The new fashion

Apparently bold makeup is the next best thing - according to Katie! We found her rummaging through Saras handbag. At first I thought she was looking for lollies (which she most probably was) but it turns out that she needed something to bring out her eyes! Not a bad effort for the first time!

The next day there was no makeup lying around so whats a girl to do you have to lighten up your hue? Get creative and use a highlighter pen of course!

Birthday party #1

It feels like Katie reached the "terrible twos" 6 months ago but it becomes official on Wednesday. With the limited space available in our wee flat we decided that it was easiest to have a party for the family one week and then another one for friends the next weekend. We are taking her swimming and eating waffles on her actual birthday so all in all it will be 3 parties! I hope that we arent setting a precedent!!!
Here are a few pics from (the first) big day!

When you are celebrating your birthday is that at breakfast time you don't have to eat the toast - licking the jam off is close enough!

The best thing about presents is shredding the wrapping paper

Hmm, this will be perfect to tip water all over Mum & Dad - just like they do on the Wiggles!

A well documented day!

Now why don't we have this for tea everyday?!?

Easily Pleased

I don't understand the fasination with buckets and spades! All we do when we go outside nowadays is fill the bucket with snow, empty the bucket somewhere and repeat (until Mum & Dad are freezing cold). Katie doesn't seem to get cold. My hands are like big heatsinks even when I have gloves on, gradually cooling the rest of my body from a comfortable 36 degrees. Katie on the other hand plays for hours in the snow with no gloves on and very rarely complains of being cold.

We went to visit Katies Grandparents in the weekend. Nice to get away for the weekend and much more snow to dig in than back home!

For a bit of variation you can always scrape the stones off the path into the bucket...

A new eating experience...

We were in a hurry to get tea on the table last night, since the Grub declared that she was hungry. Not having any suitable veggies-on-the-side (read corn - Katie is very very selective) I decided to give her some fruit with her pasta instead to fill her up on vitamin C (we have a few colds to battle).

So I chopped up some banana and pink grapefruit slices, and put it on her plate.
After a few seconds I get handed a slice of half-chewed grapefruit:
"No, Mum. The orange is bad."

Last of the Snow

Katie doesnt want to do anything outside apart from play with her bucket and spade. Fill it up with snow, tip it out and repeat times 100! There are little snow castles littered all over the playground when she is done! Of course you can't keep your gloves on when you are working with a spade! Its a good job the weather over here is starting to get (relatively) warm.

Over the last few days, the snow has gradually subsided and now we can move on from snow castles to sand/gravel castles, or why not sit in a puddle of freezing water and use the spade to splash all of the adults at the playground?!?

Camping in the Kitchen

Not the most comfortable place to sleep!

Waterworks

We took Katie to the swimming pool tonight. She usually runs down the steps into the water but was a bit cautious today, slowly edging herself in not wanting to get cold . She came right though when we chucked her in! She had a great time launching herself off ledges into the water, floting around on a big crocodile and racing mum and dad on the hydroslide.
Later on when we were back in the changing room she had a little "accident" and peeded on the floor. I wiped it up fairly quickly with her towel and thought that nobody had noticed. Little miss Katie wasn't happy with the obvious lack of attention being paid to her efforts and promptly declared for the entire changing room: "Katie did weez on the floor" (going up to a complete stranger and pointing to me with the towel) "look there, weez."

Sara gets to take her next time!

Hungry Little Monster

Katie used to be a real pain to feed (or not feed as the case be...). The only thing she every ate was välling (porridge like stuff that you drink for the non-swedes reading this). Nowadays she is eating everything. Porridge for breakfast, sandwiches, chips, different types of fruit and vegetables - everything in short. It is like she has been walking around hungry for the last couple of years and finally made the connection between eating food and being full. It could well be that the lack of nourishment may have stymmied the development of that part of her brain!
Now she is eating all sorts of things - left, right and centre.

Our little hyphochondriac is learning to nag

I like my tracksuit pants. They are however well worn and in the final stages of disintegration. I dont like buying clothes so I dont. This annoys Sara somewhat but I didnt think Katie was old enough to be embarassed by her old man yet. She came up to me while I was sitting at the table, looked at my knees (through my pants) and said "they are broken. Dad buy new!" Now Im getting nagged from both sides!!!

After being read stories about cats sawing their legs off, birds nailing their beaks and little boys falling off tables, Katie has turned into a bit of a hypochondriac! Whenever she bangs her hand, bumps her knee or thinks about something that hurts she comes running up to us, grabs us by the hand and leads the way straight to the medicine cabinet to get a plaster. We have explained to her that you only use plasters when there is blood but it hasnt sunk in!

Earning her keep

We cut her some slack in the beginning when she was learning to walk but now that she is almost 2 it is time to start earning her keep!
Katie thinks that doing the luxing is fun which is great. Instead of just riding around on the motor while we do the work, she has actually started to hunt the dust rats herself now. She is going to have to work on her upper body strength though because she cann't lift the hose off the floor when the motor is on full effect!

Hard Rocker Katie

As a lot of you already know, I was at the ACDC concert down in Stockholm with some mates a couple of weeks back. Incredible concert with all the old classics you remember from the woolshed parties + a handful of tracks from their new album. Excellent time had by all!

Even Katie got in the swing of things, thrashing around at one of the pre-concert warmups!

Early morning?

Wee bugger fell asleep at six tonight.
Totally wasted.
I wonder if she never slept at kindy? But they didn't say anything about that.
There is a high risk of an early morning.
So I better cut this short.
Cross your fingers that she sleeps at least until 5.30....will keep you posted.

Booked a short trip to the zoo in May. Only away for two nights, but it will be real fun!
Will be so nice to have a family holiday to look forward to.
We have been wanting to do this with Katie for ages. :)
Good night!

More Biscuits for Dad!

After a hard day out on the track skiing yesterday it was nice to have a peaceful night at home with the whanau. Katie has been a bit hard to feed in the past so I have turned it into a bit of a game, pretending to feed her only to whisk it away again (and then give it back to her, for the most part...). It has taught her to be a bit possessive of food and do the same thing to me when she has something that I want (without ever actually giving it to me in the end!).
She must have missed me over the weekend though because today she came toddling out of the kitchen with 2 chocolate biscuits, said "here dadda", gave me one and then gave me a hug and a kiss!
Either that or she wanted one herself and though that it was best to butter us up a bit so that we couldnt say no!

ps
Later that night she bit me and had a tantrum that lasted the better part of an hour so it isnt all fun and games...

No gloves!

The Grub is still sick, but I do not think that she fever anymore. The big Grub (that would be me) is now sick too. I think that I am overexposed to grubgerms. Getting licked in the face and similar close encounters makes it fairly impossible to not catch whatever she has got. Hopefully Dean didn't wolf down all of the Neurofen stuff last week, I think I will need some strong stuff to get through tomorrows meetings.

Tried to go outside for a play session just now, heaps of snow here in Ludvika, but the sessions have to be kept rather short since Katie refuses to use gloves. At -10 that quickly becomes a problem. The main reason for not wanting gloves is that she cannot pick up the spade, or anything really, with the gloves since her hands get so clumpsy. I can really understand her. The frustration ended in tears, and going inside. Can't wait for spring. Lucky we're spending part of winter i NZ next year, cutting the glove season a bit shorter.

Got to go and try to nappify wee McG before she wees on my parents new carpet...