March catch up

Over the month Eliza has grown in confidence and speed with her crawling. The chiro has been wonderful in helping her crawl properly too. Instead of pushing off on her left leg, she now uses both legs basically the same and her tightness in the hips has loosened. It's amazing to see how the body works and develops and also how little stresses can change a simple thing like crawling/walking.

With swimming moving back to Wednesday mornings, Fridays are now a free day which is nice as I can catch up with friends, spend the day organising things at home or head out to the park. Our first free Friday we did just that - headed to the park. I dressed Eliza with Daniel's old soft shoes so she could crawl around on the ground, put on sunscreen and hats and headed to the park.

 The kids both had a great time exploring the equipment. I love seeing Daniel becoming more adventurous - using the rope bridges on his own. I love seeing Eliza explore and enjoy the different equipment that is at her level and her joy when going down the slippery dip.

On the rope bridge

Boo

Exploring

Is the shop open?

Can I please have some strawberries?

What a cute face!

Pure joy on the slippery dip

More rope bridges

Love these 2 together

Ahhh! The spider web

As always, the swing in a highlight of the park, for both kids. I love that Daniel is confident on the big kid swing which means that both kids can go on the swings at the same time. 

We will definitely be heading back to the park more.

The car has continued to be a great find, used most times we head outside. Eliza has started to sit in the car and Daniel is very good at taking turns with her. He enjoys pushing her around the path and she just loves being pushed. Daniel is pretty good with guiding the car, although sometimes it does bump into the walls, but Eliza doesn't mind it much.

One time when Eliza was in the car, Daniel asked if he could climb in too. It told him that they wouldn't fit. My little problem solver decided to prove me wrong and that he did.

Cuties

Daniel has continued to do imaginative play with his little kitchen. We have made grilled cheese on toast and toasted cheese sandwiches lately so he decided to make one for me. He got 2 pieces of play bread and a slice of play cheese and popped them into his oven. He then went away and got a play pizza and popped that in. After a minute or so, he used his oven mit to get the pizza out of the oven because it was cooked but the toasted cheese sandwich wasn't ready yet. He gave me the pizza and I asked "Is this entree?". Daniel said, "No. I'll get you tray" and ran back into the kitchen. I had no idea what he was doing. He then came back to me holding...

yep, a tray. He said "This is a tray Mummy. That is a pizza". Bless him. I just laughed and said "You are right bubba". How could I complain. I love this language development period. It's just so funny and so precious.

Eliza and Daniel are just loving doing high 5s. It mainly happens during meal times and it's so cute to see them doing it together.

Gimme 5... up above...

Eliza's favourite song at the moment is 'Row, row, row your boat'. She does the rowing on her own and even does at quiet scream at the end for seeing a crocodile.

Eliza is still learning what kisses are. At the moment, her kisses are headbutts. I can see why though because I give her kisses by quickly giving her a peck on the cheek or forehead so it's just her interpretation of it. Maybe blowing kisses is a bit safer at the moment.

When Daniel was 11 months old, I did a salt dough hand print and decided to do the same for Eliza. Daniel helped with making the dough.

He also made another hand print which I will decorate too and then with the left over dough we cut out some hearts and flowers which I will get him to decorate. It was pretty fun to do.

I just love Daniel and Eliza and their relationship. Daniel is still the one who often gets belly laughs from her, without even doing anything. She definitely loves her big brother.

A couple of weekends ago, a friend of ours (Simon) asked if we'd like to have a go being flown in his little aeroplane. James has wanted to go up with him before but timings just never matched up. This time round we decided to go as a family and take Daniel up too. I went in the first group and it was so cool. I love planes and flying, especially when you can see the coast. He even let me have a go at flying it - pretty freaky to do. The wheel is very sensitive and there is a lot to focus on. It was an experience but I'll leave the flying to others. Simon on the other hand is great at flying. 

James then took Daniel up for a turn. He was keen to go up but then became a bit nervous as it started, asking to go back down. This was obviously not possible. He settled down when James put him onto his lap and really enjoyed it! Here are some photos from the day.

Pilot Daniel

A bit unsure

I want to go back

Keeping a close eye on Simon

Happy boys

Gorgeous view

 After our flying adventures we stopped in at the Reptile Park on our way home for some lunch and a walk around as well as a play at the playground. The kids really enjoyed their time there. We also got a photo holding alligators! Very cool.

Fun on the swing

2 on the swing

Patting the wombat

At mothers' group Daniel always manages to find the noisy toy to play with. Often it's the lawn mowers but at Lachy's place he found a whipper snipper. He loves hearing them and really enjoys playing with this one. Lachy's mum noticed and said that Daniel could have it because her son is afraid of it and his sister chases with him at times just for fun. We gave it to him to play with and it became his toy of choice straight away.

Daniel has started to throw and catch a ball to himself. He's pretty proud of himself too.

Eliza has started doing an action when asking please at meal times. She's so sweet!

Eliza just loves her food, and cake is no different. Here is a video of her having some left over cake that Mum made.

Pegs are still a favourite toy for Eliza, and therefore with Daniel.

After Eliza's birthday party Daniel was enjoying looking at her presents and had fun reading 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt' with the sound effects. He has read it a lot at bedtime so knew it pretty well. I just love him reading with James and I.

Daniel and Eliza have also had fun playing with their ice-creams from Auntie Sue.

Oscar was doing some colouring in at Nana and Poppy's place before dinner so Daniel wanted to do some drawing and colouring in too. 

On the way home from Nana and Poppy's Daniel missed the 1st step and fell onto the ground. His knee missed the doormat and got a pretty decent graze on it. He was quite upset, understandably. Nana put some cream and a bandaid on it which was his first one.

Daniel just loves blowing raspberries on Eliza's tummy. It's so cute to watch her giggle.

Eliza is becoming a chatty girl at times. I just love listening to her chat. She can be quite expressive at times.

Eliza enjoys playing Daniel's keyboard. She has music in her bones and starts dancing each time music starts. I just love it.

Daniel has continued to enjoy playing with my old dolls. One nap time he decided to go to sleep with Christopher, my cabbage patch doll, and Diddle the mouse. I went into him and he had his arm wrapped around them both. It was so cute!

Eliza has learnt to say 'shhh'. This is mainly from singing 'Rock-a-bye your bear', doing 'bear's now asleep, shh, shh, shh'. She's pretty clever doing it on cue.