Gasp!

During our pre-bedtime romp this evening Ciara headed over to the height chart and asked to be measured, so we did ..... she's grown a centimeter in the last 2 weeks!! Enya hasn't grown at all in the same time.

In case you were wondering what the pre-bedtime romp involves:
a little of this


a little tidying up and a book is usually on the program as well.

I sometimes wonder how different it would've been if we'd had boys, do you think they would've parked the cars as neatly as this?




Random photos of the various vehicles parked around our home that I've got in the last couple of days (of course I missed the one when the lego vehicles were all removed from the lego drawer and parked in a different cupboard-all neatly lined up one next to another)

Heard today

"Mommy, ice bear"
"Ice bear? What on earth does that mean Enya?"
"Ice bear PUH-LEEZ" pointing emphatically at the freezer
"oh" light bulb goes on "you mean you want an ice cream"
"ja, ice cream"

I don't think I need to add anything about the look of disgust I received because it took me so long to catch on what she wanted!

I won't even try and type what she mangles out of the word "bridge". It took me about 5 minutes to work it out the first time she said it!

Pretty girls

Princess Ciara

Princess Enya

I hasten to add: I had nothing to do with this "beautifying" exercise, I just took the photos when they were finished!

The bees have it in for us

My foot is fine thank you very much, finally. I can't believe it took 3 days for the swelling to go down though.

Of course what made it even better (NOT) is the next day Enya got stung on her foot too. She was playing in the kitchen while I was in the bathroom, when she came through saying her foot hurt. Sure enough when I looked it was swollen and red but I coudn't see any wound on it, I suspected then that she'd been stung but couldn'confirm it until I found the bee lying on the kitchen floor. Thankfully the sting didn't detach from the miserable little blighter so Enya didn't get the full venom dose but she still had a sore and swollen foot for the next day!

At least allergies don't run in our family so we're not too concerned about allergic reactions to beestings!

Party preperations continue in the meantime, we'll have all the usual suspects over as well as my mom this year. Hopefully we'll have good weather so we can celebrate outside again.

Litle nurses

Having grown up in South Africa, I'm used to wandering around at home barefoot. I still prefer being barefoot to wearing shoes even in these colder climes (in winter I will wear thick socks though). Being the super concious mother that I am, Ciara and Enya spend most of their days barefoot too (no it's not only because I'm too lazy to put their shoes on, it is better for the development of their feet to go barefoot-REALLY!!).

Today I was doing my usual, hanging up the washing outside and the girls were once again watering the garden with the water from the paddling pool, when I stepped on a bee. OUCH!! I forgot how much it hurts, a swear word or two may even have spilled from my lips while I was shaking my foot trying to get rid of the bee. Enya started crying saying "mommy's got an owwie", I mean real tears and everything, she is a very sensitive soul. Ciara started to head indoorsvery concerned, telling me "mommy wash"-her interpretation of us washing their scraped knees etc. is that water cures all hurts . I limped over to the paddling pool to stick my foot in the (barely there) cold water, thankfully that did do the trick and numbed the sting a bit.

Once the pain died down I went back to hanging the rest of the washing up but C and E kept buzzing around all concerned about me. My darling daughters/nurses even proceeded to wash my legs and feet down with cold water. Enya kept wrapping my foot up in a wet cloth, it's just a pity she kept wrapping the wrong foot;0). I even scored a couple of kisses for my poor foot!

I should add at this stage they are fascinated with plasters, bandages and germo.lene, all hurts need germo.lene and a "Nemo" (I made the mistake of buying plasters with Nemo fish on!) even if it's just a knock. Any and all cloth (be it face clothes or items of clothing) gets wrapped around their arms as a bandage, while they tell me in all earnestness about their imagined injury. I sometimes wonder if I'm raising a pair of hypochondriacs!

swinging

Have I mentioned that Enya has (finally) progressed to swinging in the seated position. For the longest time she would only swing lying with her tummy on seat and then only she was allowed to propel the swing- NO Pushing thankyewverymuch! Now we are even allowed to push her (albeit with continual reminders of "gently mommy")

Ciara on the other hand is a higher faster more kind of kid. At least on the swing, just don't try and get her on a trampoline!

Glasses update

So apparently we've had the glasses 6 weeks now. How do I know that?

Unfortunately not because I'm a calender obsessed mom but rather we had to take the glasses into be repaired today and the optician asked how it was going given that we've ONLY HAD THEM 6 weeks so far. Enya tried polishing the lenses, I don't know what she used but she got 2 super deep scratches in the lens, so we got a new lens for her. Ciara kept taking her glasses off, complaining they hurt her ears, so we got her a new set of ear pieces in a different design, hoping that will stop this habit. Anyway now that they are all repaired, hopefully we won't need to go back to that shop for a while!

