I love bath time!!

Olivia is such a happy little baby in general and spends most of the day cruising around, laughing at her sisters or entertaining herself. But I think her favourite time of the day is bathtime. Although, I suspect that anything to do with water she will love as she bee lines straight for the dogs water bucket whenever we are outside.

The photos are all of the same night, the one at the bottom is of her new favourite game which is to hold a washer in each hand and splash them in and out of the water as fast as possible. She thinks this is hysterical and then stands up (as in photo second from the bottom) proudly showing me her washers and usually dripping water all down the bath and all over the floor.

The top two photos - Olivia has also discovered her tongue and spends many hours sticking it out, blowing raspberries or tucking her top lip into her bottom lip and blowing to make a funny sound. This last game is the best when Annabelle copies her and they spend a few minutes doing it at each other and giggling. Very cute.

A couple of other things she is doing -

-Just today (20th June) clapped for the first time. She has been waving her arms around for the last few weeks, but today she actually coordinated getting them to come together.

- waving to people when they leave

- standing up, letting go of an object and turning or reaching out an grabbing a new one. Hasnt yet been game to take a step, or maybe not yet coordinated enough to step without support, but I dotn think it will be long.

- weighs about 8.2kg

- flapping her arms when she hears music (although she has been doing this for quite a while)

- standing up in the bath and holing onto the side lifts one leg and balances on hte other - she loves doing this and it looks very funny so she always gets a good response.

- eating anything and everything she can get her hands on

- if there is lots of noise around her, like Matilda and Annabelle talking or me talking to someone and the kids chatting too, Olivia will stand up and make this crazy screeching noise until she gets everyones attention and then stop looking very pleased with herself. Somehow I dont think she will have too much trouble having her say as she gets older!

Playing

These are just some photos from the last few weeks of the girls playing.

From the top:

1. Annabelle & Matilda (in purple) playing in their tent. They spent hours transferring toys from their bedroom to their tent, telling me in hushed voices that their teddy bear/bunny rabbit/whoever is sleeping and that I need to be quiet.

2. Matilda 'scooting' - she does this around and around the deck. These are her new sunnies (the old ones having been stepped on accidently by Annabelle) and wore them for two days straight after buying them.

3. Olivia with the playdoh toys at playgroup

4. Matilda (in pink) and Annabelle in the sandpit at playgroup. We have b een going for about 4 months and they have just discovered the sandpit and absolutely love it.

5. Annabelle and Olivia in the swing. You can only just see Annabelles face, but she was laughing like crazy thinking it the funniest thing that they both fit in the swing.

6. Annabelle in pink, Matilda in green having fun on a new slippery slide at the park.

The two older girls are really starting to play together well and their imagination is developing so quickly. It is funny to sit back and just listen sometimes.....

"well, my okey pokey did go to the shops and then cried because he did bump his head"....... " well, my okey pokey went scooting and he did bump his head too....." or..." look Matilda, it is the zoo and there is a scary Morris (????) over there, quick lets run inside and tell Mummy". (this one especially cracked me up as we all had to go back outside and pat Morris until we all were no longer scared!).

They have hit the 'I want' stage which drives me nuts. Annabelle especially will say 'I want a biscuit', 3 seconds later 'I want to go downstairs' and another 3 seconds 'I want a new t-shirt on'. Sometimes I just stare at her and think 'where to start??????'.

They have also discovered 'why?'. And despite thinking to myself 'this is not a satisfactory answer', often find myself saying 'because I asked you to, now stop asking questions and go and do it please'. No doubt in a couple of months I will be hearing them respond to me with 'because I asked you to......!

Finally, a cute memory - we were sitting on the couch the other night and Matilda comes out with 'mummy, that was a really yummy custard thankyou. you are a good cook.'. Makes all the 'why's' worth it!!

Olivia walking (almost)

This was taken about a week ago - so just prior to Olivia being 9 months old. She has actually been doing this for a couple of weeks now, just havent managed to capture it on video. And in this video she looks a little out of control, however she normally has quite good coordination when she is walking behind something. She pushes things all over the deck - kids chairs, kids bikes, a A-frame mobile thing that is supposed to be for lying under. She also has great balance - if she stands up and then lets go of whatever she has climbed on she can balance there for quite a while and then just slowly edges her way down to the ground.

May 2010

From the top:

1. Annabelle (in purple) and Matilda (in pink) showing off their pigtails - their hair is getting longer!

2. & 3. lunch down by the waterfront at Manly (Brisbane). Matilda on the left, Annabelle on the right and yes, thats Olivia tucking into a hot chip. She loves any food put in front of her at the moment. I thought the photos were cute, they look like real little girls, kicking their feet up.

4. & 5. Took Matilda and Annabelle to see Playshool - very very exciting! (although I think I was almost as excited). They didnt get up and dance, but they did really enjoy the show. they were very concerned that the presenters couldnt find Humpty (the whole story line was that Big Ted, Little Ted and Jemima were looking for him to go on a picnic with) and called out when promoted to help find him.

6. Just a funny photo of Olivia. She is proving to be quite a character. She makes the funniest noises - she made this screaming sound in her highchair the other night until we all turned to look at her and then she went 'he, he, he, he'.