Campsite
Kids' Garden
Water (by day) /Fire (by night) Tree
Magic Meadow
Dingly Dell Trail
Loving every minute of it!
Nicholas' artistic impression
Tuesday, 9 August 2011
Camp Bestival
Just like every winter won't be the same without a snowboarding trip so every summer wouldn't be complete without a festival. This year we decided to try out Camp Bestival as it is known as one of the best festivals for families. In fact I would go as far as saying that it is totally geared towards kids with some entertainment on the side for the parents. So it was exactly up our alley. I won't go into detail of all the things we saw you can check out the cool website to get an idea. Most importantly the boys had an absolute ball and we had fun too!
Kids' Garden
Water (by day) /Fire (by night) Tree
Magic Meadow
Dingly Dell Trail
Loving every minute of it!
Nicholas' artistic impression
Kids' GardenWater (by day) /Fire (by night) TreeMagic Meadow
Dingly Dell Trail
Loving every minute of it!Nicholas' artistic impression
Monday, 8 August 2011
Terrible Twos
As if by magic Daniel started having tantrums when he turned two. I'm not talking about short little outbursts that are easy to solve. This little guy can kick and scream and turn on the waterworks like you can't imagine. And believe me it's not easy to stop him. I feel quite bad putting these photos up but some of you, who have been lucky not to witness this side of Danny, just don't believe me so I thought I'd provide some evidence. On the up side it always ends with a 'Sorry Mommy! No more screaming!' and lots of cuddles and kissies. The episodes are are diminishing in frequency and duration so I think we're making progress. Hopefully this phase will pass soon!
Usually he looks like this
Tantrum
Calming Down
Is that a smile I see?
Daniel says the strangest things when he is angry. 'Go away' features often but then there are some other quality insults too. 'You go fly away in the window to the tree tops' and 'I'm going to give you one minute ONE minute' with a stern pointed finger of course. And wait for it, ' I'm going to break your nose'. I just don't know where he gets it from!
Usually he looks like this
Tantrum
Calming Down
Is that a smile I see?
Daniel says the strangest things when he is angry. 'Go away' features often but then there are some other quality insults too. 'You go fly away in the window to the tree tops' and 'I'm going to give you one minute ONE minute' with a stern pointed finger of course. And wait for it, ' I'm going to break your nose'. I just don't know where he gets it from!
Daniel around the age of two
This post has been in the pipeline for quite a while, as the title suggests it's all about Daniel just before and just after he turned two, the photos are all from April, May and June. I'm the kind of mom that likes to keep track of of my boys' development, I love going back and looking at old photos and video clips, and this is one way for me to do that. I love this photo because it gives a pretty good idea of my boy's gorgeous smile and sparkling personality!
Dad is STILL Daniel's most favourite person in the whole world. The first thing he does in the morning is look for his dad and the last thing he does at night is look for his dad and inbetween it's pretty much the same thing. Unfortunately Dad is sometimes gone by the time Danny wakes up and sometimes he doesn't get home until Danny is asleep. But when he is here it's hard to separate them!
The other day Daniel was clearly hungry as he was hanging on my legs begging for worsie (droe wors), cake (muffins, cupcakes, cake), chippies (who doesn't feel like snacking on crisps) and cheese (that's my boy). He loves summoning everyone for breakfast/lunch/supper by shouting 'kos is oppie tafel' (Afrikaans for 'food is on the table') at the top of his voice. The latest is 'I'll do it myself'. It usually isn't very hard to convince him to eat anything and everything. His all time favourite is definitely yoghurt!
When we got back from wintersport we stopped giving Daniel milk in a bottle at bed time and early in the morning. He made the transition without any fuss at all. He doesn't always drink quite as much milk as he should, or as much as his big brother does, but he happily gives it a go out of a cup at every breakfast and supper. Oh and he says 'milk' with such a strong South African accent that even Nicholas teases him about it!
The dummy is another story. We tried to phase it out along with the bottle but 'No way NEVER' as Daniel puts it. He LOVES his dummy. His eyes light up with delight when he gets into his cot at night because he can pop it into his mouth. He very happily surrenders it in the morning when he wants to 'wakey wakey rise and shine'. We tried snipping the tip off but that really upset him and after 2 days with a distraught toddler we gave in. To be honest we're addicted to it as much as he is but if anyone has any suggestions how we can get rid of it please fill us in!
