3 Kings' Day and snow

On Wednesday it was 3 Kings' Day. That meant two exciting things happened. The first was that La Befana came. She is a witch who comes down the chimney and brings lollies and little presents to Italian kids. Since I go to Italian school now, she came to me too! She brought me a book and some jewellery making stuff. The other exciting thing was that we got to eat 3 Kings' cake. This is a special cake you eat on the 6th that has a little king hidden in it somewhere. Whoever gets the king gets to be the king for the day, and everyone else has to do what they say. Guess who got it at our house? Zahra!!!

Now luckily we had two cakes at our house. That was because Mama wanted a French one too, because she thought it would taste better. (For those who are interested, she was right!!!) Anyway, guess who got the king in that one? Me!!! Yay!!!

Meanwhile we have been having a lot of snow. There was so much on our balcony today that we could have a good play in it out there. Here is Zahra sitting in it.

And me next to a mountain Dada and I made together. If you look very closely you can see something else too, I have lost one of my top front teeth! I love it because it makes me look even witchier than ever.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year! We thought we better tell you what we got up to at the end of last year. Zahra took her first walk outside with real big girl shoes on. She couldn't really walk, but since then she has been practising a little bit inside. Mostly just standing up on her own for ages and then taking a couple of wobbly steps before she falls down again. It is very cute.


Dada's cousin Holly came to visit. She had been living in England, working at a boys' boarding school, so she popped over to say hello. I made friends with her straight away and liked having her around for the weekend.

My school did a Christmas concert. I was a gnome. If you really want to, you can play "Where's Wally?" and try to find me in this picture!!! I had to say one line in Italian. I loved singing all the songs.

It snowed! Enough to take Zahra for her first sled ride. Dada took me on the sled to school too, which was very cool.

For Christmas we went to Colmar in France, and went to the Christmas markets there. It was lovely and cold and nice to have a warm hot chocolate while we walked around. Mama had a warm orange juice with spices in it and I liked that a lot too.

I wanted me and Zahra to have a photo with Santa Claus.

Zahra also went on her first carousel in Colmar. It was a beautiful old one and she liked it a lot. So did I. This plane went up and down when I pressed a button.

We went for Christmas dinner in the restaurant at our hotel. Zahra wore this pretty skirt that Mama's friend's Mama made especially for her. So sweet.

It has been raining a lot the last couple of days and we have been enjoying hanging out at home and doing all the things we don't normally get time to do. Mama has been reading me lots from the Roald Dahl books I got for Christmas (I think his books are SO funny). And Zahra and I have been doing some yoga together! Here she is doing cobra pose.

And this photo is from today, when Dada gave me a little guitar lesson. I learned my first chord.

2009 was fun and we are looking forward to 2010. We hope it is a good one for everyone!

Zahra is 1!

Can you believe that Zahra is now 1 year old? We can't either! Although she does look very grown up in this photo.

She had her birthday on Saturday. It started with our family tradition of presents in bed.

Later we had a party with her friend Lyn. Of course we had chocolate crackles and fairy bread and a cake shaped like a 1.

Zahra has got very cakey hands here after trying some of her carrot birthday cake.


She is very lucky because the day after her birthday, St Nicholas comes! I showed her where to find the presents in her boots outside the door.

Nana and Opa Ross came to stay

Goodness me, I can't believe it has been so long since I wrote something. I am such a busy schoolkid now that there just isn't time! But we have had some more visitors and another holiday so I better tell you all about it.

Nana and Opa Ross came to visit! Yay! It was very exciting for us all. Zahra got to meet them for the first time and she liked them a lot. They arrived right at the beginning of the school holidays and we all went on a trip together. You can see Zahra with Nana and Opa Ross here on the train.

Our first stop was a little village called Gandria, on Lake Lugano. We had lovely rooms with balconies right on the water, it was so beautiful.

It was Nana's 60th birthday while she was visiting us, so our trip was a little celebration with her.

Next we had a long day of travelling on Italian trains to get to the town of Bolzano, in the South Tyrol. It is gorgeous there and we had lots of fun looking around the town, playing in the park and taking a gondola up the mountain nearby. Zahra had fun in the swing, as you can see.

The weekend we were in Bolzano Mama read that there was a bread and strudel festival in the next town, so of course we had to go. We tasted lots of yummy breads and sweets and I baked bread in a little bakery for kids they had there. I made a plait cat.

After Bolzano we went to a Kinderhotel in the mountains. That was the best fun ever. I made friends with other kids and did all sorts of cool things with them like hiking at the top of a mountain and feeding farm animals and putting on a theatre show for the parents and dressing up as Indians and having sausages over a fire. Zahra liked playing in the kids' playroom.

And being pulled around in the wagon!

