More yogurt and cars (sort of)

Sunday evening, time for another blog entry. Papa in bed, Zoe in bed, mamae can deal with photos, videos and write the blog for a change.

Another week flew by and we can barely believe it’s almost November. Soon it’ll be our second anniversary here in Australia (!).We had a great week, especially with summer around the corner. Work for the parents, kindy for Zoe, and leisure for everyone – beach after work!! We even had the opportunity to see two whales swimming by Clovelly beach last week. That was quite surreal, pity we didn’t get that well on camera. You’ll have to trust me on this one, it was really beautiful.

Weekend: we managed to take Zoe swimming (looooooves the water), went to the farmers’ market (Zoe loved patting the piglet and the baby goats), had friends over for lunch (yummy BBQ octopus on a bed of warm Mediterranean salad, and garfish in vine leaves also on the BBQ! Thanks to Papa chef)…also did some shopping (Michi especially, not me) and had sushi. Well, it was a little busy…

By the way, sushi is Zoe’s new favorite dish. Last Wednesday I offered her to see if she’ d have one or two. She went on and on eating until she had 7. Ok, they’re called baby sushi for a reason (quite small), but 7?! Anyway, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised given her obsession with rice and soy sauce at the moment…

Just to illustrate our routine lives, a couple of videos of last week. On the first video Zoe’s enjoying her yogurt (which she’s crazy about), and on the second one she makes the “vroom vroom” car sounds while playing with her, hmm, cars?

Vroom vroom…

Rice monster

Just a fresh video from today’s supper. Zoe L-O-V-E-S rice and we are not sure whether it’s due to her Japanese or Brazilian genes    She’s also enjoying using the fork now…after all, spoons are only for babies!

We had a very good (normal) week, and Zoe’s having so much fun at the kindy. There are many babies now, but she is still spoilt by the cook (who has her photo on the fridge door), the manager (who takes her to the office) and the carers from the older room (who take her to play with the bigger children). She’s even been sitting on a proper chair recently – upgraded from the highchair! She makes such a mess when eating that they leave her only in her body suit for lunch. Nothing like mastering independence!

And in case you can bear another quick video, this is Zoe loving to put the key in the keyhole – and Papa very proud of her skills

Da or Ta?

Last week Papa and Mamae were struggling to understand what Zoe was saying when taking an object from us. Mamae was sure it was “da” (give me), whereas Papa was sure it was “da” for the beginnings of “danke”.  Then, when dropping Zoe at Kindy last week, mamae witnessed Zoe saying “Ta” to the carer, when receiving a toy from her. And the carer was practising with Zoe, giving and taking the toy and saying “Ta”. Ahh, so it was”Ta”, in ENGLISH!!  (which is the children version of  “Thank you”). Surprise surprise, so much for Portuguese and German – Zoe prefers English after all.

On Saturday it was the wedding of good friends of ours (auntie) Sharpley and (uncle) Nelson. It was a perfect day for a wedding with blue sky and 27C, and Sharpley and Nelson looked stunning and so happy. Unfortunately we only have a photo of Sharps! And little Zoe looked amazingly sweet in her beautiful dress, which she got from vovozinhos for the birthday. Well, she was too small then, but it now fits perfectly!

Today we had an easy going day (after our exciting weekly cleaning of the flat, argh!)…we went out for lunch at small restaurant called Clodeli and even managed a short visit to the beach, which was great because it was unseasonably hot today (31C). Zoe also tried out the seawater, and loved it!

Some pics to summarize our last few days:

Almost there!

Got it!

All dressed up (for a change!)

So beautiful…

…feeling suddenly so old!

Stunning bride!

So happy!

Like Eva

Loving the water!

Yuhu!

Watching the other children

Playing at the beach

Just to add to yesterday’s photos: a video of Zoe playing in the sand…concentration and enjoyment, she LOVES playing with the sand!…and we love her subtle refusal to mamae’s suggestion

Father’s day (or photo overload)

Tomorrow is father’s day in Australia. We decided to celebrate it a day earlier to avoid the rush to the restaurants tomorrow. We went to Avalon beach (on the north shore, over the Harbour Bridge) for lunch and sand playing. *Note on our hats on the photos – well, we need to set an example for Zoe because she refuses to wear her hat, which is fine in winter. But when summer comes we all have to wear hats outdoors as the Australian sun can easily fry your brain… no wonder Australia has one of the highest skin cancer rates in the world (probably because they don’t have good records in Brazil, hahah). That’s why it is compulsory for the children to wear a hat when outdoors at all schools here. Another reason for Zoe to get used to it…

