quick catch up…

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Maisie is 8 now – and has been for almost half a year. She loves to read and LOVES school, ballet and dancing and singing and swimming. Her teachers tell me what a beautiful loving friend she is which makes us super proud. She has loved year 2 and is excited about year 3.

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Tally turned 7 in July and as I type this is in the pool swimming laps of backstroke and freestyle trying to improve her strokes! She also loves school and is very athletic and still loves her sleep! She is at the top of her reading levels for year 1 and is busy trying to guess what teacher she will have in year 2! When I asked her 3 things that she loves she said “Mumma, Daddy and the hammock”…

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Alice is about to turn 6 and finish her first year of Kinder. We have had a busy year with Alice and working out how to control the beast inside her, and with the help of Dr Jo and cutting out numbers and colours from our diet there has been a massive change in her behaviour. She just told me that she loves swimming in the pool, bouncing her ball and rocking in the hammock (she likes to know what Im doing at all times…)

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Pippa (or pippy, stinkerbell, tootsmcfruits) is “finally 4” as she likes to tell people this week. She is a clumso – always hurting herself somehow. She tries very hard to keep up with her big sisters. She loves “tiny little babies” which is good because we have a few around us at the moment! She goes to pre school on a friday morning and has lots of friends – that are all boys!

 

 

Alice turns 5.

Cece had her 5th birthday in early December. Cade was away – so we had a special “going out for dinner” with Naa and Poppa, Aunty Kate and Uncle Luke to the Kinny.

She then finished off her pre school year with a concert where they sang songs and we watched a slide show of all their photos from throughout the year.

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Alice @ 4.7

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Alice is halfway thru her pre school year. She goes on Tuesday and Thursdays and has lots of little friends there. She does ballet on a Wednesday afternoon and loves it! Still our most fired up personality of the household – she knows what she wants and how she wants it done. Her blond hair is straight and slowly going a darker shade. She keeps up with her big sisters and has mastered being able to stick up for herself. She loves to scooter and has started riding her bike with training wheels a bit more now. If she doesnt like something she will call it “Stinky”. Usual dress code is tights/leggings with a skirt or a dress. We are starting to prepare her for school next year – whilst talking to a teacher at the school about it she told them that “I already know everything – 5 + 5 is 10”. She loves to have a night time story in her bed and is usually the last to sleep most nights.

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Alice Joy @2.10

Alice Joy is growing up so fast! She is very different to her big sisters, a lot more feisty (and sometimes more festy) and copies there behavior which makes for interesting tantys and conversations. She is a very funny little lady – very emotional as well. Her blond straight hair is always hanging in her face and she now wants to dress herself, which ends up with her always looking a bit odd!
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She says almost everything that her sisters say, sometimes she will parrot a whole conversation that they are having with someone else just quietly in the background. She has learnt the words to songs and rhymes very quickly by using this skill of hers!

She loves playing on her own – she will quite happily play a game for almost an hour with no one else annoying her. One of her favorite games at the moment is the Tinkerbell game, in which she closes a door and knocks, you have to ask who it is, she replies “Tinkerbell”, then you say “oh, come in Tinkerbell”, she comes in and the game continues. She often comes in asking if we can play the Tinkerbell game, even when we are in the bathroom!
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Cece loves her parents – or her “best friendies” as she calls us. Very much still a Mummas girl, she often gets sooky and if someone speaks to her or asks her a question she will reply “Mumma” and point at me or grab onto me. Its quite amusing, but very annoying at the same time.

She loves her baby sister and always needs to know where Pippy is or what Pippy is doing. I often find Alice in Pippas cot with her after she has woken up from a nap. She tries very hard to include Pippa into the games that she is playing – but only if it suits her mood. Now that Pippa is crawling, I often hear “NO PIPPY” from Alices direction.

She is looking forward to pre school next year – ready for “my turn at pre school”. She likes to compete with her older sisters in any way that she can – getting in the bath, getting dressed, getting in the car, if you turn it into a competition – Alice will get involved!
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She loves the wiggles, her “I Spy” book and playing with her sisters and also playing little people duplo. When she finishes a book or a song she says “Amen”. She loves to cook (pretend or real – doesnt matter which) and still loves her morning “happle” before breakfast.

Alice Joy @ almost 2!

Just figuring that I wont have the time or energy to do this as Alices birthday comes nearer, I thought I should do a quick update of our beautiful 3rd daughter.

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Alice Joy is just that – she really is a Joy to be around. She is funny and very social. She calls herself Cece and is always asking for “up, huggies”. She likes to look at things on the computer and will walk into the study asking for “Ouch Charlie”. She knows she has to fight for position, she will will always ask “me turn”. She likes to have her turn praying at night and also saying grace.

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Her favorite game to play is Mummy and Babies, she will drag a number of dolls around the house putting them to bed and making us hold them for her. She is happy to role play in her big sisters games as well, as usually the baby and knows that she then has to call either one of them Mamma.

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She has toilet trained herself both day and night and the first thing that she asks for in the morning when she wakes up is “apple please dadda”. She is a really good eater – usually going back for seconds for breakfast and when you ask her what she had she will answer “weetbix, cornflakes, pop (rice bubbles), yogurt and milk”.

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She will repeat anything anyone says, which at dinner time can turn into a funny game where she is trying to keep up in the conversation by just repeating the last words of every ones sentence. She likes to sing and dance and run around crazy. She enjoys being around little kids and we think she will just love being a big sister.

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Toilet Training Take 3

Alice has decided that she too would like to be toilet trained please – so off we go for the third time with shouts of joy for wees and poos in the toilet….

Different again to the last two girls – she started telling us when she was doing “something” in her nappy quite a few weeks ago now, and then we let her have a sit on the toilet, which she enjoyed so much that everytime she did number 2 in her nappy she would HAVE to sit on the toilet before having her nappy changed.

She has a feisty attitude, so we let her do this, thinking nothing of it, but then the wees came… and off to the toilet she went!! The first day of really stepping things up I think I spent about 5.5 hours on the bathroom floor whilst she just sat and sat and asked to sit. Thats when I realised that she wasnt in fact going to wait until she was big enough to get on the toilet herself, or until summer time when my belly isnt so big and its warm enough to just wear knickers around the house.

So, we have been dry and clean now for about 5 days, even overnight she will wake up and call out for us to take her to the toilet. She is in cloth knickers, just because I havent had a chance to get to the shops to get anything small enough to fit her teeny tiny little bottom. I am really not expecting too much of her at this stage – she is only 21 months, and I am very aware that once this baby is born she may just decide to go backwards – but we are very very proud of her and her big sisters think its pretty cool too.

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Alice is a talking machine. She loves it when its her turn to pray at night now, puts her hands together and starts on her list of people which usually goes something like this:
Annah (Aunty Hannah) Gon (Uncle John) Drapah (Grandpa) Naa, Maisie, Tally, Daddy, Mamma, Bubba, Jac.
Usually there is some double up, or some people added in by her sisters, but usually it stays the same.
Some other words that she uses:
Sibished = Finished
Dordor = Dora
Maney = Man
Juicey = Juice
Milkey = Milk
and the list of things that she adds “ey” to goes on and on and on. For some reason the others have also taken it on board – so Violetey, Mizzaery and Simoney are now the cabbage patch dolls names, Big Birdey is now his name and again the list is endless.

Alice Joy @ 18 months

Alice has just reached 18 months in this past week. She is much different to her sisters in a number of different ways.
She is a climber, which has been something new to get used to, she copies everything her sisters do, she walks and talks and dances and sings and throws MASSIVE tantys – its hard to understand how something that small can produce noise like she does. She is a very active little lady – into everything and anything. Likes to unpack the dishwasher, even before the things have been washed. Books, books and even more books – to the point at Church she needs to read every Bible and Hymn book in the pew before she is satisfied. She eats a lot of dirt – hoping that this is a passing phase… Loves to talk on the phone!
She usually wakes sometime around 6am and then has a lunch time nap and then goes to bed in the evening around 7:30pm. The nicest thing by far is that she is a very cuddly little girl – she loves having huggles on the couch, at the table or anywhere she can – she wraps her little arms right around your neck and pats your back before usually leaning in for a smoochy kiss. She truly is a “Joy” to be around!

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Alice enjoying a bike ride with Cade

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Alice 18 months

Alice bike ride
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Alice walks today

Alice Whitbourn started walking for the first time today. Her first proper unassisted steps were actually walking down the aisle of church this morning.
She is basically 13.5mths old now, which is the same age that Maisie started to walk (We remember because Lisa was in the hospital that day giving birth to Talia).
Hopefully she remembers her new skills tomorrow.

For some reason, the first thing that comes to my mind musically when I think of babies walking is ‘Intergalactic’ by the Beastie Boys (closely followed by ‘Jesus Walks’ by Kayne West – but I think that would be even less appropriate).

Alice Joy @ 1.0

Alice Joy is now 1!! We had a fun day with lots of visitors for her birthday. Here she is having a play outside.
1 year old Cheese!!
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1 year old today!
Alice is still very much a Mummas girl – although she is fine when her Mumma is not around! She has done things differently to how her big sisters have done them – proving once again that all children are different and unique.
AJ (or Ceecee, Gluey, glue stick, bubba ganoosh) still loves sleeping on her tummy. She loves to eat and drink and is happy to be fed at breakfast time – but not at dinner time! She likes to tip out her dinner onto her tray and sort through it all. She loves corn on the cob and ice cream in a cone!
She loves the water – swimming, bath time and sprinkler time. She loves the shower so much that if she hears it on she makes her way to the bathroom and gets in clothed with you! She crawls up on all fours and also cruises around the furniture, pushing anything that will move so that she can practice her walking. She LOVES to climb. Its not uncommon for us to walk into the lounge room and for her to have pushed something up against the coffee table or couches and have climbed up onto them and be hanging over the edge.
She gets frustrated easily, usually about having toys taken off her or her sisters getting up in her face. She says “sista” for both of her sisters. They both answer!! She likes to talk on the phone to Dadda at work – she puts the phone on her face and just listens to Cade talk to her. She is a groover and loves to sing and dance with Colin and the Wiggles.
She is still in size 0 clothes and we weighed her today and she is just about 9 kilos. Her hair is somedays the colour of Maisies hair and then somedays the colour of Talias hair. She has a more oval face than the other two, and she has the most beautiful sparkling blue eyes.
She has been by far the most challenging baby. The first 9 months were quite intense and I am so glad that we have reached the 1 year old milestone! She is a happy little girl and loves to give big kisses! It will be interesting to see how her personality develops over the next year…

Gappy

Alice Joy Whitbourn knocked one of her bottom teeth out last night. We are waiting to go to the dentist at lunch time today, but after speaking with one last night, we are pretty sure that there is nothing that can be done and she will just have a gap until her adult teeth come thru. Here are the before and after shots…
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Before knocking tooth out
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After knocking tooth out
She is fine now – and was pretty good last night. She keeps putting her fingers in there and doing weird things with her tongue. We know that this is just the start of injuries that will happen to the girls over the next 20 years, but it does take you by surprise when something happens.
I really dont know what to put into her baby book now – there is no page for “tooth fell out on this day”.
Here is the pictures of the tooth – just in case you were wondering what a 9 month old tooth looks like out of the mouth…
9 month old baby tooth
9 month old baby tooth