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!

 

 

Talia @ 5.11

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Tally is about to be 6! She has invited 6 little friends over for a party which will happen in a couple of weeks time. She has planned the games (similar to what Maisie had last year) and is getting very excited about it.
She is loving school – although she comes home so exhausted that some days she will fall asleep on the couch before dinner time. She is going great with her reading and her writing – every spare minute she is sitting up at the bench drawing and writing and making things for people. Her last school merit award was for being kind and patient when helping others with their learning – which makes us so proud. She is very kind and loving. She loves playing games outside and will give anything ago.
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Talia Mersey @4.3

Tally is still our dreamy girl. Not much has changed in the past year, she still loves her sleep and her big bird, is still trying to keep up with her big sister and still is our best eater!!
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She has flourished at pre school – having her own time with her own friends has been great. She brings home a back pack full of craft every week and now likes to do drawing/pasting/writing every day.

She sings and sings and sings, everything has a song to it, its kind of like she lives in a musical. Tally loves to play any game that involves people – shops, restaurants, houses, library’s, dogs, mums and dads and grandmas, church etc etc. She is a pretty quick runner and was first in the pool this year. Dundock the Dog still makes an appearance every now and then.
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Tally’s hair is a wild mess of curls and this matches her personality! Her imagination is wild and large and she loves to share stories with you. She loves to be outside helping me in the garden where she hunts down anything that creeps or crawls. She finds little “friends” and talks to them and involved them in her games.
tally and her friends
digging for worms

She loves to cuddle on the couch and snuggle in bed with us – usually the first one up from both her day sleep and in the mornings, means lots of huggling time whilst she wakes up.

Talia turns 4!

Tally turned 4 this month!! Thankfully we had organised a family afternoon tea on the sunday before her birthday as she became very sick on her actual birthday and spent most of the week in bed with the flu! She didnt even get to enjoy her birthday dinner of prawns and ice cream cake – so we will save that for another day!

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Tally @3.3

Tally is our dreamer. She has the funniest little personality – at time trying so hard to fit in with her big sister, but really not knowing whats going on! She has the “anything you can do I can do better” attitude, which at times makes for some funny moments and also means that she doesnt like to be left out of things.

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She is almost the same height as her big sister – and we have started getting a lot of “are they twins” comments from people since her hair has started (finally!!) to grow. She is a very emotional little girl – mostly happy but very easily gets upset. She still loves her rest time – if we are out before lunch its not uncommon for Tal to fall asleep in the car before arriving home. She doesnt like to be woken up – she has to have time to wake herself and do her own thing first. We have found this hard at times – esp at night when waking her to go to the toilet! Big Bird still lives in her bed with her and even tho she did give up her “happy” when she turned 3, we did notice her looking over her friend Annas white happy when she was here and she finally said to us “I want my white happy back – I didnt want to put it in the bin!”.

She has a vivid imagination and loves to make up stories and games about people and places that are in her own little world. She is heading off to pre school for a half day friday next year, which she has been talking about for months now. In her mind she has already started there and has friends and teachers that do all kinds of crazy stuff! I think she will really benefit from having her own time away.

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Food and Tally go hand in hand. She is our best eater – every night her plate will be cleaned first, unless she is sick! She will eat pretty much anything and then be asking whats for dessert! She loves the water and is excited about re learning how to swim in our pool. She takes minimal risks – she likes to know what the outcome will be before she has done something. She also loves to help around the house, but usually only lasts a couple of minutes before she gets distracted about something else thats going on.

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She is very loving and caring, and is always happy to sit and have a huggle. She loves sitting with me on the couch at the moment and just rubbing my belly and talking to the baby about anything that might be going on and thinking up names to call it. She is a beautiful little girl and its a pleasure being her parent.

Night 4 = winner!

Tally cut up her “happy” dummy and put it in the bin on Saturday in preparation for turning 3 years old. She struggled a bit getting to sleep for the last couple of nights (day sleeps have been okay) but tonight was night 4 and straight to bed and asleep within 10 minutes.

We were wondering how she would go – she was very attached to her “happy” and would often try and sneak it out of her room (its was only for sleep time and waking up or just about to go to bed time), so I am glad that it has worked out better than what we thought it would.

And yes, she still has Big Bird to sleep with – although he has seen much better days, I dont think she will be giving him up for anyone as yet!

December 2008
Dec 2008

Jan 2009
Jan 2009

October 2009
Oct 2009

November 2009
Nov 2009

February 2010
Feb 2010

April 2010
April 2010

Talia Mersey 2.5

2.5 year old CHEESE
Tally is our beautiful, goofy, sensitive, clumsy middle child who is very emotional and explores her little world through all of her senses. She doesnt like loud noises much at all, she loves going to bed smelling her smelly old big bird, she doesnt like the touch of certain things on her skin (like the tags on shirts) and she can throw a tanty with the best of them.
Talia the Artist
She loves her sisters with all of her heart – she likes to copy everything that her big sister does, and likes to make her little sister laugh. We have noticed that she really enjoys being with other little babies, esp when Ewan came to visit.
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Baby Ewan and Tal
Being able to watch her as she develops her speech and language is such an amazing thing to enjoy! She loves making up little games and singing songs. She is speaking so well – putting whole sentences together and clearly pronouncing her words.
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She is always on the go – but she always needs her sleep. Its not uncommon for her to ask to go to bed with her “happy” and her big bird. She is very kissy and cuddly – happy to give kisses to everyone she loves.
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So long, farewell… from the Sound of Music (extended edition)

Watch Maisie and Tally perform the moves. Listen for Tally’s perfectly timed ‘No’ to Maisie’s request to drink her first champagne.
In case you are wondering what’s going on at the end, that’s Tally performing the final part of the song from the movie where Gretel goes to sleep on the stairs and she gets carried up the stairs by an older sibling (in our reenactment, it’s me lifting her with one arm and plonking her on the couch).

Update for Talia Mersey

Talia, 2 years old.
Sleeps in her cot with her white Happy and a big bird that she has plucked all the feathers out of. She is only allowed to have those two things when she is in bed, but she tries most days to bring them out of her room at some stage. She is the best sleeper – she gets excited about her lunch time sleep time and laughs all the way to the bedroom after saying ¨straight to bed!¨.
She is speaking really well now, we can mostly understand everything she says. She calls Maisie ¨sister¨ and Alice ¨bubba¨. She loves to sing and when asked what she wants to sing she usually says ¨do ba ba¨ or ¨10, 9, 8¨. In the car she asks for COLIN.
She has little games of mamma, dadda and bubba for things all over the place, like her turtles in the bath and now her fingers and any duplo or little people that she can find. She calls it her people game.
She has a very toothy grin and has dimples. Her hair is still too short to wear up in a bow or even a clip, but it has grown! Its kind of a brown/blonde/red colour. She has beautiful big blue eyes with extremely long black eyelashes.
She is very emotional and can get upset very easily. Her tantys are usually about 1/2 hour long or so. One yesterday went for about 50 minutes because she didnt want to wear her swimmers to the pool, she wanted to wear Maisies. She is also very affectionate and loves giving kisses and cuddles to people.
She follows and copies everything that ¨sister¨ does and is always looking for a laugh from people. She does not like any type of noise – and lets you know about things she doesnt like by telling you ¨me like that¨ and shaking her head at the same time.

Toilet Training Take 2

When I look back at the time when we were encouraging Maisie to start to toilet train, I remember wishing that she would just click it on overnight and then we would be done.
I remember hearing about kids who just decided on their own that they wanted to go to the toilet and there was no need for pull ups, pottys, cloth knickers, star charts and the promise of treats – snakes, lolly pops, freddos – the list goes on.
I remember reading books and websites about how to and when to and what to do and what not to do and how not to do it.
I remember fighting the fact that she wanted to wear knickers, but clearly wasnt ready to, but wasnt going to go back to nappies to save us spending most of our days cleaning up after her.
I remember cleaning puddles upon puddles of wee and the grossness of number 2s done in Dora knickers.
Now, I will remember that Miss Tally at just 2 years and 1 month is one of those kids that just clicked it on and has been in knickers all week and hasnt had any accidents AT ALL. I will also remember that this had nothing to do with US as parents, that she just decided to do it ALL BY HERSELF. No need for pottys or pull ups or star charts. I will remember this and what an awesome experience the past week has been – even if she goes backwards, she has been an absolute champ.

Tally and her turtles

When we moved into Mums house, Tally started up a turtle game in the bath. She has a Dadda turtle, a Mamma turtle and a Bubba turtle. They play games the whole time she is in the bath. It gets quite confusing when she starts calling out “Dadda Dadda Dadda” and Cade will answer “yes Tal” and she will call “Dadda Dadda Dadda” and then you realise she is “in the game” calling out to the Dadda turtle. She doesnt really like to share them, as you can see from the second photo which is when I asked her if I could play with the turtles…
Tally and her turtles
Tally in bath