Why I love dogs...

OK, so strictly speaking this has absolutely NOTHING to do with Nellie.... but with all the stress of having a toddler while being pregnant and sick, I haven't laughed a lot recently. My thoughtful husband emailed this home to me, and I have to confess this is the first thing in MONTHS that has actually made me laugh out loud when I saw it. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Check this out!

Firstly, just to say that Nellie has had yet ANOTHER tooth come through - this time a pre-molar on the bottom right. Needless to say, she's had her finger in her mouth for days now, feeling it!

Secondly to say that WE HAD SNOW!! Yes, it actually snowed in London.... incredible! However, for the past 3 years, the heaviest snow in London has been around Easter time - I remember because of the havoc it caused getting into school and the disruption it caused to teaching, so I'm waiting for another nice whack of snow later in the year.

And now, for the really exciting news..... here is the first picture my beautiful, intelligent, marvellous daughter ever drew all by herself with absolutely NO help from Mommy or Daddy! A bit blurry - blame my rubbish technique with my new camera phone - but at least you can see her efforts! For those who don't have kids, you may not realise what a skill it is being able to put pencil to paper.... but trust me, this is a MASSIVE milestone!

Only a week left till she and Graeme fly to SA for Uncle Philly's wedding, and godmother Claire's wedding, and I'm already finding myself all tearful everytime I say goodbye to her. It's ridiculous really, but 2 weeks without her is going to be a long time. I've done 2 weeks without Graeme, and I know I will cope, but 2 weeks apart from my little treasure is a different matter altogether.... Mom - how you coped with me moving out of home & getting married and becoming independent I'll never know!!

And more video...

Here's one from July, from the end of her first swimming course when she was 8 months old. If you compare it to the one of her we blogged in 2006 you'll see the difference in quality! Our digital camera takes RUBBISH video! (Actually, looking at it on the web it isn't all that great either - I'll try to do something about that later....) This one is with Daddy. There's also one of her with me, but I thought I'd only put the one up, just to give the flavour. Family will have the privilege of seeing my growing bulk in a shrinking costume though!

Wrong again!

Ahh, no, sorry... make that 8 teeth now.... 4 top and bottom. I wonder how many more will pop out before we have the next break?

Nellie do self!

Yes, the little lass is starting to want to do things for herself!

At the moment she has a very snotty nose (mostly because she's teething, but also because she has a eye infection and a slight cold) and has had since the middle of November (poor mite!). Needless to say, this has involved a lot of nose wiping, and she's really very good about it. She will come to tell you that her nose needs wiping if you don't notice it and hardly ever objects to having it wiped (provided you're gentle!).

Well, today she tried to wipe her nose herself! Aaaaahh! She picked up the tissue, brought it to her face, and made all the right blowing motions! SOOOOO cute! And so pleased with herself that she did it too!

THEN, in the bath tonight, she took the sponge and tried to wash herself. And THEN wanted to brush her own teeth afterwards as well. She managed to get the brush into her mouth, but couldn't quite manage the brushing action on her own. Still, it feels like today was a milestone - soon we'll be having fights because Nellie wants to 'do self' rather than have Mommy or Daddy 'do for her' - my little baby is really starting to become independent!

Sorry, no, then there were 7...

Yes, it seems I can't count! She's had TWO teeth come through in the past few days... there are now 3 on the bottom and 4 on the top! How exciting!

And then there were six...

Yes, tooth #6 has arrived! Let's hope a few more appear in quick succession so that we limit the teething time to a few weeks, rather than several shorter bursts spread over a long period.

Here's one....

This is of her ladyship at about 9 months. She had started to walk before she crawled, but then she got the hang of crawling so walking took a back seat, as you'll see.

FINALLY!

At long last we've been able to get the camcorder to talk to the computer... so, after MONTHS of waiting, I can now finally get on with editing some proper footage.

My first priority though, is creating movies for family, which I know are WAY too large for YouTube to handle. So, you may have a wait a while longer before you actually get to see anything - sorry! For family, a CD should be on its way to you shortly (I hope!!).

3rd trimester - here we go again!

The text doesn't come out so clearly on this for some reason - but I'm now 26 weeks pregnant... only 98 days to go!