Eli bumped his head, and when he hurts himself relatively badly, he makes a kind of “Eh! Eh! Eh! Eh!” cry. Graces says, “Why is Eli saying itch, itch, itch?”

Wondering what to do with your outdated yellow pages?

Donné stepped out of the room for a moment and Eli decided going over Mr Spicey was a good idea. Of course Mr Spicey didn’t seem to mind.

Heh, heh, heh, look at me mom

Learning to crawl is hard work.

Marius – one of the guys that I work with – sometimes brings his border collie, Ukumi, around when he comes to work here, and Grace absolutely loves her. She throws sticks for her, throws a ball for her and just plays with her.

Today she made Ukumi a “pie”….she fetched a mixing bowl, collected some chillies, plumbago flowers and pelargonium flowers, filled the bowl with water and covered it with some plastic so that it could “rise”.

She says to Ukumi, “Now we’re going to play. First you run and I’ll catch you, then I run and you catch me.” And off she goes running.

And at the end of the day, “Ahhh, she’s my new friend….I love her.”

Donné asked Grace today, “Did you enjoy swimming Grace?” and Grace replies, “Yes…why do you keep asking me hundreds and thousands of times?” Not the first time the question was asked, but maybe a little bit melodramatic.

Yum! Broccoli!

There are little things which make you realise your child is growing up and becoming a little bit more independent. In our case, Grace is getting much better at brushing her teeth on her own (still needs a second sweep of the teeth just to be sure), washing herself entirely independently (and has been able to for a while), blowing her nose properly (yes, really properly….”big daddy blows”….something which has really felt like it has taken forever to get right), and chewing her food (which she has never really done much of). Little things, but all little reminders of how big she is getting.

Grace has developed a sudden particular love of Coco, and is quite happy if she can pick her up and walk around with her. Today she says, “I hid Coco,”…..which means, “I locked Coco in the cupboard.” No Grace, that’s not a nice way to play.

Whee!

We’ve been trying to figure out what to do for Grace’s party and were having a conversation this morning. Grace happened to walk into the room as I said, “We don’t have to have a party for Grace.” Her response? “NO! Else I won’t be able to turn four!”

Little blue eyes. The bruise under his eye is from face planting into one of his toys

Time for some brother & sister arts and crafts

I got it!

Cuddles

In other news Eli ate steak for the first time today (although I guess he eats steak regularly depending on how you classify biltong), and his other first was oats with mashed banana for breakfast.

Donné took some strawberries out for dessert for Grace, and there were fewer than she expected to find. We’ve been working on getting Grace to ask before raiding the fridge and she really has gotten quite good about asking before taking something to eat (it all started back when she pillaged a punnet of raspberries).

Donné says to Grace, “Grace, did you eat the strawberries without asking?”

And Grace replies, “I was desperately hungry and you were in the room with Eli.”

Ahhh, my girl, if that is how hungry you were it’s okay.

Speaking of “Ahhh,” it seems to be one of Graces catch-phrases at the moment:

“Can I have an apple?” “No, Grace, it’s nearly supper time,” “Ahhh!”

“Oh no, I broke it…..ahhh”

“Ahhh….I fell off my bouncy ball!”