Ruth’s work recently had their end of year Christmas party. It was an afternoon spit-braai (BBQ lamb on a spit). Families were  invited and Araminta was very excited to be going to “Mummy’s party”.

Here she is all ready to go.

Note the blanket and the bag.

On Wednesday Ruth took Araminta to have her picture taken with Father Christmas. She wasn’t really sure about the whole process, and needed to come off his lap at one stage for a cuddle with Mummy. But after the photographer brought out his cat toy to wave in the air (she talked about the toy all afternoon), we did manage to coax out a smile.

Even though it was a bit scary for her she has been talking about “Father Kismas” all week.

We have the tree set up and Araminta helped Ruth wrap the presents for Daddy. She is quite happy to have Daddy’s presents under the tree, but it was too much for her to cope with to see presents that she didn’t know the contents of under the tree and she asked me to put them away.

This year we have a fireplace and so the stockings are hanging from the mantle. Araminta looked intently at the three stockings and then wandered off to her room. She came back with a little drawstring bag and hung it on the fire guard. She wanted the cat to have a stocking as well.

Yesterday, Araminta turned 2. She has been excited about birthdays ever since Jeff’s last month and woke us up at 6 am.

After a shower and breakfast, we opened some presents.

A card from Grandma in Perth.

Some stickers (that we had to try out straight away).

She liked the purple teddy from Grandma, it went to bed with her that night. The rubbish bin is there at Araminta’s insistence. She got most distressed that there was nowhere to put the wrapping paper.

Araminta has been showing a strong interest in learning her letters, and she can recognize a fair few now, so Mummy and Daddy bought her some flashcards.

They were a hit.

Also a big hit was the tractor puzzle book. Check out the expression on her face.

This is one of my favourite photos of the day – seeing her new baby for the first time.

Grandma sent Mummy some money and we bought Araminta a stroller for her new baby.

Nana and Poppy came for lunch. They bought Araminta a lovely book and some beautiful new clothes.

We had mushroom raviolli for lunch with pesto sauce and broccoli and carrots, with crusty bread. Araminta had two servings. After lunch there was cake that Mummy made.

Singing “Happy Birthday”

Blowing out the candle.

Finally, a new jumper that Mummy knitted.

It was a wonderful birthday.

We had a wonderful trip to Australia. Araminta travelled very well and even slept for about half of the flight from Johannesberg to Perth.

Here she is on the flight from Cape Town to Johannesberg.

Sleeping on the flight to Perth. The plane was really empty and we had 4 seats to ourselves. I only got one picture of her like this, because the flash caused her to stir, and I didn’t want to risk waking her up.

In Perth we had a great time. Araminta visited the wildlife park where Ruth’s brother works, and she got to feed kangaroos and pat koalas.

From Perth we stopped briefly in Brisbane and then headed to Grandma and Grandpa’s place in Grafton. Araminta was very excited to see wild kangaroos and wallabies and she loved helping Grandma feed one each morning.

She also loved being pulled around the yard by Daddy and Grandpa in the billycart.

She fed the chooks

and picked mandarins.

She loved mandarins so much that in the end we had to put a limit on how many she could eat a day.

We then left Grafton and returned to Brisbane where we had a lovely time visiting her cousins and uncles and aunties. All of the pictures from Brisbane have cousins in them and I’m not sure how the parents would feel about their kids plastered on the internet, so no pictures from then.

On the plane ride home Araminta made great use of the free eyemask

and helped Mummy watch the luggage in Jo’berg airport.

We were very tired when we got home, and we miss all our friends and family terribly.

Here is a picture of Araminta in a hat and jumper that Ruth made.

And here she is carrying her baby in a sling.

She had a hair cut last week and we bought her some hairclips as well. She insisted that Jeff put all of them in her hair.

Recently we bought Araminta a new book that makes sounds. It’s a big hit.

See her pants? They are size 6-12 months, and we still need to roll them up. She’s a petite little thing. Daddy bought the spotty pants.

Recently Ruth took delivery of 200 stuffed bears from the Netherlands which she delivered with a friend to the Red Cross Children’s Hospital in Cape Town, and to a local hospice/orphanage.

Araminta loved the bears, and had a bit of a hard time understanding that they weren’t for her.  Sonnja the maker of the bears very kindly gave one to her.

She loves it.

We counted up all the words Araminta can say. It’s about 59, and includes telephone, buffalo, cracker, wool and quilt.

We are really looking forward to being home in Australia soon. Especially since our water supply broke on Saturday and they are predicting that it will take a week to fix. I’m getting very tired of flushing the toilet with a bucket and having sponge baths…

I thought you might like to see a picture of Araminta all dressed up ready for church.

She looks like a real little girl when she lets us put a clip in her hair (and keeps it in for more than 5 minutes).

Jeff and I recently took Araminta camping. It was a great opportunity for us to try out our new (second-hand) tent. It’s great, and it has space for Araminta’s cot.

In the cot are just some of the toys that she insists go to bed with her each night. There is a core 5 and then one or two favourites from the day…

We went out for lunch in a near-by town. Araminta looked very lady-like and was exceptionally well behaved, given that we had to wait over an hour for our food and she was hungry.

Araminta loves feeding herself, and she loves yoghurt. Here’s a combination of the two:

She’s getting quite good at managing the spoon.

Once again it’s been too long between updates.

First some pictures:

Ruth knitted Araminta a new hat.

What, you are more interested in seeing Araminta?! OK…

She likes hats. We make sure that she always has a sun hat on when we go outside and she’ll often fish one of them out of the drawer to wear around the house.

Araminta has added some new words to her vocabulary. She now says door, bath (her version of bath) and up (her version of up).  She is also threading beads onto shoelaces and can put shapes into the tupperware ball if you point out which one it goes in – she’s able to rotate theshape to fit.

It seems that we have a girly girl on our hands, in addition loving hats and bags, she also has a thing for shoes and insists on having her shoes changed several times a day. I’m trying to tell her that we don’t wear shoes inside the house, but she insists that we do.

I made Araminta a new quilt.

Here she is still in her pyjamas checking it out.

Lastly, Araminta’s first encounter with a snake went well.

This was at Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens in Cape Town.

A few weekends ago, we took Araminta to Butterfly World to see the Butterflies. She had a wonderful time.

Here she is having lunch before we went inside.

Ruth made the pants and the top. The fabric in the pants is a souveneir from Ruth’s trip to the USA in October.

Araminta is well acquainted with cats as we have one of our own. However, she is especially taken with dogs. Anything with four legs and fur is deemed to be a dog and is met with enthusiastic barking noises.

Butterfly world had marmosets running through the enclosures and Araminta was so excited that we took this video of her for you.

Araminta loves water–and hence baths: