Fashion Friday #27: 70s and 80s Gear

Aviva turned 9 months old this week, and her Auntie Sarah has rightfully pointed out that almost all of her pants are too short, so I figured that it's time to bust out some new clothes. So I went exploring in her piles of 12M clothes, and lo and behold, some of them fit! Thanks to the Sevins for outfitting Aviva today.

First, she's wearing her 3-6M Old Navy turtleneck onesie, a 12M long-sleeved t-shirt from The Children's Place, and some 70s-inspired 12M pants, also from The Children's Place. Socks, as usual, by Trumpette. The pants are decorated with butterflies and flowers. Ok, maybe the pants are late 60s, but you get the point.




Next we've got her in some excellent Carter's Kids 9-12M jeans featuring embroidered flowers, and an oversized 6-12M pink sweater from Jack Rabbit Creations, and the Old Navy turtleneck. I don't know about you, but I was definitely wearing oversized pink tops in the 80s.


And as a special treat, we've got some video of Aviva talking for this Fashion Friday. She gets a little tired in the middle and has to rest.



Happy Friday!

Bad Hair Day

Aviva's hair isn't nearly as funny as it was when she was younger, but she still occasionally has bad hair days.


Fortunately, she is not self-conscious, so it doesn't stop her from exploring the house. For some reason, she really enjoys hanging out under our kitchen stools.

Happy Nine Month Birthday!

We can't believe it, but Aviva is nine months old today! She looks huge! (Ok, it's partially because her pants are too short.) Underneath her right leg you can see the remnants of the first sign (she ripped it up as soon as we handed it to her.)

Happy birthday, Aviva!

Nonstop chatting

In the last few days, Aviva has been talking...a lot. Here are a few clips of her from Saturday morning. In the clip it looks like I am pushing her away, and I am...but only to keep her from eating the camera!

Weekend at Mbuluzi

Two weekends ago we went to Mbuluzi Game Reserve again, the private reserve where we went for a night over Christmas. This time, we went with two other families (Jessi, Uri, and Asher), and Benoit and his kids, Leo and Emil.

This time we rented a different property, with luxury tents. As Jessi said, we were "glamping" (glamour camping.) The tents had electricity and full bathrooms inside them! It was my kind of camping.





We went for a walk, and a group of giraffes were about 100 meters from our lodge.

Aviva practiced feeding herself by slobbering all over an apple.


It was too cold to swim, so we just sat around the pool. Here are Peter and Aviva with Jessi and Asher.
We had a terrific time, especially since we were with a big group of friends from Swaziland. Amazingly the three of us avoided the ticks that seemed to bite just about everyone else that was there. We look forward to going back!

Fashion Friday #26: Sundress and More Googly Eyes

Hello everyone! Today wasn't too cold here, so we thought we'd go back to Aviva's dress collection. Her first dress is a 3M sundress by Clayeux from the Sevin family.
She's very quick now, so right after we took a few photos of her seated and facing me, she turned around and pulled herself up. Someday she won't be thrilled about this photo of her chubby thighs, but we couldn't resist.



Her next outfit featured another one of the items that my girlfriends Mel and Kirsten bought for me in Brazil last year. More googly eyes! She's wearing a 6M t shirt by Chicco, her white long-sleeved onesie from Old Navy, and her "Lovely" blue pants from last week. Her pink socks are from BabySoy.

Here's the close up of the T shirt.


Aviva poses for the camera...


In the photo below, look closely...at her two bottom front teeth! They are more visible everyday.

Enjoy!

More Progress in Crawling

It's been a couple weeks now that Aviva has really been able to crawl. It seems as though she gets faster everyday.

Here's a clip of her from last Wednesday, crawling toward me and pulling herself up:




And here's a short one of her tonight. She's just a teeny bit faster and more confident:




She's making progress!

Miss Manners

The nice thing about being 8 months old is that even when Aviva does "rude" things, like chewing with her mouth open or burping (and then laughing at herself) she is pretty cute. Ok, we're slightly biased. But seriously, she's really cute.

In the last 2-3 weeks, she's been getting better at feeding herself all kinds of stuff. One of her favorite foods is wholewheat crackers. In this clip, she likes eating her cracker so much she wants everyone to see it.




