Okay, okay, okay

So it's been... a little while since I posted.  Ok, about 6 months.  Oops!  No excuse really, it just go to the point where I'd left it so long that too much had happened and it was difficult to catch up and the more I waited the worse it got...

But I'm back!  I'll make sure I blog at least once a week I promise (don't hold me to that though).

So, a summary of the last six months. Hmmmm.

Ember has moved up from Nursery to Teenies and has settled in well.  A few tears when I left for the first few weeks, but now not so often.  Teenies is a lovely environment and Em really enjoys playing with dolls, on the bikes roaring around outside, drawing (she has her own allocated notebook and pen as she prefers it to crayons and paper!), water play etc.  They have two particular 'things' that they do - heuristic play, which is close examination of everyday objects, and Forest Walks which is adapted from a European model where the children spend extended time exploring the natural environment.

Her vocab has skyrocketed - I was keeping a list of the words she knows, but when I got over 100 I stopped.  She's also putting small sentences together, like "Daddy happy" "It's a cat" "Night-night dog" "No, Mummy" etc.  She absolutely loves animals and is learning to treat them kindly (i.e. not so much fur-pulling etc) so we think we will get a kitten (or two) shortly.  She knows all her colours (red, yellow, blue, green, orange, white, black, pink, purple and brown ("bear"!!)) and is starting to get the concept of numbers although currently counting consists of 2, 3, 8, 9.  She also absolutely loves music and dancing (if you look on YouTube and search for "Em dancing to Fireflies" you can see her in action).

We've converted Em's bed into a toddler bed which seemed a good idea at the time, but we are currently struggling a bit with getting her to sleep.  It takes an hour every night and she will not (no matter what SuperNanny may say!) stay in bed unless someone is in the room with her.  She does mostly sleep right through now, although for the last four nights a small someone has appeared in our room somewhere between 1 and 3 am and snuggled in for the rest of the night.  But it is cold at the moment so that might be why, and as long as she sleeps I don't mind!

Going back a bit, Xmas and New Year were lovely and I'll post photos soon.  That warm weather is something of a distant memory now though!

Amber has had the twins - Samara and Milena - they were born *very* quickly and only 12 minutes apart in late March (I totally should know the date but I can't currently remember!!).  Now 3 months old they are starting to be responsive and interested which is a lovely stage.  Amber and Nick look fairly exhausted a lot of the time, but are coping remarkably well.

Laura, one of my best friends from high school, has also moved to Raglan with her fiance, Ted, so we are gathering a few more good friends in the area.  She is currenlty in Canada with Ted, who is a helicopter pilot over there for 6 months or so most years, and will be back at the end of August.  And she's pregnant!  She's due in December, so we'll have another little one for cuddles :)

Back to Ember, she is at a very cute age at the moment and not too terribly two.  She is starting to have definite opinions and minor strops when hers don't coincide with ours, but unless she's overtired they don't last long.  One of the best things about her (IMHO) is that she can laugh at herself and you can usually distract her from a strop by making her laugh.

She's still very tall and her hair is finally starting to lose its mullet shape!

I'll post some photos and some more about what Simon and I have been up to soon (promise!)