Happy Days

Christmas day was enjoyed with AJ's family. We played, talked, ate, drank and enjoyed each others company. It's what it's all about.

I hope you enjoyed your day remembering what it's all about. Family. Love. Hope.

Carols without candlelight

This evening we met friends at a local venue and sat down with our picnic blankets to enjoy some festive carols by candlelight. A first for our family. We arrived, we sat, we chased Sienna in a vain attempt to stop her from crawling into the neighbouring carolers picnics, we got the kids faces painted, we ate, we lip synched to one unfamiliar song (I am not blessed with a pleasant voice)...and we left. Whew.

It was still daylight, they had not even started on a carol I was familiar with (they must save those til last) and our spot was taken by seagull patrons looking for a better spot within seconds of us folding up our blanket. Fun for all of the family! Actually, it was.

Season of change

I have a complicated past with Christmas and as a result have mixed feelings about it. I enjoy the idea of a holiday where families pause to spend time together and show each other how much they are loved and appreciated. I like that Jesus is celebrated for having been on this earth and sharing his example for us to follow. I like that kids get excited about this magical time. My secret is that I’m not keen on Santa and all the excessive gift giving.

Buying gifts gets my knickers in a knot at the best of times (secret number two shared today) so to do so for many family members is enough to make me want to hibernate until it all goes away.

AJ’s family is in Melbourne for Christmas this year and we plan to spend it with them. I am thinking a lot about what I want Christmas to mean to Sienna. I’m thinking more along the lines of the family time and celebrating a life worth knowing and less about a fat man in a red suit that I have to make up stories about to answer all of Sienna’s future questions such as “how does he get around the whole world in one night?”.

So wish me luck as I endeavor to enjoy and create some special traditions that will be unique to our little family at this time. A definite change to enduring “the season to be jolly” as I have in previous years.

Stolen Kisses

I looked after my nephew & neice - Dylan and Mia - today while my sister-in-law Sue had an appointment. Sienna loves seeing her cousins and gets lots of cuddles and kisses from Dylan whenever she sees him. However today there was a different sight to enjoy. Dylan was running around doing what boys do while Sienna was crawling madly after him trying to keep up. Mia (bless her heart) was crawling after Sienna with the sole intention of grabbing her, bringing her to the floor and planting kisses on her face. She kept doing it over and over again. It was beautiful.

She stands

Sienna is standing up on everything now. Everything and anything whether it’s stable or unstable, she’ll give it a red hot go. She has the biggest smile of achievement on her face with each successful stand. I love her enthusiasm…however there have been tears of late – such as when the rocking horse, well, rocks.

Beach love

Day 2 of our weekend in Lorne began quite indulgently for AJ and I as we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast in a nearby café. While Mum and Alisa looked after Sienna on the beach, we were sitting at a table enjoying a meal I didn’t have to prepare, eating it uninterrupted, having a conversation, looking into each other’s eyes whilst listening to one another…and relaxing. As a couple. For a change. It was lovely.

After breakfast we spotted our baby girl being pushed in her pram by her proud Aunty on their way to the beach. We thought about having a window shop but after an hour away we decided we’d prefer to be playing on the beach with everyone. So that’s what we did.

Alisa took some family pics of us mucking around on the beach which I’ve attached for you to enjoy. What a beautiful day.

Every girl needs a good lippy to match her outfit

Alisa is going overseas for 9 weeks in mid December so we took it upon ourselves to enjoy a family weekend away with her in Lorne. Mum also came with us so there has been lots of fun and frivolity that AJ has had to endure/enjoy.

Sienna has so far thought it is the coolest thing to have Nonna and Aunty Lise around 24/7 as she has been kissed, cuddled, played with, laughed at and attention overloaded since we arrived.

Highlights of today include:
- Sienna's first introduction to lipstick by Aunty Lise. She was so good and stayed very still while lashings of dusty pink were being applied to her baby lips.

- Soaking up the sea air and feeling myself take a breath and relax my shoulders for the first time in a while...

- Dinner at The Cumberland to celebrate Mum's retirement next Thursday (Sienna slept peacefully in her pram soon after we got there!)

- After dinner drinks in our apartment reminiscing about childhood antics while sharing a cock-sucking cowboy with my mum. The cocktail.

