One Thousand.

Post 1000.  Sheesh.  After starting this particular blog in October 2006 and joining my Recipe blog back a couple of years ago, I have f i n a l l y reached the 1000th post mark.  

And to mark the occasion, I am blogging about the eldest, whom was the main motivation behind me for first blogging.  And to think she was only a wee little cherub and now a just-about-9-year-old.  

Monet began a program back in March, Netta, which teaches young girls and boys over the age of seven the skills of netball.  It went for a total of eight weeks, which kinda dragged out to about 12 due to rain interruptions.  

Last week the season started up again, but in great confusion, only four of the original eight in her team had re-signed, which left Monet and the other three girls, team-less.  It had been decided on the week leading up to re-starting that a new junior team would start as there were 14 girls in total without a team.  They are now 'Cairns Saints' players and affiliated with the AFL team up here in Cairns.  They have four (yes, FOUR) coaches and I can already see a marked improvement in Monet learning the game, much better than last season where there was basically zero training in the skills department.  

I already have Lily telling me that when she grows up, she wants to be a netball player.  What a great inspiration this new team is having on both my girls.

Oh Baby, how you've grown!

I found this photo of Lily on a memory card.  Taken a little over 10 months ago (around late September 2012), she was my dummy-sucking, hand-down-top bay-be.  Even in public!

Now she is nearing four.  Kinda makes me sad that those baby days have gone but we have a lot to look forward to in the future.

Lily's Second Ever Haircut...

After months, (yes months!) of talking about it, Lily finally got her wish.  

Her haircut.  And a fringe!  

It changed her look instantly and makes her look older.  But still, just as adorable.

Junior Masterchef Wannabe

I remember a long time ago (coming up to about two years ago!) I thought I would teach Monet to cook.  Or at least be capable of putting together a couple of eatable things.  But that idea lapsed (typically) after teaching her to make pancakes.  

Recently I had been encouraging Monet to come and give me a helping hand at dinner time once in a while.  So when I spied a particular cookbook teaching kids how to cook which was heavily reduced I bought it and presented it to her.  

Of course she got mega excited and wanted to make every second thing but we ended up deciding on her making canapes for lunch one day.  With shopping list in hand we sought out hummus, cream cheese, ham and carrots, but no mini-toasts.  It was bite sized plain crackers instead.  I'm all for experimentation, so when she presented the platter with crackers and strawberries mixed in with ham and hummus I thought "why not?"  

The attention to detail was fabulous.

And they were pretty darn tasty too, I must say.

Next in her line of fire was Coconut Ice.  I hadn't made that for years and she did very well on her first attempt.

I do posses a sweet tooth but heck! this was sweeeeeet!!

I did emphasize that a good cook 'always' cleans up after themselves.  She got a tick in that box on both occasions.

I just look forward to the day when my two little chefs serve me up a roast meal.  One day....one day.

Now, she really is a big girl.

So, at age three years and a fortnight short of six months, Miss Lily gave up the dummy.  It was quite unexpected, truth be told.  We've been mocking her since she turned three about how she still had a dummy and she took it all in her stride.  

People had suggested that we should leave her dummies out for Santa to take.  Umm, no.  I don't want Santa getting a bad rap taking away something she 'loves'.  

I hadn't purchased any dummies in like a year but we had sooo many which were lost and found, lost and found.  Every time a dummy got a hole Lily would pop it in the bin.

We were down to our last two last week.  Saturday we had two floating around and by bed time only one remained, as one was misplaced.  But Lily pointed out at bed time that the one she had, had a big torn hole.  Uh oh.  Bed time, no dummy.  

As per night time routine, I read her a book, turned out the light and lay next to her until she fell asleep.  Usually this might take a good ten minutes but on Saturday night it took over an hour.  With tears.  

No mention of a dummy at all on Sunday.  Bed time, took about twenty minutes to fall asleep.

Monday, Lily announced she found the one lonely lost, final dummy.  

"What are you going to do with that?" I asked her.  

"Put it in the bin!" she announced.

And so she did...  

