Decorating the tree and the cat

We've all had colds the past couple of weeks, but hopefully getting over them now. We've been doing lots of crafty things as well as decorating the Christmas tree on the 1st Dec!

Evie has got over her cold after a week and is back to her normal gurgly self, although she is blowing fewer raspberries now. She is getting better at sitting up supported in her rubber ring and is much more interested in toys. Her favourite thing is still watching Isla. Isla likes to cuddle Evie at any opportunity and put her finger in Evie's hand for her to grip her finger. Evie likes waving her arms about. One day she was just waving her left arm manically about, and then a few days later it was her right arm which got working and waving about! She likes pushing up with her little strong legs and standing up while being held, looking very pleased with herself. She can hold toys and things now and likes colourful patterns to look at. She shows she is happy to see you or excited about something by smiling lots and kicking her legs. She likes looking at the Christmas cards we get through the door.

There are lots of things to do to prepare for Christmas such as making presents and cards and Isla enjoys helping with everything as well as playing with Happyland and waking her sister up from naps.....! 

Isla often asks what things are made of, and knew that our chimney is made of bricks. We had a look outside to see where the chimney is for Father Christmas to come down, using a bit of magic of course. Isla has been planning what to leave out on Christmas Eve for him and his reindeer. We have been having lots of other interesting discussions. For example, Isla asked the other day about how fish drink and how dolphins drink. She is very into counting things and we often have to think how many legs various animals have. It was very quiet when Isla was poorly with her cold and sleeping in the day. She was so poorly that she didn't want to eat her chocolate from the Christmas advent calendar train. I had a little time on my hands to crochet Isla a snuggly hat and also a little hat for a friend's baby.

Isla and all of her friends were in the pre-school nativity play this morning. It was lovely. All of the children walked in past the audience of grown ups. Mary and Joseph walked in first while we sang 'Little Donkey' as they pushed a little donkey/dog toy along. Then we all sang 'Silent Night' as the angels and shepherds walked in. Isla was wearing her colourful tutu skirt and a sparkly gold tinsel crown whilst she held hands with another little girl as they walked in and sat at the front of the stage. We all sang some more songs including 'We Three Kings', 'Away in a Manger' and 'We Wish you a Merry Christmas'. The children looked so cute and no-one cried! The first of many nativity plays.

Here is what else we have been up to:

One of Isla's drawings:

Isla doing some gluing with some paper pieces we've cut out:

Showing Pob her artwork:

Meeting a new robot friend:

Playing with Daddy's old toys at Grandad and Granny's house:

Evie having a cuddle:

Putting up the tree and decorating it!!

A meal out together. Isla got to feed Peggy the dog a biscuit in the pub.

Exciting post!

Making a house and a dinosaur out of Duplo. We've also had to make lots of postman pat houses with chimneys on. Everything is about chimneys at the moment!

Isla's drawing of a crocodile:

Evie modelling a little hat for our friend's newborn baby:

Isla modelling her new Hello Kitty hat:

Making a space rocket:

Doing some cutting and sticking:

Isla's first nativity play at pre-school this morning:

Just messing about at home

The last couple of weeks we've been having lots of fun at home and out and about doing our usual activities too! Everyday Isla cuddles and kiss her sister lots. Evie loves watching Isla and always smiles when she sees her face.

Evie enjoys looking at toys and watching us a lot more now. She is happiest when she is having a cuddle watching Isla playing. She also spends time on her playmat looking at toys.

Isla has been colouring in her Cbeebies magazine and sticking stickers too:

Isla also has been doing some gluing with sparkly shapes and gems making different pictures:

We've been doing a lot of baking. Chocolate cornflake cakes were delicious, although Isla prefers the mixture to the finished cakes. We also made lemon and white chocolate muffins from a Jo Wheatley recipe but jooshed them up with some lemon butter icing and sprinkles of course. 

A very exciting package arrived last week from New Zealand! Isla loved unwrapping the gifts from John and Jude. It felt a bit like Christmas! The customs labels on the parcels describing what was inside brought back memories of parcels under the Christmas tree from Grandad, Quita and Nana from New Zealand when I was young. Though of course I never peeked to read the labels......! Isla loves the teddy bears inside the package and plays with them a lot. 

Isla wore her kilt one day with cute tights now that it is colder here. She likes building a tower with cups and pretending it is a lighthouse and then making boats to sail around it. They sometimes crash into the lighthouse though! Evie gets a bit concerned when this happens.

Painting has been requested a lot this week, and is fun to do when it is raining outside. We also tried doing some bubble paintings by blowing through straws into a mixture of washing up liquid, paint and water and then putting paper on top of the bubbles. We got some really nice pictures by doing this. Isla got a bit of a shock  though when she sucked on her straw by mistake ending up with blue lips and a worried mum. She just helped with stirring after that! 

We had a nice meal out with Grandad David and Granny Margaret the other weekend.

Back home, Isla insisted on having a photo with her friend Gadget one morning:

Evie had a lovely bath and ended up with a cool hairstyle:

Evie has a great personal trainer during her tummy time sessions:

At pre-school, Isla is learning about environments (which seems to mainly consist of walking like a penguin). She likes polar bears as she has a Kinder egg polar bear toy and so we decided to pretend to be polar bears for a change of continent. She wore her little fluffy waistcoat and also a muslin as a polar bear hat. We looked at videos of polar bears swimming on the iPad and also drew some pictures on coloured paper, making use of our white crayons at last (they don't get much use normally). We looked for the letters 'p for Peter' and 'b for bear' in Isla's alphabet puzzles to complete our polar bear session!

We saw a beautiful rainbow one afternoon. Minutes before I took this photo, the rainbow was the brightest I have seen, and stretched right across the sky. Isla loved it and keeps asking if we can go upstairs to look for rainbows now. She also said that she would like to be able to fly and thought that it would be nice to fly to work! 

Various cuddles:

Foxy Loxy bouncing in the garden:

Just after blowing out the candles on Andrew's cake: