Saturday, April 30, 2011

Easter

Hello,

On Easter we went out to my parents' camp, where my mom had and easter egg "hunt" for Willow. I think she is just the right age for this - she really loved it. After she found all the eggs, we'd distract her, take a big handful of eggs out of her basket, and go hide them again in a different part of the yard so she could keep going. I think she would've hunted eggs all day if we let her. It was a pretty nice day out there, even next to the lake. Nice days have been rare this spring, so that was lucky. Here is a photo and a video of Willow on her egg hunt.





She got an Easter basket from Grandma too.




















Licking the beaters from the whipped cream. We had strawberry shortcake.















On her chair at camp.















At home, hugging Elmo and Da.




















Last night, with baby Margot. Willow really loves Margot, and talks about her all the time. We often get together with Ruth and Chad on Friday nights, and yesterday morning, I said, "Willow, it's Friday!" and she said "Margot". I don't know how she knew!















Giving her a snuggle.















And finally, I had to include this photo - I think it is awesome. These were my shades when I was little. Doesn't she look hip?

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Spring!...and winter again

Hi,

This may be another pretty boring post; not much has happened. We did finally get some spring weather a couple weeks ago. Finally all the snow was gone from the yard (and dog poop, thanks to Josh's efforts), and we were out enjoying every minute of it that we could! Willow is so much more independent than last spring, scampering around the yard. It's going to be such a fun summer!






















Then this weekend, winter came back with a vengeance. Can you believe this picture was taken April 17? What a drag.
















Last weekend Willow had Maisa over to play.
















They had a good time. One highlight of the visit was when Maisa went pee in Willow's potty. Willow's been talking about it ever since. She calls Maisa "sa-sa", and every time Willow goes to sit on the potty (which she calls the "boopa"), she points at it and says "sa-sa", then we talk about how Maisa went on the potty and how Willow could maybe do it too. She still loves to sit on the potty and read her books. But she'd prefer not to actually pee in the potty - I guess she'd still rather go in her diaper. Oh well. At least she likes the potty. When she is ready to potty train, she is going to have the coolest undies ever, which I have to show off here because this is literally the craftiest thing I've done since before Willow was born. I couldn't find undies locally that I liked for her, so I ordered some white training pants online and then got some Elmo iron-ons and put them on the underwear. Check it out:















Speaking of big girl stuff, this is pretty exciting: as I type this, Willow is taking a nap for the very first time in her big-girl bed. Just this morning we finally brought it into our bedroom and removed the crib. Of course we haven't used the crib for anything other than a blanket storage unit for several months, but it was still there and taking up all the room where a big-girl bed could go. I'm not sure how this will go at night, but it's exciting that it's even there. I love sleeping with Willow, but I also would really like to have our bed back....yes, I have very mixed feelings about cosleeping. If we ever have another kid, I am not sure if we will do it or not.

(don't mind our bare bed - the sheets are being washed right now)















One little funny thing I want to get down for the record before it ends: Willow loves her little cookie monster and big bird figurines. She calls cookie monster "cookie", and she calls big bird "Habeeb". Yes, Habeeb. Sounds sort of arab or something. I don't know where that came from but it is pretty funny.

Here's a final photo for you. Willow with her artificial nails. Seth was her manicurist. Ha.

Saturday, April 2, 2011

Random photos

Hello,

I haven't been very good at taking pictures lately - I have a bunch of random ones to share today, and also a couple videos.

First I wanted to post this picture from Willow's birthday in Puerto Rico. After my last post we got a lot more pictures from Janna, who has a really nice camera too. I already did the Puerto Rico post, but I did want to show you this one photo of the birthday girl with Grandpa and Auntie Jill, who were turning 60. Pretty cute.
















I go to a monthly meeting called KNAP (that's Keweenaw Natural and Attachment Parenting). Willow always comes, and last month Josh came too. It's a great group of parents and kids, and the meetings are pot luck, so there is always tons of good food. We hold them in a church basement. Anyway, Here's a shot of Willow with her friend Penelope. We've known Penelope for a long time; she used to come to La Leche League, she goes to KNAP, and now she also just joined Willow's music class. I think her and Willow sort of look alike. They're the same size with the same hairdo, anyway, though Penelope is a few months younger.















A couple weekends ago we took Willow to a concert. It was during the day on Sunday, so we were excited to go see some live music that wasn't too late at night to bring Willow. It was a really good time, and there were some other kids there too. Here's Willow dancing with some other girls. She was the littlest, and the bigger girls were competing to be the one to "take care of" Willow. It was pretty funny.
















Josh and I went out to Mont Riply for their "slush pit" end-of season day. They have a contest to see who can do the best splash into the slush pit. A lot of people skim across the water and make no splash at all, but Josh went all-out with a costume and everything. I'm not very good at taking video so you almost miss the crotch grab he performed during his spread eagle. I thought he should've won, but apparently some other guy did a backflip. Oh well. It was a great day of spring skiing, nice and warm and sunny with soft snow.



The rest of the photos are just basically our everyday life around the house. Winter is dragging on, and I have to say that I will be very happy when we can get out of the house a little more Here's Willow playing with some of her little figurines. Most of them were mine when I was a kid. (Notice those 80s staples of a care bear, a fraggle, and even Starlight, Rainbow Brite's horse). She loves playing with them.















Linda and Willow have made a couple different houses for all the figurines. Here's one of them. It has a cookie store and a music hall. Willow is lucky to have such a creative nanny!



















Coloring at her little table. Look at that wild hair! It looks like that often. It seems like it is turning out pretty frizzy and wild, unlike most babies' fine hair.















Lounging with a good magazine:















Here's Willow with her two best friends, Elmo and "Da". I've mentioned before how much she loves Elmo, but in the past few weeks, Elmo and Da have become buddies. Da is called that because she's a cat, and since our cat's name is Daria, Willow calls all cats "Da". Anyway, as I said they're best buds, and sometimes they even kiss. ;)















Seth was over one Saturday to brew some beer with Josh:

















Here's Willow smelling the beer. Don't worry, smelling is as close as she will get to it!















Willow is becoming quite the talker, and has several 2- and 3-word sentences. She is also learning to count and counts to three easily...Linda says she does to four though we've never heard it. Here's a little video of her counting.