite the fact that it's really not long sleeve weather yet. The ponytails came out much better, if I do say so myself!



In the car, on the way to school:



Posing by the school entrance!



Getting settled in:



And this was as I was leaving. Shouldn't she look at least a little sad to see me go??

Hats!

I wanted to get some updated pictures of Elise yesterday but she was a bit on the grumpy side. Maya was well and truly up for it, though, so we did some posing with hats. Maya is really good at modelling - she thoroughly enjoys having her pictures taken and came up with all her own poses. Here's what I made with them!

Water droplet macros

I really love these! I'm going to complete a series of six with a lemon and a kiwi (slices of) and then do some kind of montage for the kitchen.

Good fairy or naughty fairy?

You decide!

Bath Time!

Who doesn't love bath time?? Elise certainly does and Maya loves helping out. The trouble is, she wants to do too much and doesn't really understand why we can't let her. We do usually find things that she can do, though. Since these were taken, we've started putting Elise's tub into the big bath so that the two girls can have their baths together. Maya likes that even more!

Is there a hairdresser in the house?

In the spirit of practising for when she goes to school, here's what I came up with...



Oh dear.

What it's like having an older sister to bounce cows on your head...

The expression says it all ;)



More to come!

Tree Hugging!

Today we decided to go on an outing to Big Basin, which is a beautiful National Park full of Redwoods. Last time S and I went there, Maya was but a gleam in the eye. We both remembered a pleasant hike through the forest and up to some amazing views of the Pacific. Well, we didn't make it quite that far this time - Maya's legs are still little, but she's a bit heavy for carrying all the way in 90+ degree heat!

First things first - let's give the trees some love! Maya could hardly wait to finish her lunchtime sandwich so that she could go hug a tree.



The highlight for Maya was definitely finding an area of fallen trees and playing house in the roots and hollow trunks.





I vote that next time we go, we do it in somewhat cooler weather ;)

Photo Shoot!

It occurred to me the other day that I've actually never done a 'studio' style photo shoot with Maya. I asked her if she wanted to dress up like a princess and have some pictures taken and she agreed wholeheartedly. I think we got some cute shots!