Little Miss Independant...

For a while now, Zara has been feeding herself...

She will have no help from any of us until the very last mouthful that is virtually impossible for her to get onto her spoon.

It started off as quite a messy affair but she has made such good progress and her "hand to mouth" co-ordination improves with every mouthful (every now and again when she is really hungry and cant quite get the food in fast enough she holds her bowl out saying"help you")

Kindermusik

Zara and I started Kindermusik at the beginning of February. The Kindermusik programme is based on the belief that "Music nurtures a child's cognitive, emotional, social, language and physical development". Even though Zara was only 16 mths old, the teacher, Estelle, advised us to rather put her in the older group, this means she is the "baby" of the class. The other toddlers are closer to 2 and 3 years old... I was a little concerned by the age gap but she has really thrived and has surprised me at how well she responds and how quickly she learns from seeing the bigger kids doing the activities. These photos were taken by another photographer at the "Valentines" class...

no alien abductions...

Just a quick note to let you know that you have not been abducted by aliens and suddenly returned to earth again having missed out on our exciting family adventures...

Its a little less boring than that - I had kept some of these posts as "drafts" as a month ago our laptop died. I have been waiting in anticipation to be able to post the videos of Zara walking which I could only do on the laptop. Today we heard that our insurance claim has been approved and we should have our new laptop by the weekend - HOORAY!!!

I will endeavour to download the videos again and get the last two drafts posted ASAP.
(and keep a little more up to date) ;~)

Love my Dolly

I took these photos a couple of weeks ago and had almost forgotten about them until on our way out the other day, Zara insisted on taking her "dolly" with her. For the past few weeks have not been able to go anywhere without a supply of books for her to "read" in the car so I was very surprised at the announcement that "dolly" had to come too...

Money makes the world go round

Zara is certainly her father's child. Having been encouraged to walk with money (and peas) we were assured of her love for coins - so last night she got stuck into helping Dad transfer our old coins from the broken glass jar into the old milk-can which we found in Rosendal over the weekend. She took great delight in grabbing coins by the handful, chanting "money money money" and then putting them into the milk-can...

One week into my "new" walking world...

Its excatly one week since Zara took her first steps...

She is finding life far less frustrating and there is certainly a whole new world to explore - we think she has made excellent progress!!!

Samuel turns 1

Today we met the Katz family at the park so that we could give Samuel his birthday present. As you can see, Zara was very keen to show him what to do with presents whilst he looked on rather enjoying his rice cake...

Look out world - I'm toddling!

For a while now we have been convinced that Zara is fully capable of walking but merely needs the confidence to get going. Over the past week, she has been taking two to three steps at a time and then as soon as she realises what she has done, simply sits down...

This morning she started "walking" on her knees (as you'll briefly see at the beginning of the video) I had visions of all her clothes being worn out at the knees in no time if this was to carry on for an extended time!

Then - lo and behold - this afternoon, while I was talking to Grannyannie on the phone...
she took: one-two.. stop.. three-four.. stop.. five-SIX steps and then sat down!

WOW - totally unprompted!!! Having seen her in action, gave me the incentive to "bribe" her to do it again and again and again. Using the remote and tons of praise we had a fabulous afternoon encouraging her walking. I phoned Chris and told him to hurry home as Zara was taking six to eight steps at a time! As soon as Daddy got home, the video camera was out and Zara pulled out all the stops for the camera... many more than eight steps at a time.

Its quite a long clip but bare with us - we are VERY proud and excited parents!!!

Little Mermaid...

Today Zara started a new game with Daddy...

What the game entails is: he puts her on the lilo in the pool then she slips off into the water and he is there to catch her.

With great delight she did it over and over till she was absolutely exhausted!I must admit, even though Dad was right there to catch our budding mermaid, my heart did skip a beat...

Christmas Day 2008

Today is Zara's 2nd Christmas!

Having been a super good girl her Grandpa passed on the necessary message to Santa and we found a christmas stoking in her cot. Being on holiday we did not have our own Christmas tree but on arriving at Mark's we found an abundance of presents! The kids had a ball opening gifts and the parents battled to keep track of what had come from whom - so, Thank you EVERYONE for spoiling us and especially Zara! After present opening session we had a swim and then had a feast of roast lamb and gammon cooked by Mark and Michael - YUMMY!