We're all so proud of her and she's going to sleep very quickly.  She's only mentioned once or twice this week how she misses her dummy but now that is a chapter on her life that has closed.  I never thought I would see the day.

Our Girls love the pool...

...just like I used to when I was a young girl.  I remember spending four weeks in a complex in Coffs Harbour when I was around Monet's age and spending as long as possible in the pool there.  Our girls are fortunate because they have assess to a pool every day of the year.  It's just not a holiday thing.

Lily has become very confident in the pool now.  She's recently gone from wearing her swim vest, to floaties and the last time I was in the pool with her, there was an absence of any floating equipment attached to her body!  However, if I am not in the pool with her, it is swim vest all the way.

The girls do all kind of games in the pool together which is nice to see.  Above is a photo of their 'circus trick' where they would be both underwater (with Lily on Monet's shoulders) and when Monet stands Lily yells out 'Ta-da!'

Monet has gotten quite good at doing underwater handstands with legs very straight and Lily's latest trick is doing awesome proper water somersaults!  Very amusing to watch.

If this hot humid weather continues, I can see us all getting quite a bit more use out of the pool....

Habits

After a few months of not blogging, I can still report that my three year old Lily is still a girl with habits.  

Like dummy sucking.

Like lots of Mummy cuddles.

And the constant putting her hand down my top....

...or up my sleeve.

And if she insists that I sit beside her on the couch, it isn't long before she's lounging and trying to get her foot up my sleeve.

*sigh*

Little Curls

Little Lily isn't so little any more. Not sure when that happened but she's starting to shoot through the clothing sizes, along with shoes and her hair is growing longer and thicker by the day...  She's even gained a few little blonde curls.

Her words are becoming more and more clearer and she likes to count the stairs as we walk up them.  She seems to be Mickey/Minnie Mouse obsessed, along with Hello Kitty and Dora The Explorer for that matter.

She has lots of fans out there, especially out in the shops.  The Emirati locals seem to love her, always wanting to rub her hair (rubbing a baby blonde is 'good luck', so I have been told) and squeeze her cheeks.  Most of the shop assistants, most of whom are Filipinos, just love our Lily.  Only last week we had some guys who were working away stop and asked if it was okay to get their photo taken with her.  Lily didn't actually like that idea, so that didn't happen.  LOL.

I'm loving Two.

Butter Wouldn't Melt and Pigs Might Fly...

Don't let this cutie in the following photo fool you.

Can you believe that my baby Lily, will be two in a fortnight?  But what the age two brings, is those terrible tantrums.  And as most parents know, the 'terrible twos' can start way before the second birthday. Lily's began not really that long ago, thank goodness.  This week though, she has had a couple of goodies and why is it that the tantrums happen in public? I ask you, Why?  Lily, what do you have to say for yourself?  Yeah, butter wouldn't melt...

Even though our Monet (who turns seven a day after Lily turns two) has her own tantrums once-in-a-while, she's fantastic with Lily, she really is.  And when we are in public and Lily decides that she will sit on the supermarket floor and scream if she wants too with tears rolling down her face, big sister Monet is there to wait patiently next to her, hold her hand and calm her down.  Boy, I'm going to miss Monet (in more ways than way) when she returns to school in a fortnight after the previous 9 weeks off school!

Butt (geddit?) we adore our Lily.  She's so amusing and has a real little personality.  I see a lot of all of us in her.

The terrible twos will pass, this I know.  And then I have to battle through the 3's, 4's....rah, rah, rah....

Cup Holder

Do you know how nervous this can make me?

Cheeky chops.

 As soon as we leave the gate to the kitchen open, Lily is in like Flynn, grabs a cup (there is usually one hanging around for Monet to use), helps herself to the water cooler (we don't have the 'heat' section of the water fountain thing on) and proceeds to wander around, cup in hand, sipping as she pleases.  It's not the fact that she can now drink out of a normal cup, it's the fact that she fills the cup up to practically the brim, spills half of it across the floor and then she starts the whole procedure again.

Cheeky chops.

SCORE!

So whilst Lily was pretending she was a future football star...

