Outings

Cheech and Chong

Posted on by Amy
Today, when we were getting ready for the day, I swore, for a brief moment of “where the heck did she get that?” that Miss was saying, “Cheech and Chong” over and over. I started to crack up about it, but realized all too quickly that she was actually saying, “teeth and tongue.” She was playing with a doll and I suspect she was brushing its teeth. Damn. “Cheech and Chong” would have been funny. But even without that, my kid is pretty amusing. I love those moments when she says something that cracks me up. She does it more and more often these days.
An example of this occurred in the grocery store checkout the other day. We were waiting for the bagger to get the last of our stuff in the cart. Miss said she was hungry and I told her that we were going to go home in a few minutes to have lunch. I then asked her what she might like to eat. Without skipping a beat she replied, “A lemon.” She was so serious about this I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. And she continued to ask for a lemon to eat, all the way home, during lunch, and the next day. I kept telling her that I needed to use the lemon we had purchased that day for a recipe, but she kept asking. Today when it was time for her snack I suggested apple yogurt. She said, “No, I fink my want a lemon.” I had realized, when cooking my recipe that required a lemon last night, that I actually had another, extra lemon in the fridge, so this time I said, “Sure. Hop up to the table and you can have a lemon for your snack.” I was chuckling to myself about this, but she surprised me. She took several bites and kept asking for more.


She didn’t shudder. Didn’t make a sour face. She seemed to love it.


She got to her third wedge of lemon before finally giving a little shudder.

Then a big shudder and sour face.
She then held her lemon wedge out to me and said, “Apple yogurt please!”
Today the weather was perfect. A beautiful late summer, early fall day with sun and a breeze and a temp of about 75. I decided it was a park day. Lass loves hats, and was so excited when I pulled out her bonnet for the park trip.
As we were getting loaded up to go to the park I happened to think, “It’s Thursday, I’ll bet I could find a few rummage sales on the way.” So I took a slightly circuitous route to the park to look for some sales along the way. I found two. They were crap. Seriously, the first one had deodorant for sale for 75 cents. Deodorant! 75 cents! So wrong. I didn’t look any further because I wanted the girls to have plenty of time at the park before lunch. We went to a new park today and Miss had a blast checking out all the new stuff there.



Of course there was a lot of swinging.


This park has a splash pad, which I assumed was turned off. One little boy apparently touched the magic spot to turn it on, and Miss immediately asked to go play in the water.



The little spouts of water shot up in a sporadic manner, so Miss got doused by a couple of them.
She didn’t seem to care. And Lass had fun putting her hands in the water from the Ergo.
This place is my new favorite park.
We came home to get dry clothes, eat lunch and take naps, and then went back to the beautiful day outside. We took a walk, which was very short because Miss requested to walk by herself instead of riding in the stroller. As she was walking she went onto a neighbor’s lawn and started to take her shoes off. I told her she needed to keep them on while we were walking and she informed me that she wanted to feel the grass under her feet. All right. She agreed to keep her shoes on until we were in our own yard, and then we all promptly took off our shoes to feel the tickle of the grass under our feet. Lass got a big kick out of this. Miss and I danced and shuffled our feet. This resulted in some heckling from my hubby who was inside changing clothes after work. The heckling resulted in a dazzling display of the Running Man by yours truly. The evening was topped off by grilled homemade brats, football on the telly, and very soon, ice cream. I love days like today. My spoon is calling me.

Live at Lunch

Posted on by Amy
My husband and I have taken some fun photos of the girls over the last several days. I love my camera more and more every time I use it. I feel like I’m starting to take better photos, but I still have so much to learn. Fortunately, I have the best subjects in the world to practice on.
I love that this photo seems to have captured the activity of my two girls right now just perfectly.

No words needed for this shot, taken by my husband.

This is one of my favorite Lass poses. She puts her arm up to her face and makes a sucking motion with her mouth when she’s tired. She does this when I’m rocking her to sleep. She holds the pose when I put her in her bed. Sometimes, like here, she does it to let us know she’s sleepy. It’s her comfort move.
Busted!
Look closely at the photo below. It’s a little bit hard to tell, but she is not holding on to anything to keep her balance. She does this a lot now and for pretty long periods of time. She’s going to be walking before I know it. How can that be??
Today we went to a weekly event they have in our town all summer long called “Live at Lunch,” and I actually remembered to take along my camera. Each week in this little grassy area downtown they have a restaurant selling food and a musician playing music and people come out and eat and listen and bask in the sun. Kids dance or run in the grass or climb on the monuments. People eat and drink and laugh. There was a long line for the food today.
Standing in it seemed like the thing to do, even though the food at the end was just a cold hotdog on a too-dense bun with chips, and there were other restaurants around where we could have gone in and probably gotten better food faster. It was about the experience though. We stood in the line. We danced and sang while standing in line. Miss nearly lost it, but we managed to get to the front of the line just in the nick of time. I almost lost our hotdog and did drop our chips more than once while trying to maneuver the stroller and balance the food while finding the perfect spot for our picnic. But we made it of course, and it was worth it.

