My Girl

Because I know there are some people out there who are really hanging out for some Mayana pics…. (Mum!!! Alexie!!!)

Here she is, my beautiful toddler!

“Tah-daah!!” Mayana was very proud of herself today for getting my shoes and socks on. All by herself.

Today we spent the afternoon at a local park, where we rode on a miniature railway. Mayana was beside herself with excitement, and was very grown up when she handed her ticket over to “the man”.

Boo & Lock-Lock stood at the fence and took photos as we rode past. Mayana waved and blew kisses.
 

When it was time to get off, she very politely waited near the train driver, because she wanted to say thank you. She just melts hearts wherever she goes, this girl.

After the train ride, we took advantage of the half-price tickets on the ferry tour on the River. We were the only ones on the boat! Mayana loved it, and we all enjoyed getting to know our new town a little more.

  Isn’t she gorgeous! She’s growing up so quickly, and looking more and more like a big girl, and less and less like my baby every day. How I love her!

Resilience.

Kids just reek of the stuff!

Mayana has coped so well with this whole crazy moving thing. Better than me I think. Aside from a strange (and thankfully short-lived) vomiting episode, she seems to have taken it all into her stride. In the last week and a half, she has slept in 4 different houses, been in the car for over 9 hours and hardly seen her Mama and Papa. 
  

She even ‘helped’ with the cleaning… 

She has said goodbye to her bed, and her room, and her familiar spaces and faces. She had her last day at daycare (and nearly had all her carers in tears), and said goodbye to her little friends. She’s still asking to play with Livvy (her best buddy), and it makes me a little sad, cos I’d sure like to see Livvy’s mummy, too!!

Being a bronco rider at Liv’s house last week.

But all in all, my little darling has been such a trouper. She just takes it all in her stride, and keeps that gorgeous smile on her dial.

Her sleeping patterns are a little mixed up, but it’s just a matter of getting her back into routine. She’s eaten far too much crappy convenience food – but we’ll get back into our family breakfasts and mealtimes, and it will all be good.

 
She is loving being back in Noosa, with her family and all her favourites. She’s in heaven – and so is everyone else with having her here.

 
I think we’re all going to like being home.

Things I Don’t Want to Forget

This post is totally inspired by Katie. I want to adopt it and make it a regular thing, cos it’s the loveliest idea!…

So these are the things that I don’t want to forget from last week…

1. I finished my last ever uni assignment. And I did it in two days! That was a great feeling. And will be an even greater feeling when I find out that I’ve passed it!

2. Mayana playing Tea-Party with her Kami. She’s obsessed with “Cup-Tea”, and we’ve had one every day since.

3. Finishing uni!

4. Watching Mayana be all mother-hen with her Bubby. She checks her nappy, puts her to bed, and gives her lots of cuddles and kisses. It’s so cute.

5. Celebrating finishing uni with the most awesome bunch of people EVER!

6. Last night, I kissed Mayana goodnight, turned on her music, turned out her light… as I was walking out the door, she called out to me “I love Mummy!”  Best moment … possibly ever…

Last days in Dubbs…

  Riding her “Gee-Gee”

Helping Nana sweep up..

Watching The Wiggles with the bear that my Internship class gave me as a goodbye present, eating the left over popcorn that my class didn’t eat on our movie day.

On the road to home…

 

I’m sooo kicking myself that we haven’t got more photos of Miss M with her Nana & Pop while we were away. Just you wait till Christmas, that camera won’t be going away!

Smiles for you…

It has been brought to my attention that certain people in my life are having rather serious Mayana withdrawals, and as such I thought I would share a few of our latest fun times with her.

She’s been having so much fun here with Nana and Pop, and is learning so many new things. She loves to ‘help’ (though sometimes the amount of actual help she offers is questionable). She has discovered the joys of running under a garden hose (something she’s never been able to do in our drought-stricken town), and enjoyed her first dance in the rain.

She’s cheeky, and fun and full of love… here’s proof!

It’s probably hard to tell, but in this photo, the Mayana-Berry had perfected Pop’s limp to a T. He has ligament damage and is hobbling a little at the moment, and his little shadow has decided her ‘knee sore’ too. So she wears a bandage, and limps with him.

Apparently Nana’s cupboard is the *best* place for picnic lunches. I’ll just have to take Mayana’s word for it.

Poser much?

Mayana absolutely loved her nudie-rudie play in the rain. It took some pretty forceful convincing for her to come back inside.

I’m not sure what this was all about, but it makes me giggle every time I see it.

Hope you got a good dose of smiles :-)

What a weekend…

We drove to Brisbane… to meet my family half way. Because they missed me so, and we all missed them.

Mayana was so excited to see everyone. She was waiting at the top of the stairs and as each of them came around the corner, she exclaimed their names… “Boo!! Lala!! J!! Kaka!!! (Kami) Opa!!”. They were pretty excited to see her too.

