Concert Buff

My friend Audrey and I are so cool.  We went to a rockin' concert on Saturday!  I mean, our moms took us... but whatever.  The music was awesome.  I haven't listened to much Kindie Rock, but I really enjoyed the genre!  Great beats, perfect for some toddler dance moves.

Rock on, Audrey!

 My mom got some video of some of our sweet moves.  Audrey loves to dance as much as I do!

Audrey and I are BFF's.  You can tell, because we held hands the whole car ride home.  I also spent much of the day Sunday asking if I could see Audrey again.  Ah-dee?  Ra-ra.  Ah-dee?  That's my way of telling my mom to hurry up and schedule another playdate.  Thankfully, I got to see her at school on Monday.

 Sunday was pretty fun too, even if I didn't get to chill with Audrey.  Mom and Dad took me out to lunch to watch the Steelers game.  We won!  I ate french fries!  It was pretty cool!

Go Steelers, go!

Orioles!

Despite the enthusiasm I showed last year for baseball, my parents only just got me to my second game a full year later!  I finally convinced Mom and Dad that I needed to get to a game, and as luck would have it Dad's work was planning a trip to Camden Yards.

As you can see, I enjoyed last night's game against the Ray's just as much as last year's against the Yankee's!  In fact, the Orioles won 6 to 2 last night, so this year was even better!

My awesome Orioles hat even fits better than it did last year.  A man with a BIG camera on his shoulder saw me wearing it, and put me up on the Jumbo-tron!  It was so much fun to have all the fans cheering for me!  A little after I was on the Jumbo-tron, Dad got a text from a friend asking, "Are you at the Oriole's fan, or did I just see Laura's twin on the screen?"  Awesome!

Poker Night 2011

I spent the weekend up at Grandma and Grandpa's house!  I was really looking forward to going, because my cousins Emmy and Andrew were going to be there too.  They are technically my second cousins, but I love them so much.  Emmy is really sweet, and loves playing with me.

A game of ball with Emmy

The grown-ups were being silly, as always.  On a nice, beautiful, sunny day (our first in a long time!), they were hunched at tables with these small paper slips and stacks of plastic coins.  Sometimes one grown-up would have a lot of the plastic coins, but then he'd have to give them all to another person.  I guess it was a pretty good exercise in sharing those funny plastic coins.

Grown-ups are so silly

While the grown-ups played their odd game, I made use of the sunny weather and the pool!  My Uncle Vin's mom was visiting - I just love Mrs. Margaret!  She was my pool buddy for a while.

Chillaxin' in the pool

The grown-ups played their game for a long, long time.  Finally, after the sun had set and it was almost bedtime, they picked a winner.  Emmy's dad, Kevin, got to take all the plastic coins, all at once!  And then he traded those plastic coins for that green paper my mom is always after!

Winner, winner!

If I had known the game led to the green paper, I might have been more interested in learning how to play!

Labor Day

Hi Guys!  My mom sort of took over Le Blog for a while there, but here I am!  Back at the keyboard and ready to share some of my awesome adventures.  This past weekend was really exciting.  For some crazy reason, my mom and dad were home for THREE days instead of just two!  We had an action-packed weekend in honor of the third day.

On Saturday, I put on a party dress for my buddy Jackson's 2nd birthday!  I like getting dressed up.  I do not like having my hair done, but beauty is a sacrifice.

 Jackson's party was a lot of fun.  A bunch of my best friends were there, including Julia and Danny!  We played with trucks and balloons, ate cake, and whacked a fire truck with a stick for a while.  I'm still trying to figure out why the parents were actually encouraging such violent acts, but whatever.  They seemed to be amused, and you know how hard it is to keep those parents amused.  We were good sports and went along with it.  Besides, after the moms destroyed (the poor, innocent) fire truck, we got to scramble for packs of goldfish and raisins, so it was a win-win!

When we got home from the party, my Aunts Liz and Maria were at the house!  I got to visit with the aunties, which is always fun.  They always make such a fuss over me!  I love it!  We didn't get too many pictures (still without a camera, MOM), so you'll just have to take my word for it.

Mom and Dad thought we should spend our extra day off at the State Fair.  The weather was getting cloudy so at ten, Mom said, "Now or never!"  Halfway to the fair, it started to pour.  So we went to Best Buy to get a camera.  Mom and Dad got confused, did NOT buy a camera, but did receive a phone call from Danny's mom:  the rain had stopped (for a minute) and they were heading to the fair too!  So off we went to the fair.  It.was.AWESOME.