Simple pleasures

A basil plant is growing happily in the garden bay window I am lucky enough to have in my kitchen. I walk passed it every day and today I stopped and enjoyed the pretty flower it was adorned with. Simple. Beautiful. Worth taking a moment to appreciate.

Bubble baby

Sienna's cousins in Perth refer to her as the "bubble baby" after this bath photo I sent to them when she was about 4 months old. In a recent attempt to send them an updated photo I used her bath time to play with the bubbles and pile them on Sienna's head and face to get as many bubbles on her as I could.

Luckily Sienna finds this funny and enjoys the process of positioning the bubbles and then taking photos. After putting them on her and watching them fall from her face I discovered she looked a bit like Santa. Finding this hilarious I continued to snap away...it wasn't until I reviewed the pics that I discovered that as the bubbles moved she looked a little less like the fat man in the red suit and more like the clothed man that the US president is hunting for...Osama. Oops!

Below are some of the pics. In one she looks like a little bearded elf...

Things on benches

If you take a look around my house at the moment you'll see copious amounts of bits and pieces piled on our bench tops. While AJ will attest to my tendency for messiness (not by normal standards, but apparently so for the more "retentive" of us), I am not usually keen on filling all available bench space with junk.

At the moment, this is our life. The "junk" on the benches is not really junk, it's just stuff that used to be on the floor that I have put on a bench until I can work out a new home for such items as bathroom bins, toilet brushes and holders, pot plants, ornaments, books etc, etc, etc.

Needless to say, Sienna is thriving and zooming around the house at a frightening pace. I am thinking of putting a bell on her because last week when I left her happily playing amongst my shoes in the wardrobe I went to put on my make-up (2m from where she was). As I concentrated on the important task of applying mascara I noticed that the sound of shoes being moved had subsided and a different, unidentified noise had replaced it...and it had moved to the en suite. I walked into the en suite for find our little love playing happily on the floor with the toilet brush. Argh!!!! She had swanned straight passed me and I didn't even hear her.

So at the moment it's things on benches until I find new places to put them.

8 teeth

We have officially cut our 8th tooth! I say "we" because although Sienna does all the cutting of teeth...I do all of the consoling and night waking with her so it's as much of an achievement that I survived these 8 teeth as it is for her that she produced them.

It is difficult to get a good shot of her mouth open so I usually use bath time for close up head shots because she happily sits in the one spot and smiles alot. As you can see I also had a bit of fun with her face washer...I made her look like Maria the nun in the Sound of Music. Sienna thought it was fun too for about 1 minute. After that she promptly took it off.

Introducing Felix

In the 6 months that I've been blogging about our family I have neglected to mention one of our members...introducing Felix the cat. Not original but I love the name Felix and AJ would never agree to letting one of our future children have the name so our cat was blessed with it.

I guess neglecting to mention him thus far is a fairly accurate metaphor for his life of late. Since the introduction of Sienna he has been quite unpredictable and crabby so I think he picks up on my anxious energy when he's around her and keeps away. Having said that, we have made every effort to include him in our recently extended family - especially AJ. And I think as the months pass he's forgiving us for having a human child and finding his place on our laps again and allowing us both to enjoy a pat as we pass eachother.

We love our furry son and are even getting used to the copious amounts of scratches that appear weekly on our chocolate brown leather couches. Ah cats...

There's a party on the hill...

Mother’s group celebrated our babies first birthdays at the Warrandyte bakery. We decided to celebrate mid way between the kids birthday’s so today we bundled them up against the cold and arrived with a gift each to share with one other friend (kris-kringle style). The idea was to buy a coffee and have some birthday cake. That was until my Martha Stewart excitement took over and I had visions of a tablecloth, candles and lemon-raspberry muffins for the mums to enjoy.

Turns out one of the other mums, Kellie, had a similar idea and bought cup & saucer treats, fairy bread and party hats too. So it was like a real party…except that Sienna was tired and drawn from having suffered a fever earlier in the week. As in Monday to Wednesday. As in it was reasonably low this morning so I assumed it had all passed and bought her along to the party so she wouldn’t miss out on it.