Considering how much I was dreading the glasses they have actually not been that traumatic, Enya demands her glasses in the mornings so I know she really sees much better with them on, Ciara doesn't seem bothered whether she has them on or not. Both girls take their glasses off when tired and both throw them around when they are angry, bored or frustrated. As you can imagine, we've had to search quite a few stores for the glasses as they are quite sneaky about the whole removal and throwing act- I've had to go crawling under fixtures, burrowing into shelves laden with merchandise and rescue them from under other customers feet. The only thing they haven't managed yet is to throw them into water...girls, that is NOT a challenge!!

Growth

I measured the girls last night before putting them to bed, Ciara is now 97cm (38.6 inches), she's grown 2cm in the last 2 months! She is still on the 91% percentile curve on the height charts.

Enya is 92cm (36.2 inches). She is sitting firmly on the 50% curve on the height charts.

Both girls are maintaining these growth curves now and if I look at their predicted growth, Ciara should end up around 172cm (5ft 8in) and Enya 164cm (5ft 4in). Not overly tall or too short either (Enya will be as tall as I am!).

PERFECT!

Finished!

Going to do this in bullet point form as it's quicker:

-doll blankets are finished (note to self: next time you stay up until one am sewing make sure you have child care arranged for the next day- you're not very nice the "morning after", especially not when your darling oldest daughter wakes up at 5 am wanting to play!)

-prams are ordered and should be arriving at the beginning of next month (mom, the dolls are alredy here and packed away in my cupboard!).


-Enya is finally off her last bottle, she is however now addicted to Ovalmaltine (she hates plain milk in a cup but asks for "chocolate milk" all the time). We didn't want to start with sweet milkshakes but it was either this or fight every morning to get her to drink a cup of milk. The nappy changing pad is GONE. The bottles are GONE. The dummies are GONE. We now have a baby free house!

-boxes make the best toys and they don't cost anything.



-the puddle.jumpers have arrived and are great. I've even taken both girls to the pool by myself with them on. Although I think Ciara and Enya need a bit longer to really trust them as much as they trusted their old swim aids. The photos are from the trial run at home I didn't trust myself to juggle the camera as well as the terrible two at the public pool!

Hot hot hot!

Quick post.

Remember when I was whinging because we hadn't had a summer yet, well summer came with a vengence! Today we're having a short respite, only 28C, but as of tomorrow we're back into 35+C (95+F)territory. Before anyone remarks about the fact I'm whinging about it being too hot and me a South African at that, let me add it is also very humid and we never had that during a highveld summer (very dry summers there). Plus I now have 2 little girls who most decidedly don't do well in the heat!

Anyway off to finish the 2nd doll blanket... have I mentioned we're having a doll themed birthday this year- only another month to go!

GAAAWW! My babies are going to be 3 in just over a month, the time is flying past!!

Craft bug

I got bitten in a big way by the craft bug just recently. The fruits of my labour are....
6 bibs (4 long sleeve, 2 short sleeve). The best thing about them are that the girls now recognise the letters C and E, and know whose name starts with which. The not so good part is we now get all C's and E's pointed out to us when we are out and about, although at least we're getting a break from all taxis and cranes being commented on. I never knew there were so many taxis in Siegen!


a picture for the girls door. If I'd been a bit brighter I'd have painted the letters and then stuck them on, but I was having a dumb day so this picture took almost a week to finish as I had to paint the letters VEEERRRRY CAREFULLY and still had to do touch ups after! Surprisingly Z likes the picture (he is not as fond of rainbow coloured things as I am, so I'm going to hang it as a name sign on the door.

Kitchen cupboard, this was a spur of the moment project on the weekend. I was sick and tired of the box with the toy kitchen implements in our kitchen so I made them their own kitchen cupboard. Unfortunately not everything fits in it and I still need to paint it but it does mean that the box now only has the toy food supplies in it.


Of course I'm still trying desperately to finish the last duvet cover, somehow the enthusiasm is really hard to get up this time round! Oh well 3 butterflies down and another 8 to go.

Last but not least another summer shot because we are still enjoying a good stretch of summer weather. Long may it last!

Summer days

I'm so loving summer!!





It just keeps getting hotter and hotter though, they are forecasting 36C (96.8F) over the weekend and humid as well. Thank goodness our flat is cool otherwise the girls would be impossible, they don't like it too hot!

May have to make our first visit to the outdoor pool this year on the weekend! (Need at least two adults until we get our puddle.jumper flotation aids!)