Spelling Tuesday

Today we took Loralie to the zoo! It was a beautiful day, sunny and warm. The zoo was the least crowded I have ever seen it, so it felt like we had the place to ourselves! Loralie had a blast! She was so much more into it than she was last year when we took her. She pointed to the different animals, and made some of their sounds. She ran and ran all over the place! Her favorites were the meerkats (Mommy's favorites!) and the birds (not mommies favorite). And she learned a new phrase, thanks to Daddy: "Oh, man!" - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Loralie and Mommy had some springtime Easter fun today! We dyed some eggs using a handy-dandy "salad spinner" type gadget I bought at Target. No mess! They turned out pretty good! Then we had a not-so-challenging Easter egg hunt! I scattered her plastic eggs all over the stairs, and told her she needed to put them back in her basket. She got the idea, but lost interest after five or six eggs. We are definitely not ready for a Easter egg hunting marathon! And here we are just being silly girls!

Our baby girl is 17 months old now. She is doing all kinds of cute tricks and saying a whole bunch of new words. She is trying very hard to feed herself with a spoon or fork. She can tell you the sounds for cow, horse, chicken, duck, sheep, dog, cat, and fish. She can point to her eyes, nose, mouth, teeth, hair, arms, legs, feet, toes, belly button and hands. We are still working on the elbows and behiney . She tries to sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", but I think if you weren't her mother, you probably wouldn't know what you were listening to! She says phrases like "Here you go" "All gone" and "Mommy bye bye". And sometimes she will even say "Potty!" and grab her diaper. We have successfully made it on time occasionally, but are far from long term success ! My favorite thing is when she just makes up words though. She call our phones the "Hi". She calls coats and cars "bye bye's" even though she can...

Today was the baby shower that my Mom and I threw for my sister in law, Andrea. The theme was "Baby Pea Pod", and you KNOW how I love a theme! This particular theme came from a picture of a cake that I wanted to make- it turned out really cute! This was my first time working with fondant, and it wasn't nearly as scary as I thought it would be! I did learn a few tips though... Here's what the room looked like. It is so nice having The Tuscan Ballroom available for our parties! No cleaning of our houses necessary! Here are the centerpieces that Heather and I made. The little pea pods were made of Sculpty. They were really easy to make, and turned out really cute! And of course, we had to have split pea soup in bread bowls! We also had green salad, chicken salad sandwiches, and corn and pea salad. Yummy! I think that Andrea had a lot of fun, and she got some really cute presents. I can't wait until baby Ada gets here!

I think that Loralie is going to be a lover of the great outdoors like her Daddy. Today she was cranky and whiney, as toddlers tend to be, but when I opened the front door she got a BIG smile on her face. A good dose of sunshine and fresh air worked wonders. She likes to run and run and run. She likes to listen to all the outside sounds. She likes to watch the neighbor kids play basketball ("ball! ball!") She loves to watch Daddy and Scooter play catch. And sometimes she just kind of stands there smiling and enjoying God's creation. It is a good reminder to us adults, that sometimes, you just need to close your eyes and listen to the sound of the ice cream truck.

With technology changing so quickly in our modern world, I thought I would record how old I was when different technologies entered the picture. When I was little, I remember going to the video store and making sure that the movie I picked out was "Beta", not VHS. We only had one TV at our house growing up. I think my Dad might have had a computer for his work starting when I was in about middle school, but I didn't really use the internet or email until I was in High School. I did have to take keyboarding class, starting in 7th grade, which was the only class I nearly flunked. I was at a great disadvantage, however, because most of my classmates had had typing the year before, where I had never had it at all! I got my first cell phone in 2004, two years after I was married. This was due to the exorbinant amount of times I got lost while driving. We are still probably the only people in America that don't have a flat screen TV or a blue ray disc machine, but hey, a...

The snow has melted, and the temperatures reached a balmy 60 degrees yesterday, so Loralie and I took full advantage and headed to the park! I was amazed at how much more she could do than even last fall, and how BIG she looked in the swing! She was running around all over the place (not an easy feat, as running on wood chips is quite challenging for a new walker!) She spent the better part of the trip playing on this one wee little step. It was only a few inches off the ground, so she was able to practice going down it facing forward, like a big girl! She was so thrilled with herself that she did it over and over again (she did do a few spectacular face plants, Mom was trying to be cool, and to let her have her practice...Better to bite it on wood chips than on hardwood floors at home!) And look how far away from Mommy Loralie got! It is sort of weird to just let her toddle away from me into the great big world. It is really hard not to just hoover around her, and be right be...

I have been interviewing my Dad lately for a project we are working on called "Conversations with my Father." The last section that we completed together had to do with his elementary school days, and it brought back some memories of my own schooling. I switched schools a lot growing up, so I had quite the different school experience than Caleb (he went to K-12 with basically the same people). I did K-1 at a public school (West TV Elementary), then transferred to a private catholic school for 2-4, then back to West TV for part of 4 and 5-6. Then we moved to Kansas City, where I started Plaza Middle School, and then on to Park Hill High School. I was a pretty good student, with the only bad marks on my report card for being a "social butterfly" AKA- TOO LOUD. But I do remember one time in about third grade when I got called down to the Principal's office. We had gone on a field trip, and I was singing the "Baby Bumblebee Song" which has a very dr...

Loralie is keeping us in stitches with the games she is constantly playing. We do a lot of : "Where's the baby? Where's the baby?" "PEEK A BOO!" She hides behind the couch, so that we can only see her little pig tails, and she loves to get behind the curtains. Her giggling pretty much gives her away, though. Another fun game is "Lock the Doggie in the Cupboard." I caught her in the act today. Scooter was wimpering in the cupboard and I asked her "Where is your doggie ?" and she just smiled at me angelicly . We have been going to Library Story Time for about a month now. She loves it when they blow bubbles, and her favorite song is the "bye bye baby" song, which she sings to herself all day long. It is so cute! Here is a picture of her and buddy Sofie playing with the parachute, which she doesn't actually like that much.

Loralie has had a love for all things Elmo from the time she was three months old. I am not exaggerating. When she was just a wee little thing I turned on Sesame Street just to see if she would watch it (she pretty much ignored all other TV at the time). She was indifferent to the bulk of the show, but as soon as the theme song for "Elmo's World" started playing, she was totally sucked in! Now, I know what you are thinking. "There is no need for a baby to watch TV." And I would probably agree with you. But once you have seen the pure joy on her face when she sees that furry little guy your heart will melt and your ideals will cave, and pretty soon you are singing along... La la la la, la la la la, Elmo's World! Now that she is a little older, she asks to watch Elmo about five times a day. Sometimes she hands you the remote and says "Elmo!". Sometimes she walk over and turns the TV on and says "Elmo!". Sometimes she flat out demands to wa...