Miss danced, and danced, and danced.


I couldn’t help but love the fact that a few tables of elderly people were watching Miss dance and play and smiling at her. A woman actually came up to me afterward and commented on what a “bright” and “enchanting” little girl she is. That just warmed me to my toes.

It’s Finally Here!

Posted on by Amy
We got back late on Saturday night from a great week-long visit with my parents (remember, they live in the land of no internet, thus no posting for over a week). When we left, we still had tons of snow on the ground. The photo below was taken right before we left, and you can see all the snow on our deck through the doors. (Please excuse the total lack of editing on some of these photos as I’m having some technical difficulties with my iPhoto)

Happily, when we got home, the snow was gone. All of it. Gone, gone, gone. I posted a month ago that spring was coming. I thought it had come when almost all of the snow melted shortly after this post. Then we got another huge, soul-crushing snowstorm and winter continued to drag on and on. But now, I think we’re in the clear. The crocuses are blooming. The grass is greening. The trees are budding. And the air smells like spring. We wait a long time for it. But spring is so worth it here. Yesterday was almost 80 degrees. We had a brief spring thunderstorm on the morning and then Miss and her Daddy got out to play in the puddles.


Yeah, she wanted to wear legwarmers, so that’s what you see coming up out of her rain boots.


Splashing.
And splashing.
She loved the puddles. I didn’t capture it on film, but eventually she ended up kneeling and then sitting in the puddles.
Off in the distance you can see my hubby pulling up the stakes we use to mark where our driveway is when it snows. Yep, we get that much snow. And we’re just now, in mid-April, confident enough to pull these things up.


The day was so beautiful, we decided to have a picnic. In the back end of my vehicle, that is. We drove a few miles to this fabulous old drive-in restaurant. In case you can’t read the sign, it says “Since 1948.” The carhops still wear roller skates.
I have wanted to go to this place since we moved here, but it didn’t seem like a very baby-friendly place. Then I got the idea to put our picnic blanket down in the back of the Expedition, take along the Bumbo for Lass, and have a drive-in picnic.
Perfect!
We had a blast hanging out in the back of the truck. The girls were wonderful.
And it turned out to be a great way to spend some quality time together.

We played, and then ate, to the sounds of cars whizzing by and 50s music playing through the restaurant’s outdoor speakers. “I Only Have Eyes For You” was one of the favorites of the afternoon.
The food was even good!
Root beer in a frosty mug fit like a glove in my rear cup holder!


Miss tried a taste of my root beer. It kind of freaked her out at first, and she almost tried to spit it out. I think she didn’t like the carbonation. But then she swallowed it and realized it was pretty good and asked for more.
Of course, spring wouldn’t be complete without some good thunderstorms. I love thunderstorms. Unfortunately the storms last night came with funnel clouds and up to 2-inch in diameter hail. So we spent a little more quality family time in our basement.
It’s not my favorite place in the house. But Miss had a blast playing with her toys down there and running around in the open space.


It was a perfect start to spring (fortunately the storm ended up being pretty tame in our area and we didn’t have any damage from it). I am looking forward to doing so much this year now that Miss is older and can enjoy more things. We will be taking trips to the park, with real picnics on the grass. We’ll be taking walks and going to the zoo and getting a swing set/sandbox for our backyard. And our pool opens in just a month and a half, which means summer! Spring will be short this year, but we’ll enjoy it to the fullest.

Things that made me smile today

Posted on by Amy
1. Two girls took long naps. At the same time!!
2. These big blue eyes.

3. I organized the toys and books in our living room and my hubby’s office.
4. Sister hugs.
5. Hearty leftovers for dinner. Chicken stew and chili. Hardly any dishes to do!!
6. This girl:

7. Getting in a workout today!
8. Finding photos on my phone from a playdate we had a few weeks ago. We went to the children’s museum and I took some pics on my phone and then forgot them. Miss loved the museum, especially the water room (complete with mini raincoats) and the slide.

