Keeping Up With The De Oliveiras: April 2014

Tough life here... holidays every 6 weeks! I would say that teachers have it easy but I see first-hand how much work outside of school Carlos does every day. Time has flown by (in retrospect, of course - in the moment, it seems to go by fairly normally, at least until we get to the end of the day and I think of all the things I didn't have time to get done!) and we're already halfway through the second week of break. Once we're on the other side of the holidays, however, we'll be that much closer to the big departure...

I'll be posting separate entries for the (pre) Easter Hunt and for the big project of the holidays: our back deck. For now, here's the most recent batch of photos.

Taking a ride in the laundry basket

Ready to go!

Just one of the many positions Alixe likes to sleep. Have
also found her pressed up against the headboard and
completely in the opposite direction of the way I put her
in bed.

Smiley

Wearing my flip flops

Always grabbing the camera

Remember this headband? It's
Alixe's now.

Walked into Aimy's bedroom and found
this: lots of hand lotion on Puppy.
I guess his fur was all dried out!

You can tell by the look on her face that she knows she is
in trouble! It was hard not to laugh.

My little pal

Well, March was certainly an eventful month (and part of the reason why it has taken me so long to update!) There were some colds, a lot of growing up, and some other fun stuff too!

Alixe had both of her top front teeth erupt this month, but fortunately she hasn't been biting everything in sight (yet... we'll have to see if that changes!). She was quite grumpy until they came through but once they erupted, she went back to being the happy baby she usually is. She's still wary around strangers - and made quite a fuss at the pediatrician's office at the end of the month - but I think she's starting to warm up to people more now that she's getting older. She still prefers to snuggle in my arms but she won't cry on sight anymore... at least, not all the time! That little one is fond of her food though! Lately if she sees us eating and is interested in having some too (especially anything that you eat with a spoon) she starts to whine and open her mouth to be fed. It's pretty funny and definitely adorable! I decided to try her on softer pieces of food (baby cookies, bananas etc) and she loves them. I have yet to try a food with her that she doesn't like! I also started her on formula at the end of the month. She's growing so fast and I couldn't keep up with her! I miss nursing to feed her (now it's just for comfort, or while the bottle is being prepared in the morning) but she seems so much happier now that she's getting more to eat, so I can't really complain. And I think that may be part of the reason she is happier around other people - she's a bit less attached to me than she was when she was nursing so frequently.

On the Aimy side of things, we signed her up for preschool at the end of last month. Still can't believe she'll be starting school in September! It's crazy. There's a little boy who lives across the street who was born in November 2011 who also signed up, and it looks like the two of them will be in the same class, which is great, because whenever Aimy sees him (or the family car) she calls out his name and wants to go give him a kiss. They may not understand each other very well, but they're already buddies, so that should make school a bit easier. Language-wise, she is quite the chatterbox! She still makes up sounds to fill in her sentences when she wants to sound like us but doesn't quite know how, but she also makes a lot of clear little sentences as well... things like "Oh my goodness!" "What happened?" "Look mummy, it's ____ ." and "Bye bye, see you soon!" She loves naming shapes and colours, and surprises me with her observations in the world around her. She knows most of her books by heart and will read along with me or finish the sentences (or in the case of one of our favourites, "Mr Brown Can Moo, Can You?" she does all the sound effects!) She also has an extra tooth on the top between her incisors. Apparently only 5% of kids have an extra tooth like that... I always knew she was special, but this is proof! Her smile is a little crooked now but not immediately noticeable.

In other news, we got lucky with a sale at a local home improvement store and picked up some good quality wood for our back deck, so that's going to be the next project. Hopefully the weather stays nice during the holidays (starting on April 12th!) so that work goes smoothly. I'll post pictures of the progress. I was also tired of feeling in a rut and decided to do more exercise. I found a great series of workouts online for free, complete with videos to show the exercises and proper form, and ever since I started I've been feeling much better (and stronger too!) It's not always easy to find a moment to exercise with the girls, but I've been doing my best and I definitely feel an improvement.

As usual, some more photos: