You experienced Christmas for the first time!
You received lots of lovely presents.
You delighted everyone on Christmas morning, wearing your special red dress and a Santa hat!
You are growing more and more confident in pulling yourself up on furniture, cruising around and moving from one spot to another.
You are helped in this by your blocks cart.
You also use your blocks cart to play “smashblocks” with Daddy.
You had a lovely summer holiday in New Zealand, staying with Grandma and Grandad.
You thoroughly enjoyed watching The Muppets movie at the cinema with Mum and Dad.
You had lots of fun on a picnic with friends in the Royal Botanic Gardens.
You kneel a lot, and it is REALLY cute.
You have stood up on your own twice – very exciting.
You even look a couple of tentative steps – very very exciting!
You are almost a toddler now Daisy!

You can clap your hands.
You like to tip your head backwards and stretch your neck (and we like to kiss it).
You had your first proper cold i.e. the runniest nose ever.
You are great at pulling yourself from lying down up to sitting.
You really, really, really love eating mango.
You have developed so many physical skills lately: sitting, kneeling, pulling yourself up.
You like to play with the other babies at Mothers Group.
You settle yourself to sleep most of the time now.
You pick flowers in the garden (and try to eat them).
You are still a sociable poppet – we go out for lunch with friends sometimes.
You met Santa for the first time!
You weight about 8kgs now – a bit of a skinny minnie!
You are basically just too cute, Daisy.

I’m not an illustrator, but I kind of have this compulsion to be one. Kind of like my “when I grow up I want to be…” dream. We’ll see!

Merry Christmas!

This is our version of mistletoe. And this is what we do with it.

I love swimming at the beach, but we have these “rules”. It has to be either early morning (say, before 10am) or late afternoon (after 4 or 5pm). I need an umbrella. And finally, I need an icecream afterwards.

The shot above is from Googlemaps (sorry Mr Google if I am not supposed to do this). It’s Tamarama in Sydney. I’ve never actually swum at Tama but I think I’d like to!

Summer so far has been a drizzly affair, but hopefully in the late summer (my favourite time to swim in the ocean) we’ll get some swim time.

I love Ikea and I love Christmas. And together, they are an almighty force in the nicely styled Christmas decoration department.
My favourites from this year’s collection:

1. Yrsnö fabric decorations
2. Bärbar tray
3. Snödriva cookie cutters
4. Yrsnö tree
5. Gosig Vovven dalmation toy (cute!)
6. Yrsnö reindeer decorations
7. Stockholm candelabra
8. Yrsnö wrapping paper
9. Idgran decorations (this is clever – like a little kit you can stitch onto things or hang from the tree)
10. Yrsnö toadstool decorations (I want these!)

I also love love love the very minimal Stråla angel. If you’re a bit Scrooge-like this time of year, this would be the perfect one single decoration to have in your home.

P.S. Here’s a similar post from 2009.

You grew another tooth – up the top this time.
You like to eat noodles and custard and mandarin and mango.
You have started to get up on your hands and knees and rock back and forth.
Another tooth.
Another tooth.
Another tooth – that’s six teeth!
You went on a little holiday to Forster with mum, dad, Grandma, Aunty Jen, and Mitchell.
You loved swimming in the pool, but you weren’t so fond of the ocean.
You have been struggling a bit with getting to sleep during the day, but we’re working on it.
You also have had a few random nights of disrupted night sleeps!
Your crawling speed improved all of a sudden.
You figured out how to stick your tongue out at people.
You like to lie on your side (we call it the David Brent move).
You are starting to get very strong – you love standing up (with help) and walking (with help) and pulling yourself up on chair rungs etc (by yourself!).
You keep us so busy, Daisy.

You visited the beach for the first time (Freshwater, NSW).
You are getting better at eating solid foods – you even tried a little bit of lasagne.
Your favourite foods are pears, rice rusks, and cucumbers.
You have started to say “da da da”.
You sure do growl a lot these days!
You know how to nod your head “yes”.
You can clap hands with me.
You, all of a sudden, started sleeping on your tummy.
You spilled Daddy’s beer allllll over him (and yourself) when we went out to dinner.
You make funny faces when you take the first mouthful of yoghurt, but you do like it.
You still wake up once each night. Sometimes twice.
You like to get up early (6:30am) on weekends to play with Dad.
You have a bad habit of chewing jandals/thongs.
You make us laugh a lot, Daisy.

P.S. This is my 250th post. Hip hip hooray!

You FINALLY figured out how to roll from your tummy to your back.
You have tried the new foods of zucchini, baby spinach, broccoli, pear, avocado, carrot, banana, rice cereal.
You went on your first bushwalk.
You like to eat baby rice crackers.
You started to commando crawl, all of a sudden!
You love to be outside on the front lawn in the afternoons, watching Daddy in the garden.
You went on a big bus trip into the city with Mummy.
You were surprisingly well-behaved on the bus!
You fall asleep in the car quite a lot these days.
You fall asleep in your pram really easily too!
You aren’t as much a fan of falling asleep in your cot though… especially during the day.
You do lots of fake laughs and fake coughs which is pretty funny.
You seem to get bored with Mummy, so it is exciting when other people talk to you.
You are much louder and more insistent when you wake up these days.
You are still my baby girl though, Daisy.

You all of a sudden knew how to “bum shuffle” down out of a seat.
You figured out how to grab your feet, and chewing on your socks is now a favourite pastime.
You know how to get your arm out from under you when you roll over.
You are VERY quick at rolling over.
You are famous for your stare.
You went on a plane, overseas, for the first time – to New Zealand.
You were a huge hit with the extended Odom family!
You are loving baths even more these days – you lie down in the big bath now!
You are a friendly little girl who usually smiles at strangers.
You let me take lots and lots of photos of you.
You have started to try a few new foods: apple, cucumber, potato, pumpkin.
You still love your milk a lot though!
You are my little funny face buddy, Daisygirl.