Insomniac

Amelia has been waking up so much lately. I cant even remember the last time she slept through the night. She will wake up at least once or twice through the night crying out "Mummmyyyy!" over and over. So reluctantly I get up, and all she wants is some milk. I know its a bad habit, but I really dont care at 1am. I give it to her and it usually settles her back down and I can go back to sleep.
Annabel has always been a good sleeper. Both girls were good as babies (well at least after the first couple of months!). My main goal was always to get them to sleep through the night, so I always pretty strict with feedings and nap time and so on. It was hard at first but I persevered and the results paid off. Both girls were sleeping 12hours a night by 12 weeks. Annabel continued and still sleeps well to this day. Well she did wake up occasionally if she was teething, sick, or in a strange place, but I could generally count on her to sleep through. Amelia on the other hand, was great at first, but then something changed, but I dont know what. She started waking up a lot at about 6-7 months and it has just kind of continued. I know that Im probably not helping because I give into her, but it just drives me crazy! And lately when she goes to bed she rarely wants to stay in there. Annabel always went to bed well, often asking us to put her to bed! But Amelia is a whole different ball game. Sometimes if she's really tired she'll go out well, but other times she will just yell out to us until Daddy goes in and brings her out. She knows she's getting away with something and she loves it. It might just be that we aren't as strict with Amelia as we were with Annabel. Oh Well, she cant do this forever, right?

Amelia sitting up with me when she knows she's supposed to be in bed!

Chores

Annabel has been getting bored lately and seems to be happy when she's "helping" me. She doesn't like to help me by picking her toys up, or help me by not whinging and whining, but she likes to help me with house work, that I may not necessarily what a 3 year olds help with. But I have found a few little "jobs" for her to do that she has been enjoying. She loves to fold clothes and towels and things like that, so that has been good and even though I have to refold them she really doesn't do to bad a job! Another thing I've been having her do is make her bed. She loves doing it and is so proud of it when its done. I figure that its best to start her now so that she gets used to it being apart of her morning rituals, and the more practise the better she'll be!

Annabel's first efforts at making her own bed!

Here are just a few photos of the girls playing and running around. I love our camera and Im always taking photo's whenever I can (thank you Grandma & Grandpa - John & Kaye!). I try and always keep it handy so I can just whip it out and capture the moment. I may not be the best photographer but it certainly is fun! I've always liked the idea of a journal with lots of photos to remember the moment even more.

The girls always love to put my shoes on and clomp around the house in them. Note, Amelia is not wearing pants, at least her nappy has stayed on though!

The other day the girls sat in the backyard on their towels after swimming and practised little dance moves with their arms. They were very cute. Amelia just loves to copy Annabel.

That cheeky smile again.

Adam was holding Amelia and she kept grabbing his arms and wrapping them around her. She was a real Daddy's girl that day.

Annabel cuddling Amelia in a strangling sort of loving way!

Food, food, food

See Mum, I CAN feed myself cereal!

See, straight in the mouth with only a little bit on my clothes

Told you I was clever!

Amelia has been feeding herself for quite a while now, but there were certain foods that I wouldn't let her feed herself, like cereal for instance. Anything that had liquid in it I had to do. There were times that I would put a little bit of milk on some rice bubbles for her and that was ok (well there were rice bubbles everywhere afterwards!), but lately she wants to feed herself everything! I had even stopped putting her in her highchair a while ago, she would just sit at the table with us in a kiddy seat thingy, or she would sit at the coffee table on a little chair with Annabel. But lately she just wont sit still so I have resorted back to the highchair, and the good thing is that she is ok with that. So anyways now she sits in it and feeds herself everything, and she is so very proud of herself, and very cheeky! She often asks for rice bubbles, saying "bubbles, Mummy", and she has taken a liking to peas! Yay!
I have been trying so hard lately to get veggies into my kids. Annabel is pretty good, she will eat everything with a bit of coaxing and the occasional bribe. But Amelia tends to have more fun chewing them and spitting them out. She doesn't always do this, but if you look at her while she's eating she'll generally do something naughty and cheeky. So I've been puring veggies and adding it to their food. They both love macaroni and cheese, so I have been loading it with pureed veggies and they both just gobble it down unaware. But I cant just feed them mac and cheese all the time, so I've had to think up some EASY recipes to feed them and hide their veggies. I've got the cook book "deliciously deceptive" but I have to be in the mood to cook. I like simple things. Especially for kids. I'm probably just being lazy, though. I have been trying to feed them their veggies at lunch time as well. I actually find lunch time easier to give them their dinner than at dinner time. Dinner time is always so hectic and they are always at my feet. So for the last week or so I have been giving them their dinner at lunch and then something simple at dinner time. Then when they go to bed Adam and I can actually sit down and have our dinner in peace. It seems to work for us! We'll see how long it lasts!

