This is another toy that the authorities held onto for a while before allowing the parcel to eventually arrive (after a large amount of fees were paid). The push along car extends so you can place a seat on it, and since her birthday, not only has her walking improved (perhaps a coincidence, but in any case she can now control the car well), but she is able to get on and off it (when the seat is put in place), without our help, and normally she even ends up facing the right way!
She hasn’t yet started pushing herself along when sat in it, and doesn’t seem to want to raise her feet from the ground to allow us to push her, but in any case, most mornings she can be found ramming sofas, walls or any slow moving cats with glee. (The glee is hers, our cats have tended to jump out the way a lot more quickly now.)
Apr 27 2010
Anna’s Birthday Car
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Apr 27 2010
Anna’s Birthday Bubbles
OK, I think I’ll skip my normal routine of providing the date that photos and videos were taken of Anna. The next few Anna’s Photos and Anna’s Videos posts are all based around her birthday, which is the 21st of February. If you’re reading this over on her blog, please assume the same date for future posts with Birthday in them 🙂
One of Anna’s presents was a bubble blowing machine. As she hadn’t seen proper bubbles before (ignoring bubble baths), we wanted to buy something that would produce a lot of them, with less mess than the normal setup would involve. Going outside, with Anna suitably covered from the cold (should any Kazakhs be reading this, the weather was a LOT warmer over in Britain than in Astana), we turned the machine on, and waited to see if it would catch Anna’s attention or not…
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Apr 27 2010
Anna’s First MP3 Player!
This video was shot after the presents were opened, and the bubble machine tested out side. Although we had to wait for the box it was transported to Kazakhstan in to pass Kazakh Customs, it is definitely one of Anna’s favourite toys, especially since we took the audio from her favourite DVD of children’s songs and put it on the player’s memory card. The controls are simple and large, the player lights up during use, and Anna has figured out what most buttons do already…
OK, just got to the end of Anna’s Birthday videos that I had already uploaded to the YouTube account, and realised that the last (in terms of the time it was recorded) is better suited to this post. Anna and her MP3 player in the evening, with us realising you needed to set it to play one song, three songs or thirty minutes worth. (Or something like that).
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Apr 26 2010
Anna’s Birthday Presents
I won’t be posting any photos today, as the hard drive is back at home, and we’re still with Irina’s parents. Both Anna and Irina has picked up some sort of lurgy, and so rather than transport Anna home whilst not 100% (and risk up chuck on the car seats), we are staying a little while longer than usual. So if you have sent me a skype message/left a voicemail on the landline, either call me on the mobile if it is urgent, or wait until we get back home.
Anyway, back to this post… The videos were shot on the 21st of February, meaning we’re still on Anna’s first birthday. This set of videos were shot when Anna was opening her presents. This was her first time ripping the paper herself, and it took a while to get through them all. There are a lot more videos of that morning, but I’ve just tried to pick the ones that stood out for one reason or another…
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Apr 25 2010
Bigger Belts Because Of A Birthday?
This week I had my 31st birthday. We (myself, Irina, her Mum and Anna) went out on Tuesday to a TGI Friday, where I thoroughly enjoyed the custom cocktail, fried & bread-crumbed mozerella, a proper bacon cheeseburger with chips and then a delicious chocolate brownie based dessert. Come Friday we had Walton (Assel was away), JohnA and Inessa, DanD and Lara and all the children from the aforementioned families all come over, the idea being that people would be able to relax and drink a little more with a delayed birthday celebration bringing the “morning after” to a Saturday, instead of a work day. Irina went out and bought a couple of kilograms of good meat, and cooked some beautiful home made burgers and other delicious courses. It was good to see everyone, especially in one place.
Apr 23 2010
Anna’s Birthday!
OK, so the next few posts will be of photos (and once YouTube behaves, videos) taken on the 21st February 2010, which was Anna’s 1st birthday. Unless you count the day she was born on. Which would be her birth day.
Anyway, As there are a lot of photos, and I wanted to publish them all, they have been split across posts.
Party Hats And Pears
Only One Of Us Kept The Hat On All Day!
Smoking Smiling Seb (Check Out The Smiley Socks)
Irina And Anna In The Kitchen
Mum And Anna
Dad And Anna
Anna's Birthday Presents Before...
That is it for now, as we have guests arriving soon.
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Apr 20 2010
TGI Friday in Astana,with Anna…
TGI Friday in Astana,with Anna,Irina&her Mum. Birthday meal is delicious so far. Custom cocktail slipped down well http://twitpic.com/1h1dha
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Apr 17 2010
Books And Turkish Planes
This picture was taken on the 19th of February (a couple of days before Anna’s first birthday!), when Anna decided to sort her toy box. By sorting, I mean removing most of the contents, and playing with them, before we came along and decided to put them back in. Anyway, Anna was already seemed very happy with the selection of toys that Mum and John had bought for her in advance, and her presents a few days later simply added to the things for her to press, rattle, shake, hug and investigate.
Feel free to be nosey and check out the books you can find in the living room bookcase, and the Turkish plane reference? Turkish Airlines handed out a pack of things to keep a child occupied on the last leg of our trip back home, and the plane seemed to hold Anna’s interest for a while.
Anna Sorting Her Toybox
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Apr 17 2010
Gwen Plays Ball With Anna
The 17th of February saw Anna completely at ease with Gwen running around the house, and just as importantly, Gwen feeling brave enough to actually play in the same area as Anna. Having heard of the sort of situation Gwen has found herself in when John’s granddaughter had a birthday party with a few friends in the house, I’m amazed Gwen didn’t hide herself away when Anna turned up on the doorstep!
To anyone concerned with small children/unattended dogs in the house, you can literally take the food out of Gwen’s mouth whilst she is eating, without a whine of protest.
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Apr 16 2010
Smaller Screens And Burgers!
On the evening of my upcoming 31st birthday (20th April), I am hoping to head out TGI Friday (Thank God Its Friday) with Irina, Anna and Ira’s Mum – (her Dad will be away on business). At the end of the week, when our friends here in Astana are more likely to be able to meet up and not worry about work the next day, we are planning to invite them around to ours for hamburgers, baked beans and potato wedges/roast potatoes. As some of our friends have children, we wanted to ensure they could bring them along and so hope to keep some sort of entertainment going for them in Anna’s room, as the living room & kitchen/dining room may be filled with “adults”.
Quotations marks, as I’m hoping most won’t want to drive themselves, and so have a drink or three. Does this mean we will be filling Anna’s room with home theater seating? Not necessarily, however I’m hoping to either use this computer’s third monitor, or Irina’s laptop to stream childrens’ cartoon and movies into Anna’s room. This would require the eldest child of one friend of ours to be the nominated supervisor/monitor of children, but she has been an absolute star when required to fill this role in the past, and I’m hoping the menu on offer will go some way to persuading her that the situation would be to everyones’ liking.
Anyway, once I have cleared the backlog of Anna’s photos and videos from our UK trip, I’ll hopefully be able to post some clips of the little angels from that night. Alternatively I may just remember to stream a few clips up onto Qik.com, and have them automatically imported to this site. Whatever the case, I want to say thank you to Irina for her time and effort in organising a Chris/child-friendly menu for the evening.
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