Such a lovely day to have all the "van Gelder" clan together again!

Beach Babe

This afternoon we went down to Umghlanga Beach. Zara has always been a water baby and loved the calm Croatian sea so we were not too sure how she would take to the wilder North Coast crashing waves. Well much to our delight she was so excited and kept wanting to crawl into the waves giggling and shrieking with absolute pleasure. Being bounced and dunked by the "wild" waves once or twice didn't seem to faze her!

Grandpa Christmas on Duty

This year we were lucky enough to catch Grandpa Christmas on duty at the Westville Mall. Even though he is Zara's grandfather, we dont often - in fact almost never- get to see him all dressed up for the all important job of Santa... what a treat it was!

not every child gets to say their Grandpa works for Santa ;~)

No trauma - just cherries!

This afternoon I decided to let Zara taste "cherries" - having grown up in "Cherry Town" and having a great love of the sweet fruit myself, I guessed she would too - and boy oh boy did she love the cherries!!!! and was in dire need of a full rinse once she had filled her tum...

Sleepy Bear

I love seeing Zara when she is sleeping and I think these photos speak for themselves...

The Big First Birthday Bash...

Today was Zara's first birthday party. With a range of babies, toddlers, scholars, moms, dads and grandparents, Zara was thoroughly spoilt and enjoyed being the "belle of the ball". The jumping castle was a win and it kept everyone entertained. Zara even had her first piece of cake and devoured it with gusto and looked like a cake eating pro :~)

Thanks to everyone for coming and spoiling Zara!

Mini Party

Today Shaun, Eleanor and Samuel came round for tea - this was a post birthday/pre-party celebration- so that Samuel could give Zara her birthday present. The adults selfishly enjoyed the yummy cupcakes that Eleanor bought while the kids played together. Its going to be so much fun when they can run around the garden together...

Now I am ONE!

There was quite a bit of excitement this morning of Zara's FIRST birthday! We had all her presents on the bed when she came up for her morning milk. Having had a practice run about a month ago for Daddy's birthday, Zara seemed to know just what to do with presents. She even (politely) read all her cards before the paper "ripping" began. Its really hard to believe that a whole year has past since our little cherub entered the world...

Happy FIRST Birthday little girl!!!

Front teeth

all I want for my birthday are my two front teeth...

Having cut her first teeth at 5mths, which is rather early...there has been no more action. I was starting to wonder if Zara would ever get any more teeth. Then low and behold, shortly after her 11 month birthday out they "popped". We have been very lucky with teething so far, she seems to drool a lot and gets a little bit grumpy with an over-active tummy, and, before you know it the teeth are out. I have certainly put my faith in her Amber necklace that she has been wearing since she was 3 months old and am not about to try any more teeth without it. As she is so much older and willful, it has been a little more difficult to get into her mouth to see the new teeth. They have already had about 10 days growing time, so ,tonight in the bath, she was more than happy to show off her new pearly whites - well done little girl, you'll now be able to enjoy your birthday cake two teeth richer!

Tour de Emmarentia

Just before we went on holiday, Chris bought me a new bicycle and I have been dying to go riding with Chris again, but am often not able to leave Zara, so Phil & Cheryl very kindly gave me their bicycle baby carrier... which I added to Chris' birthday presents ;~)

The next challenge was to find a helmet small enough to fit our little girl. So armed with bike, baby carrier and helmet we set off to Emmarentia for a test drive.... Zara was as pleased as punch and babbled up a storm while Dad did some extra peddling on the bike. We looking forward to our trip to Wakkerstroom next weekend so we can all enjoy a family ride out in the country.

Zara and friends

Zara and Samuel - these two are going to be a handful when they both running around - Samuel, we going to be counting on you to keep an eye on Zara in the years ahead...

Zara and Jazmine - Zara playing "peek-a-boo" with Jazzy at Moyo

Zara, Jazmine and Alex - they managed to get themselves into this mini circle, Alex having a taste of Zara's dummy, Jazzy poking his cheek as if she is telling him off about the dummy and Zara tast testing my keys...

(we Moms, met through anti-natal classes-Zara was due last but was born first, then Jazmine 2 days after Zara and Alex 4 weeks later)

as you can see, Zara has been having a wonderful time catching up with all her friends ;~)