Anyway, it was a beautiful sunny and warm day, we almost forgot it’s still winter here! We should have taken our swimming suits…(By the way, we’ll start some “swimming” lessons next week. We were going to start last week but Zoe wasn’t very happy after 3 vaccines…)

Zoe looks so different, she’s officialy a toddler now. She’s learning to express what she wants, which makes life easier – most of the time, at least. The problem is when communication breaks down, either because we can’t understand her or because she doesn’t really know what she wants yet! Anyway, we’re all learning, and I guess it’ll get better by the time she goes to Uni, hehehe

So here comes the overload:  enjoy the photos!

Looking so grown-up

More grown-up looks

…too cool for this world!

Did you say something to me?

Great dictator – partII

Saltwater experience

Look at the white sharks, darling!

Father’s day present from Zoe – painted by herself at the Kindy

Look what I can carry!

Yummy Vietnamese food

Zoe’s party

We thought of having some cake and guarana (a great Brazilian soft drink like Almdudler) to celebrate Zoe’s early birthday with the Brazilian family… so her vovozinhos (grandparents) decided to get for this occasion “only” a few hundreds of docinhos (party sweets/pralines/something like that!), savoury party snacks, two waiters and countless balloons…Papa and mamae were laughing at the “small celebration”, but in the end it was great that everything was so well organised and everyone could just enjoy the occasion! As expected the party started at 3pm and the last ones left at 12am…

In the end, there were 40 people at the party, including relatives and family friends. It was so much fun! Zoe was at first a bit suspicious at everyone coming to say hello and trying to hold her, but in the end she seemed to enjoy herself a lot. No crying and just a little checking on them. She was very social but at times just wanted to be with Papa and Mamae. Who said all Japanese look the same?

Unfortunately we didn’t manage to take photos of everyone, so here just a few, including one with the girls from 1990…Wow, mamae is feeling old

And the day after Zoe was enjoying all the “leftover” balloons…

Paris

Some snapshots from our recent adventures…nothing like holidays to give us reason to photograph anything… like true Japanese tourists, Papa says…

We’ve been taking photos of Zoe in front of the main touristy points in Paris. If you saw Amelie Poulin, you’ll know that Zoe is going to be like the little garden dwarf…

Today we had a full museum program: the Louvre and the Orangerie, cushioned by cafe and bistro visits… ah the hard life we have. Tomorrow mamae needs shopping to get rid of this cultural overload!!

Zoe, as always, is the center of attraction at many places we’ve been! She’s now smiling to everyone, which makes even the most serious faces smile back.  She even went with Mamae and Papa to their scientific conference, where many people were impressed by her early start in the field!

Can we go home now?

Notre Dame

Cheeky Monkey (Kleine Hexe)

Spot who’s excited at the Louvre

Give me your hand!

Mamae and Zoe at the Louvre

Zoe and Monet

She doesn’t let us hold both hands…

Brazilian rhythm

Ok, ok, mamae couldn’t resist attributing Zoe’s great rythm to her Brazilian heritage…    Note how she moves with the song!!!

We all love dancing to any music with Zoe, especially Brazilian songs. Papa can get tired of listening to the same CDs over and over, but even he can’t resist sometimes…

Here’s a recent video with some added comments by Papa

Happy birthday, Feliz aniversario, und Herzlichen Glückwunsch zum Geburtstag Papa!!

So Papa is now 33. Much older than mamae

We’ve had a pretty routine day, Zoe at the kindy and we both at work. But we managed to have a little party at the end of the day, just the three of us. We got Papa a Creole cake, which had a coconut base, mango and passion fruit mousse layers, surrounded by white chocolate and topped with fresh fruit. Not too bad!! Papa had half of it already…

We also had colourful balloons, party hats and electric sparkles – Zoe had so much fun! The hats were especially tasty…

Here some pics to register Papa’s first birthday with Zoe, and mamae, altogether

Banana

Zoe doesn’t seem in a hurry to learn to feed by herself. But she’ll make an effort form banana, which is one her favourites! She’s also become very keen on our electronic stuff: mobiles, phone, remote control, video, camera, mouse…

Here’s a sequence of shots I find very cute

ps. She’s trying to reach for the camera!