Scissors

Louka is fascinated by scissors since we visited Marnie and she got to try them for the first time. So yesterday I bought her a pair of child's scissors. Not sure whether to be really pleased, since she evidently enjoys them, or a bit horrified. At least she tends to ask if it's ok to cut something up.

Christmas

Christmas was so exciting for Louka this year. She woke up to a big present from Santa: lego dinosaurs. Santa seems to think Louka is very advanced for her age and able to follow lego directions for 7-year-olds, but she asked mum and dad to make it for her.

Then off to Trishy and Johnny's place for a family present-giving by the tree she'd decorated on Christmas eve. There was a great big dolls house (which, again, daddy had to make) as well as finger paints, music, clothes and jigsaws.

For lunch, we'd been invited to visit Graham's aunt Clara and uncle Michael for a barbecue ― no presents ― but since Louka and her little second cousin Amber would be there, we figured there'd be presents for the kids. We were right, and Louka got a teddy bear, two books and a bubble-blowing machine. She was getting a bit tired at this point, and started to ask to go home. But she was also saying we should "go and get more presents!".

She fell asleep on the way back to my parents' place but woke up for dinner. She loved pulling crackers, and was clearly impressed by the flames around the pudding this year. After dinner she was hard to get home, and when home, hard to get to bed. But she slept well.

Decorating the tree

We don't have a christmas tree ourselves, so we add our decorations to my parents' tree. And mum's tradition is not to put it up till Christmas Eve (and take it down on Twelfth Night). Louka has four decorations of her own: I bought her one from a lady doing personalised decorations at Warringah Mall; one came from St Vincent de Paul; Jen gave her one at the Art n Move party; and I bought her a handmade Peruvian crescent moon from the One Earth Café. So after lunch we headed to my parents' place to let her decorate the tree. She actually didn't do too badly ― nothing was broken, and most of the decorations went right onto branches. She did have a propensity to put them all on the same part of the tree, sometimes three or four on one branch, but that could be rearranged while she wasn't looking.

Christmas party no. 2

Jen from Art n Move helped us out to have a party the week after classes ended. It was like a mixture of an Art n Move class and a party: there was story-telling (Christmas themed), pass-the-parcel, singing, dancing, bells, tambourines, craft, and party food! I took mangoes and dried figs, but Louka was more interested in the iced mini doughnuts and little packs of marshmallows. She did eat half a star-shaped vegemite sandwich, and a couple of watermelon wedges, so it wasn't all unhealthy. And she got stuck into the figs once we got home.

Shakey comes to visit

Graham's mum was keen to come see us, but thought it would be good to have some company in case we didn't have the time to hang around with her (for some reason). So she persuaded Graham's sister Deb and Louka's cousin Shakey to come with her. We all stayed at Freshwater because it has three bedrooms as against one at home.

Shakey is such a smiley little kid! And she loved to follow Louka around and do what Louka was doing. Louka was quite sweet and kind to Shakey, too.

First Christmas party for 2008

As in previous years, we've had a mothers group Christmas party for the kids. This year Sarah hosted the party, and arranged the hire of a bouncing castle. She also had a wonderful cubby house she'd recently received from friends. Again, Santa Claus turned up to distribute the gifts, but only one little girl felt comfortable enough to sit on his knee; perhaps because her father wasn't in the room at the time.

Lovely Louka

I just wanted to post this photo of Louka in my old jacket, because I think she looks lovely.