pre-Christmas party!

we had a pre-Christmas party with Papa's family on Saturday and got to celebrate his 32nd birthday and then opened our Christmas presents under the tree! I got to also open my present from Maman and Papa as well as my present from Granjay & Grandpa because they were too big to bring to France on the plane.

Thank you to everyone for my wonderful presents I love them all loads!

I feel very spoilt after getting the following: 

- a play kitchen from Maman & Papa

- a balance bike from Granjay & Grandpa 

- a tea set as well as a farm game from Grandma & Grandad

- aquadraw, a farm play set & waterproof crayons from Auntie Rachel & Auntie Juliette

Here are some photos...

I'm a little paint artist!

I love my Maman & Papa

Papa Noël

We went to see Papa Noël again this year and Maman told him I'd mostly been a good girl but apparently I have to eat better :-( 

When we first arrived into his room I got really scared and held on to Maman for dear life. When I realised she wanted me to sit on his knees I completely freaked out so we ended up with her coming into the photo too. I'm amazed at how calm I look in the photo considering I was actually really nervous!!!! 

By the end when I was safely away from him and in Maman's arms I waved at him and blew him a kiss so hopefully he won't be too sad that I didn't sit on his knee. 

Decorating my 1st Christmas Tree

I had great fun decorating my first Christmas Tree last weekend. Maman tells me we had a Christmas Tree last year that I sat at the bottom of looking up at the lights but I don't remember it!

Here are photos of me helping decorate the tree...

18 months & counting ...

chilling with my Papa & Maman

Health
I now weigh 9.3 kgs and measure circa 81 cms. 
No new teeth since last month but it looks like I'm teething again so tooth number 13 is probably on it's way. 

Milestones
My vocabulary has continued to increase. Here is a list of the new words I can say: 

tiens
livre
bébé 
encore
lait
look at that
quoi 
nez
caca
Pipi 

I always say Amélie when I get asked "comment tu t'appelles" and I now say Gwampa, Gwanjay & Gwamma instead of Bampa, Bambay & Bamma. I have yet to figure out how to say Grandad tho! 

Although I understand both French and English fully, I get confused sometimes and say the English word instead of the French word. For example when Maman asks me to say "merci" I always say "thank you" instead!!!

I have added the following animal noises to my knowledge: donkey, snake, pig, lion, mouse, bird and sheep. Oh and did you know that if you need to let someone know what a fish does all you need to do is open and close your mouth a few times :-) 


I now correctly point to the following parts of my body: nose, mouth, eyes, hand, foot and head. Talking of heads I've started doing head stands as often as possible! I'm still far too young to be lifting my feet off the ground and balancing on my head but I'm on my way to getting there as I've already started lifting my arms in the air! I've been to two baby gym classes and I love it. I have joined the Saturday morning class @ 10.15am. Last week we did backward rolls and I kept wanting to do more. What's really fun is that any time we do rolls or jumps on the trampoline we have to remember to stand very still and put our arms in the air straight afterwards like a professional gymnast. I'm going to ask Tonton Dan to help me train over the Christmas holidays but I'm already pretty good at remembering to put my arms up it's the standing still I'm not as good at!!

Ooh I nearly forgot to also mention that my hair is finally growing (albeit slowly but at least it's growing) Maman reckons she managed to get a small pony tail in my hair the other day but it's really more of a mouse's tail than anything else!

Maman and Papa have noticed that I really enjoy housework. I continue to help Maman with the laundry as often as possible and recently I've started helping with the sweeping too!

I've also started to play the piano and love it! I'm currently learning "Für Elise" by Ludvig Van Beethoven!!!

Meals
My appetite looked like it had started to grow last month but we spoke too soon. I just don't seem to be interested in food :-( It could be due to the fact I'm teething again but I know it's really frustrating Maman and Papa. The good news is that Maman got talking to a lady in the supermarket the other day and turns out her son is my age and they were discussing what we eat and I actually eat more than he does and show a bit more interest in food too so Maman was relieved to hear she's not the only parent struggling! I think the main problem is that I want to be independent and so I want to feed myself but I still haven't quite got the hang of it! I can sort of get food onto my fork or spoon but most of it falls off before it gets to my mouth. Then there are meals that I just simply don't want to try from the start which I can't explain the reason for :-( 

Sleep
My nap is now late morning for ca 1h30 to 2hrs. I have gone to bed at 7.30pm the last few nights and that seems to help me in the mornings for waking up so my bedtime might move to that instead of 8pm which would be sad for Maman who would miss 30 mins with me in the evenings but if it's better for me then she has said that's what we'll do. 

Clothes
I'm definitely in 12-18 mth clothes now and funnily enough Maman noticed today that my 18 mois jumpers are starting to look a bit short on me so I think we'll be going jumper shopping for taille 2 ans when we're in France end of this month! 

Play date with Lorcan

Maman has hurt her back and has been off work for the last three days. Today Grandma & Grandad were staying with us so I was able to stay at home and help them look after Maman. It also meant that I got to see my friend Lorcan as he and his Maman came to visit us this afternoon :-)

I LOVE Lorcan loads, I couldn't stop kissing him and hugging him! I was even caught stroking his head a few times too. Isabell & Maman told us to kiss each other right at the beginning but after that it was just me wanting to show him my love!!! I also clearly said his name three or four times :-)