(sorry couldn't resist posting that photo)

...MrL was busy cleaning up our old MacBook. Our plan since replacing that laptop with our current one, was to give the old one to Monet to use.  She's been nagging us since about December asking "is my computer ready yet?"  Whilst I'm not too computer savvy so I wasn't going to be cleaning up that computer and MrL seems like he is always working so it has only been this week (*ahem*, about 6 months later) that he has found time to clean it up (transferring old pics, deleting iTunes and the like).  The grand take over happened on Monday arvo.  It's been hard to wipe the smile off Monet's face since....

We set up an email account for her, so she was emailing both MrL and I and we were emailing her back etc.,  Surprisingly, she is a pretty good emailer.  As her Grandma has recently been introduced, not only to emailing, but also to a MacBook, I think Monet might have found herself a daily emailing pal....

C. A. T.

I don't know how and I don't know why, but it seems as if Miss Lily has a great attraction to (of all animals!), cats. Now, we are not cat people, never have been and probably never will. (Sorry Lily). I guess 'cat' was one of the first words she learnt after Mum-ma and Dad-da and it doesn't help that our (rather lovely) next door neighbour owns four of the bloody creatures!

We've always got a cat crawling along our back wall which excites the little one.  There is usually one lazing about in the earlier hours of the day at the front of our villa, but they usually scatter away when they spy a curious little girl getting out the car.  Not this morning though.  Given half the chance, I am pretty sure Lily would've stood there all. day.

I'm pretty sure the cat got sick of us looking at it and disappeared underneath my neighbour's car after I snapped some pics with my phone.  Lily was being so cute waving and saying 'Bye Bye Cat' before it went.  *too cute*

One of her favourite toys is a cheetah which her Auntie Kim bought her on her recent visit when we visited the Al Ain Zoo.  Lily simply calls the cheetah 'Cat'.  Sometimes she refuses to let it leave her side.

Pic taken in early May

In other news, today is my Mother-In-Law's birthday.  Happy Birthday Nanna Marianne.  Hope you enjoy your day!

Wonderful Reader

Monet got an award from her class teacher the other day...

Truth be told, all her class mates got the same award, but all kids are on different levels.  Monet has ended Grade One with a reading level of 38, pretty much equivalent to where she needs to be at the end of Grade 3.  !!  We just have to work on her comprehension of what she's reading (she's a bit like me when I read - in one ear and out the other - reasons why I've always been crap at writing book reviews and have never joined a book discussion club).

Can't believe Grade One finishes next week.  Where has that school year gone?  Monet's had a pretty good year and she's exceeding our expectations of her, bar the fact she gets awfully grumpy when she has to do homework and thinks she can't do it.  Children, huh, I tell you!

Watch out Grade Two, Monet's on her way come September 6.

Banana Smoothie for the Bab-be

If there is one word that Lily loves, it is the word "banana".  Add the word "smoothie" to the end and she's anyones!

A glass of full cream milk, a banana (one whose skin is quickly discolouring) a dash of honey or vanilla essence, a buzz with the bamix, pour into a handled cup, pop in a straw and we have one happy 21 month old.

She especially thinks she's pretty good drinking of that cup, let me tell you!

Hello? Hello?

Mmmmm, who to call?

What's Dad-da's number, mum?

Okay, let me ring.

Hello, Dad-da....

Yeah, just been playing with my baby dolls.....I've been practicing saying biscuit really clear.....

 ...okay Dad-Da.  BYE....

Well, I imagine if Lily could actually ring and talk on the phone, that's probably spot on what she'd say to her dad.

Truth be told, she doesn't need a (unplugged) phone to ring, she'll happily speak to you on her fake phone or the television remote or a banana.  She's easy pleased.

Two Peas In A Pod.

Oh my girls can make me laugh sometimes, let me tell you. They are very much sisters and sometimes, it seems, from the same pod.

They can be as silly as one another...

You should've heard the squeals of delight from both when I was taking that photo!

Lily is making us all laugh lately - she's taking a fancy to grocery shopping.  Not at the local supermarket, but right here at home in the comfort of my kitchen.

