Family Vacation

One week ago today this is what we were doing. Soaring above the clouds, admiring breathtaking mountain views while on a plane heading

south for our first family vacation since the birth of Baby Sister. Our destination...

Too Stinkin' Cute!!

The Girl has been taking ballet lessons since mid-January. This afternoon the semester drew to a close with a class recital. It was a recital for the entire ballet school and all of the performances combined lasted well over an hour. The Girl's class, "Creative Dance" accounted for less than 10 minutes of the recital but had to be the cutest portion by far.
Here she is along with her Daddy, warming up with some poses. Unfortunately, J forgot his baby blue leotard at home but luckily his t-shirt just happened to match.

Baby Sister patiently waiting for the performance hall to open.

The start of the dance.

Twirling her ribbon.

Sitting (in the middle) while the other girls in the class have their turn.

Plans...

This afternoon the Girl drew a picture of her and O. She is on the left wearing the skirt (of course) and he is on the right. I thought it was a pretty terrific picture of the two of them. So this evening at dinner we showed it to the Girl's Daddy and she began to explain to him that it is a picture of her and O, "because we have the same plan." J questioned her about the plan and she began to divulge that the plan is "...what you said I couldn't do until I got older. You know, go on a date." She went on to elaborate that when she is old enough she's going to drive the car by herself to O's house "...by myself and Mommy isn't allowed to go." J asked her how old she'd be when she was old enough. She held up three fingers, paused to think and then reconsidered and added another finger. To which J replied, "That's absolutely right, when you're 34 you may go on a date with O." Hee, hee!!!!

Sippy Cup

We gave Baby Sister her first taste of water yesterday and it was her maiden voyage with the sippy cup as well. The Girl did not take a liking to the sippy cup, in fact she flat out refused them and clung to her bottles well past the age of 2. So I figured I might have better luck with Baby Sister if I introduced the sippy cup earlier than I did with the Girl. As you can see, Baby Sister definitely figured it out and she was quite intent on being able to focus on the lid while drinking.

Oh what a day!!

Today was a fun-filled, sunshiney day spent with friends. We did a little bit of just about everything that is perfect on a late spring day:

...smiling at the park,

...flying a kite,

...throwing weeds in our face (the Girl got mad that I told her she couldn't throw weeds at her friends so she decided to throw them at herself instead)

...eating soft-serve ice cream cones,

...letting Baby Sister play in the sand (her first time!)

...striking a pose on the beach,

...eating sand,

...collecting shells,

...riding on a ginormous boat,

...eating huge, delicious sugar snap peas at the farmer's market,

and after all of that, these three friends still hadn't had quite enough of each other so it was off for a dip in Miss A's new pool.

t.r.o.u.b.l.e.

...that's what I'm in. I've had it easy for far too long - 254 days to be exact. Much like the Girl before her, Baby Sister has abided her sweet time in the arena of mobility. I've always just been able to lay her down on a blanket and be secure in the knowledge that if I left her alone for a few minutes I would return and find her more or less in exactly the same spot. That has all changed as of today. It was a typical Tuesday afternoon, Baby Sister was laying on a blanket in the hallway outside of the Girl's ballet class and I was right next to her chit-chatting with the other Moms when I noticed that she'd begun rolling and didn't stop until she'd reached another Mom that was sitting on the floor at the opposite end of the blanket. And not that Baby Sister hasn't rolled before, she has many times but usually only in pursuit of a toy that was near enough so that all she had to do was roll onto her tummy and then she'd quickly roll back to her back as she isn't too fond of tummy-time. But never more than a few consecutive rolls. This afternoon she was back and forth the entire time that the Girl was in ballet. Then when we got home, as soon as I put her down on the floor she was back at it. Man are we in trouble!! With the Girl, we never really had to worry about her putting anything into her mouth, unless it was her binky. Baby Sister is an entirely different story, anything that she can get her hands on automatically goes straight into her mouth. So I spent part of the afternoon rushing around the house in a frenzied state clearing the floor of numerous small toys (miniscule doll shoes, jewelry, crayons) and lecturing the Girl on the importance of picking up after herself. I even found an industrial-type staple on the carpet in a corner - oh the horror!!!!

...ahem.

Surely cherry Chapstick was never meant to be applied with such abandon. Maybe it's time for a lesson in moderation...

Garage Sale-ing!

What do you do at a garage sale?! Why, dress in your best attire and have a tea party of course!!

Miss A's Mom was having a garage sale and we went over to keep Miss A and her Mom company during above-mentioned sale.

Here is Baby Sister trying out one of the items for sale and getting ready to make a call on her cell. Notice the blanket under her feet, just like her sister before her, she does not like to have her feet touch the grass. She was holding those tootsies up off of the ground until I put this blanket down.

And here she is so helpfully peeling the price tag off of the merchandise. Guess she didn't want it being sold.