9. A trip to Hobby Lobby for some holiday items. I picked up some new ornaments that aren’t breakable for Miss to put on the tree. Each one I held up and showed her she said, “Oooh, I yuuuv it!” or “Boo-ful!” She is especially into Santa and snowmen right now. In fact, she said “I yuuuv it!” about almost every Santa or snowman she saw, which kept me smiling the whole time we were there. And when we were picking out picture frames so I can (finally) put up some photos of Lass, Miss kept saying, “No touch” about each frame, after I said it to her once. What a good girl.
10. I finally got a photo of the girls in their matching winter hats as we were getting bundled up to go to Hobby Lobby. I have a hat that matches theirs too. Unfortunately, Lass is not a big hat fan, so it has been very difficult to get a photo of the two of them in their adorable matching hats without Lass being red-faced and screaming. This one isn’t great, but it’s something. The hats were made by my friend Shannon of Crocheted Goods. I get compliments on them every time we wear them!
Today was a happy day. Very much looking forward to the rest of this week, with Lass turning 3 months old tomorrow, Thanksgiving on Thursday, and our Christmas decorating on Friday!

Enjoying Autumn

Posted on by Amy
Fall is here and it’s gorgeous.

We have to enjoy every minute of it here, before winter arrives with a vengeance. So today the girls and I went to an apple orchard and pumpkin patch farm called The Little Farmer. It was a beautiful place with lots for Miss to see and do.


We got all ready to go this morning, which took the better part of three hours to do. Miss had pigtails again to start the day. They fell out on the way to the farm, but I had to include some photos of them anyway.

When we got to the farm we found wagons to use for toting pumpkins and apples. And little girls of course. Miss quite enjoyed her first wagon ride.
She saw goats and chickens and kept saying she wanted to touch them, but then chickened out when I tried to help her do so.

She picked out pumpkins.

They didn’t have a big selection of food, so we had pumpkin and apple muffins for lunch and Miss tried apple cider for the first time. She loved it.
Then we went into a huge playground area where she got to run through a big hay bale maze. I guess you’d say she has “straw-colored” hair!!
She wasn’t big enough to climb up the big hay bale fort, but she loved running around it.
Swinging!
Lass just hung out in my Babyette wrap, hence no good photos of her at the farm. But a nice stranger agreed to take this photo of all of us.
Speaking of nice strangers, after we got all our pumpkins in our wagon and a “peck” of apples, there was no more room for Miss in there. So I was heading back to the truck with Lass in her wrap, carrying Miss on my hip and pulling a very heavy wagon of pumpkins and apples when an older woman stopped and asked if she could help me. I thanked her and said I was just heading to my car, thinking she wouldn’t want to walk all the way back to the parking lot, but she promptly took the handle of the wagon and told her family she’d meet them on the playground. Then she walked all the way to my car with me and helped me load the apples and pumpkins in the car!! I kept thanking her profusely, and the last time I said, “Thank you so much, I really appreciate this,” she looked me right in the eye and smiled and said, “I know you do. I’ve been there.” And then she walked away, dragging my wagon behind her to return it to where I had gotten it. Such a random act of kindness, and it really was a great ending to a wonderful outing with my girls.

What we’ve been up to

Posted on by Amy
We are at the Farm this week. My hubby has been hunting in the mornings and evenings. Miss has been having a big time with her “Baba” and “Papa,” (my husband’s parents) and is now playing with her cousins. More cousins and aunts and uncles will be arriving through the weekend, so I know she’ll have a blast. Her favorite thing this week so far has been riding around the farm on the Ranger. She has gone exploring with her Baba and Daddy around the farm, picked flowers, watched Papa on the tractor, and taken a nap on it, as loud and jostling as it is. She just went on a “treasure hunt” this morning. Lass and I have joined the ride a few times and she just falls right to sleep wrapped up snugly against my chest while the Ranger rocks and bumps around. She’s just been working on growing. I love watching all the sweet expressions she makes (haven’t yet caught a smile on camera).





Other things we’ve been doing since my last post include taking a trip to story time at the library last week. Well, sort of. We got all ready with every intention of going to story time, but couldn’t quite make it out the door in time. We went to the library anyway.
Miss really enjoys the show “Yo Gabba Gabba” and asks to watch it more than I would like. She calls it “Mo Ga.” I found a “Yo Gabba Gabba” book at the library and was so excited. I figured having a book from her favorite show would be great, so she wouldn’t ask to watch the show so much. Now all she wants to do is read the book and watch the show. “Mo Ga, book??” she says. It’s adorable to hear her recite the first page of the book though, “Oh nooooo! Where’s the sun?” Over and over and over as she flips through the pages.
She also got her first “haircut.” This really just means that I trimmed about five stray hairs that were too long and kept falling in her face so they are now the same length as the rest of her bangs.

Adorable. I’ll try to blog more in October. Can you believe it’s October already?? Fall, crisp weather, good football, Halloween (I already have the girls’ costumes). . . so much to look forward to!