"Yook Mummy, Yook, liddydird dere"

Storm is saying so many words now, it's lovely to hear. 50% of her words are so clear and it's as though she's waited until she was able to say them correctly before saying them. She can pronounce the L in 'please' for example where many children omit the L. She's also counting to 10 and pointing out and naming colours. I'm so happy with her. She's also started real cuddles, if she hits someone, we encourage her to cuddle them to say sorry. Now, she'll come and smack me and then say 'cuggle me'. I have to teach her that she doesn't have to hit in order to get a cuddle. She woke at 4:30 this morning so I went and laid in her bed with her, and once she'd calmed down, I whispered that I was going to leave, she put her arm around me so as to keep me there. It was too cute.

Loving this sunshine too! Storm was wearing a pretty dress today and everyone complimented her saying that she looked super cute today. She's been very good today too, not half as challenging as she can be. That's why I tend not to write much about her as she's quite hard work and I fear that it would make for depressing reading! I do love when she's happy though. In this picture, she was looking at liddydirds .. or, ladybirds to you and me! We have sooo many in our garden so we've been practising counting them. She counts so well and has started to show a basic understanding of what numbers mean rather than just reciting numbers in order.

Had an extremely tough day with Clara yesterday but she was suitably remanded and today has been angelic. She realises what she did wrong and we've spoken a lot about it and now we're best friends again. I can never be mad at her for long and I can never let her go to bed thinking that I'm cross with her. Children are such hard work - they're worth it though. Clara is steaming ahead with reading and has recently been put up another reading level at school and her recent parents evening was amazing. She is the only child in her class who has been given homework - usually the teachers would suggest the children just rest but she realises that Clara needs more than that so she'll be writing a daily diary about her holiday. It won't take a lot of time out of the day but it'll be great for keeping Clara's writing practise up. She's doing so amazingly well - she makes me absolutely burst with pride that girl!!

On the photography front, I've got Clara's little school friend and her teeny baby sister coming around for a shoot on Saturday! I'm arranging an open garden shoot in the village that I used to live in - I did a shoot in their toddler group but I can't get there on my own during the week so I'm going to do a weekend thing instead. And very exciting! Mr G's cousin has asked if I'll photo her wedding! Yippee! I feel soooo much more confident with the camera now so I actually cannot wait!!

You know when everything feels great ... I wish I could bottle this feeling and keep it for the times when everything feels as though it's going wrong.