Mr Ash, Bratsky Extraordinaire

I did this layout for the current Aussie Dares challenge - both Viv and I guest designed for the dare, which was to use aluminium foil. Check out the Aussie Dares blog for detail shots of my layout, in which I simply folded strips of aluminium foil with the reverse side visible and used them as a disjointed frame on the page.

Ash is so funny - these photos of him (on the layout) crack me up. He does like to put on fairy wings, though not normally without pants on LOL. He is a real little tough guy in general, but can be super affectionate - even though the affection borders on aggression at times. Just a week or so ago his speech suddenly became more clear, and his trademark "awww tuddles" became "awww cuddles". "Kewy" became "Kelly" and he is just saying a lot more words than he did before. It's kind of sad, as his munchkin speak was the only real bit of baby-ness hanging around - unlike Sienna he is physically advanced - and now his language is growing up too. Mind you, he is 3 in a month so it had to happen.

He has also just become interested in trains, and I bought him one of the Thomas wooden engines to go on a track he has. All the kids were having fun with it, attaching the engine to the ikea train set we already had. I've been trying to emphasise wooden toys rather than plastic and electronic ones, and they are pretty into that. It helps that a lot of them are still brightly coloured, and they have all these little instruments as well, which is great (if a bit noisy!).

I think Sienna is going to have a growth spurt as she has been super hungry this past week or so. Which is probably a good thing as she has always been a bit small for her age, hopefully she will strengthen up as well - she has gotten into dancing lately, especially since we watched Step Up and she loved dancing along to all the r&b / hip hop stuff in it. It's very funny. But it's good to see her being really physically active. She is a funny mix of personalities - creative and imaginative like me in some ways, but really unselfconscious and social, which is unlike either Ben or I. It's a good trait, I hope she can keep that love of people that she has.