This past weekend we took the girls up to Southbank again and let them have a big swim. It was yet another beautiful day and the water was perfect. We went along with some friends of ours, Glen and Michelle and their 2 littlies, Ella and Joshua who are the same age as our girls. The kids played in the water for hours and Amelia had fun hanging out with Daddy in the lagoon, just kicking back and using Daddy as her own personal flotation device. She was just relaxing!
By about 2pm Amelia was well and truly tired, she just stood their shivering and staring into space. Annabel was still keen to keep on swimming though! We packed up and ventured back to the car with an ice cream and a 2 tired girls. On the way home we stopped off at Nando's and ordered a big bowl of hot chips - the perfect end to a good day, no cooking! Then it was back home to try and relax some more!

Annabel playing on the rocks

Amelia playing in the water fountains

Me and Annabel. She's hard to catch when she's playing!

Amelia and Daddy relaxing in the lagoon

Amelia and Daddy taking a stroll down the lagoon

Holiday house

The girls have been so busy lately playing in their "holiday house". They have transformed Amelia's room into their own little getaway and stay in there for hours playing. They turned the change table into bunk beds and set up their little table and chairs and of course they have their babies that they have to take care of. They both have a big imagination! Mind you though, the place was a mess! They took all the blankets off Amelia's bed and raided my linen cupboard. But they had so much fun and it kept them busy and allowed me to get some stuff done.

Pretending to sleep

Wolf Spider?

Yesterday, the grossest thing! And this wasn't' anything to do with the my kids either. Adam, while home for lunch, was walking in the backdoor when all of sudden a big spider landed on him. He didn't think anything of it at first until he got a look at it. It was the biggest creepiest spider I had ever seen, and I have seen my fair share of spiders. It was as big as Adam's hand. Before he saw it he thought it was just a harmless huntsman, which do get quite big and are hairy, but harmless. But this didn't look anything like a huntsman to me. It had stripes on its legs and a weird pattern on its body. From my experience huntsman's were just one shade of brown all over. It also moved very quickly and stood in this strange position. Adam had managed to flick it off and it jumped into the curtains. Adam, who hates to kill anything, got the fly and insect spray and sprayed in and around the curtain trying to kill it. I in the mean time held Amelia because she wanted to go up and see the "bider". I hate spiders. I cant even hardly look at them without feeling sick and creeped out. So while the spider was very slowly dying we managed to get a photo of it and then went online and looked up what it could be. By looking at the photos online it looked to us to be a wolf spider, which are quite poisonous here, and require and anti venom if your bitten.
So I was just feeling so thrilled about having a venomous spider in my house! After a while Adam managed to catch the half dead spider in a bucket then put it in a clear container. It eventually died. Once Adam got back to work he emailed a work colleagues husband, who does pest control, the photo of the spider to see what kind it was. Everyone at Adam's work was convinced it was a wolf spider, some telling lovely stories of how the adult ones actually prey on birds! So anyway, eventually the pest guy got back to us and told us that it actually was a harmless huntsman, just a different kind, and not an awful bird eating monster! What an event! This poor spider, was actually harmless, and we killed it! But at the same time I still don't like spiders and don't like them in my house! So anyways, I was relieved that I didn't have a wolf spider pandemic at my house, but I still had the creeps for the rest of the day!
Hope this doesn't deter all you future visitors of ours!!!!

Just gives me the creeps!