Not the most nurturing decision I could have made. Poor thing had a higher temp and was not looking well when we got home 2 hours later. Tsk Tsk to me…

Irreplaceable moments

There are many moments that mothers endure day to day. If it's not their refusal to eat (proceeded by the pushing away of an overloaded spoon that sends mashed vegies flying everywhere), it's the whingeing while we hurriedly prepare their meal kicking ourselves for having sat down to have a cup of tea during their nap instead of getting ready for the late afternoon rush of dinner, bath and bed.

But luckily for us there are a couple of gems in our day that we wait for...or that I wait for. It's the moment that I walk into Sienna's room after her sleep and she sees me and smiles. She's refreshed, happy to be alive and excited to see her mummy. It's priceless, it's beautiful and it's a God send in a demanding day of giving. And it's all the reward I need...I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Fun in the sun

Today we enjoyed a day out with Kellie & Callum. Kellie picked us up around 9am and we put our car seat in her car, popped Sienna in and drove down to the peninsula. We enjoyed lunch at Kellie's mum's house and the kids had a good time crawling around and getting into mischief. After lunch it was into their bathers and down to Frankston beach.

What a beautiful beach it is. The water was all aquas and greens and crystal clear. Sienna watched Callum crawl around playing in the water while she shivered away in the shallow water due to a persistent cool wind. After moving her to a warmer location she enjoyed herself putting fistfuls of sand into her mouth and watching the water roll in.

When she got too cold I rugged Sienna up and she cuddled with me on the shore until she was warm enough to play again...without her cold wet shorts on. Love that little bottom!

Thank you Kellie and Callum for a lovely day.

Off and racing

While the rest of you were caught up watching the race that stops a nation, AJ and I were caught up in a race of our own. A race to see who could get the camera first to witness our very own little philly crawl for the first time!

Once she got the hang of it she was moving around...and around...and around. It was gorgeous to watch and even more satisfying to see that Sienna hadn't realised that she could move far beyond the play mat that she has been on for the past 10 months. So she'd just circle it and move back and forth on it.

I'm sure that will all change shortly...

Racing carnival...getting into the spirit of it

During a visit to Aunty Lise's house for afternoon tea we were treated to this delightful spectacle as they walked through the door after several minutes in Alisa's bedroom...Sienna all gussied up for the races. We were so impressed that she managed to keep her fascinator on long enough for us to take these hurried pics. I think she probably liked all the attention. Who doesn't?

Finger Food

Sienna has been getting increasingly interested in feeding herself...so today I put her need to grow and develop above my preference for a clean baby during meal times and gave her a piece of pear to destroy.

She absolutely loved the opportunity to play with her food, squish it in her hands, pat it on the tray, run it through her hair and every now and then put some in her mouth. As it was getting to be a very sticky exercise, I swapped the pear for grated cheese and the fun continued...and I've been finding pear and cheese in all the secret places of the high chair that only exist to hide stale food.

Play time with cousins

While Aunty Sue was off enjoying a well deserved massage and pedicure, we got to play with Sienna's cousins Dylan (3) and Mia (12 days older than Sienna). Although Mia was upset that her mum had left (took her about 45 mins to realise) we all enjoyed spending time together.

I particularly enjoyed watching Dylan interact with Sienna. He is so gentle and loving towards her. For a 3 year old boy who is often seen dashing around looking for his next adventure, his tenderness for Sienna and his sister took me off guard. I guess there's nothing like blood ties to bring out love for eachother.

I took a few hurried pics while they were playing...excuse the quality...enjoy the sentiment.

Nearly there...

Sienna is getting very close to crawling. She leans forward as far as she can until she falls onto her belly. She's not quite there but it won't be long now. Here she is trying to crawl while enjoying some time with me in the back garden...

She teeths...

I just knew it! After daring to post that Sienna has started to sleep through the night...she woke up 5 times last night with what I think (and hope) is teething pain. And so it is a dazed mum that sits at this computer to post. Sienna is a bubbly little soul today unaware of her impact on mummy and daddy last night. Gotta love her...

As an aside, Sienna is getting increasingly difficult to take pictures of. Most of the ones I took today feature a grizzly face with a hand outstretched for the camera. She wants to play with it, not have it shoved in her face and then taken away. As you will can see in this pic.

She Sleeps!

Since we have enjoyed the 6th night straight of Sienna sleeping through, I now feel able to post about it with some confidence. She sleeps through the night!!!!! Previous to this miracle we endured 6 nights of waking at 4am and crying until 6am...where I was nearly losing my mind. Sienna has now cottoned on that I am not feeding her at night and she must wait until morning...and she sleeps!

