Smiling Rider

I think the actual reason for the grin is not just the joy of riding Neigh, but that I asked K. to go upstairs to take a nap and she ran over to her horse to ride.

Regardless, it's good to see her so happy.

But this is still what happens when I ask her to smile on command. That, or an odd, scrunched up smile with her eyes closed.

Teething Troubles and Fun Song

K. pretending to be happy despite teething unhappily:

She always comes over to me to look at the camera after I've taken her picture. Note: that's my big belly she's snuggled up next to in this photo.

K., with a face that describes how she's actually feeling at the moment:
Here K. is singing a song. Her tunes have started to become recognizable, though the words are often past her vocabulary (I mean, she doesn't really do sentences of more than 2-3 words--how can I expect her to sing entire phrases in a song?) So in the car on the way home, she was singing "This Old Man" and to make it easier, I suggested she just sing using the word "car." As she is whenever I pick up the camera, though, she gets distracted before she's done and comes over to see what is on the camera. Oh, well. Here is the car song:

123 to the Zoo

K. had her first trip to the zoo today with our friend B. and her son. I love animals and anticipated having a great time, and hoped K. would be similarly interested, as she's always intrigued by the ones she sees at home. Well, she was definitely not sure about the big animals we saw near the beginning--there were some monkeys that creeped her out a bit. Then we moved on to the cutest pair of brown bears who were wrestling and playing and romping. I figured "hey, she loves her stuffed bears more than anything else at the moment. I bet she'll love these!" Yeah, I was wrong. She was Not Happy about watching the bears, though eventually she unburied herself from my shoulder to take a look at them.

She softened a little when we got to the lemurs and flamingos (along with some ducks--exotic!). And we distracted her a little with a snack of goldfish crackers. But then we found something that really interested her and moved her to the edge of her seat:
"Nunnies!" "Hi, nunnies!" K. exclaimed. They wrinkled their noses at us and hopped around, and she was in her happy place. We walked by some other cute animals in the kids area, which she greeted also (and she said goodbye to the llamas when we walked away).

And we went on the carousel. I figured with the bear episode that it would be best to skip the pony rides (real ponies) and wait until she is, like, eight and requests to ride. But this was her first time on a carousel animal that went up and down. She giggled a couple of times, but it was always that laugh that might turn into a cry. It never did, and I think she had fun.

Then my camera ran out of battery juice, but we had lunch and went to the dolphin show. She had a blast! She smiled hugely and giggled and clapped through the entire show and was enthralled! After that we walked through the aquarium section and she looked at the fish and walked up to the shark tank where she almost pet a shark! Hmm...I seem to remember her aunt going through a "shark phase" in childhood. It turned out to be a most enjoyable trip!

Phonics Phun with Phriends

The following happiness has been brought to you by the letter "I."

K. had been playing the alphabet song on the refrigerator magnet, and she and her friend L. started dancing. Too cute!

And the video thereof:

Then L. was trying to teach her how to do a somersault:

And how to do a hand stand against the wall:

K's try. She actually did have both feet on the wall at one point, but my camera missed that.

Sorry about her PJs--she actually was dressed in a cute dress this morning, but is in a phase of liking to dress and undress herself, so she took it off and replaced it with something else--the only thing she can get to in her dresser. I'm proud that she picked out a matching set!

I'm also proud that, when she has friends over now, she actually sometimes interacts with them as opposed to just playing in a similar location to them.

Mall Play

I went with a friend to the mall (briefly, as there were children with us). We stopped at the play area to let the little ones run around, and K. had a great time. She's really started to be interested in running and climbing, and sat in the car (the red one in the background) and pretended to drive. She climbed up on this pig all by herself, which reminds me of a cute story that I need to add to this blog...So her friend S. was over (he's 8 months old) and K. was playing sweetly with him. At one point, she grabbed his cute baby toes and said "wee, wee wee!" Awww--and a reminder to me again that she really picks up on everything that we do!