Danny is showing lots of positive signs regarding potty training. He enjoys sitting on the potty and sometimes he is successful. When he has bare-bum time he often realises when he needs to pee and runs outside or to the bathroom. After success he does this funny little hopping dance and shouts 'I did it! I did it!'. I'm not ready to do potty training yet though!
Daniel is very good at recognising things. He can identify our car from miles away by saying 'mommy's car' or 'there it is' or 'I found it'. He recognises different places that we go to regularly. When we approach our house he declares 'home sweet home' with total delight. He loves being outside and makes it very clear when he wants to 'I play in garden'. One day I even found him trying to break out of the house with a screwdriver!
So many things that my little boy does impress me. His puzzle skills are phenomenal for his age (he can do the 30 piece number puzzle without any help). He has already mastered the art of finding matching pairs. He can identify atleast 5 dinosaurs: triceratops, diplodocus, stegosaurus, parasaurolophus and t-rex of course. He is pretty good at naming shapes too. He loves counting but is still at the stage of randomly shouting out numbers. He can't quite get his colours right yet either but he know what colours exist because he tries his best. He is very curious and one of his favourite questions is: 'What do you call this?'!
I guess it's got a lot to do with the fact that Daniel looks up to his big brother and wants to do everything that he does. Nicholas is a very patient and good teacher most of the time. They do a lot of wrestling and a lot of cuddling too. They have the odd tussle but generally they play nicely together. Every night they happily watch tv together and they often share books which is pleasing to see. If Nicholas sits down to draw then so does Daniel. As with many things, he gives running commentary, describing everything that he is drawing. Clearly he has a vivid imagination. He can draw 'circles' and 'lines' when requested and often pretends to write his name!
Every day I am amazed at the rate at which his language is developing. Not only does he speak in sentences now but he also uses pronouns and tenses. Some of his first phrases were 'I need it', 'I like it', 'I find it', 'What you doing', 'Give it to me', 'I want to go play downstairs now'. He also often says positive things like 'Well done', 'Good job' or Good boy'. He even copies some of Nicholas' Spanish words and greets the teachers at Peques with an 'ola' and says good-bye with an 'adios'. He has some adorable, and dare I say South African habits too, his latest is to say 'Ja' (yes), 'uh-uh' (no), 'now-now' (a bit later) and ending a sentence with 'okay?' or 'hey?' when he is explaining something. If someone asks him what his name is he replies with no hesitation and sometimes refers to himself as Danny-Boy which is kind of cute. The thing I love most of all is they way he gives running commentary ALL THE TIME and the joy on his face when we show that we understand him by repeating what he says!
Rhyme Time is one of Danny's favourite activities and he always participates with great enthusiasm. When he sees any musical intruments his face lights up in a smile. He loves singing and sings beautifully. The list is long and I could get carried away but I'll limit it to the first few that come to mind: Twinkle Star, Nkosi Sikelela, Sleeping Bunnies, The Rainbow Song, The ABC song, Three Little Pigs and Walking in the Jungle. He also enjoys classical music and appears to have a good ear. And boy can he dance!
Dad is STILL Daniel's most favourite person in the whole world. The first thing he does in the morning is look for his dad and the last thing he does at night is look for his dad and inbetween it's pretty much the same thing. Unfortunately Dad is sometimes gone by the time Danny wakes up and sometimes he doesn't get home until Danny is asleep. But when he is here it's hard to separate them!
The other day Daniel was clearly hungry as he was hanging on my legs begging for worsie (droe wors), cake (muffins, cupcakes, cake), chippies (who doesn't feel like snacking on crisps) and cheese (that's my boy). He loves summoning everyone for breakfast/lunch/supper by shouting 'kos is oppie tafel' (Afrikaans for 'food is on the table') at the top of his voice. The latest is 'I'll do it myself'. It usually isn't very hard to convince him to eat anything and everything. His all time favourite is definitely yoghurt!
When we got back from wintersport we stopped giving Daniel milk in a bottle at bed time and early in the morning. He made the transition without any fuss at all. He doesn't always drink quite as much milk as he should, or as much as his big brother does, but he happily gives it a go out of a cup at every breakfast and supper. Oh and he says 'milk' with such a strong South African accent that even Nicholas teases him about it!
