Aquarium

We went to the local aquarium on Saturday. Aside from eating Golfish crackers and seeing the occasional fish tank at the doctor's office, this was her first real experience with fish. There was also a really cool area (that we had to access by this little red vehicle) with a million penquins in the (man-made) snow, and Lilly was glued to the window in awe (and unfortunately, her tongue was somewhat glued to it as well, or at least licking the window the entire ride). Regardless, she thought it was a very cool trip. I included a picture of Jon & I to prove that a) Lilly isn't living in NZ by herself; and b) Jon & I occasionally do spend time together.

Marshmallows, Fluffy's, and Ketchup

There have been a lot of adjustments since moving overseas; but there are also some things here that we wouldn't experience anywhere else. Our first night in New Zealand, almost two months ago, we went to a restaurant and asked for "milk" for Lilly. The waitress said "Fluffy" and I totally thought she was calling Lilly a cute (but kind of odd) nickname. We kind of smiled and she walked away... and came back five minutes later with what looked like a miniature cappuccino. "Here's your fluffy" she said, and placed it in front of Lilly. We came to find out, that I guess kids here don't drink regular milk in a restaurant; they drink a Fluffy, which is basically whipped frothy milk, with a little cocoa (or is it cinnamon?) on top, in an espresso cup, with a tiny little spoon. It always comes with two marshmallows on the side. Ever since that first restaurant experience, every time we go out, we order Lilly a fluffy. At first, she just looked at it, appauled that we would try to make her drink a coffee drink. Then she started trusting us that it wasn't really coffee (or maybe she just wanted to play with that cute little spoon), so she started taking the spoon and dipping it in the froth. This lasted about a month. Then, she graduated to actually occasionally sticking the spoon in her mouth, and realized it wasn't in fact poison. (She should have realized that when Mommy and Daddy ate her fluffy when she didn't touch it all those times... but anyways.) Well, this past weekend she finally decided that she would try those big marshmallows on the side of saucer - and was shocked that they weren't horrible. She was a little confused at the texture, but still thought they were kind of tasty. Here was her expression: However, she only ate one marshmallow; as she discovered an even cooler thing a few minutes later: Ketchup. Or, as they call it here, tomato sauce. She started by dipping her french fries and nuggets in, and then realized she could either dip in the fry in and lick the ketchup off (without taking a single bite of the fry, leaving it fully entact, aside from the sogginess of where the ketchup used to be); and finally she realized she could cut out the middle man - and just stuck her fingers in the ketchup directly. I'm a little suprised myself that this little girl had not tried ketchup until she was over 2 years old; but I guess we figured that if she liked fries without a condiment, why start? And now I think we wish we hadn't, as ketchup is the only thing she wanted to eat after that!

Lilly playing "Mommy"

The Good Doctor

Lilly Climbs Up and Turns on the TV

As promised, here are the pictures of Lilly climbing on top of the coffee table to watch TV. Yes, she is wearing Christmas pajama's, and yes, she is watching Elmo's Christmas. It must be the cold weather since it's winter here in Auckland, but we've been watching Elmo's Christmas almost daily; and honestly I have no excuse for the pj's. She wears them all the time. :)

Here is Miss Lilly walking around the house. She loves pushing this thing, but the problem is, now she thinks everything is pushable. Like the dining room chairs, her toy chest, and the coffee table. Nothing is off limits. Speaking of the coffee table, her new trick is climbing on top of it. We placed it strategically in front of the television, so that she would stop turning it off and on and changing the channel; but instead of letting that stop her, she easily climbed right on top of it. Now she climbs on it, crawls on it, sits on it, and especially, presses all the buttons on the TV while on top of it. She's getting smart about it though; she can now press a button turn off "Elmo" DVD and turn on "E" channel (my favorite here), and then knows which button to press to turn back on her Elmo DVD. And she knows for certainty which buttons turn the volume off and on and which turns the TV off and on. Sometimes Lilly will be playing with her toys, and I'll leave the room for a second - and all of a sudden the TV is on and she's watching her show. Smart cookie. :) I'll try to catch her in action tonite and upload more pictures.

Here we go, second time around. The first blog only worked for half the people, so here we go with a new website. Hope it works! Here are the pictures of Lilly from yesterday... She was so expressive I couldn't pick just one!