Butterfly world

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.

Bath Time

Araminta loves water–and hence baths:

Christmas Part 2

Araminta also helped Daddy open his present.

Then she got to open another one of hers. This one was from Ruth’s Mum.

Great excitement over a blank book and some crayons, which were put to good use immediately.

Thank you Grandma!

Christmas

Araminta was a little more aware of Christmas this year.

Here she is Christmas Eve spending some quality time with the cat.

On Christmas morning, Jeff cooked pancakes.  Araminta was very happy to eat pancakes…

…until she tasted the fresh blueberries. Then she only wanted blueberries for breakfast.

After breakfast, we opened presents. First the Christmas stocking:

Bubble bath, because Araminta loves having baths.

Then we opened the presents under the tree:

She needed some help to get the presents open:

But there was success in the end:

There are lots of other photos, so I’ll break Chrstmas day into two parts. We really missed not being at home with family this year.

Merry Christmas 2008

Scrapbooking

My friend Kerin, is a fabulous scrapbooker, and she has been sending me supplies to encourage me to begin. I’m finding it a lot of fun and recently created some new pages for Araminta’s scrapbook

She loves looking at herself in the book.

Cherries in Ceres

Recently we took a short break in Ceres. We stayed in a lovely cottage near Prince Alfred Hamlet – Rhodene Farm Cottages.

The Farm had some resident Peafowl which Araminta was fascinated by. She particularly liked imitating their call.

On Sunday we went cherry picking at Klondyke Cherry Farm.
We ended up picking 3kgs at a very reasonable price. We discovered that Araminta LOVES cherries!

There was cherry juice everywhere!

It was a loveey break though it was hotter than expected & when 40C was predicted we came home a day early.

A new dress

Ruth has been learning to sew clothes. Recently one of her friends came over and showed her how to shirr fabric. This little dress was the result.

Araminta has developed a few hand signals to let us know what she wants. When she wants something, or to be picked up she flicks her fingers in and out with her palms facing upwards.

She really loves being outside.

I don’t have to work this weekend, so I’m hoping to sneak in a litttle sewing time.

Playing Catch Up – 11 months one week

Apologies for being so far behind with the blog for Araminta. Both of our trips to the USA (one after the other) kind of messed with routines a little.

In September we celebrated Jeff’s birthday. Because Ruth was working that night we didn’t go out to eat, but rather brought home take-away from a fabulous local Indian restaurant. We ate picnic style on the floor so that Araminta could join in.

Turns out curry was a bit of a hit!

Chewing on naan bread.

Here she is eyeing off Jeff’s plate to see what else she can get.

All finished. We wrapped a tea towel around her since she’s kind of a messy eater.

In 1995, Ruth’s friend Kerin was making and selling clowns to help pay her college fees. Ruth was lucky enough to receive one. It is now Araminta’s.

Ruth’s Aunty Linda knitted a beanie for Araminta. Here she is proudly wearing it:

We don’t watch TV, but she’s fascinated by the remote and is always pulling it off the TV stand. She’s scared herself a few times by accidentally turning the thing on. There is much crying until it’s safely turned off.

OK, more up to date news:

At 13 months, she is now walking very, very well. She has a graze on her nose this week from where she tried to run and encountered some industrial carpet in the foyer of a hall here at the college.

There is one tooth mostly through and a second one well on its way.

Araminta is now pulling cloth and clothes over her head in an attempt to dress herself, and is insisting that we read Animal Farmyard Friends and Teddy visits Farmer Green at least 10 times a day. She will also sit quite happily and read on her own for long periods of time.

There are now four distinct words: Daddy, gone, cat and car.

Happy Birthday Kid

Hard to believe it’s been a year already. Anyway since Jeff was heading out on a Pelagic birding trip at 4am and Ruth was flying to San Francisco at 6pm, it was decided to have the celebration the night before.

One of Araminta’s favourite foods is pasta–so birthday pasta it was. Gets kind of messy though when eaten with fingers!

The pasta was, of course, followed by birthday cupcakes carefully arranged by Ruth.

The consensus is Araminta LOVES cupcakes!!