We met up in the city, and strolled around the museum, and on a whim decided to visit the science centre. It was such fun!

Mayana & Jordan… heads on platters Just in case she didn’t feel little enough already… Crazy spinny tunnel… I think we’re all on a slight lean… New favourite photo. I know there’s a new one every week, but you gotta admit this one’s pretty special. Boo and Maisie Playing chimes and taking it all very seriously. Playing twinkle little star on the thongs and PVC pipes. Best instrument ever.Alexie and I and our dream bodies… teehee.

We walked across the bridge into the city, and my sisters shopped and I wished the clothes looked good on me. But that’s okay. We had Hungry Jacks for lunch, you know, in that creepy 3 story one right in the mall. And there were pigeons in there which made it all the more creepy.

Then we walked back to Southbank, flew past the markets. The family left and Mayana cried, which made my mum and sisters want to cry too. I wanted to cry, but only because my feet were killing me (note to self: do not wear boots next time you’re walking around the city all day).

Then I bumped into a friend from uni, who graduated last year and now lives in NSW. It was a fabulous coincidence. Mayana took a great liking to her boyfriend, and I’m pretty sure he liked her a fair bit too.

Then we went home, and half an hour later I got picked up for a ladies night at church. ‘Twas great.

Church today… then home for naps. Spot of shopping in the afternoon, and a delicious dinner for the three of us.

Papa gave Mayana nutella sandwiches for lunch, can you tell?

And there’s our weekend!! I need another weekend now, to recover from this one.

I hope your weekend was lovely too. I’d love to hear about it!

The Berry…

She’s had a fun week this week.. here are some photos for your viewing pleasure! Mayana went to her first birthday party this week, her friend Laylah. She spent most of the time playing on Laylah’s slide, and being mothered by lots of Laylah’s school friends – which she coped with a lot better than I actually thought she would.  She ate lots of party food – stationed herself right in front of the chip bowl.

Deep thinker…

Mayana LOVES these pyjamas. She has a thing for owls at the moment. She loves them. It’s one of her newer words, and she knows that they say, ‘hoo hoo’.

She has also been showing a lot of interest in her ‘bah-beees’ (a little set of twin dollies we bought her at the toy sale). She found a pile of wrapping paper and a basket and busied herself making a bed for them. They have to sit in her toy pram while she eats dinner, and she checks their nappies and puts them on the potty routinely throughout the day. I only just caught her trying to put one of them on the big girl toilet. It would have been bye-bye baby that’s for sure!

 This looks like a bottle of bubbles, right? Well no, apparently it’s her bath baby. She wraps it up in a washer and rocks and pats it and tells it to ‘shhh’.

We go on prac again in about three weeks (eek!!!! bit scary!), and we have been preparing Mayana for another few weeks with her Nana and Poppy. She has this set of foam letters which stick to the wall in the bath, and we line up the ones that begin all our family member’s names. The clever little miss can point out which one stands for Nana, Mummy, Papa, Boo, Lala, Opa, J & Kami! She blows me away with the things she can remember and understand. She’s so clever! This is her pointing out ‘Nana’.

Aww love her!

who is this child?

And what has she done with my baby??

I swear, every day Mayana is looking less and less like my little berry, and more and more like a big girl.

She’s so much fun to have around though, and I wouldn’t swap her and all her big-girlness for anything!

some photos of our cherub this week….

A friend of mine sent me this gorgeous outfit by Noo Designs. It came with the pants and top, hat, bib and little booties. So dang adorable.

I put the bib on her just to take the photos, but for some reason she thought it was completely hilarious and refused to take it of. She would pull it up over her mouth and nose and then laugh herself silly. It was very funny.

She’s just the cheekiest kid around! Mayana and her Papa were having loads of fun in the bath tonight, as Mayana discovered she could stick her foam letters to her head. She called me in to look, and was awfully delighted when I took photos.

She even got Papa in on the act!

She’s such a clever kid, we were playing with her foam letters in the bath yesterday, and I stuck them on the wall and told her different names which begin with the letters… N for Nanna, L for La-La, H for Happy (which made her sing the song if you’re happy and you know it) etc. I would mix the letters up and ask her where they were and she would point at the right ones!!! Tonight, when Pete pulled out the ‘N’ she straight away yelled out, “Nanna!!!!”.

She totally blows me away with the things she understands and remembers.

She’s also settled into her new daycare routine.. she’s three days in a row now, and it seems to be helping with her sleeps. This week she slept for more than an hour every day, which sure beats the 30 minutes or less that she seems to have always done until now. She’s still having two hour naps at home, and it’s nice to have a little reprieve from her very constant busyness.  She also has settled into her new big girl bed – it’s been a far less stressful experience than I was expecting.

And that’s about all of our Mayana news for this week!

I hope your weekend was wonderful..