The dummy is another story. We tried to phase it out along with the bottle but 'No way NEVER' as Daniel puts it. He LOVES his dummy. His eyes light up with delight when he gets into his cot at night because he can pop it into his mouth. He very happily surrenders it in the morning when he wants to 'wakey wakey rise and shine'. We tried snipping the tip off but that really upset him and after 2 days with a distraught toddler we gave in. To be honest we're addicted to it as much as he is but if anyone has any suggestions how we can get rid of it please fill us in!
Danny is showing lots of positive signs regarding potty training. He enjoys sitting on the potty and sometimes he is successful. When he has bare-bum time he often realises when he needs to pee and runs outside or to the bathroom. After success he does this funny little hopping dance and shouts 'I did it! I did it!'. I'm not ready to do potty training yet though!
Daniel is very good at recognising things. He can identify our car from miles away by saying 'mommy's car' or 'there it is' or 'I found it'. He recognises different places that we go to regularly. When we approach our house he declares 'home sweet home' with total delight. He loves being outside and makes it very clear when he wants to 'I play in garden'. One day I even found him trying to break out of the house with a screwdriver!
So many things that my little boy does impress me. His puzzle skills are phenomenal for his age (he can do the 30 piece number puzzle without any help). He has already mastered the art of finding matching pairs. He can identify atleast 5 dinosaurs: triceratops, diplodocus, stegosaurus, parasaurolophus and t-rex of course. He is pretty good at naming shapes too. He loves counting but is still at the stage of randomly shouting out numbers. He can't quite get his colours right yet either but he know what colours exist because he tries his best. He is very curious and one of his favourite questions is: 'What do you call this?'!
I guess it's got a lot to do with the fact that Daniel looks up to his big brother and wants to do everything that he does. Nicholas is a very patient and good teacher most of the time. They do a lot of wrestling and a lot of cuddling too. They have the odd tussle but generally they play nicely together. Every night they happily watch tv together and they often share books which is pleasing to see. If Nicholas sits down to draw then so does Daniel. As with many things, he gives running commentary, describing everything that he is drawing. Clearly he has a vivid imagination. He can draw 'circles' and 'lines' when requested and often pretends to write his name!
Every day I am amazed at the rate at which his language is developing. Not only does he speak in sentences now but he also uses pronouns and tenses. Some of his first phrases were 'I need it', 'I like it', 'I find it', 'What you doing', 'Give it to me', 'I want to go play downstairs now'. He also often says positive things like 'Well done', 'Good job' or Good boy'. He even copies some of Nicholas' Spanish words and greets the teachers at Peques with an 'ola' and says good-bye with an 'adios'. He has some adorable, and dare I say South African habits too, his latest is to say 'Ja' (yes), 'uh-uh' (no), 'now-now' (a bit later) and ending a sentence with 'okay?' or 'hey?' when he is explaining something. If someone asks him what his name is he replies with no hesitation and sometimes refers to himself as Danny-Boy which is kind of cute. The thing I love most of all is they way he gives running commentary ALL THE TIME and the joy on his face when we show that we understand him by repeating what he says!
Rhyme Time is one of Danny's favourite activities and he always participates with great enthusiasm. When he sees any musical intruments his face lights up in a smile. He loves singing and sings beautifully. The list is long and I could get carried away but I'll limit it to the first few that come to mind: Twinkle Star, Nkosi Sikelela, Sleeping Bunnies, The Rainbow Song, The ABC song, Three Little Pigs and Walking in the Jungle. He also enjoys classical music and appears to have a good ear. And boy can he dance!
Monday, 1 August 2011
Giggle Worms and Little Beasts
The Little Gym term came to an end a couple of weeks ago and as usual they had show week so that the parents could appreciate what their little ones have learnt over the past 6 months. Both boys remain extremely enthusiastic about their weekly class so I'm glad that they have improved dramatically in their confidence and ability as a reward. Nick is a Giggle Worm and Danny is a Little Beast - that's where the name of the post comes from!
Danny
Nicholas
(trying to get Nick to pose for a photo isn't an easy feat)
Danny
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