After the Kinderhotel it was time to come home and go back to school. But before Nana and Opa Ross left we had to show them one more thing - snow! They had never seen it before so Dada and I took them to the mountains here in Switzerland and I taught Nana how to throw snowballs. I was very sad when they had to leave so now I am counting down until we go to visit them in Australia next year.

Teeth!

Well as if going to school wasn't enough to prove I am a big girl now, today I lost my first tooth! It was verrrrrry wobbly and then I brushed it and brushed it and all of a sudden it wasn't there anymore. We had to look on the floor to find it!

Meanwhile Zahra is busy getting her teeth and wants to chomp on everything. Yesterday Mama couldn't even get her in the front door without her munching on the tasty door handle.

My first day of school

Guess what? Today was my very first day of school. Here I am with my Schultüte, a special present that German kids get when they start school for the first time. It is filled with cool stuff for school and a few lollies and chocolates too.

Here I am ready to go, outside the house.

Swiss kids are supposed to walk to school on their own, but my school is a bit too far away so Mama and Dada are really behind me. See the cool backpack I chose, with a dragon on it?

I was pretty excited to be a schoolkid. The school I go to is bilingual German and Italian. That's pretty tricky for me, since I don't speak any Italian yet, but I am going to learn I guess!!! It was pretty scary at the start, but once I got in the classroom I was happy.

I am sitting next to a girl who is called Janette, like Mama! Funny hey? I made 3 friends today and had a yummy lunch of squiggly pasta with pesto. At the end of the day I wasn't so sure I wanted to come back again, but tomorrow is another day.

Meanwhile, here is a photo of Zahra looking very cute. Mama and I love it when she is all wrapped up in a towel after her bath.

Summer holidays

July was all about holidays. First, Nonno and Marilyn came to visit us as part of their holiday. That was very cool because Zahra got to meet them for the first time.

Zahra felt very comfortable with Nonno, as you can see here. They both liked doing the same kind of thing!

Then we went on our family holiday to an area in Italy called the South Tyrol. It is very beautiful there and we liked it a lot because they speak Italian AND German and have Italian and German food. We stayed at an awesome hotel that had so many good things for kids that I didn't want to leave. This was the view from our room.

We also stopped at a town called Brixen (Bressanone in Italian) which was very pretty too.

There was a festival on the night we were there and I did some painting with some other kids.

After that Mama and Zahra and I went to have some holidays with our Swiss friends, on Lake Constance in Germany. It was great because I had my friend Zoe to play with all day and Zahra had her friend Lyn and Mama had her friend Noëmi!!!

The house we stayed at was beautiful, it was right on the lake and had a big garden with lots of fruit trees. Zoe and I played and played and played and then we played some more. Again, I cried when I had to go home.

Lots happened in June

First of all, Noni came to visit. Yay! This was her first time to meet Zahra, and Zahra's first time meeting a grandparent, so it was very exciting for us all. Zahra and Noni loved each other straight away.

Then, Zahra turned 6 months old. That meant she could start eating food, and boy was she happy about that. Here is her carrot face.

We thought her being 6 months was a good time to celebrate her Welcome to the World party. We had a little picnic in the park with some of our friends. We asked everyone to bring a wish for Zahra's life, and you can see them here writing them down to put in her wish box. We read them out and then we had some of the yummy chocolate cake we ate the morning Zahra was born and then we had a pinata for the kids.

Here I am having my turn at the pinata.

And you can see everyone watching and waiting for the pinata to break. All the Dadas really wanted to have a turn too.

Zahra loved her party. She looked at each person as they read out a wish for her and seemed very interested, like she was taking it all very seriously. This is her at home late at night after it was all over - still happy and ready to keep partying!

I also had another party that day - a farewell party from my Kinderhaus. I am starting school in August so it was time for me to say goodbye to all my kindergarten friends. I wasn't very sad, because I know I will see them again. In fact, I loved having a little party just to say goodbye and said it was my best day ever! I gave everyone a little koala and a card with this photo on it to remember me.

June really was a party month. Noni had her birthday on the 16th and we took her to a nice hotel in Strasbourg to celebrate. Zahra and I surprised her when she woke up in the morning. We got changed into some matching dresses that Zia had sent us. Noni loved it.

Then of course came the best party of all - my birthday party! I got so many cool presents.

In the afternoon I had a party with my friends at the movies. There was a Princess Lillifee film on and me and my friends like her (well, the boys don't like her so much but they were happy to come anyway). We watched the movie together and then we had a party with games and cake and opening presents and running around popping balloons. I loved it.

Last weekend I had my Acroballet show. I did lots of cartwheels and somersaults and bridges and here I am taking a bow at the end.

Oh, one more thing happened in June. I got married! Here I am with my husband Lenz. He has red hair like me and is really funny. He likes football and Power Rangers and playing with me. He is one year younger than me, but I don't mind. His birthday is the day after mine, so I got to go to his party too. Anyway, after all this partying, I am glad that it is summer holidays now - I need a rest!