I am so happy with this that Sienna is now treated to a whole new mummy during the day. I'm back to reading books and singing and playing on the floor. The sleep deprived mummy is nowhere near as fun or happy. Even Mick who has been doing our bathroom renovations for the past 5 weeks has noticed the difference in me. Now I just need to retrain myself to sleep through the night. After 5 hours I wake up ready to start the day and it's still dark outside. Hopefully I'll be up to 8 hours sleep a night very soon...mmm 8 hours sleep.

Rockin' and a Rollin'

Today was the first day I have seen Sienna rock back and fourth on all fours and then proceed to make movements forward (like a new caterpillar learning to wriggle along). She has been pushing herself backwards around the floor for about 2 weeks, but today was real progress. She can move forward!

Now I'd better see about baby proofing the house...my beautiful stationary baby has given me quite a repreve until now.

Thank God for the Teletubbies

I'm not particularly proud of this but I have recently discovered the bliss of a quiet baby mesmorised by the television. Usually around 6pmish if Sienna is tired and grizzly and it's been a long day for me I'll put on the Teletubbies for her viewing pleasure.

Granted I only have one episode taped so we have seen the same one several times now. I can recite it verbatim but Sienna is still delighted by the footage of the spectacular peacock showing off it's vibrant feathers and LaLa & Po (yes I now know their names!) marching around the place.

I for one am grateful for the 20mins of silence in a day of constant chatter whilst meeting the ever changing needs of a 9 month old baby. Call it a cop out, call it what you will. I call it bliss...and so does Sienna.

Waving

After several weeks of greeting Sienna in the morning and after every sleep with "Hello" and a wave we were rewarded today with a baby version of hello and an arm that waved...and waved...and waved all day.

Its amazing how they can watch you for weeks and then just one day begin copying you. Luckily for us it's Sunday and AJ was there to enjoy her latest trick. Sienna has also taken to saying "heyo dadde" which we think is clearly "Hello Daddy". Our child is a genius!

9 months today!

Our little girl is growing up so fast. Nine months already. By this stage I would have expected Sienna to be crawling and sleeping through the night...but she's just not there yet. I'm totally fine with her not crawling yet (makes my life a little easier!) but I am keenly anticipating the day my beautiful girl sleeps through the night. As much as I enjoy spending time with her, the 3am catch-ups are wearing a bit thin for this sleep deprived mum.

At nine months AJ and I are getting to enjoy lots of smiles, giggles, blowing rasperries, talking away ("mum", "dada", "Goi, goi, goi" is a favourite but we're at a loss to know what she means) and occasionally surprising me with clapping hands (once) and waving hello (once). She also eats everything I put in front of her and the thing that makes my heart the happiest (only a mum could understand this) she poohs daily now!!!

We can't wait to see her develop over the next few months...when we'll be celebrating a 1st birthday.

Daisy's party

Today we went to Daisy's first birthday party. I dressed Sienna in her little denim dress and off we went to enjoy party food (for me) and be entertained by various kids. Daisy was dressed in a beautiful pink party dress and spent most of her party playing with the Cabbage Patch doll and pram she got as a gift.

Sienna found a friend in Sarah (Daisy's cousin) who is the same age and they sat on a quilt on the lawn and played with shared toys until Sienna realised she could pull harder than Sarah and take the toys off her. That's when Sarah's tears flowed...Sienna was unperturbed by Sarah's protests and continued playing. It was interesting to watch my baby assert herself with another...I hope she's not going to be the bully of play group!

Another first for today: Sienna got her first front tooth. So that's 3 teeth now - she's getting to be such a big girl.

Family Holiday

From 11th - 21st September we enjoyed our very first family holiday in Palm Cove. There were several highlights of our trip:

- Sienna travels beautifully on aeroplanes and was fuss-free the whole way there and back.

- Our accommodation was beautiful...and family friendly.
- We were staying in sunny, tropical, warm Palm Cove amongst the sand, sea and palm trees.

- We spent quality family time together.

- Sienna slept through the night for the first time EVER on the 2nd night of our holiday. I was awake from 3.30am praying that she'll wake up and relieve my full, sore milk providers.

- We enjoyed witnessing Sienna explore her tropical world by going in the pool and spa, dipping into the ocean with me, and eating copious amounts of sand.

