Books: Samantha continues to show interest in books and is very quick to pick up new words. Within 2-3 days she's usually familiar enough with a book that she'll be able to name most, if not all the animals/characters contained within the book. She's able to recognize and name a variety of different species/types of fishes (eg butterfly fish, angelfish, seahorse, "nemo", shark, dolphin) as well as birds (owl, cassowary, fairy wren, etc).

Language Development: We started teaching Samantha the alphabet as a means of entertaining her during some of the long trips in the car. We would say one letter a time and ask her repeat after us. She picked up on the game very quickly, although initially, she struggled with saying the letters ' q' and 'w'. Within a relative short period of time (about a month and half) she was able to say most of the alpabet from 'a' through to 'z' all by herself, although, she would usually skip the letters 'm' and 'n'.

She knows her colours (red, green, blue, purple, yellow etc) although she sometimes confused black and brown. When she was learning her colours, we would play a number of games with the crayons. We had a case where individual crayons could be slotted into. We would give her a crayon and ask her what colour it was. We also played the game in reverse where she would have to ask for the crayons by colour in order to get it.

In the past, most of Samantha's sentences consisted of one or two words eg "more milk" or "pretty flower" etc. She is now at the stage where she can construct 3/4 word sentences eg "Where's Daddy gone?". At this point in time, she doesn't use any prepositions.

Play Time: Samantha loves to go to the playground, climb up and down the stairs, play in the sand and of course going down the slide is so much fun. She enjoys going for walks (she's never been one for being carried) and looking at the wildlife. Samantha has also become very confident with walking along a brick wall - it very quickly became part of the ritual of walking around the block. We initially held both her hands, and then one hand and now as long as she's concentrating on what she's doing - it's a piece of cake!

Another popular past-time, was going to the shops. Most of the toy stores had play areas for kids which usually meant a great time to be had with the trains! Mum would ask Samantha what she would like to do, for while there a typical response would be "Play with the boys" quickly followed by "Play with the trains". Umm...need we say anything else...

We've introduced Samantha to 'Play Dough' and she loves it. The "Fun Factory" set proved to be a good starting point and we very quickly introduced other tools.

General Tidbits: Samantha experienced her second and last 'Halloween'. She enjoyed spending time at the 'Pumpkin Patch' where there were plenty of pumpkins to be bought at a price, as well as rides for the kids and some farm animals. The kids arrived for 'trick n treat' some after dusk. Samantha was dressed for the occasion although passing candy to the kids proved too much for her.

We went to Disneyland prior to our departure from the States. Even though a lot of rides are tailored for older children, there was plenty to keep Samantha entertained. We ended having a photo taken with 'Minnie Mouse' among other characters. This proved to be the starting point of Samantha love of all things 'Minnie Mouse'. We bought her a 'Minnie Mouse' stuffed toy expecting it to be passing phase. However, time has not diminished her love of 'Minnie Mouse' and it is still one of her favourite toys.