Jozie's sleepy sayings...

Putting Josephine to bed this evening....

"Mamma? Mamma, I going to just whisper to my ear. I going to tell it a plan. I going to tell it a weally weally cool plan. Tomorrow when I wake up, we're going to get into da car and dwive to da shops. And der (there), we're going to buy one of those round fings wif ears. (???) Da one wif a looong looong wrope. Dat one dat I like to slide on. (Me thinking....aha!... that pulley slide with handles where the kids lift their own weight off the ground and it carries them across the rope to the other end.)."
"Ah! A pulley slide thing?"
"Ja. Tomorrow we're going to dwive to da shops and I going to buy me dat fing to myself. I going to give myself a pwesent tomorrow. Dat's going to be a good idea? You fink?"


"Mamma? Here's a little bumblebee to you. You can take it to bed wif you. And you can cuddle wif it in da night. And when you go to da potty in da middle of da night, you can take it into da bafroom and play wif it. Dat's going to be fun to you! You can take dat bumblebee and keep it wif you in bed till you need da potty. Kay?"


With visitors today....
"Mamma? I just want to  wear my wedding dwess now. I just want to show the other people me in my wedding dwess. Dat's going to be a good idea? Ja? Kay."


"Mamma. In Germany we say "Klasse!!". Dat means "Well done!". And da Germans dey also say "Guten Morgen"."


Me: "Jozie? Today England is playing football against Germany. Who do you think is going to win?"
Jozie: ....thinking...."Hmmmm. England!!!"
Me: "Then Jozie, it's you and me against all our visitor today!" ;-)


Jozie just out the blue (often):  "I love you Mamma. Soooooo much!"

"Evie's just a poo monster."

"Evie!!!! Sssssshhhh!!! You just giving me a headache! I twying to sleep!!"

or

"Mamma! Evie's just stealing my toys! I don't have anyfing to play wif anymore!"

but then...

"Oh, Evie darling. I love you sooooooooo (with clenched teeth) much I could eat you up alive!"

Hubby turns 40!

Michael is now officially middle-aged!
Maybe I can just take the opportunity to say: I love you, Michael. Marrying you was the best decision ever! It's wonderful being a little family now and I look forward to many years of adventure and love ahead with you. Congrats.

On Saturday, 26th, we went to the Hannover Zoo together! We got there around 9.30am. It was a beautiful day and everyone was well rested, in a good mood and ready for some family fun!

Here's Michael driving us there:

Once we arrived, we got ourselves a little map and decided where we wanted to start....the pictures tell the rest of the story (I only put "people photos" in here now though to shorten an already long blog entry!)

 

the pink flamingos (from the boat)

Evie keeping tabs

Michael noted today that Evie is keeping accounts for all of us. Sound wierd? Let me explain....
Despite the fact that she is a 1 year old human baby, she has the memory of an elephant and keeps track like an accountant. If you do something she likes, you score a point with her. You may remain in her favour. Do something that ticks her off and boy, you're out of favour. This could be a typical day of Evie counting:

Josephine: screaming with me: +1 point
                 sharing her juice: + 1 point
                 snatching my toy:  - 1 point
(overall, Josephine is still ok for her. Josephine won't get full Evie smiling-beams, but also won't be ignored)

Pappa:  give her some breakfast: +3 points
             change her clothes - 1 point
             carry her around + 1 point
(overall, Pappa is winning. Pappa is the best! Smiles, cuddles, open-mouthed kisses)

Mamma:  take her out of her cot in the morning: +1 point
               put her in her carseat: -1 point
               put her down on the floor while making lunch: -1point
(Oh dear. Mamma is in the red. Mamma may face some tears, mini-baby-tantrums and even be crawled away from.)

Quite cute, we think, but we don't want cute little tigers to grow up being big un-cute ones!

Jozie's bag is packed

To try and make Josephine feel more involved we got her a "ladybird" suitcase on wheels. It's just a kiddie sized thing and doubles up as something to sit on and ride. PLUS (!) one can pull it as an adult so that if your child is tired, they just sit on it and enjoy the ride. So due to the multi-function, we are hoping it will prove to be a worthy investment. Let's see. Be that as it may...upon receiving her gift, Josephine was super excited! She declared we'd be leaving for Tokyo right that minute. She just had to quickly pack her things. "One minute! I coming now!!! Just wait to (for) me!!"
....Evie super impressed and Michael and I watching with a smile on our faces as "ladybird case" took a bumpy /energetic ride down the passage to her cupboard. She opened the drawers at the bottom and just launched into emptying the drawer's contents into her new case. Socks. She decided that was all she needed. All of them. And even her stockings from the last winter. Socks and stockings. Nothing more. But admittedly, her case was then also full - it is a child-case.
..."come on guys! Let's go to da airport! I ready to go!"

