Random round up

Here are a couple of photographs that we took throughout the week.

Bunny is new on the preferred toy list

Not quite sure whether to play with the strawberry car or French book

First time playing with play-doh at home

So many new books to read, so little baby time

A meal of corn, sausage and beans, hearty and tasty

New compartment plate gets a tick of approval from Miss Peanut Butter Face

On the way home

SV was checking our boarding passes when she realized we were running late. She made a dash for our plane which we boarded in time.

Playground tiger

The tiny tiger rode in her bike seat to the playground for the first time. She enjoyed the experience, especially when she got to the park and got to stalk the prey, ugh children in the park. Actually she played very nicely with them, both the older and younger kids. She is really making progress in her dexterity and ability to climb various apparatus.

The Dancer

Another of SV's Christmas gifts was a dress that makes her seem like a Flamenco Dancer. Pretty quickly SV began practicing for her career as a dancer and vocal artist. Here are some of her preliminary moves.

The Artist

For Christmas SV got some painting supplies and she started applying herself as an artist. Here are some of her early works.

Chopsticks

SV is determined to learn to use chopsticks this year. Apparently we take her to a lot of Asian restaurants. All joking aside, she is actually learning really well.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to everyone reading the blog, may 2013 be a good year full of happiness, health and good fortune.
We are on the Gold Coast celebrating the new year and enjoying a bit of a break from Sydney. We have a tradition of going somewhere for New Year's and this year we decided on the Gold Coast so that we could take advantage of the time difference between New South Wales and Queensland. We like bringing in the new year so much that we decided to do it twice this year. In NSW we were on the Tweed Heads harbour with the fireworks going off overhead, while in QLD we watched 6 fireworks shows from our hotel window.
It was a great night and SV woke up and managed to stay awake, in a good mood no less, for both celebrations.

Park punk kid

SV was wearing her punk rock hoodie with a faux-hawk to the park to intimidate the other kids. As luck would have it there were no kids to intimidate when we were there. Oh well, in the mean time SV had a good time doing exactly what she wanted. She is finally now tall enough to play with the monkey bar.

Gold Coast

Yesterday we arrived at  Gold Coast, the last major Australian tourist destination that we hadn't visited yet. Today we left our fantastic room a little bit reluctantly to go to the beach. SV liked it until a wave snuck up on her and got her all wet.

Babyccino

Living in an Italian neighbourhood it was inevitable that SV would be exposed to coffee. She noticed KT drinking her cappuccinos and liked the idea of the foam, which KT eventually let her taste. Now she always asks KT for a lick of the foam. So we made her a babyccino of frothed milk with a bit of chocolate powder on it. The photographs below tell the story.

Fruits

We have a bowl of fruit on a side table which SV has learned about. She climbs onto the couch and then grabs a fruit which she then proceeds to munch on. Her favourites at the moment (besides blueberries which are a given) are white nectarines and bananas or nanas as she calls them. She has also been known to grab tomatoes and chomp right into them. We also gave her a frozen apple and mango puree on on the hot Christmas day, and she really liked it. She ate the entire packet which is quite rare for her.