Twirling and spinning and horses, oh my!

Monday. It's our day to go to visit Eric for lunch. I usually try and get to some playground beforehand but we ended up leaving really late. Why did we leave late?  We waited for Lily and Lena to call, the sweet mother's helpers from home. It did not happen this week. Amelia was very sad. But things like this happen. Life happens. They ended up calling about 10-15 minutes after we left. Of course.

Anyhow, we went to the mall to pick up lunch to bring with us. We did our typical walk to Eric's office and go to the playground (really just for a few minutes since we left so late). Amelia made us some mac and cheese from inside the little house on the playground. So sweet.

Ready to dance.

It was too chilly to eat outside so we went to Gloria Jeans (yes, the coffee shop. For some reason it is quite popular here) and had lunch inside. They have hardwood floors and music. Amelia because a ballerina during lunch and for the first time ever, spun around on one foot. All the way around without falling. It was a thing of beauty.

Twirling on one foot!

After the dance recital, we went to the giant trampoline. Amelia had asked many times to do it and today seemed like a good day to try it. They hooked her up and heled her bounce partially because she weighs so little and partially because she doesn't quite get the concept of jumping on a trampoline.

Our next adventure lead us to the Equestrian Center where we pet some horses and watched 5 little girls get on their horses and ride out to Centennial Park. Amelia and I walked with them for 10 min until we found a park with baby swings.

The dark horse

Trying to get on.

We likes this white one.

We followed them out to the park.

And our final adventure for the day was back through the park, but a different way because we were following the horses of course, and we found a different playground. This one had multiple baby swings and a guy practicing his juggling. We watched for a bit and then went to the swings.

Summer and winter in one day

On Friday, Eric had an extra day without filming (usually it's Monday) so we decided to go to there for lunch again. Twice in one week! It was really really warm out--somewhere around 27 degrees Celsius, or a little over 80 Fahrenheit. It doesn't sound that warm, but with the wind, and the strong sun, it felt  blazing hot!

On our way to the Entertainment Quarter, we stopped at the little park in the center of the big park Centennial of course. It was nice, with a little shade, and happened to be right next to the cafe (just in case one needed a coffee or a toilet.) It also has this really interesting hanging chime thing which the kids seem to like. Though it could get quite loud, it was kind of sweet to listen to the little kids play with it.

The chimes.

Baby swing at Centennial Park.

One last push before we leave.

Thanks Dad for sending me the clips!

The weather was still really hot on the way home, but it was a nice change from the colder weather we've had recently. Amelia (who was sleeping of course) and I stopped into the mall to go to the grocery store and by the time we got out about 20 minutes later, the wind had come in along with the clouds and colder weather. It dropped about 20 F degrees or more!

Turning day into night... at 3:30pm!

Very ominous.

I was really glad I had decided to buy stuff to make cookies. No bake cookies, but cookies none the less. I don't trust the oven we have here and it seemed like too much to buy all the bits and pieces for regular cookies. These peanut butter cookies were the easiest things to make and, at least I thought, quite delicious! I added some chocolate chips but should have opted for the more expensive "no melt" kind because as soon as I poured them in, they disappeared. Oh well. I bought some rainbow sprinkles for Amelia to put on top.

On Saturday it will be my 6th wedding anniversary and I thought I'd make something for Eric. He loves peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. I don't think these resonated with him though. Maybe next year I'll make the real thing.

Rich and yummy peanut butter no-bake cookies.

On sprinkle patrol.

Silhouette

Our kitchen.

From above.

My green ballerina

No two ways about it... Amelia loves GREEN! I love that, when faced with beautiful costumes in frilly and fluffy pink, she finds the one in blue and green. We visited the Mothercare store at the Entertainment Quarter on Monday, after lunch with Eric. She showed Eric the dollhouse from last week, but then found her dress and stayed in it the rest of our stay. 

Thankfully, Amelia is very good about leaving things in the store. We always say, you can play with it while we're here, but we're not buying it. This works. She even will make a bargain with me when I say no to something, she'll say, I just want to hold it. Ok. I can't argue with that. I just remind her it's in-store only.

Playing with the dresses.

Pink is pretty, but not pretty enough!

This is almost like her owl dress.

Girl in fairy costume playing with trucks.

Which car?

I love kids.

How does she do it? She found the one
toy in the store that's blue and green too!

I went online later that night to see if I could find a green ballerina costume. They really don't exist. And the pretty green/blue dress is almost $60. It's not worth it to buy something that expensive. She has the owl dress which looks very similar. All the other green ballerina costumes have a Disney character on them or seem a little too old for a 3 year old.

Conked out in the stroller.

After a fun filled afternoon with Eric and playing dress-up, we head home. It was incredibly windy. I had to hold the blanket on otherwise it would have blown away. I guess spring is Sydney's windy season. And, as I've said before, Amelia really, really, really dislikes the wind. If I had the towel from the day before, that would have been much better for her and my back. (You try walking uphill, pushing a toddler in a giant stroller while trying to hold on to both sides of a blanket! Not an easy task.)

