New Friends, New Toys

We got K. this beautiful swingset/playset, as she likes to be outside and likes to play.  She had a few fun days on it, then saw a ladybug and has been avoiding climbing since (she still swings).  Here is playgroup this past Tuesday.  Notice the plethora of children throughout the fort.And notice that K. is not among them.  She’s upstairs in her room, playing alone.  She did warm up and play the the kiddos a bit later on, though, and when they leave she says, “Where’d friends go?”

N, however, likes to interact with people all of the time, and cries whenever people leave her.  Here she hangs out with her new friend S.  They share a mutual interest in shoes and accessories.But wait…what’s that up in the top of the fort?  It’s K! How was she enticed to go up there, you may ask?  Daddy came up with a great new toy for her!  He made a chalkboard (complete with a holder for chalk) that makes it exciting for her to climb to the top.  He went up with her the first time (notice his handsome elbow in the picture), but she’s since gone up alone!  Success!

Riding the Rails

K. is always interested in trains (“Choo choo train!”), and I was discussing this with my friend, telling her I might want to get K. some type of simple train set to play with.  My friend said that she had one just sitting in a closet since they had gotten her son the [name brand] train set—and she offered her spare to me! Mom and Dad have as much fun putting the tracks together as K. does playing with it.  Oddly, she prefers to just move one train car around the tracks.

Mid-Week Smiles

Dueling Cheeks

Even though I maintain my position that the girls don’t really look alike, at least from the nose up, there’s something similar when they make this particular face.  Don’t you think so? 

Come Sail Away

 

If the Crown Fits

“I feel so pretty!  And I’ve been pulling myself around the floor a lot and can actually get myself from laying on my tummy to sitting up!” Amazingly, this wasn’t of my doing—K. brought the tiara, then brought several necklaces and asked me to put them on her sister.  I guess the upside of always putting N. in her silly headbands is that she has a lot of tolerance for things on her head—or she just liked the idea of being a princess.“Who you callin’ princess?”

  “Darn.”

Hoop Dreams

I wandered through the dollar store, where I don’t think I’ve actually been in a decade, and found a plethora of things I could purchase for K.  I limited myself to two items: a notebook for drawing and a hula hoop, which she always seems interested in when we’re somewhere there is one.  She saw it and said, “hula hoop” and proceeded to show me that she actually gets the gist of how to do it!  She starts well, puts her hands up, and swivels; she keeps the hoop circling longer than her mom can.

Sweet New Baby

The girls and I went to visit our friend S’s new baby.  He’s such a cutie—and I think he looks a lot like his big brother. Me with the baby—he’s so sweet, and snuggling him reminds me of how old the little N. has gotten. With his daddy. Baby yawns!And he actually opened his eyes to say hello! N: “ooh, technology!”

Pedal to the Metal

Guess who learned how to pedal her bicycle?

(And in other news, I made her dress and blogged about it here.)  

Inchworm

For someone who isn’t crawling yet, N. is certainly mobile. (You might want to mute your computer—she pretty much just complains the entire time she’s moving).

To Market

A farmers’ market opened just down the street from us (actually, nearly exactly a mile down the road), so we went with our dear neighbor this past Saturday to check it out.

There were several vendors with yummy food items (and I’m sure there will be more produce when it’s not May), and a nursery (the tree kind, not the baby kind) where K. and our neighbor M. stopped to smell the roses—literally.The market was fun, but the highlight of the trip for us (besides actually going for a walk) was the cute park we got to walk through on the way there!  K, who tends to be cautious on streets and would not get out of the stroller to walk and hold my hand, even on the sidewalks in our neighborhood, felt good enough on the paths in the woods to get out and walk—even run!“I love nature!”
“I woke up from my nap for this?”  

Flying

I remember, as a child, liking to “fly” on the feet of my parents while they were laying down.  K. also likes to fly, and N. too (though I’ll say that the 13 pound difference between them is quite noticeable).  Kate was having her turn flying in the air, and I took advantage of her balance abilities to snap some photos.  I tried to crop my toes out of the pictures, since my most recent pedicure is not recent at all. 

High Chair Smiles

   

If only she were this enthused about eating.