Michigan Trip, Part 2

First, one of my high school friends is now an amazing photographer. She came over one morning and set up her studio in my mom's basement - and took these pics! I LOVE THEM!





You can check out her website here.

We got to visit a LOT of horses this trip! First we visited my friend Sue's house and Willa got to pet Roy. Violet, sadly, wanted nothing to do with him!

Willa even got her first ride! The next day we headed over to my friends Shannon & Adam's new place to see their 3 week old filly. She was SO sweet and is super cute! Violet decided she was more her size and got to pet her for a bit. Is there anything softer than a foals nose? Nope!
We also went out to visit Grandpa Rich. We can't wait for this summer when they can go swimming in the lake!
Since it's almost Easter and we LOVE dyeing Easter eggs, we got out the dye and let the kids make pretty eggs.

Finished product!
And Willa being cute!

Michigan Trip, Part 1

We made it! I flew with both girls by myself from Denver to Michigan late last week and SURVIVED! Two planes, a few My Little Pony DVD's and a lot of suckers later we made it safe and sound! Violet and Willa were really great and did wonderfully on the trip. Here they are on the plane:
And our favorite reason to visit - COUSINS!!!We also got to meet the newest member of the family - this is Willa with my mom's new airedale puppy "Klu"
Willa was SOOOO tired and off her regular schedule (thanks to the time change!). She fell asleep on her Aunt Leah's lap at dinner.
Violet and Claire have SO much fun! Here they are being silly at lunch.
We went to a special "Dora the Explorer" storytime at a local library. My sister and I sat with approximately 19,300 other moms and their kids anxiously awaiting the arrival of DORA! I think we all had thought it would be an actual character with the HUGE plastic head. Apparently the only criteria for being Dora is having black hair cut in a Dora-like way. The lady who walked in was approximately 42 years old, wearing a cropped orange shirt, jean shorts and a purple backpack. It was actually pretty hilarious! Despite that, the girls did have fun making some crafts together (Violet's FAVORITE THING!). Here they made telescopes out of paper towel rolls.
Here they are making various kinds of sand-cookies in the sand box.Miss Willa's very sweet profile
Me and my lady!

Willa (and her ginormous thighs) with Claire and her Uncle Joel

There is something so very strange about watching your kids play with all the toys YOU spent hours and hours playing with as a kid. Here is Violet dressing the Barbie & The Rockers Ken doll (remember the Rockers??), while Willa plays with a doll bed that apparently started WWIII - my sister got it for Christmas one year when I was little, and when I climbed in to lay down she threw the world's hugest fit!

I took this before we left for our trip - Violet is really into walking Porter, and bless his canine heart, he goes right along with it. Despite barking neighborhood dogs and a very indecisive Violet (she wants to RUN one second and the next is squatting down examining a bug for a VERY long time). He's such a good boy!

St. Patrick's Day Parade!

Denver has a HUGE St. Patrick's Day Parade and it was so fun! We headed downtown on Saturday with the girls... Can you just SEE the excitement on Willa and Violet's faces? No? Oh.
Willa and Uncle TrentViolet's favorite place to perch. It was good she was up there because it got to be about 5 people deep on the sidewalks - she could actually see!Our view of Union StationAnd the PARADE! It was huge and long. It included many interesting things like lots and LOTS of Irish Dancers, Bag Pipers and... Storm Troopers with Kilts

They also drove some long horns down the street. They ended up stopping right in front of us for a few minutes causing people and kids to SCRAMBLE to get back up on the sidewalk!We got some great advice to park on the other side of the highway and walk to the parade route. It was PERFECT! We got to walk across the highway:
And the pedestrian bridge over the railroad tracks:
Here is Willa in the sunshine (it has been nice and warm here most days! Right now it's cloudy and snowy!).

And here she is chewing on a felt pea pod. Fitting, since she is wearing one on her shirt too!
She has discovered how to move things from one place to the other - she puts them in her mouth. It is so cute!
We also went to the zoo and Violet got her picture taken with the gorilla statue.
Jon and Violet snuggled up on the couch. So sweet until you realize Violet has a baby bottle stuck up her nose. Aw.
Here is a video showing Willa's newest trick - pulling up! On EVERYTHING! And Violet playing peek-a-boo with her. I love how Violet says "Here I! Here me!" I can't correct it, it's too cute! I'm sure she'll figure it out eventually!


And more from the "What Violet Says" files...

• On the ride home from daycare (both girls go for a few hours once a week), we were discussing brothers and sisters. Violet said "I don't want a brother OR a sister. I just want Willa." Yes, I'm writing that down to show to her in about 10 years ;)

• She wants to do everything "Alllllll by myself!" (which is usually quickly followed by "Come WIF me!"). If she wants all of us to do whatever it is by ourselves, she says "All by your self-is"

• Whenever she is being a good girl, she proudly states "I being a GOOOOOD fairy!"

• She has now added to her menagerie of imaginary animals. She now has 2 cats, 1 horse, 1 puppy, 1 turtle and 1 frog. Most of them are named "Hammy"

A day in the life...

It was super duper warm (60) and spring-like yesterday. HURRAY! I am SO excited to be outside again! Here is Violet playing in her sand & water table. THAT was about the best purchase I've ever made (thanks Craigslist!). She plays with it ALL THE TIME! I think she was out there for more than an hour quietly making mud cakes, pea soup and pea milk. :)
Willa in the sunshine! I cannot WAIT for the ground to dry up a little so we can really take some fun pictures!
Violet & Willa have been playing really well together - especially now that Willa can crawl! Violet now has another person to order around and you can often hear "Come here Vilva! Come here!" while Violet tries to lure her into her room to play.
They also play pretty good with some of Violets toys, especially this doll house Violet got for Christmas. Here is how Jon does dishes :)We had a visitor to our back yard this week - our neighborhood fox! We've seen him before on the street but he showed up in our own yard while we were eating lunch. It was pretty exciting! However now Violet spends a lot of time looking out the windows wondering "Fooooox? 'Are you?" and yesterday while we were playing outside she asked if foxes eat people. Great. Unfortunately she witnessed the "circle of life" when we were watching Animal Planet the other night (a wolf took down a baby caribou before I could change it!) and now we have to talk a lot about what animals eat, including, apparently, people.
Annnnnd a reminder not to let Willa play with Violet's markers. She found one without the cap and apparently was trying to test out the "non-toxic" and "washable" claims. Luckily it did wipe off her face and teeth pretty easily.

Squishy Kid!

It's been a pretty big week around here - Willa learned how to CRAWL! She's still brand new at it but every time she tries she gets just a little further and a little more comfortable with her new mobility. She was doing so good scooting so I'm a LITTLE used to leaving her in once place and finding her in another, but she sure can go much FASTER if she crawls.

This has all been so much FUN. See, we didn't really get to do this with Violet. She was in a body cast at this point and even though she did learn how to army-crawl pretty good, she wasn't really able to do what Willa is doing. We didn't KNOW so we didn't know to miss it! But we are absolutely LOVING having a "squishy kid" (which is the opposite of one with a "hard candy shell" as Jon used to put it). I love how she can now go from crawling to sitting up. How if I'm sitting on the floor with her she loves to come over and climb all over me, or play with one hand on me just in case. And the clapping... oh the clapping. Violet did clap, but she didn't do it nearly as much mostly because she had to use her hand/arms so much to get around. Willa claps at oh-so-many things and we just love watching her get excited about things like Violet dancing around, or Daddy coming home from work. It's GREAT!

Here is a video of Willa demonstrating her latest tricks. Crawl. Sit up. Shake maraca.

And for comparison, here is how Violet crawled at this age:


And here is a picture of Violet in her cast at this age:
Another reason we're happy Willa is not in a body cast - you can't get pictures like the ones below! Here she is showing off her tutu.


And finally, a little video of Violet. I just realized that I don't have a lot of her TALKING and she sure does talk a LOT lately! Here she is counting how many puppies she wants.