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Happy new year!
The new year got off to a quiet start, with lots of walks and children playing. Emma keeps amazing us, as she now is crawling from one end of the house to another. This involves crawling up the stairs. So far, we have not allowed her to go down.
Another trick is to try to
This proved hard to capture on camera.
A few days into January, Emma Sullivan paid us a visit and brought us some late christmas presents. Piet did not want to try on Emma's dress. The walk in the pram has become a daily routine. The kids can sit side-by-side and love each walk and in the afternoon it is guaranteed to get Piet asleep in five minutes, allowing his parents to transfer him into his cot. Oma Leonie brought Piet a rocking horse, which was instantly loved. Heather and Graham came over with their kids, who played nicely (most of the time) with Piet and Emma. And finally, Emma got her first teeth: we discovered the two bottom front teeth at the same time.
During their visit to Oz, Pen and Andrew had organized drinks for their friends on sunday 10th January in Richmond. Piet lost a wheel, which Andrew was happy to fix for him. Later that week, Pen and Andrew came over to our place to stay a night. The kids loved the attention and the belated christmas presents even more: Emma was fascinated by just looking at the Old-MacDonald-had-a-farm glove, while Piet tried to sing along. During dinner, Piet was happy to be fed by Pen. Jacinta came for a visit with her mother and, for a change, Piet and Emma were spotted standing side by side without Piet trying to slap Emma on the head.
To the relief of his parents, Piet has started to hug Emma more and slap her less. Emma keeps discovering the world on hands and feet; here she enjoys the Gnome World toy made by a friend in the Netherlands. Piet still has fun sweeping the driveway, come rain or shine. His feet have outgrown the shoes we bought him in May. As mum's shoes are still too big, we bought him some new sandals and blue wellies in Eltham. His appetite for shoe-shopping has not increased a bit, but with his new sandals he has become even keener on walking.
Sandpits
Piet has enjoyed sandpits since his days in London (see
May 2009), hence we quickly bought a sandpit after moving into our new home. Since then, Piet has been spending time in and around the sandpit nearly every day, filling cups with sand and water and offering them as tea to his parents while saying: "
Thee?". Now,
Emma seems to enjoy a bit of sandplay too, with some
supervision to prevent her eating to much sand.