Mom tortured me on the carousel.  She couldn't figure out what was so scary about pretty ponies going up and down, up and down.  I cried.  The whole time.  But when I got off the ride, Danny was there!  With his mom, Becky!  Who is my favorite!  I love her so much, I often call her "Mama!"  We hung around the fair, ate some fried oreos, won a few toys, saw LOTS of cows, pigs and sheep, and then got to ride some tractors!  Other than the cows (moo!), the tractors were the highlight of my day.  I could have spent hours, just sitting on my tractor, rolling around the fair.

 I'm so glad the rain held off for my first fair experience!  Tuesday, I was back to school again.  It was Grampy's birthday, so I posed with Riesling for this photo.  I'm wearing what Mom calls "A True Fall Outfit," complete with pants!  I guess Mom is really excited for some cooler weather.  Hope you are enjoying a drier fall week than we are!

Summer of Classics

This summer I decided to make my own reading list, a so-called Summer of Classics Reading Challenge.  I made time to spend reading, rather than lazing on the couch watching mindless TV after work/dinner/housework.  I reachd out to friends and family for recommendations, and focused on the classics.  Here's how I did:

Finished:
The Once and Future King by T.H. White
This was so much fun - I can't wait to read it with Laura!
The Count of Monte Christo by Alexandre Dumas
I love action-adventure-romance novels!
The Jungle Books by Rudyard Kipling
Another great one to share with Laura!
The Scarlet Pimpernel by Countess Orczy
More action-adventure-romance - this time with a little farce!
Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott
Action-adventure-romance, but with a much darker side.
Women in Love by D.H. Lawrence
Not my favorite book.  Ever.  But glad to know that Lawrence isn't for me.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
Absolutely beautiful.  Inspiring and beautiful.
Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling
Fun and uplifting.  It's lovely to cheer for the main character!

This was such a fun way to keep up with reading over the summer.  I hope to do another reading challenge next summer, again focusing on the classics!  And while I might not make a big deal of it, the fall I'll be catching up on some children's literature that I missed the first time around.  I just need to find a copy of A Wrinkle in Time to get me started.

August Recap

August 2011:

• Lately, Laura has been pointing to things left and right, asking "What is this?"  She often repeats the words (with her own unique flair) after us. 
• She has said "suit," "glasses," "house," "upstairs," and "downstairs" a few times after prompting.
• Laura loves to say "bye!" to everything she sees and points to on her way to bed at night, sort of like "Goodnight Moon," a classic story that I know she'd love if she just sat still long enough to have it read to her.
• Favorite book continues to be "Horns to Toes and In Between," by Sandra Boynton, and has added "cheek" to her list of known and spoken body parts.
• Laura is adding words like crazy.  I can hardly keep up with writing them down.  Some of hte more memorable ones include:  rawberries (strawberries), flowers, hat (which she insists on wearing with great frequency), inside, outside, HOT & cold.
• Laura is really catching onto the idea of names.  Her friends, Ah-see (Audrey), Ja-see (Jackson, both of them), Danna (Danny), and Joo-ah (Julia) come up in frequent conversations.
• It's - and freeing - to have Laura talking so much more.  She can really make decisions and choices, which can be frustrating for her parents, but really shows her personality!

At Laura's 18 month check-up (at nearly 19 months), she was:
21 pounds, 7 ounces
31.5 inches tall
46 3/4 cm head

Back to Basics

You may have heard about Irene.  I have heard lots and lots about Irene, and I think people assume I have met her.  Apparently, she stopped by the house overnight this weekend, but I must have been asleep because I don't remember meeting anyone named Irene.  She can't have been a very nice person though, because she stole our electricity!

Well, without any TV or refrigerator, the folks and I have decided to get back to basics a little bit.  We have played and played and played till our sides hurt with laughter.  We have ridden pretend ponies:

 And taken walks to see the damage Irene left behind (seriously, this woman is up to NO good!):

We've had candlelit evenings.  We've read LOTS of books.  We've played pretend.  We've had playdates at friends' houses.

We don't have power, which means we don't have a microwave.  My mom has been feeding me a rather strange assortment of foods.  But we're making do.  I hear it's a blessing we have hot water, for which we thank something called "Natural Gas."  We'll get our electricity back sometime, but I'm having just as much fun without it!

Last night, my dad was talking about the TV.  I looked over at it, pointed and said, "OH, yes!"  I had completely forgotten about the TV!  Sorry to my friends Dora, Diego, Elmo and Cookie Monster - I guess I don't need you that much after all!

