Monday 27 February 2012

Computer

Clearly Naomi is quite familiar with her daddy sitting at the computer, although I try not to do it too much when she's about, if only because it's more fun to play with her :-)

She was quite keen to find out "what the deal is" with the box that has flashing lights and buttons, so I made her a simple slideshow that changes the screen colour when she pushes the buttons. Here she is having a great time trying it out...


I'm quite proud of her! She even found some buttons to change the slides that I didn't know about.

I did do something more sophisticated for my nieces when they were small, with shapes, numbers, pictures and sounds - but I wrote it on my Amiga and sadly it fell victim to a power supply issue some years ago. Time for a rewrite I think.

Wednesday 22 February 2012

Rainy Days

So Naomi and I spend a lot of time out the house, we go to toddler groups and we go to friends' houses.  We go to the park or we just go to the shops.  We love being outside!  But sometimes we end up having a rainy day and have to spend more time than usual indoors!

We still have lots of fun though!

Just after Naomi turned one we bought her her first dolly, she loves this dolly and so indoor time increasingly involves changing baby, feeding baby, reading to baby or just cuddling baby

Dolly is about to be fed, so needs to be safe in the high chair
 Naomi also loves to draw, we bought her crayons for Christmas and sometimes we organise everything so she can have a go


Of course it takes a lot of concentration to draw when you are only little


We've been meaning to share this picture with you for a very long time, it was Naomi's first picture! Ive darkened it a little so you can see the marks better, at the time she was only about 10.5 months old, so I was terribly impressed!


Naomi also likes to read books lots, her favourites are the ones with flaps, although she is also inclined to pull the flaps out! So we tend to do this while being supervised!

And if all else fails Naomi likes to go into the kitchen and pull everything out of the cupboards and use those things as toys!

Why wouldn't you play with a colander?
Of course, when it is really disgusting it is good fun to let you all know how we are getting on too!

Thursday 16 February 2012

Sadness

Naomi's just had her one-year-old injections and although she's now more protected against measles and other such horrors, is feeling a bit miserable this week. Rightly so, I've seen the three sore bits where the injections took place!


One nice thing though is that she's become a bit more clingy and evenings this week have mostly been about hugging. She's also learned to do kisses fairly recently, but doesn't yet understand that one's mouth should be closed for this, so it's not as pleasant as it might sound...


In other news, I've finally finished building my birthday present, the legendary K'Nex ferris wheel, which can be seen in any good toy shop's window, and now also our dining room. Awesome.


Monday 13 February 2012

What a difference a year makes

Sandy, Naomi and I have just returned from the Open Heaven Weekend away, you can read about our experience last year here but suffice to say it is quite different going on such a thing with a one year old compared to taking a newborn!

One thing that was a good bit more challenging is that Naomi needed stimulated a lot more this time and being more aware of her surroundings meant that it potentially was harder to persuade her to sleep with all the goings on and it was definitely harder to keep her where we wanted her as she tried to explore every single corner of the Quinta centre.  That said, she was very much at home in the creche and loved getting to play with the bigger boys and girls and having so many people around.

Sandy and I managed to get to some of the seminars and worship sessions which was really good and we heard some great talks on sowing seed widely and on staying passionate about the love of God.

Each year there is a walk to Wales that people can go on, it is quite long at 2 hours but there is some beautiful country side to make it well worth the effort!  Last year I had given birth just a couple of weeks previously and as such wasn't in a fit state to go but Sandy took Naomi


This year though, I was well and truly up for the walk and here you see Naomi being a bit bigger and more noticeably enjoying the walk too, although in the same sling (best baby purchase ever made!)



Another photo we wanted to share comes from the morning before we left for the weekend away.  The car seat was in the living room because I was being given a lift to a group so Sandy could drive to work and Naomi wouldn't leave it alone, continuing in her desire to use everything in a context it is not meant for and crying if we try and use things as they are meant to be (hats, car seats, toothbrushes)


You can plainly see that here she thinks that car seat is amazing, anyone who has shared a car with Naomi can vouch for this not normally being her opinion on the matter!

Tuesday 7 February 2012

Fun

Naomi's really getting the hang of playing with things, and is quite a lot of fun to be around just now. We're both happy that she finds reading a lot of fun, she's good at working the flaps in some of her books now and knows what to expect on some of the pages!


A couple of weeks ago, a shiny toothpaste box formed the ideal extension to her arm...

... which was waved about at such high speed my camera couldn't capture it all that well.

"Look, I put the trousers on my head!" (for those who don't get the reference to one of my all time favourite programmes, here's a link for you)

More trouser-on-head-based fun. She was like this for at least 15 minutes....

and more...

You may remember the drum from some time ago. It's gained in it's fun value. Another interesting thing here is that Naomi can't stand hats or hoods, except when it's inside and the thing on her head is neither of those.

Finally, just a few days ago Naomi got her first doll. She's being very cute with her, offing her drinks from her cup, putting clothes over her as a blanket, and lots of hugs.


Friday 3 February 2012

Funny

A bit of Friday humour. Well, if you have my sense of humour it is (so, just me then...). For the past few years Jay's been getting me a calendar for my desk at work; it started out with some daily brainteasers and quotes, then moved on to Dilbert (which is just great by the way), but this year I have some New Yorker cartoons. These are a bit hit-or-miss, but today's appealed to me greatly:

I tried looking for some more by the same guy - Ariel Molvig - and there's loads of good stuff. I'm also quite fond of this one:

The next post should be some more Naomi pictures, which of course, if what everyone really wants!