We've also been spying quite a lot of this happening lately!

Look at her will you! Head in hands having a sulk.  Well I think she's having a sulk, sometimes it is hard to tell.  If I pull out the camera or I want to wipe her face or if something doesn't go her way, it is head in hands leaning somewhere.  I've got my job cut out for me in a few months time when she hits two!

As for our Monet, look at her bed this morning!

I think that is every teddy she owns on top of it, along with her pyjamas she'll wear tonight (or nighty if she so chooses too).  I'm hoping she can fit in there somewhere.

A Game called Dad-dad.

Snapshot of Lily.

I fall in love with this little girl of mine more and more each day.

Can you believe my bab-be is now nearing 21 months old? Before you know it, she'll be a proud and terrible two year old.

Her favourite things at the moment are

• cats (*shudder*), 
• Minnie Mouse, 
• backpacks with wheels, 
• the pool, 
• her own 'bab-be'/s, 
• peeled apples, 
• potato crisps (the shame!), 
• banana smoothies, 
• toast with jam, 
• The Tweenies, 
• Jet's 'Are you Gonna Be My Girl?', 
• Robbie Willams/Gary Barlow 'Shame', 
• her nightly bottle of milk, 
• her dad's shoes, 
• saying 'bye bye' to anyone and everyone,
• giving away kisses to every doll/teddy/parent/sister, 
• cups with sippy straws, 
• stairs, 
• showers, 
• clothes and shoes, 
• holding bags, 
• reading books, 
• attempting to count to three, 
• wanting to jump in the pool unaided (!!!!), 
• cleaning up, 
• colouring, 
• drawing on walls, 
• eating 'Pizza Shapes and Tim Tams', 
• walking, 
• watching 'Jojo's Circus', 
• holding the 'sheep bag' her Auntie Kimbofo gave her, 
• touching the bin, 
• pretending to wipe her bottom with toilet paper (*I know*), 
• her dummy/s which she calls her Nana (!!), 
• pushing anything around in her dolly stroller, 
• putting her hand down my top (!!!), 
• waking at 4:30 in the morning, 
• cheese/ham, 
• wearing her big sister's shoes (or her mum's or her dad's), 
• laughing, 
• talking (non-stop), 
• Skype-ing, 
• holding hands, 
• taking off her clothes, 
• waving with both hands to anyone/anything when exiting the room, 
• planes - future plane-spotter here - , 
• anyone playing/brushing with her mullet hair, 
• wearing necklaces, 
• telling stories, 
• playing a certain game her and big sister Monet call Dad-da (which has nothing to do with MrL, just running to object to object and shouting 'Dad-da'), 
• hugs, 
• stickers, 
• hairclips, 
• sunglasses, 
• playing in the curtains (to annoy me!), 
• touching buttons of any size or shape, 
• turing off the amplifier which our tv runs through with her big toe, 
• touching all her big sister's stuff, 
• picking up her big sister from school, 
• watching her big sister, 
• wanting to be like her big sister (!!),
• I'll tell you the list can go on.....

That's my snapshot of Lily, ages 21.5 months.  Love her to bits.  We all do.

#6

Monet wibbled and wobbled her sixth loose tooth last night, until finally....

*shudder*

Now she talks with a cute 'lisp'. =)

Precious

Can you believe our baby Lily is now 19 months old. Not much of a baby now, I know, but I know she'll always be my baby.

And such a precious baby she is.

And she is also a poser. (Just mind the crumbs in her blonde locks!)

I'm trying to record these moments and put them here. Lately I've been rereading posts of old and am so very pleased I have done what I have done, here, on this blog.

Lily is so very funny at times - she has these amazing conversations with us - very animated in her movements. Still not talking much in a language we understand but the word 'bab-ee' (as in baby) is very big around here. (She was very excited to get all of Monet's old dolls last week! Bab-ee, bab-ee, bab-ee!) She still gets excited at seeing the Teletubbies on tv and her latest loves are being able to give the thumbs up to stuff and waving/smiling at one particular security guard at the entrance to our compound.

She's so very precious.