Beautiful Day

Today was beautiful, tomorrow is supposed to be more of the same; they say it will be almost 54 degrees in the afternoon.  Jeff had to work late tonight so he took the day off, which meant he could pick Clare up early and head to the park.  There is a new playground in the park across from my Rec. center, so they headed over there and I met them after work.  Clare had a blast!

This playground had something for everyone and Clare had lots of fun checking it all out. 

At first it seemed like she’d forgotten how much she enjoys a slide, she was pretty hesitant to sit down and meet Jeff at the bottom; after a little push she remembered it was fun and wanted to go again.

It's never too early to learn to use an abacus.

The swing was of course a favorite; I love to hear her laugh.

This park had both a big ladybug and grasshopper, she liked both but I think the grasshopper was more fun since Dada sat with her.

It took a bit to convince her to go home, she finally left with the idea of going home to play with her own kitchen.  As we walked to the car she kept saying ‘bye lady bug, bye slide, bye swing’.  I can’t wait for warmer weather to be the norm; I imagine we’ll have many afternoons at the park and enjoying our new 'neighborhood'. 

Its afternoons like this that remind me how much I love my family.

Potty Time?

This weekend I spent more time in the bathroom than normal, not because I wasn’t feeling well, but because someone is fascinated with the potty.  I came home from work on Saturday and Clare declared she wanted to go in the potty, not one to discourage such activities I happily followed her in there.  I think we’ve officially reached the early stages of potty training; the light at the end of the diaper tunnel is starting to flicker!!

So far Clare hasn’t actually gone on the potty, but is certainly comfortable talking about it.  Whenever one of use mentions going to the restroom or starts in that direction she’s right behind us announcing she wants to go potty, I figure this is the first step.  She certainly has the toilet paper routine down; I’ve had to move all extra rolls out of sight and reach.  

While we were out this weekend I purchased a potty seat, how is it possible that my little Lady is big enough to need a potty seat!?!  We also picked up some Minnie Mouse underwear; hopefully she likes them and wants to wear them; I won’t get too hopeful that they will stay dry just yet.  She had lots of fun wearing them around the house and taking them off and putting them on what seemed like 25 times. 

In addition to the new potty, and Minnie Mouse underwear we also have a Potty Time DVD, something that was recommended by a friend.  Clare seemed to like the DVD; there was lots of singing and dancing.  We’ve learned the sign for potty, underwear, wash, diaper, help, and the logic behind the sign for I Love You.  I don’t know that we’ll be watching the DVD on a daily basis, but it does seem like she enjoys it.

Clare and Dada practicing the sign for potty.

I’m not thinking Clare will be fully potty trained by the end of the week, but I’m sure glad she’s interested.

Play Cars

I have a few blog entries to post, but the neighbors must have figured out we were poaching Wi-Fi from them.  I guess it’s time we get our own, hopefully by the end of the week we’ll be back up and running.

Clare is starting to put more and more words together, it’s not uncommon to hear her speak a full sentence and to have little conversations with her.   I have no idea how many words she knows, far too many to keep a list.  She repeats most of what she hears and will try anything.  She still has a little trouble with ‘f’ and ‘l’ but nothing I’m concerned about.  Her voice is simply the sweetest sound in the world.

Last night after we came home from our weekend shopping trip she wanted Dada to play cars with her, ‘play cars Dada?’ of course how can you resist this sweet face, especially when she asks so nicely.   She also had fun drinking from her new cup; these have straws, which make them pretty fun. 

Bubble Wrap

Last night, rather than counting sheep to fall asleep, I spent some time looking at various pictures and videos on my phone.

I love this little girl more than words!!

Toast Coming!!

Clare isn’t much of a breakfast eater, much like us, she frequently only has a cup of milk in the car and maybe a NutriGrain bar.  Recently she’s been asking for toast, she loves to exclaim ‘Toast Coming!’ and then when the toast pops out of the toaster she’ll say ‘pop!’  I have no idea where she’s picking up on the joys of toast, but she certainly enjoys it.  When Grampy was here this weekend they shared a number of pieces of toast, he was happy to eat her crust and she enjoyed sharing her pieces with him. 

This weekend I bought a loaf of cinnamon swirl bread; she had two pieces for breakfast this morning.   She also has started to eat her breakfast standing at the coffee table, she needs to occasional reminder of the task at hand, but overall she does pretty well eating at the table.

The Tree House has been busy this week, lots of home improvement projects (Thanks Dad), playing, shopping and hanging around.  My parents are in town this weekend, their first official visit to the new house, which means the guest room is now clean and ready for visitors.  Clare has been enjoying lots of extra attention and playing with Grammy and watching Grampy work.

Grammy is the best when it comes to playing with dolls.  All the dolls and animals come alive when she's around, she helps their personalities come thru.  

Reading has always been important to Grammy, Clare enjoyed climbing up on the couch and sharing a little quiet time.

With any new house we, more me than Jeff, had a rather extensive wish list for when the money tree sprouted in the backyard.  Thankfully my Dad is pretty handy and dare I say somewhat enjoys projects around the house.  In the last three days he has replaced two doors, installed two storm doors, hung shelves in the laundry room, installed batteries in the beeping carbon monoxide detector which started beeping at 5am, installed linoleum under the kitchen sink to cover the ultra nasty wood, replaced the caulking in both the master bathroom shower and on kitchen counter, milled and hung the closet doors in the guest bedroom, built an entire new set of steps in the garage, replaced all of the door locks, and installed weather stripping on all outside doors.  Whew, I’m tired just typing that all out; can’t imagine how he’s feeling.   Fortunately he has been able to find time to play with Clare and hopefully enjoy his visit.

Clare enjoyed checking out one of the new doors, she can almost reach the handle. 

While Dad’s been working harder than Norm Abram and Bob Vila combined my Mom and I have been shopping till we drop.  You know we’re serious shoppers when the first stop after picking her up from the airport was Vera Bradley for their new prints.  I’m in love with my new Ellie Blue items while Mom is enjoying her new Weekender, Ditty Bag, another Lizzie (Clare has her original – miiiiiinnnneeee) and free Tech Case.  To say we love Vera would be putting it mildly.  Clare has been shopping with us, but hasn’t had as much fun as we have; she’s been more interested in playing and sleeping than shopping.

Tonight Mom made Fricidilli, one of the best home cooked meals ever.  If you’ve never had Fricidilli you’re missing out and can’t imagine how delicious it is.  I just had to send a picture to Sarah, Andrew and Tia letting them know what they were missing, it’s safe to say they all wished they were at my house for dinner.  It was delicious and I can’t wait for the left overs for lunch this week.

Flipping the Fricks is one of the hardest parts.

Can you smell how good those are??

The weather has been beautiful lately, so nice in fact that we’ve been enjoying some outside time and opening a window or two in the afternoon.  Jeff cleaned up the patio furniture the other day, only for it to blow around later that night; the evenings have been VERY windy the last few nights. So windy that the lid to Jeff’s smoker was in the backyard the other morning, fortunately it didn’t go far, but it did suffer a dent.  Every time I look to the west I’m reminded why we live up here, the views are absolutely amazing, I don’t know that I’ll ever grow tired of it.  

Grammy and Grampy also brought a few things from Maggie and Jack, the doll carrier has been the biggest hit, although there has also been an alligator following Clare around all weekend, it's great to get new toys from cousins! 

I so look forward to my parents visiting, we always have a long list of things we want to do, places we want to go, and stores we want to shop at.  Like many things the length of the visit is never long enough and we never get everything accomplished.  This visit has been busy, and we’ve gotten a lot done, but I sure wish they could stay longer.