A Portrait a Week: 27/52 - Trying out the naughty step

Andre took these photos of Isabella sitting on the bottom step after breakfast one morning this week. She's enjoying walking while holding our hands now and even wants to have a go at 'climbing' the stairs! We let her stand on the stairs and she's starting to get the hang of lifting her knees up to get onto the next step. We'd rather teach her how to safely use the stairs early on and hopefully avoid accidents.

Third sewing project: Pink summer dress with braided neckline

I completed this dress quite a while ago, but just haven't gotten around to blogging about it. The family have probably most seen and heard about this dress, but here it is again anyway before I post the next sewing project I just completed tonight.

Again I used an old t-shirt of mine which no longer fit me so well. I loved this t-shirt, such a nice bright pink, so I am glad it is able to carry on its life with Isabella!

Me in the t-shirt right before it became Isabella's dress. It was actually the last time I wore
it and decided it's actually a bit short...
(Isabella 6 months old.)

And here it is up-cycled into a dress for Isabella!

As with the previous dress I used the original hem of the t-shirt as the hem of the dress so saved me a step. The binding around her arms is from the neck of the shirt and the neck of the dress is a five strand braid made from strips cut from another top. I used one of her t-shirts to cut around as a guide for cutting out the dress.

I was just taking photos that day of Isabella being brave and touching the grass for the first time without crying about it. So they don't show off the dress so much. This was a month and a half ago, she was 6 months old then. She wore the dress again today and it looks so much shorter on her now compared to the photo where she's standing up. She's probably not gotten much taller, I think she's just able to stand up taller now. I will try and remember to get another picture of her in the dress when she wears it next. It probably won't be soon though because the rain is back again tomorrow...

A Portrait a Week: 26/52

I convinced Andre that we should go for a walk on Saturday morning even though it looked like it was about to rain. I said, you never know, it might not and we can't sit at home looking out the window wondering if it might rain or not.

Well it rained. It was a great big thunderstorm and we got soaked. Except for Isabella who was very excited to be watching the rain from underneath her rain cover.

Baby Sensory

Isabella has an absolute blast at Baby Sensory each week. Yesterday was the last class of the term (although the next term starts next week so not much difference) and so we had a baby party. Each week's class has a different theme. We've had pirates, sea, spring and Easter to name just a few. For the baby party this week there was dancing, singing, balloons, bubbles, musical statues (if you can imagine babies playing that!), coloured ribbons, glitter pom-poms, instruments and more. I wish I could have video'ed Isabella while she was dancing. She really got into it, shaking her head, wiggling her bottom, singing and even tapping her foot to "Cotton eye Joe"!! It was brilliant! She got so excited and was so happy. She really really seems to love music.

These pictures are unfortunately some of the worst I've taken. I had to use my phone and take them while sitting behind her and so using the front camera on my phone which is even worse quality. Also while making sure I didn't get anybody else in the picture because you just don't photograph other people's children here and especially then don't post them online! And these photos hardly show how much fun she was having. Shoving a phone in front of her face while she's laughing kind of spoils that moment of fun. I'm hoping when my sister comes to visit one of us will then be able to take better photos while the other does the activities with her.

But here are a few photos and a short video anyway to give you an idea of what we do at Baby Sensory.

Doing my warming up exercises right before
the class starts. (not really- she was just getting
ready to go explore before class)

We start off with a hello song. Isabella paying
close attention to the teacher singing and signing.

Make some noise!

Free play time- we tried out a walker for the first
time. Isabella ended up going backwards as she
pulled it towards her instead of pushing!

In the ball pond (inflatable baby pool filled
with lots of balls).

Here Isabella was playing on an inflatable
matras which is usually covered with a different
fabric each week and different toys on to play
with. Bouncing and rolling fun!

Every party needs balloons! We're holding on to a stretchy fabric,
sitting in a circle. The balloons are then bounced on top.

This photo doesn't show much but there were loads of bubbles
everywhere and Isabella was just staring at them in awe.

Baby Sensory from Anneliese Mostert on Vimeo.

Our week in Germany, seen from above.

While I'm editing photos of our weekend to show you, here's a video Andre put together of our week in Germany, filmed using his quadrocopter.


Around Eching and Back from Andre Mostert on Vimeo.

A Portrait a Week: 25/52 - Playing in the park

 I think I'm choosing this first one as my portrait of the week of Isabella, but the next one was a close second.

We took a walk to one of the play parks near our house on Saturday afternoon. Isabella absolutely loves the swings. She gets excited just seeing it, before we've even taken her out of her pram. Andre took so many lovely photos of her. Here are a few of my favourites.

Baby on the move!

I accidentally captured Isabella's first few centimetres crawling this yesterday morning! I was busy cleaning trying to clean the bathroom while Isabella sat in the doorway unpacking a basket with hair ties and a few other random bits. She got bored with that after two minutes and decided she wanted to play with the bathroom bin instead. I moved it away from her and this is what happened... (I only decided to film her at this moment because this is what always happens when she wants to get to something, but doesn't ever, or until now, really try very hard. She'd lie on her stomach just jerking her arms and legs about whilst complaining.)

Was that a first crawl?! from Anneliese Mostert on Vimeo.

It was only literally a few cm and she didn't do it again so I didn't think anything of it and didn't register it at that moment as her first time crawling. Then later in the afternoon I was talking to my mom on skype. The laptop was on the floor, Isabella was on her stomach and all of a sudden she got one foot tucked in and pushed off with it and really got moving! The video only shows the first bit of her crawling, I didn't record our whole skype conversation, but we (me, her and the laptop) ended up crawling all the way across the living room, moving the computer further and further away from her. Once the camera wasn't around anymore she wanted the next electronic device, the laptop! 

Isabella has started crawling! from Anneliese Mostert on Vimeo.