Words With Friends (and Toddlers)

Laura's mom here, to give a brief update on the word explosion in our house!  There must have been vocabulary in the air on the Cape, because Laura has taken off at repeating (and remembering) new words.  For a while, she has known that Riesling is a Dog (her first real word), and she would sometimes repeat the name, "Ries" (said as "Eese), but mostly just called the poor thing "Dog."  After spending the week with two dogs, Laura has really started to understand the concept of names.  Both are dogs, but hers is "Ries" (with the R in front!) and the small fiesty one is "PiPPEEEE!" 

Following the name concept, she spent all week calling her Grammy "Ammy."  Which is adorable and made my mother pleased as punch.  Grampy, as yet, does not have a name.  Laura had a little trouble pronouncing Taylor, Torie and Julia, but definitely made some attempts.  She came closest with "Dare" for Taylor - and she adores her Uncle Taylor!  Laura has also, on a related note, named her best lamb "Bah."  Fitting.

It seems that everyday she is repeating a new word.  You can see the gears turning in her head, as she mulls over a word and then practices the sound on her tongue.  Sometimes she gets the word right on the first try.  Other times, she'll say the word with her own personal style before she gets it the way she likes.  She will always repeat a request for us until we decipher what she's asking.  When we guess correctly, her face lights up and she says, "YESH!" and nods her little head. 

Laura is even starting to string words together.  Most noteably, "whats dat?" as she points to something.  She also says "app-el-juice" with equal emphasis on each syllable.  And the other day as I was carrying her in an odd (and uncomfortable) fashion, she shouted "NO GOT!" over and over in response to me saying "I've got you, I've got you."  This is one smart cookie we are dealing with! 

And according to her check-up yesterday, she is perfectly healthy.  I knew that already.

Cape Escape

Boy, do I have a lot to blog about!  A week ago, my mom and dad were running around the house all frantic.  Bags were piled up at the door.  Mom was yelling about things she didn't want to forget.  Ries was running around so she wouldn't be forgotten.  I was eating some hastily prepared dinner while wearing my jammies.  That should have been my first clue that something was up.  And then they shoved me in the car with Riesling.  Ries was excited to be in the car; I was irate.  This car ride was seriously cutting into my playtime.  So I might have been a little whiney.  Which might have caused my parents to stop driving in Delaware.  Where we might have picked up a fellow traveler of the cicada variety in the backseat of the car.  Which might have caused Ries to freak out.  Oops!

Once we got the cicada out of the (moving) car, I fell asleep and slept for a long, long time.  When I woke up, we were at a strange, foggy house in the middle of the night - and my Grammy, Grampy and Aunt Torie were all there to see me!  Confused?  Yes I was.  But very excited! 

We spent the whole next week playing at Grammy and Grampy's house.  We went to the Band Concert:

We cooked and ate and ate and cooked:

We played at the beach, and splashed in the water, and dug in the sand:

We watched the fish come in at the fish pier:

Down they go!  Down the chute!

At least four seals bobbing by the pier

We also did a whole lot of other fun stuff, BUT my mom's camera is broken so there is NO documentation whatsoever!  I mean, it's been a welcome break from the papparazzi, but still.  I had a blast playing with Grammy, Grampy, Super Grammy, Aunt Torie, Uncle Taylor, Julia, Riesling and Pippi.  I mean I had A BLAST.  I can't wait to get back to the Cape!

Lazing About

Whew, guys.  It's been a crazy-busy-fun summer, and we're only just halfway through!  We have a lot more planned ahead of us, but this past weekend was a welcome respite from the busy.  We spent Saturday chilling in our jammies, just playing and being silly.

Tug of War with Daddy

Mom and I ventured out of the house (in play clothes; we're not heathens) on Saturday afternoon to get some supplies she needs for a Christmas Tree project.  Um, Mom?  It's August.  Why are you already starting on Christmas trees?  I think Grammy's Christmas illness is contagious.  But I guess that's not such a bad thing to catch.

On Sunday, the family headed to my friend Julia's house for a little pool time.  The skies looked threatening before we left our house, but I had a feeling it would clear up by the time we got there.  I was right!  We played and splashed in the pool, then played and ate in the cool shade of Julia's (and her parents) screened in porch.  My mom kept saying, "Next house... next house..."  I think she wants one of those screened porches!  It was a lot of fun seeing Julia with her mom and dad for a few hours. 

If there's one thing I've learned in all my eighteen months, it's that one should try to get out of the house a little, even on lazy weekends.  It's so much more fun to spend the day at home, after getting a little fresh air somehow!