Sunny Saturday

Daddy has been a busy bee of late. Today however he had the day off. He suggested we go somewhere, you know...... make the most of it. I long ago however decided that to go anywhere in Taipei on the weekend is a serious mistake. Especially since the probability of Daddy having days off through the week where we can go tripping about without having to endure the hoards of weekenders is actually quite high. So I asked Tilly what she would like to do with Daddy this fine sunny day. Swings, that's all she wanted. We had the most glorious day on this sunny Saturday.

Tilly is wearing an eye patch for a week on alternate eyes. After a routine health check at the school it was found that she has amblyopia. But actually that both eyes need correcting, hence the alternating. She's been a real trooper about wearing the eye patch. I make sure she wears it for a full half day from early morning till after lunch some time. And we have to do this for a week, but maybe longer. She no doubt gets her dodgy eyes from me. My depth perception (I believe) is quite frankly in the toilet... So hurray for early detection and the chance to correct dodgy eyes. Even with the eye patch this girl is just too gorgeous.................

........as is this little pumpkin.

After a yummy lunch we headed home so Evie would have a chance to nap. Before nap, we read through the load of books we borrowed from the library this week. They have a whole load of new books and many of them suited to Evie's age. Tilly also enjoys them because she gets a chance to read them to Evie. The English section isn't very big but there are lots of great books there. This week for Tilly she's reading about herbivores, dinosaurs, planet earth and army ants. These board books here for Evie are just so lovely.

She literally never tires of it. You could read her the same book a thousand times and she's still delighted by it.

Nothing I love better than to be snuggled up with my girls reading books. After this we watched Tangled with Daddy (his request - he can't get enough of Maximus the horse) and then we all went down for a walk through the busy part of town to pick up some tasty treats and stopped in the park for a few hours where the girls showed off tricks to Daddy (climbing trees, climbing rock walls, slipping down slides). The weather was perfect today, and they came home tired happy and ready for bed. This evening in bed Tilly said it was 'her best day ever..' For me it is absolutely about the simple things in life.

Mother's Day weekend

A date with Daddy on the Saturday to the school playground.

The T-Rex stance.......

Pumping hard!

Pleased with herself for going so high on her own.

My babies and me, Mother's Day.

Evie's favourite song

Here she is, doing the actions she learned at BSF. They were so cute at the beginning of the Semester telling us that this year there were some 'new' songs like Jesus Loves Me in the singing line up for the children. Not just the centuries old hymns they are usually taught. The year before I remember the Children's Program leader telling us to help practice the songs with the kids at home as the kids love singing them and it helps come class time. I was sitting next to a friend, who has since moved on from Taiwan, and the leader pointed her son out as an example saying - all he did all day was sing 'Trust and Obey'. At having the memory recounted back to her she looked at me and rolled her eyes. Ha! Of course after I filmed this we had to hear Evie scream out and do the action for 'Bible!' each time the song stopped. After about the tenth time I put an end to it.......

Wednesday morning BSF

Sitting on the MRT watching the city race by her. Tilly enjoys her class and has learned so much.

Evie's view is less dramatic but a few of her favourite books in her dilly bag keep her occupied the 40 minutes it takes to get there. That's walk to station and MRT travel time all together. The summer heat is starting to oppress so the air conditioned clean coolness of the MRT is most welcome. Both the girls love BSF and we only have two lessons to go! Boo.........They each have their own class to attend. Evie sits up so I can put her name tag on her back, she gets rolled in by the ever capable Miss Flo (whom she adores) and then fawned over by all the clucking ladies in her class who sing songs to the kids, read the bible, pray and play. Her best friend has been absent for the last few weeks and I am sure that takes the shine off things however.

Another summer haunt.....

The secret garden. It's hardly secret as it's positioned right at the front of Tilly's kindi and beside the playground. You walk right passed it to get to the school. Though people on the outside can't really see into the garden thanks to the shrubs and the Malaleuca's that line the fence. We treat this place as our own. This photo was taken maybe two days ago. Today I took the kids here late in the afternoon, after they had played in the park for an hour. It was 6 by the time we got there. I ordered fried rice from the restaurant over the road and they forgot to put in the chopsticks. So I just left my bag, food all open, drinks open. Picked up Evie and left Tilly over on the swings and got us some utensils. It is OUR garden. Noone goes in there. Some kids maybe during school hours.

Tilly is like mummy leaving her stuff around. She's been watching Dinosaur Train of late and is becoming quite interested in it all, and loves acting it out. She usually acts out as a therapod, such as T-Rex. She calls herself a therapod and holds her hands out like T-Rex's claws. Growling and snarling at everyone who passes by. The leaves on the stump are her dinner (nevermind that T-Rex was a carnivore, which she will actually tell you herself), the book is her 'recipe' book, the bag is full of who knows what.......

There is a little pond in the middle of all this. But the water is still so unfornately there mosquitos are fairly abundant, particularly in this corner! Probably why noone comes here..... hehe. But over where we keep our bags they seem to be less of an issue. The pond makes for some lovely noises, especially the frogs.

Chillin'

The big park I was talking about last time has lots of grass. This patch under a few trees and not far from the big kids playground, sits on a hill and overlooks the pond. And, seems to remain poo free. I give it a thorough going over before we plop.

Evie really struggles with grass. Though this afternoon I noticed around the other side of the pond under the big Malaleuca's that she was walking through the grass without too much concern. This photo was taken maybe a week ago, so she's made some progress!

The only thing Tilly struggles with is the lack of grass in her life.

The Sandpit Park next to the swimming hole.