Tonight in the bath, she showed off her manners again.


That's our baby!

Fashion Friday #25: Crazy Pants

I may have said this before, but Aviva has some crazy pants. It continues to be cold here, so unfortunately we are staying away from her dozens and dozens of sundresses. However, we're looking forward to pulling those out for our visit back to the US in July!

For her first outfit today, I honestly am not sure what I was thinking. I guess I wanted to combine one of the warm weather outfits with some of her crazy pants. She's wearing her usual long-sleeved white onesie from Old Navy, a light blue 9M top by Carter's, and some pants that say "Lovely" on the bottom. She also has on some cute socks that look like ballet slippers.

Thanks to Ama for the pants, and to the Sevin family for the onesie, tops, and socks.





She loves her wooden toy, which we got from our friend, Nicole. Thanks, Nicole!






For her second outfit, she's wearing a long-sleeved pink t-shirt by Shilav and some pants that really are sort of crazy. They are 6-12M pink cotton pants by Gymboree, and they are covered in an image of cats and hat boxes. I don't know who designed them, but they're terrific!

The usual bored look...
Today we let her stand up by herself for a moment. She's leaning back against the chair. Don't worry, Welile is standing just out of the view of the camera, ready to catch her when she wobbles. Aviva seems to be concentrating hard on not falling over.
Here's the close up so you can appreciate the crazy design on her pants.


For her last outfit, she's wearing her beloved sweatshirt from The Black Dog, courtesy of Grandma Ellen, and some orange and green striped 12M pants from Target, from the Sevin family.


Happy Friday!

More bathtime

In response to popular demand, here's yet more video of Aviva in the bath:



And one more (warning: this one is a little long, and we haven't had time to edit out the boring parts):



Enjoy!

Bathtime!

Aviva's nanny, Welile usually gives Aviva a bath while we are at work, but on the weekends, we try to make some time for baths, too. It's fun, because Aviva seems to have such a great time. We took lots of videos on Sunday, but haven't had time to edit them yet. Here's one for now:





More to come...

Fashion Friday #24: Ruffly sleeves and tunics

It continues to be cold here in the Kingdom, so Aviva had to wear long-sleeved onesies under her outfits today.

First, we're showing off the outfit she wore to Bushfire last weekend. It's a 6-12 M baby Gap turquoise sleeveless onesie with ruffly sleeves and an adorable bird on the front, with matching turquoise pants. She's wearing it here with a long-sleeved polka dot Gap onesie and purple Trumpette socks that she's had for a while. The turquoise set is from Catherine's family. Thanks again!


Here she's still pretty energetic...


...and then she starts to lose interest...


...until she is totally bored.


In the close-up below you can see the detail of the bird on the front of the onesie. Very cute!

For her second outfit, Aviva wore a turtleneck long-sleeved 3-6M pink onesie from Old Navy Outlet Store underneath a light green 6M tunic from Carter's. She's also wearing her Cherokee Jeans and more Trumpette socks. This entire outfit is from the Sevin family. Thanks!


I like the next photo because she's looking off into the distance, as though she's thinking about something serious.
Here she is with one of her beloved books.
She doesn't always read the books. She has other uses for them.

Today we also included some action shots. As you can see below, Aviva loves standing up.


Here she is enjoying the book of Grandpa Richard reading to her.
Happy Friday!

Sunday at Nick's and Mini Sibebe hike

Two weekends ago we spent Sunday afternoon at our friend Nick's house.

Peter and Aviva went to check out the river. Aviva looks a little grumpy. Maybe she needed sunglasses?

Later that day, we went on a mini hike (five minutes) up the side of Sibebe. Sibebe is a giant rock hillside here in Swaziland. Apparently it is the largest exposed granite outcropping in the world.

It was a pretty steep climb. Ok, we're exaggerating a bit here, but the first part of the climb did require us to scrabble up using our hands.

Once we were at the top, Uri and Asher enjoyed the view.
Asher modeled a lovely crown made of banana leaves.
The two dads and their babies hiked down carefully.

Even though we weren't very high up, the view of Pine Valley was grand.