Photo Gallery - June 2001

This year's party dress - lipstick pink velvet (I think the manufacturer calls it "candyfloss"). Whatever - it's **very** pink and Claudia thinks she is the most beautiful girl ever. (So do we). Here she is all dressed up at Nanna's (in "Mummy's room" - not sure why it's mine as I've never slept there but Claudia is adamant that it is Mummy's room).

It may seem insanely early to be thinking about school when she hasn't even started Kinder, but this year we had to go to some school open days to think about a school for Claudia when she hits late primary. This photo is from Ruyton; Claudia was very taken with their whale sculpture "Beluga".

One of our favourite places to go on Sundays is the Diamond Valley Miniature Railway. Run for over 40 years by volunteers, it costs $2.50 for a ride on one of their miniature trains. Mums and Dads can go too. We went in March with two of Claudia's creche friends and their mums...

This place has **everything** - even a pony wagon pulled by a pony called "Teepee". What fun!!

Playing the chasing game instead of eating lunch ...

There were interesting sticks and dirt to play with too!

Claudia and Hunter's favourite game is running around and then falling down on their bottoms.

Lying down in the rocking chair is fun. Playing the pillow game (sitting in the rocking chair deflecting the pillows Daddy throws at you) is even more fun.

Being a Soapy Star in the bath. Some more bubbles please slaves, and while you're at it I'd like some more toys too. Snap to it.

One of Claudia's favourite things at home is "The Big Fish". Not a toy, not even a real fish - it's the SeaChange animated Screensaver on our PC. "Look Mummy, it's the big fish!".

For several months, we couldn't get her to walk past the study door without checking to see if the Big Fish was there (and if he was, we had to wait for him to swim by several times). Then she discovered that if she pressed "c" for Claudia, the Big Fish would go away and the picture of Claudia (our wallpaper) would come back. Now it's "I want to use MY keyboard" and "I need to use MY poota". For neo-Luddites like us (at least as far as she is concerned - we're not into toddler software at all as we know how much OUR brains get sucked by the PC), it is all very scary.

One of the really great things to do when you are two and a half is wash Mummy and Daddy's dishes. They won't always like it, but once you are big enough to move the kitchen steps by yourself there's not a lot they can do about it.

Monstering Daddy for a story

Whoo hoo! My new favourite!

I bought Claudia this book about a bear called Paddington. It's an abridged version of the originals by Michael Bond but at least it's not all cartoony.

She loves it. After about 3 reads, she knew most of it by heart (her favourite bit is where he says he comes from Darkest Peru - but she also likes the bit where Paddington slips in some jam and cream cakes).

Making sure that Daddy gets it right (we get corrected if we don't tell the story properly - to my mother's disgust when she tries to take shortcuts to get through the books faster!)

Claudia may not have heard of the Leningrad Cowboys but evil daddy has. You can do so many fun things with hair when it's full of shampoo...

Back again at Diamond Valley Miniature Railway, this time with our friends Druid, Jane, Victoria and Kate. Victoria invented a great game - throw her ball down the hill for Claudia to fetch (can you tell she has a dog at home?). Claudia thought it was pretty fun too, although she started to get a bit tired. Kate preferred looking at the grass.

Claudia is wearing a new jumper from nanna - knitted to fit a 4 year old, we wondered whether we would get more than a week's wear out of it!

Two big girls went for a ride on the miniature ponies. Claudia was on Barney and Victoria on Rusty (or is that the other way around?). We think Claudia looks really small here.

Neither of the girls wanted to get off the horses - although I think the trains won eventually. I thought they were pretty brave, as even a small pony is tall to a 2-year-old.

Claudia and Victoria playing with Victoria's ball (Victoria decided to chase it too this time, when it looked like Claudia might not give it back!)

Time to head back to the trains, daddy

Going round a bend. That's Claudia's hair in front of the camera ;-)

Hooray! We finally got "The Look" on camera!

I think it really speaks for itself...