I paint, She colours

I paint
Originally uploaded by Ella's Ma.

Well Ríodhna was so busy telling you all about the Crumps last weekend, that she forgot to say anything about herself.

Like she's walking properly now. All the time. Well sometimes she crawls and she knows she has to sit down and turn around to go down the steps in our living room (or at least we think she knows but Mammy stops her and reminds her every time she walks over near the edge). She likes to walk everywhere but I think you can tell she has just learnt and is practising - yesterday in the pool, a nice lady walking behind us on the way out said that my sister was a new walker and she was right. It's good fun - although mostly she wants to walk around me rather than run into my arms and she prefers just to hold Mammy's hand when we're walking to the baby room in the creche. This evening we did play ring-a-ring-a-rosie on the new grass I grew with Daddy.

Also she can say a few words now. Like Hello instead of Hiya. And Up. And Down. And More. And Baby when she's pointing out all the babies in her books. And Duck on the Duckie books. She saya Nana for bananas which she loves (not for our Nana - sorry Nana). She can do a reasonable attempt at Dora, Boots and GackGack (backpack!) too - Ylva and Marta know she says Baby too but I don't know if they are up to date enough with Dora to know she's talking about her! And I know she understands me most of the time, even if she doesn't always do what I say!!

She does proper angry crying too. The kind I've nearly grown out of. When she wants something and doesn't get it straight away. Like a cuddle. The other day when she lay down to have a cry / yell, we noticed she has two new teeth pushing their way up at the bottom. They look big and sore so I'm not surprised she's crying. Growing teeth seems to be harder than losing them - Liam's first tooth fell out when he was eating a pancake in my house and that wasn't sore at all - or maybe he's brave.

This weekend, I've been calling Mammy "Mother" a lot. I don't think she likes it. She stopped answering me today when I called her it. So I might have to stop that. Yesterday afternoon I was meant to go to Kate's house but Anabel had a fall and had to get a stitch so Ruthie came here instead. And in the morning our neighbour Ella came in for a while with her Mammy and played. So we've done loads this weekend.

Wacky races

Wacky races
Originally uploaded by Ella's Ma.

The Crumps came to stay this weekend. It was great fun. We all get to play together - Ella & I pretend we're big and are playing big boy games and the boys all join in with us.

Considering it was midsummer this weekend, it rained a lot. That didn't stop my Daddy practising his bbq skills in the rain with only Ella's umbrella for shelter. But he's good at the bbq cooking so we let him get on with it.

On Saturday we were too busy having fun to leave the house anyway. The fun continued on after I went to bed - I think I heard quite a few adults coming upstairs and Seanie going down a few times to try to get Liam and Ella to be quiet and go asleep. Seanie & Conor seem very quiet to me - but maybe that was just the DS keeping them enthralled. Conor got to sleep in one of the attic rooms on his own because he's a big boy.

On Sunday we went to the aquarium. We loved it. The Crumps have been to the aquarium loads of times but I've never been to one before and Ella hasn't been to one since she was in one in Monaco on her 2nd birthday. Bray isn't quite Monaco but it was great. We saw big fish and little fish, an octopus who was playing with lego like I have, a spider crab who was the same age as Ella and whose legs were nearly as long as her arms, some sting rays swimming up the sides of their pond and peeking their heads up to say hello to me.

Then the keepers showed us starfish and seahorses eating their dinner and nemo fish and pretty tiny blue jellyfishes. And after that there was a massive ballpit and some ride things to go on.

No wonder we were starving and ready for a big lunch that Daddy cooked when we got home.