If I'm being totally honest, I must admit however that this holiday was one of the first to have lowlights...something I'm thinking has something to do with holidaying with an 8 month old (as much as we love her little soul):

- Sienna starting teething on night 3 of our 10 night holiday...and continued to wake throughout the night and scream for an hour before falling to sleep. She did this for the rest of our holiday. Yay for all of us!

- We sat in the shade with Sienna by the pool, on the beach etc. Therefore I didn't lie out in the sun once the whole time...and no tan to speak of. A first!

- Our holiday was relaxing...but not restful. It's the first time AJ and I have returned from a holiday in the sun with bags under our eyes feeling worse than when we left home (we don't take too well to sleep deprivation)

All in all we had a wonderful time together and now that the first family holiday is over AJ and I will be prepared for a different type of holiday next time. We were unprepared as to just how different it would be for us...given that we've been used to reading 2-3 books and spending 3-4 hours in the sun every day for 2 weeks until they have to pour us onto the aeroplane because we a so relaxed. But with our bub...not a chance! :)

Dinner...with a little help from my cousin

Sienna's cousin Justina took on the brave task of helping to feed her this evening. Justina was so excited to tell me all the cute things Sienna was doing that she was a bit slow in spooning the food in...as noted by Sienna's strained body languange...leaning forward as far as she can, opening her mouth and moving from side to side (like a carnival clown game) trying to get the hovering spoon into her mouth.

After asking Justina to keep her mind on the job at hand, she went great guns and fed Sienna her whole dinner. I think Sienna enjoyed the novelty of someone else feeding her instead of plain old mummy.

Shenanigans

Even though I'm now a mum I am often caught letting my hair down and being a child myself. There is no more perfect opportunity when I'm with my mum and sister. Poor mum looked on as Alisa and I discovered some flashing plastic gold tiara's hanging around her house. We wasted no time in putting them on and clowning around in them. Pictured here trying to imitate eachother's signature photograph faces (Alisa never does an open mouthed smile and I am apparently all teeth and eyes). Then we just got silly...also pictured.

Bath time bliss

One of Sienna's favourite time of the day is bath time. She kicks her legs in anticipation of her body being immersed in the warm water and delights in splashing around making me very wet. I've taken to putting a bath mat on top of me as I sit bath side and observe the show.

After 15 minutes of fun I take her out and treat Sienna to an oil massage...she loves it all. If only I could enjoy the same indulgence night after night. Actually it's quite relaxing giving the gift of relaxation and pampering to someone else. Especially my beautiful baby girl.

It's my party & I'll cry if I want to

Today is my birthday and it would appear that Sienna is either one of two things... A) So excited that it's my birthday that she wanted to celebrate immediately and so woke at 1am, 3.30am, 5am and 7.30am OR B) No one told her it's my birthday and that I deserve at least a good nights sleep!

So it was a tired and grumpy start to my 31st birthday with a happy and exited Sienna greeting me in her cot this morning. However because of the lack of sleep she got last night she dissolved into a grumpy bub this afternoon and as I tried in vain to tidy my house and prepare "nibbles" for the family and few friends that came to celebrate with me, Sienna decided that the happiest she could be was grizzling in my arms.

By the time my guests arrived I was ready to call the whole thing off and fall into bed in a teary heap, but Sienna was all smiles and sunshine for everyone and went off to sleep like a dream at 8pm. I then enjoyed 2 sparkling shiraz in quick succession and before I knew it I was actually having a good time. Happy birthday to me!

Extremes

My little girl isn't 100% at the moment. From the mum's that I've discussed her current state with, Sienna is apparently going to be fine...but it's weighing heavy on my heart. We have swung from constipation to having the runs and not wanting to eat anything but breast milk. She is still happy within herself and seems ok other than the not wanting to eat and having the runs part. See for yourself - does she look bothered? From the look in those cheeky eyes - that would be no.

Sitting Up

Yesterday I tried sitting Sienna up to see if she would stay...and she did but only for about 20 seconds. Today I tried again and she took to it like a duck to water and sat up enjoying her new perspective of the world for a few minutes before tumbling onto her back. She looks too small to be sitting up so straight, but she is and she loves it.

