Leafy Louise

Hello! Hope you are well. We are fine here and have a quiet but very pleasant weekend and end of last week.

On Thursday, whilst Naomi was at school, Esther, Silas and I did some shopping and then we came home for  a quick lunch as we were meeting our friends at the KidsQuest museum. We had a good couple of hours at KidsQuest with Marie and Caitlin and it was fun to watch Silas enjoy himself too. He was able to crawl around and have fun with the girls. He enjoyed the truck and the water activities but was also just happy in the under 4 section just exploring around.

After we left there we went to see the animals in teh pet shop and the called into the chiropractor before coming home. We then had  a couple of hours to play and read stories before dinner which was good.

On Friday, Ulrike and I met for a walk at the Lake Sammamish state park which was great fun and very good exercise because I suddenly realised where we were and we had to quickly double back on ourselves as we could not complete the loop we were hoping too. Maybe next time it would be a good idea to study a map rather than trusting to chance! In the afternoon we had a lovely time in teh park with Elisabeth and Amy who we hadn't seen for ages so it was good fun!

Yesterday morning I was awake with Silas before anyone else was up and so we were having some reading story time, which he loves. I was showing him a book with animals in (a great favourite) and was showing him an Elephant. I was trumpeting and raising my arm up as a trunk (as you do, you know!!) which Silas thought was very funny. He then started to join in and make a similar sound and wave his arm which was very funny. He also wanted me to keep doing it too and so for  a few minutes we were both pretending to be elephants!

He still makes an 'ack-ack' sound for most animals but will now smack his lips together for a fish when he sees one (like at the pet shop) or when you talk about fish at home. He is also starting to realise that a dog says woof and a cat meow but not every time. He is so good at making his needs known though, even with so few words. The trouble is though that you can't always explain to him for him to understand!

He has been hungry the last couple of days and yesterday lunch time ate a whole piece of bread with soft cheese, a babybel cheese, a  whole slice of chicken, followed by a whole banana and a yoghurt. He was still hungry and wanting more and in particular wanting the chocolate brownie that Tim and the girls were eating. Anyway i gave him a little piece which he ate very happily and when he finished it, he was pointing and pointing to the box and was very vocal in his desire to get another one but I said no. I went to get a flannel to wash him up with (a hose is a better choice, usually but yesterday wasn't too bad!) and returned a few seconds later to find Silas holding an enormous piece of chocolate brownie and looking extremely pleased with himself!!

I was stunned and asked who had given it to him only to find that it was Esther as she had realised that he wanted one and hadn't thought to ask me before hand if it was OK. i quickly explained the importance of that as you can understand! It was funny! Anyway, I removed the chocolate brownie with great difficulty!

In the morning, Silas had had a little sleep whilst the girls had done some painting, which they enjoyed and did a good job with. They have used the stencils and sponges for printing very well and have made some nice pictures.

Silas spent the morning trying to climb, up the chairs and onto the dining room table and onto the blue table where the children do their drawing. At one point, Esther complained that Silas was in her way only for Tim to find him sitting on the table on top of her work! He is a shocker! The funny thing to watch though is when Silas wants to climb onto the little blue chair that Esther is on. As he doesn't weigh ,much less than Esther he just climbs up and pushes her off, which she doesn't like too much but it is funny!

In the afternoon we went to Crossroads Mall as i had read that there was a cultural afternoon on. We had a good time there and we saw some belly dancing (pretty awful) and then some Irish dancing which had the girls transfixed! There were also music acts and glass cases with Dolls on display, all of which entertained the children. There were also stalls selling ethnic clothing, hats and bags and things from teh countries involved and one of the stalls had some bizarre hats. They were made out of thick felt I think and had tentacles on all over, about  20 of them I should think and they looked very odd! We stopped by this stall and were watching a lady buying one of these hats and she saw our surprised looks. The lady running the stall made me try one on, which everyone thought was very funny! Tim looked really silly in it and the girls flatly refused to try it on at all! Silas just wanted to feel the tentacles!! Enough said!

Today we went to church this morning and then tried a new restaurant for lunch which was not much good. After lunch we washed my new car and then went onto the Arboretum park which was great fun. We drove past some very nice houses in the city which Naomi called "exquisite" or "squizit" but we were impressed that she knew the word at all!

 We had a great time scrunching in the leaves and then the girls realised that the leaves were sticking to my cardigan. Well, you can imagine what happened next - Mummy got well and truly covered in dried leaves, which they thought was hilarious especially when Mummy also buried them under the leaves too. It was good fun although dried leaves down one's front is not very comfortable and it took about 10 minutes to pick all the leaf bits off - or at least as many as I could. I hadn't had the cardigan on long again when we walked back passed the leaves we had been playing in earlier and the girls started all over again, this time chasing me to cover me in leaves! When asked what their favourite part of the day was they both replied "covering mummy with leaves!"

Well, that is all our news for now! I hope that this finds you well and I will write on Wednesday. I have a large pile of ironing to tackle right now!!