Saturday, September 27, 2014

A VISIT TO THE QLD STATE LIBRARY....

One of Willow's favourite outings is to the Qld State Library.  Her Mummy tries to take her most weeks.  She loves it.... she has learnt lots of little songs and rhymes there and we have been singing them all week...On Thursday, we decided to take Willow on an outing to the Library.  As parking is a bit of an issue in there, we decided to drive to Eight Mile Plains Bus terminal, leave the car there and catch the bus into the Cultural Centre.....
This was Willow's first time in the bus without her stroller, and Sarah did wonder how she would go just sitting in the seat and not wanting to wander around.   She was brilliant.... makes you realize she is not longer a baby but very much a little girl now....
Our morning looked a little like this...

Waiting for the Bus at Eight Mile Plains...
Waiting patiently with Moppy whilst Mummy and Poppy park the car
 This was Willow's firsst time on the bus without her stroller.... She is getting so grown up now.  She stayed on her little seat all the way into town...We were so impressed
Ridimg the bus
 When we hop off the bus, Willow must hold our hand whilst we are near the traffic.  She was happy to obey.
We are off the bus and heading to the Library..
 Once we are in the parkland, she is allowed to let go of our hands and enjoy a little run around.  She doesn't venture too far from us.....
She loves to explore like we do...
 We are happy to enjoy the moment and we take time to smell the flowers and check them out...
We love looking at all the flowers and admiring their beauty.
 It truely is wonderful to take some time out and see the world through the eyes of a child.

The children's section of the Library is so colourful and welcoming...
 We arrived a little early, and had to wait for half an hour to opening time.  Willow and I watched them set up all the play things through the window, whilst we waited for Sarah and Steve who had gone to sus out a place for us to have some morning tea....
Willow eating her Biscuits and strawberries...
 They went and ordered Coffee and hot chocolate for us and a Babychino for Willow...

She loves her Babychino
She is so grown up now... she is just like her Mummy
The rest of us enjoying our drinks...
 By the time we have finished our drinks, the Library is open, so we head back there for a morning of play and learning.....
First off we listen to Nursery Rhymes and read a book with Mummy
 There are three cubby house sort of tents set up on a little stage... Willow loves them and spent quite a bit of time playing in one, pulling the curtains around sitting on the cushions, playing peep o with us.  So very cute....
Playing in the cubby tents...
This part of the library is well set up and I can see why Sarah loves to bring Willow here often...

Heck I would enjoy it and I am an adult.  Oh to be able to do some of these things and decorate our library back at school like this.  Oh to have the time to do it all...
The Korner in the State Library. 
Steve and Sarah enjoyed their time together chatting too whilst Willow played in the cubbies....
One of the things that fascinated me was the app they were using on the iPad to engage the children... I think it engaged the parents as much as it did the children.  It is an app called "Squiggle Fish".  It is around $6 to download, but it allows you to draw your own sea creature, the app than photographs it and it swims around in the ocean on the app.  They had it projected onto the wall.  I drew a fish with Willow's initials in it so that she would recognize it on the wall as it swam around...
Playing with the "Squiggle Fish" app on the iPad...
Willow then spent some time with Poppy and her Mummy building up the blocks.  She is getting very good at doing this and built her tower quite high... Actually higher than she was... When it came crashing down. she was happy to build it again with her Poppy. 
Building a tower of blocks with Poppy and Mummy
 When it fell, we just rebuilt it again...
Rebuilding her tower...
Drawing with Mummy too
 From here she moved onto the drawing and gluing.... She loves to draw and she has now discovered the glue stick as well, so is happy to glue anything at all onto her paper...
I am pretty impressed with her fine motor skills.  She is very good for her age, and is holding her pen quite well considering she is not yet two.  We have kids at school in Prep and Year 1 who are still struggling to hold a pencil.

From drawing she went off to play in the big ship... She was doing lots of climbing and crawling around her... It was so colourful and inviting to play in....
Climbing and playing on the boat
Building and exploring...
 One of the Library assistants got her little guitar out and then it was time for some singing... Willow really loves this and was able to participate doing the actions for such songs as "Row Row Row your Boat", "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", and "Open Shut Them"
 She can now also sing the first line of each of these songs.... and she was ever so cute to watch...
Singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star"
She also enjoyed laying all over the cushions as they sang too....
 After the singing she was happy to spend a little time just looking at books for herself...
She is loving books at the moment and would happily sit and let you read to her all day..
We have read so many books this week...
Enjoying reading some books.
Reading more books whilst Poppy looks on....
 Once she finished reading these couple of books, she dragged her Poppy back onto the boat to play with her...

Playing on the ship with Poppy. 
Last bit of playing before it was time to head home...
 It was a wonderful morning in at the Library, and I am also certain that it will be a place we visit often with Willow....
By now it was lunch time, so it really was time to start making our way home so that Willow could get her afternoon sleep.  She functions so much better when she has had a good sleep of an afternoon.
Willow loves to play a game with us.  She loves to hold our hands, and then we all count 1, 2, and 3 and swing her right up into the air.   All we hear is cries of  "more, more Moppy"...."more more Poppy"... We get exhausted long before she does....
1, 2, 3 swing her right into the air...
"more more Moppy".... "more more, Poppy"
Time for some more exploring, as we discover new things around us.  
Exploring and seeing new things...
Time for a ride with Poppy....
 One of the other things that Willow loves to do, is walk on lines, or on garden edges... For her age, her balance is really very good, and she is definately not afraid of heights.  Either that or she has absolute faith in her Poppy whose hand she loves to hold. 
Holding Poppy's hand whilst she walked until it got way too high even for Poppy
 Time to head across the Parklands, back to the bus station... We loved seeing all the different pieces of artwork in the park and the many water features...
Walking through the parklands...
Enjoying the many water features..
 We had to walk past the Museum on our way back to the bus... That will be another place we will take her to explore in the not too distant future...

Past the Museum we head...
 Back to the Bus Station and onto the bus.  This time, Willow sat with her Moppy for the trip home.  Poppy kept her well and truely amused and we fed her lunch so that when we got home, it was just a mater of a nappy change and then straight down for a sleep.
On the bus with Moppy.
Meanwhile, whilst Willow and I slept, Steve and Sarah got out into the garden, and re soiled her garden beds and planted some new plants.  They also had to construct a wire fence around the gardens to stop "Bella" their friends dog from digging it up.  By the time they finished, it all looked pretty good.  The bonus though was that just as they finished planting everything, a massive great storm came across and watered it all.  I seem to remember that happening the last time we planted Sarah's garden also. 
Lots of Vegetables and herbs....
And some flowers too...
 Even Penny had to get in on the picture and have her photo taken.  She looks super cute now that she has had all her winter coat of fur shaved off. 
 It was a great day.  The only down side was that STeve ended up getting pretty sick...

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