Wednesday 16 April 2014

What a cheeky monkey!




















 

Sorry about the distinct absence around here, I've been rather busy with this one and being rushed off my feet at work (booo).   She has been turning into quite the character and Nursery recount many stories with me about hilarious things she has done throughout the day.  Today I watched her get ridiculously out of control when she saw a giant teddy bear (staff dressed up as a bear); she swung between desperation to touch it, laughter and confusion. She is so interesting to interact with and watch nowadays; the way she looks with amazement, interest and intrigue at objects is just fascinating- imagining what is going through that little mind of hers.  Ophelia is particularly keen on cuddly toys at the moment; this mostly involves banging them on the ground but she also gets ridiculously excited if you bounce them towards her or make them have funny voices.  She really does love banging everything though, just today at nursery we witnessed her munching on an orange whilst trying to bang a block of wood into her mouth.  Her imagination seems to be going into overdrive and she spends ages trying to fit items into cups as well as pull the contents of tables all over herself (there is a rather worrying amount of determination and strength involved in this one!).  At the moment she is really interested in exploring others (!) and is a bit obsessed with digging her finger nails into our inner noses and lips, this really is quite painful I tell you! She also really seems to love playing with my tongue with her hand, rather odd again! I keep catching her looking at her hands and fingers whilst she moves them, it makes her appear quite profound and like she is performing shakespeare! She loves all the other kids at nursery and they love her too, today I witnessed a child hand her a toy whilst another boy came and sat right by us to play (please don't tell me she has a boyfriend already!).  She appears to have got over her weird phobia of getting her hands dirty and now likes to get "stuck in" at any oppotunity, the other day this involved soil to plant a seed and today it was chocolate whilst baking.  She loves to give me ridiculously wet, sloppy kisses on my mouth which is sweet if not slightly gross! I guess I should enjoy it whilst it lasts!

I really do love this kiddo and watching her personality develop more and more each day, even when she spends all day saying "Dadda"non stop, right up until she falls asleep!

Sunday 6 April 2014

That infamous age....

Whilst she isn't even 9 months yet, I often find myself uhming and ahhing over whether we will bother properly celebrating Ophelia's 1st Birthday.  Mostly I fall towards the "no" corner purely because she won't remember it and I don't have time to eat let alone plan a party.  But several things have swayed me towards the "yes" corner; namely the fact that there is a possibility we may have a garden to play and heaps more space but also that Callum's mum bought her a dress that is screaming to be worn on her first birthday. Plus, I might as well plan it before she demands Peppa pig.

The other day I got a bit carried away and had as good as planned the whole party in a theme of Wizard of Oz-purely because I have this book and have been dying for a reason to use it! Here are some of the inspiration I found...

Look at that cake! I love the idea of different coloured foods although perhaps natural rainbow coloured foods as opposed to E numbers?! This site is GREAT for party inspiration! 


I love gingham and love any excuse to get involved in it so imagine how carried away I would get incorporating this into the theme!


Obviously eating is the main priority! Green luminous jelly?! Iced gem cookies?! Rainbow cake? Cherry pie?! Hells yeah! 

The other theme  I thought about was related to her dress which is a peach colour with a garden type pattern (from M&S I think) and here are some of the lovely things I've seen:


4

I love the tassel garlands and these colours look so fab together!