I was surprised to see that she stayed asleep in stroller for at least another 30-45 minutes once we got upstairs. That was our big outing for the day. And the grocery store.

Week 3: What did we do?

Week 3 has really flown by! I can't believe how little we do some days. It's Thursday at 4pm and we haven't left the apartment. We did, however, put our clothes on. That was a step in the right direction.

First thing Monday morning we were lucky enough to talk to two of Amelia's favorite people: Lena and Lily, my mother's helpers. They come over and play with your child while you are still at home. They're 13 and have all of Amelia's attention when they are around. The girls graciously let us call them on Sunday (Monday here) so Amelia could say hello. That was all she could talk about the rest of the day, though when we're Skyping them, she doesn't say much. That would be true for most of the Skype calls we make.

On Mondays (this was our second time doing this) we have been visiting Eric at work. We walk to his office at the Entertainment Quarter, going through a wonderful place called Centennial Park. I've mentioned this before but I can't say enough how much I love this park! This week we saw all sorts of interesting birds, some I've never seen before. It makes me wish Los Angeles had more parks. Honestly, you can't walk more than 15 minutes without encountering some type of green space. Believe me, I've tried! I walk somewhere almost every day and it's just not possible. These people planned well.

It seemed to take us less time to get to the office this week, maybe because I had already been there and it didn't feel as new. On our way, besides seeing birds, we geese, ducks and the most adorable chocolate laberdoodle named Bailey. Awww. I wanted to give Bailey a big kiss! After a brief chat with the owners, they walked on. Amelia saw them playing and said, "that puppy is playing with his mommy and daddy and other mommy!" So darn cute. And wow. Imagine if we were all that accepting of different lifestyles.


I'm sad to report that either Amelia  or I accidentally deleted some really great pictures and videos from the phone. It happens. I don't think there's any way to retrieve them since they hadn't been backed up yet. The iphone is not really great with that. Oh well.

The pictures I do have, which I will have to post later, are from Monday and Wednesday. Monday, as I said, we met Eric for lunch. After which, we ended up playing in a kid store for over an hour. They had a giant doll house Amelia seemed to like. She put the little JellyCat bunny to sleep in the bed, put her on the potty and also made her do other household chores. It was quite darling.

Playing in the store seemed more fun than the playground!

Having fun with the giant doll house

Sitting at the table

Bunny is sleepy

Bunny is going potty

Wearing a fancy headband

Tuesday was library day. This was our 3rd storytime at Waverly library. This week they had Rainbow Fish (which they edited not only for time but content. I actually appreciate that because if you've ever read Rainbow Fish, you'll know it's not actually a great story for kids.) There was a video with Maisy scuba diving with a playful dolphin. And then we had our craft project. My craft project really. We made an octopus and though Amelia did stick the smile and eye on, she didn't really want to do the other stuff. It kind of scares me that she won't even try to do things--she'll just say, "No, mommy, you do it."  Ugh. C'mon girl... try! We need to work on that. As for the rest of the day, I can't remember what we did.

Wednesday was our big day. On this day Amelia took her first ever dance class at a place called Rhythm Factory located in Randwick. I don't know if she loved it, but I think she loves the idea of. She has been watching and reading Angelina Ballerina so she seems very into everything dancing right now. It's very sweet. I love that when it came time to choose what to wear, instead of picking the traditional pink tutu, she wanted to wear her green turtle skirt (thanks Uncle Andy!) with the blue flower shirt.

First dance class.

Trying to get the hang of the magic line.

Kicking their feet

The pom-poms were a HUGE hit!

Barefoot ballerina.

They had all sorts of props in the class and the music was a tad bit too loud, but it was fun to watch. It took us about the same amount of time to walk there as it did for the actual class. But it was worth it. After dancing, we walked to the park, played there a little, met a nice woman who gave us a lunch recommendation, then headed over there. Three Blue Ducks. It was quite good. Amelia and I split a steak sandwich and I had probably the best coffee I've ever had. Seriously! It was amazing. Why? I don't know why. A flat white, is like a latte but they use microfoam instead of poured steamed milk with foam on top. Some shops in Santa Monica do it this way: Cafe Luxxe and maybe Le Pain Quotidien.

She finished her half of the sandwich. It was delicious!

My flower is getting a little silly.

After a delicious lunch, we continued our walk East to Bronte Beach. Stunning. Gorgeous. Amazing! The ocean in Australia is much more beautiful than California. I will be posting pictures, but for now, take my word for it! We played in the sand for a while, making sand castles (well, trying to anyhow) and tried, twice, to get gelato, but the only shop which carried it, was out! And I watched the surfers. They seems to glide through the water so effortlessly. We took the bus home, which was great because it would have been a steep ass walk back home. I don't know if we could have made it with the stroller.

First view of the beach.

Bronte is beautiful.

Dreaming of warmer water.

Making sandcastles in the sand.

Dreamy.

Today. We've done NOTHING today. Well, we have been ballerinas and read books and played with the shells I collected yesterday and had pistachios and gotten dressed and finally, taken a nap. That's it. I hope to get to the store shortly because we have nothing to eat for dinner. Must go wake the sleeping child now. It's 5 o'clock!