Here's a picture of her when she was just opening it for the first time (seconds before it got packed)...

Girls

Just reading my friend Amy's blog has prompted me to fill in on a special moment we share together too...

When I sing "Rock-a-bye-baby" to Evie and sway with her in my arms, she immediately puts her little head on my shoulder and nestles in. That song is her cue that sleep is descending upon her. It's so lovely to have her nestle in.

Jozie yesterday: Her friend, Sophia, came to play and they were pretending to be horses. During the flurry of bucking and whinneying....Jozie's thumb got hurt on the furniture. My, did she wail! And when I got there (asap!), I took her little hand in mine and stroked it and kissed it and comforted her "Oh Jozie, let me kiss your hand better....etc". As she has done in the past (but something which never fails to bring me to inner laughter)...she crossly said to her silly mother: "No Mamma No!! MY HOOF!!!!!" ....and so the comforting continued after the 3second information interlude..."Oh Jozie, let me kiss your little hoof...." That was acceptable and after a while she resumed her galloping.
Her and Sophia play very nicely together. It's the first time that Janet and I can actually sit at the table and have a chat while they play. In the past, we were always on the carpet playing with them or else getting our ones to share... now they play nicely for ages (as long as they're both well rested and happy).

Besides that - both of them have an ear infection and I have an appointment with the ENT tomorrow. Evie's eardrum burst today. Jozie has had that in the past too and it's actually a relief for them. But we'll have to watch Evie closely to see whether she goes the same route as Jozie with the grommets etc.

Besides that, I can't believe we're moving next week. This time next week the packers will just about be finished and on their way. They'll be here on Wednesday and Thursday and we fly on Friday.

Michael has his 40th birthday on Saturday. My mom has her 60th birthday on 14.07. And Evie has just had her 1st birthday last week. We had our 10 year wedding anniversary in January. A real bumper year of special celebrations.

Sleep well, friends!

High-tech Great Gran!

Fancy that! My Gran is the most high-tech Gran you can think of. Emailing is easy-peasy and been going well for some years now already. And now...she's surfing the net and even reading this blog!
Ouma, I love you lots!! Don't forget it!! ;-)
Your grandchildren and great-grandchildren
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
oooooooooooooooo
{{{{{{{}}}}}}}}}}}    (Ouma's sign for tickles)

horseriding today

Our busy day with some sorting, packing, doing ordinary things too, ended with a highlight - horseriding!

Here are some photos of our lovely time. The weather was great and today I led Jozie's horse through the paddock while Evie was entertained by other mothers on the sideline.
Was so nice as Josephine was particularly chatty while riding. She was telling me about her toy horse who had an "Owa" (sore) - a roleplay going on repetatively throughout the day - and more importantly which people "weally cared about my horse" and who didn't care. The ones who didn't show much interest made her heart weally sad and she said she didn't want to play wif dem anymore. She'd rather play with her dolly than people who didn't care about her horse and his sore foot. Was so cute. Her reward for people she likes is to allow them to play with her. What an honour that we get begged to play all the time! A good sign, I'd say! ;-)
Evie had a good day too. She enjoyed her shrieking game and tried to beat Josephine's decible record. Was quite ear shattering! She's now cruising with just one hand on the couch and the other hand is now free to scoop up toys or other interesting bits along the way. Also she's becoming the master of crawling and has a turbo mode where she suddenly gives it her full boost and zoots ahead unexpectedly.
She still loves music very much and loves to dance - tucks her chin in, pulls her arms in closer to her body and moves left and right, left and right.

Anyway, here are some photos of the day today.

Josephine on "Lizzy"

waiting for her turn

Evie watching the bigger girls...

Jozie

so proud of our Josephine!

Evie's 1st birthday!

What a quiet, but lovely family celebration we had today. Before Michael went to work the girls were climbing over us in bed. We just have to watch closely that Evie doesn't fall off the bed! During the morning, Jozie and I baked some fairy cakes and once Evie woke from her nap we went to the shops to get Jozie some shoes. After lunch, we played together and I quickly decorated the fairy cakes with "1" and "E" on them.
Michael came home early (around 3pm) and we had a lovely little birthday tea party! We sang (for the 10th time) and lit a candle (which of course I blew out quickly as her little hands just wanted to investigate that flame...) and then we had some cake and juice! The rest of the afternoon, we played with the kids - trains, horses, etc and then they had a great time in the bath together.
All in all, it was a lovely day!
And Evie shares her birthday with a special girl we know called Nia who turned 10 today.
Here are some photos from today...

Evie getting Pappa to blow up a balloon

looking for something to eat!

got it!

Jozie tucking in too

playing

cute little face!