Gearing up for Christmas'09!

This year, as Alicia's walking and running about, and still trying to mouth everything she sees, we decided that the Christmas tree should not make its appearance this year in our home. Otherwise, she'd be pulling off the leaves, breaking ornaments - which is really dangerous! and basically tearing the whole tree apart.



So instead of putting up a tree, we decided that we'd celebrate Christmas in other ways: bring her to see the Christmas lights in town, buy her a couple of bric-a-bracs just for fun, and of course, there's the usual Christmas family get-together with my family later in the month.


We took a few photos of the Christmas lights in town while we were in the car, but the phone camera didn't do any justice to the lights so I shan't post the photos here. Alicia did enjoy looking at the lights though.



We also brought her to Vivocity where there's a big Christmas tree. Here are some photos we took with hubby's phone:

We got her a reindeer hairband which all of us can wear! Somehow it fits her little head and ours nicely! We got it at Toys R Us for only $2. Here's the pic of it and a video of Alicia playing with the hairband. Initially she put it on nicely on her own but by the time I took out my phone to take the video, it was almost off her head already... well, what's new...





And oh, that's her fiddling with her newest 'toy' in the video too: the keyboard we bought for her from Giant for $20! Now I can sit her down properly without worrying that she'd fall off my lap - which is my main worry when I play on my piano with her on my lap.

Here's the other knickknack we got for her: a Christmas bag from Daiso.



We put the Sesame Street toys in it for her and she had great fun taking them out one by one. Here's a video of her with the Christmas bag and Bert from Sesame Street (look out for her waving at and kissing Bert):

Christmas 08

For last year's Christmas, we still took out our Christmas tree and decked it up as usual since Alicia was young then and wasn't very mobile so she couldn't go disturb the tree and the ornaments.

Here are some photos of her (and us) with our Christmas tree last year (note how chubby she looked then compared to now... sigh):

We had a hard time trying to get a good family photo with the tree!

"Hmm, what's this?"

"I want that ball!"

Quietly eating her breakfast

Recently, as Alicia has rejected other breakfast items like pancakes, bread and fried egg (probably coz it's teething season), I've been giving her a mixture of whole grain healthy snacks which she eats like toddler cereal in the morning (but without the milk). She has her milk later from me after she finishes the bowl of whole grains. :)

I've been giving her the whole grains in this pink bowl so she has already come to identify the pink bowl with her yummy whole grains. Once I 'set the table' for her (i.e. put the pink bowl on the blue tray), she'd just sit down and eat her breakfast quietly. Sometimes after sitting down for awhile, she gets bored, so she shifts herself, and the bowl of course, to the coffee table, where she would stand and continue eating. Almost every time, she will explore what happens when she tilts the bowl or turns it upside down. I try not to be annoyed and will get her to help to pick up the pieces of food and return it to the bowl. When I sit down with her to eat the food, I will give her a spoon to try to self-feed. Well, it's easier to start getting her to self-feed 'dry' foods definitely as it's less messy!

Here's a video of her quietly eating breakfast on her own: