Amy having fun with stamps

Amy loves these letter stamps I bought yesterday. 

Playing at home

Amy has such a great imagination now with play.  She does a lot of pretend play like shopping,  feeding baby,  and tea parties.
Here she is below sitting with baby at the table.  She sat baby in the chair and gave him or her (still trying to work out what gender baby is) a corn puff to eat.  I then heard her say "That's enough Baby,  that's enough!".
Jack has become such a thumb sucker lately.  Amy never did it,  she liked to suck her fist when she was a baby.  Jack sometimes sucks his fingers but the thumb has been very popular lately. 
Amy and I did some messy play yesterday.  And boy did she like it!  Jack was having a big sleep so we took advantage of some time together.  I originally intended to make some cheese muffins.  After putting the flour into bowl Amy enjoyed running her fingers through it.  I went to add other ingredients and she said she didn't want anything else in the bowl.  We ended up making some play doh but she was more interested in playing with the flour.  It was so messy but she had a great time!
Amy has also been very helpful with taking care of Jack.  She likes to give him a bottle (which he is getting the hang of!).  Jack sometimes gets a little 'squashed'  with love and cuddles from Amy.
And lastly there are a few photos of Amy putting on her own pants.  She tried really hard (even though they were upside down)  and thought it was funny when she tried to walk with them around her ankles.

"You're so cute!"

Amy is so funny.  We were both hiding under a blanket playing a game and our faces were quite close.  She looked at me,  patted both my cheeks with her hands and said "You're so cute!". 

Toddler fun!

Amy has been having a fun couple of days.  We went to a beautiful park on Tuesday morning.  It was nice and breezy and not hot so she enjoyed running around and going on the slide many many times. Michael went on the slide too and Amy loved 'catching'  him as he reached the bottom.
Today we went to lollipops play land with some friends.  Amy and her friend had a lovely time playing together.  They both loved the tea cups ride and requested "more"  many times.  They also enjoyed the jumping castle and slide. Amy bought herself a bouncy ball from a machine and was extremely happy when a blue one came out!

Jack update

Jack is a big boy and has now hit 7.6kg! He wears 00 clothes and I have 0 clothes he is almost ready for. He gives heaps of smiles,  giggles and has started 'talking',  making some interesting sounds.

He is very strong and likes to 'stand'  on my lap or the floor. He loves jumping and doing sit ups (with my help of course).  He seems to enjoy sitting up leaning against me so he has a different view of what's going on around him.

On his belly today he was kicking his legs so much he moved forward a little bit.  He wants to move! He swipes at toys and has just started grabbing them and trying to put them in his mouth.  His hands are often in his mouth and Amy pulls them out and says "Don't eating hands Jack".

He wakes twice in the night for feeds on an average night.  Usually around 1.30 and 4.30. He likes to cat nap in the day lately,  lasting about 40 minutes. He naps about 4 times a day. He usually is asleep by 8.30. Needless to say he keeps us busy!

Abc's

Amy is very interested in letters at the moment.  I found a great printable letter-matching game online for her.  She loves it!  It's matching upper-case and lower-case letters and she really enjoys doing it. 
Below is a picture of the letters she did by herself.  Clever girl!

Amy's speech

Now that Amy is having conversations with us,  she comes up with some pretty funny things.

This morning she pointed to my lips and said "I like your mouth!".

We were driving in the car and the conversation went as follows:

Amy: "I see a puppy out a window"
Me: "Wow!  What colour was the puppy?"
Amy: "Blue".

Of course it was blue...

When she arrived home from day care the other week,  she saw Jack lying on the couch.  She went over to him and gave him pats and said "Hi little boy!  I missed you a-day"  (which means 'I missed you today' ).

Every day after day care I asked her what she did.  She often replies that she did painting.  When I ask what colour,  she says "blue". 

Of course.

Another cute moment was when Amy found my phone lying on the couch.

Amy: "I got a message!"
Me: "You got a message?  Who's it from?"
Amy: "Aunty Sal!"

One morning she came up to me and said "I like your hair!". Ha ha. She had heard me say it to a friend the day before who had recently had her hair cut.
Amy then started walking around touching her hair saying "I like my hair".

Her speech has recently developed even further where she is trying to perfect certain words.  For example: "crocodile"  she used to pronounce "croco-hile".  She said it correctly today. 

I was teaching her about questions and answers.  I asked her what her favourite colour was.  Then she repeated after me "my favourite colour is blue".

We also did favourite shape (heart),  favourite song (rock a bye your bear), and favourite number (5).

Then we sang some songs together.  She remembers a lot of lyrics now to her favourite nursery Rhymes and wiggles songs. Sometimes she tells me not to sing.  :/

Day care

Here are some photos of Amy at day care.

Thumb sucker!

Today I was pushing Jack around the shops in the pram.  He was trying to get to sleep and was soothing himself by sucking his thumb. 
He has been really exploring his hands lately,  putting them in his mouth. He likes to suck his fingers too.

Fun at home

Here are some happy snaps from the last week or so...

Today Amy and I made coloured foam (bubbles).  We mixed 2T dishwasher liquid, a quarter cup of water and some food colouring.  Then we put it in the mixer on high speed for 2 minutes.  The result is lovely coloured foam!  It's fun to play with and create lovely swirls of colour.

We also did some painting outside,  and even drew a race car track on a large piece of paper (with a ramp/slide of course!). Amy enjoyed playing with her matchbox cars,  driving them up and down the ramp and through tunnels.

Below is a 3 month old comparison shot of Amy and Jack.  They do look similar,  but I think this photo shows their individual looks.  Jacks skin is more olive in comparison to Amy's. He is much fatter too!  Amy's hair was lighter (almost ginger in some lights).