End of the year

Mommy took this photo of me receiving my certificate. Not a great photo, but then, she only used her phone... I got an award for ' enthusiastic and competent reading'.

School play

The play was all about recycling. It's so good, the WCED want us to show it to the dept and other schools!

Ice skating

Sweet girl

Updating the blog

When Mommy and I were typing up the last post, she showed me all the old posts, on the old blog. She's decided to try and copy them across here, so they're all in one place, just in case the old blog gets deleted. Unfortunately, Wordpress doesn't export nicely to Blogger (and Mommy's forgotten her old password!) so she'll have to re-post each old entry, which will take time. However, if you look back, you can see she's managed to do 2005 so far. Only 3 more years to go until all the posts are here.

Blombos holiday

I had lots of fun at Blombos! Some of my cousins were there too. I learnt to play cards - 'Go Fish!' and 'Rush Patience'. [Ed: also known as 'Racing Demons'] We played together every day. Jules and I chased each other as well.

My school gave me homework to start a collection of some sort, so I collected shells from the dune behind the house. I found one really big one that is a spiral and shiny - mother-of-pearl colour, and lots of trapdoors. I also found a large land snail shell and a few small perlemoen shells. I also found some mussels and some limpet shells, and some black periwinkle shells. I still need to finish cleaning them and naming them before school. [Ed. The house is near the Blombos caves, so there are middens behind our house as well, which I used to raid as a child. It was lovely to be able to start sharing that experience with my kids now as well.]

We all went to the beach and we made sand castles. I made a wall around mine and a hill next to it. I also made a mountain next to the hill. I built a long tunnel in the castle. Mommy dug a big trench. Daddy played with Nathan. I also built a sand castle in the island in the middle of Mommy's trench.

I slept on the top bunk bed in our room. Nathan slept at the bottom [Ed: it's usually the other way around]. Mommy and Daddy also slept in the room with us, and the dogs, on their bed.

We braaied for supper one night. On two nights we had jelly for pudding. On one of the nights there were three different bowls [Ed: types] of jelly! We also ate raspberry flavoured Fizzers.

While we were there Alyssa got sick.

When we walked on the beach on one morning there was a sand storm. I got stuck at the top of a hill in the storm, all alone. Mom and Dad and Nathan were at the bottom on the other side, while I was at the top. Mom had to carry me because the sand hurt me when it blew into my face and my ankles. Mom made me sit in the plants for a little bit because she was tired of carrying me - I'm big and heavy now! - while she went to see the new next-door house.

[Ed. We had a fabulous time away! It was so good for her to play with her cousins all the time, and not to have to rely on Mom and Dad to entertain her! Meal times were a laugh a minute, usually. The weather wasn't fabulous though, so we were mostly stuck indoors, or else had to bundle up against the high speed winds and rain. Still, it was lovely to get away for a bit!]

Mom will add some photos of the trip in a little while.

The term 2 ballet video

Ballet

Today was my last ballet lesson for the term. Granny and Grandma came to visit. Grandma took photos, which Mommy will get on Sunday to load here for me. Granny sent Mommy this email about me this afternoon though:

"Janel has developed a real 'feel' for the movements and her physical development shows good foot pointing, hand, & head co-ordination, as well as body poise & musical interpretation. She seems to be born to the art - not that she should necessarily be a ballerina (will probably be too tall!) but she is developing good posture, physical awareness & mental interpretation of the movements. Be proud of her!"

You should have seen Mommy's smile when she read this! Ear to ear!

Missing teeth

Back in April, I went from this:

to this:

And now I've lost THREE teeth!

(Ed: in that first photo I swear she's the spitting image of her maternal cousins at this age....)

My new school

This is a video Mommy took of me in my class. There's no sound, because Mommy felt it was not a good idea to let other people hear what was going on, because she said that she didn't want nasty men to know the names of my friends. Here we're practicing learning how to write the mmm pattern.

And this is me on my first day.

I LOVE school. I LOVE homework. I get very upset and sulk when homework is finished.

On Mondays I do cricket and then Granny fetches me. Sometimes she takes me for an icecream. On Tuesdays I walk home with Priscilla - it's a long way. On Wednesdays I do swimming (but sometimes I forget my swimming costume at school after PE on Tuesday, and then I can't do swimming on Wednesday and then Mommy gets cross with me). Sometimes Daddy fetches me, and sometimes Uncle Tim or Oupa fetches me. On Thursdays Grandma fetches me after ballet. On Fridays Mommy fetches me. I wish she could stay at home with me, but then she has to go back to work.