Bahay Kubo

Katy loved introducing Uncle Rich and Auntie Holly to her Tagalog books when they arrived. This is the plus side of jetlag - having Katy stay up with us to play and cuddle.

In your tent

Much to Katy's delight, Nana and Papa also gave her an amazing treehouse tent. And it is pink! Katy loves having two lots of birthday present opening sessions!! She is such a lucky little girl! She really gets waaay too many presents!

Auntie Holly's crafting background came in handy when putting up the tent.

The tent is a great size for little girls. And big ones too.

Get Your Skates On

Katy was thrilled to receive her first pair of roller skates. Nana and Papa got her gorgeous purple Dora the Explorer ones, complete with knee and elbow pads.



She was especially excited because she had been watching Rintoo learn to skate on her favourite show - Kai-Lan.

Meeting Fancy Nancy

Nana read Katy her first Fancy Nancy book, and Katy was hooked! She LOVES Fancy Nancy and has adopted lots of her fancy expressions and poses!

Like Father Like Daughter

...hard at work at the cabin...

Just like riding a bike

Driving a pontoon on Papa's lap must be like riding a bike, because Katy jumped straight back into it.Katy loves being on the lake in the Pontoon.

Delta Force Fiasco

Katy is an amazing traveller. She loves going on the aeroplane and is really so well behaved and so much fun on the flight, which is just as well, because...
Scheduled departure Saturday 26th at 8.30am. Actual departure Sunday 27 at 2.30pm.

Scheduled arrival Saturday 26th at 3pm. Actual arrival Monday 28th at 1am.

We arrived at the cabin just as the sun came up over Long Lake at 4.30am!!! "Yaay," said Katy after having not slept since a little nap as we landed in Minneapolis, "playtime!"

After checking out the neighbourhood cows, exploring the neighbours' yellow brick walks, and running in the grass, Mama handed Katy over to Dada, Nana and Papa at 9.30am, and Katy passed out on the sofa at 10.30am!
We should have let her sleep, but tried conventional jetlag management by waking her up (with difficulty) at 2.30pm. Of course, she stayed up until 2.30am then!

Dada Bed

Katy's favourite position for watching Kai-Lan is sprawled out on Dada's chest.
Reminds me of a beautiful song by Stephen Curtis Chapman:

Heaven is the face of a little girl with dark brown eyes.
Heaven is the sound of her breathing deep, lying on my chest, falling fast asleep while I sing.
And Heaven is the weight of her in my arms,
Being there to keep her safe from harm while she dreams.

Belle of the DMK End of Year Party

Katy loves her Princess dresses.

Tuesday Afternoon Amigos

We have recently expanded our Tuesday afternoon playdates from Katy and Jonah to Katy, Jonah and Callum, and then Katy, Jonah, Callum and Ellie. It's been nice for Katy to have a girl to play with! Here she is preparing for her playdate with her pink panda Taichi shirt and her little box of makeup.
But oh oh, Ellie has already left for the Summer. So no pink makeup play today. Time to play with the boys again...
Two little monkeys jumping on the sofa...
...another jumped up and squealed with joy, so there were three little monkeys jumping on the sofa...
and jumping...
and screaming...
and falling...
and giggling!

Last Bumblebees

Yesterday Katy had her last Bumblebees class. Again, she woke up happy then turned grumpy and did not want to go to school. She finally agreed to go, all excited and happy to be pushing Stripey Baby to school, started up the hill her usual self, but said she was tired half way and asked Mama to carry her. She has been asking to be carried a lot lately.

When she arrived, she immediately asked for something to eat, and cheered up significantly sitting in the kitchen eating goldfish. Then, Mama stayed for more than an hour to watch Katy in class, which Katy was really excited about.

Katy is the first one to set up for Circle Time.
Sophia and Sana came to sit with her. Evie and Ellie have already left for the Summer.
Miss Jeannie and Miss Debbie are really fantastic. They teach a really wide variety of subjects very creatively, and they treat the kids with respect and love. They are a lot of fun and you can tell they love what they do. Here Miss Jeannie lets Katy feel in the mystery bucket for a lesson on soft compared to hard.
Katy feels the "hard" blocks against her face, with Tegan and Sana next to her.
Miss Debbie helps Katy glue the soft pom poms on her art project as she learns to count one to four using the pom poms as counters.
I think Katy will miss Bumblebees. It has been a fantastic introduction for her to school life.

Father's Day 2010

Father's Day was very busy...for Katy. We started with Mass at 8am, where Dada did the second reading and Katy played with Sana and Miss Jeannie.

After Katy's nap, Uncle Bert and Auntie Pinky arrived. They always have a tonne of fun. We leave them to their own devices. Two big kids and one little kid!
Katy rediscovered my stash of "good makeup" that I had rescued form her clutches a while ago. It's a little interesting to see a three-year-old apply Chanel makeup with such intensity and concentration. Not to mention skill!
Dada of course cooked his own dinner - Uncle Bert brought Irish and North Sea oysters (the Irish ones were superb!), to go with Dada's chablis that Mama (with Uncle Yves' expert guidance) found for a bargain price at a sale in Central. Sole Meuniere.

Mama had made Dada an "exploding box" album, with a chocolate box inside, but did not know that the box contained only two little (very expensive) Francesca truffles. As soon as the box opened, Katy bypassed all the cute photos and workmanship, and zeroed in on the chocolate box, ripped it open, then said "oh no! there's only two, one for me and one for Dada". She didn't really know why we all thought that was so funny as it seemed obvious to her!



Katy then treated us to an after dinner demonstration of Princess kissing, waving and curtsying.

Before heading off to bed reluctantly and exhaustedly (and late).

Little Gorilla Big Gorilla

On Saturday, Katy woke up from her nap in a deep funk. She's been doing this the last few afternoons. She just cries and cries and screams and nothing helps her, so the only thing we can do is to hold her very tight. Well, Mama has to. She doesn't want anyone else.

Then Dada got this great idea! And it worked! It got Katy out of her funk.


Ooh Ooh Ooh Ooh, they said.And gave each other a Gorilla face kiss.
These gorillas are pretty civilised - wine connoisseurs even!
One of our favourite books at the moment is called "Little Gorilla" and it is about how everyone loved the baby gorilla until he grew and grew and grew and had his 5th birthday, and how you know what, even though he is now a big gorilla, everyone still loved him just as much. I got it for Katy because of this prolonged I want to be a Baby stage. I worried that she was going all Peter Pan on us and not wanting to grow up.

Tired

Katy has not been herself these last few days. She has been having tantrums almost every day and she can go from giggly and happy one minute to angry and out of control the next minute over some minute thing.

This is usually a sign she is overtired or not well. It's puzzling because she has been sleeping ok. But I think it has just been too busy for her lately. She's also been wanting us to carry her all the time rather than running and walking everywhere, which is what she used to do.

I'm a little worried it could be glandular fever / mono, and I am thinking that we'll take her for a check up on Thursday if things don't get better.


In the meantime, we will buckle down for some serious sleep training and early bedtimes! This just got more challenging as she started to escape from the crib very easily today. if things keep going this way, it will be time to call in the big guns - Carol AKA The Sleep Doctor!