Grandma's booties

Grandma knitted Sienna a beautiful pair of booties but I don't put them on her as often as I'd like because she has such a facination with them that they don't last on her feet for long. In a Melbourne winter you need to keep her feet warm and I find with socks she doesn't notice them -but pretty booties - let me get my hands on them!

So I've decided to put them on under her body suits where they do the job of keeping her warm and it's just our little secret that she has these pretty items on under her clothes (kind of like nice undies and bra for ladies, if you will).

In an attempt to capture her in them (since it's virtually impossible to do so for long) I took a few pics of them for our viewing pleasure. Thanks Grandma!

Trolley debut

Our local IGA has relatively clean trolley's which admittedly is something I would never have noticed before I planned to place my baby in one. They also have a sturdy strap, so Sienna was treated to her trolley debut today...and didn't she love it! She can see everything from this position and reach out for things too. That was perhaps the scariest part.

Although dodging the security man checking to see what the lady in aisle 2 was doing taking pictures was the a close second in the scary department. It seems I've turned into a crazy lady with a camera since having Sienna. I have no boundaries for appropriateness in taking pics. Don't they know it was her first time in a trolley? Definitely something that needs to be captured...

On her best behaviour...sort of!

I introduced Sienna to my old work friends Liz & Yve today ("old" as in I used to work with them...they're not old!). We had lunch out and Sienna was the perfect picture of a happy bouncing baby girl (as all mum's want their child to be) until she decided that she'd been sitting there long enough. And so we began the passing from person to person to keep her interested...I think Yve copped the worst end of her interest. All in good fun though.

Making new friends

We ventured out to a child friendly cafe called Urban Life today. We met up with Mandy and Kate and their bubs Aleisha & Sam. The three of them had a play on the floor getting to know eachother while us mum's caught up over a coffee. Easy!

Yoghurt to be joking!

Continuing her exploration of food, Sienna was introduced to yoghurt today...she didn't take too kindly to it.

7 months today!

Growing up so quickly Sienna is 7 months today. She is so much more interactive and expressive these days and it's a joy to watch her explore her world.

We enjoyed a play date with Belinda and her two girls Darcie & Lilie (and a little one on the way...). As good as their company was I must admit it was almost trumped by the delicious lemon shortcake that Belinda bought with her and left behind...yum! Actually that's not true - Belinda's easy going approach and advice on motherhood always leaves me feeling like I may actually be doing a good job. Gotta love that more.

Welcome relief

Jo visited with Angus and Daisy today. They are gorgeous kids and always have fun exploring my family room and playing with their toys. I find them a joy to have but it wasn't until Jo's mum Gill dropped by to see us that we realised how nice it is to enjoy a cuppa without having to have the eyes in the back of your head operating. While Gill enjoyed her grandchildren Jo and I had a chat over a cup of tea...in peace. It was most enjoyable. Then Jo took over and I got to enjoy a catch-up with Gill. I must enjoy it while I can because soon enough it'll be me chasing my child around the room getting her out of mischief!

Loving celery

I introduced Sienna to the world of finger foods today...starting with celery. It must have been very exciting for her because she chewed and sucked and played with it for 20 minutes. I kept taking off chunks that were hanging on by a few strings, but other than that I left her to it. Who knew celery could be so interesting?

Perth: Visiting Ginny, James & Jacinta

I hired a car and visited my friend Ginny who is living in Perth with her partner Warren and their two kids James (18 months) and Jacinta (3 months). It was wonderful to meet little Jacinta and have a cuddle with her and lots of cuddles, kisses and playing with an affectionate and happy James. Unfortunately by the time I pulled out the camera Jacinta was in bed, but I managed to capture some nice moments of James with Sienna.

Introducing the family

While in Perth Sienna got to meet more of her family...starting with the cheeky Watson's. They are a heap of fun for us both to play with and Sienna loved being constantly entertained by her cousins Melissa and Lauren who I called "The Circus". Sienna kept needing a nap after only being up for 1 hour because with the circus in town there was no rest for her unless she was in bed. It was great fun!

Sienna also got to meet her Uncle Martin (who she kept staring at as if to say "You look like my Daddy, but you're not my Daddy...") and her Great-Aunt Cheri who gave her a nice cuddle.

And last but not least was time spent with her Grandma & Papa. Cuddles, walks, outings, car rides, did I mention cuddles? She loved it!