Pics

swimming with "angel" cousin Juliana
(Juliana sang "Angels We Have Heard On High", giving us Christmas in July at the pool! Or was it "Hark the Herald")

a classic moment

"Mommy, take a picture of me with the flowers!"

another classic "Hannah" moment

"Here's a flower for you!"

Hannah-ism of the week

"Great Gramma is Grandma Debbie's cousin."
"Actually, Great Gramma is her Mommy."
"Oh. Great Gramma is very old, but she loves me very much."

please be joking...

DD had two hair clippies in her hair this morning. Sometime while watching videos, they disappeared. When I asked Hannah what happened to them, she innocently replied, "they up my butt."

So far there are no signs that that is the case.. but I want to know where she got the idea to say that?!?

8 pm update: I found the missing clippies underneath a sleeping bag upstairs. They were not where she said they were. Whew!

photos of the week

Monday- Cousins at the zoo with GrandWendy.
I love how the girls are looking at eachother.

Meerkat Manor- 3 out of 4 looking at the camera isn't so bad!

Monkey

Reading her new book from Dolly Parton's Imagination Library

A photo of Grandaddy's Digital Photo-Art

the excitement is building

"I can get my floaties, and I can get my beach ball, and I can get my bucket and the shovel, and put my hands in the sand. I can go swimming. I can get the crab, and uncle N and aunt C and cousin M and cousin E can get the crab."

Someone is already planning ahead for our next family trip to the beach... next summer, perhaps?
I'm not sure where this narrative came from, Hannah was sitting playing with Daddy and Custard (her imaginary friend who lives in anyone's hand when it's in claw position). All of a sudden she started talking about going to the beach.

a little young to think about this...

but she does. Ever since watching "The Little Mermaid" and "Cinderella", Hannah has been entranced by the idea of weddings, wedding dresses, and getting married.

"mommy get married?" She would ask.
"Mommy and Daddy got married a long time ago," one of us responded.

She calls her fancy dress up dresses "wedding dresses", and tonight she put some blue tulle over her head like a veil and called it her wedding dress.

"I marry my brother?"

"We're glad you love your brother, but when you're much older, hopefully you'll marry someone else," Daddy responded. Yeah, older, like 30.

a girly girl & her mommy

our little girl is the perfect mix of girly girl and tomboy. she LOVES getting dirty, picking flowers, killing bugs, etc. but she also loves to wear her pretty dresses. this one is still a little big, but i couldn't resist the cheesy matching mommy shot after we were ready for church on Sunday.

by the way, by the time we picked her up from nursery, all of her accessories (except her shoes) were in her tote bag.

she has also become quite taken with having her nails painted. After her most recent "pedicure", i decided my toes needed a touch-up, too.

flash-card gospel

Hannah has a set of addition flash cards which came from GranWendy & GranDaddy's downsizing attempts. She frequently takes them out of the box and mixes them up, but we have not really introduced the concept of math symbols for addition.

As I was doing my prenatal exercise video (which was her idea for me to do in the first place), she shoved a card in my face.

"Look, Mom, a pretty 2. Look Mom, a 8. Look Mom, a cross," she said.

"That's actually a plus sign, but it does look like a cross."

"Jesus died to the cross for our sins!" She exclaimed. Over and over and over again. Apparently she was paying attention during her lessons at Family Bible Adventure (our church's VBS).

she knows who to ask...

So, when Gramma & Papa visited this weekend, Hannah sneakily asked Gramma, "How about we look under the cabinet for lotion?" Or something similar.

There is a reason I have rubber bands around the knobs, and Hannah doesn't usually even bother asking me or explore under there herself.....

Of course, Gramma found the lotion. At least she didn't give her scissors. ;)

FBA recap

Our church's Family Bible Adventure week (4 days) has finished for the summer.
Hannah's class got to go to the preschool puppet shows and music time, make crafts, and was told Bible stories. And the weather was perfect for time on the playground.

Yesterday I asked her about her day...
mommy: "What did you do in your class today?"
Hannah: "Andrew.."
mommy: "Oh, did you have fun playing with Andrew?"
Hannah: "Mm hmm. He's my best friend."

This morning I kept Hannah in the room I was working in until her teachers got set up and other kids started arriving. I saw Andrew's Mommy drop him off across the hall, so I asked if she was ready to go play with Andrew and her other friends.

"No. I stay with Mommy."

I'm glad that for now, Mommy trumps friends. It won't be long before she outgrows that. :(

Father's Day

I couldn't choose just one favorite. The "craft" is from nursery at church today.

1st phone call just for Hannah

The phone rang yesterday morning, it was Aunt Becca saying that Juliana wanted to call Hannah. Sooo sweet. I love speakerphone, by the way. Maybe soon the girls will be calling eachother when we aren't paying attention.

Wordless Wednesday

Vacation photos

Part One: Wisconsin

em & mad watch the ducklings

our room at the b & b- looks a bit different than when it was daddy and uncle nate's bedroom!

the kids' table at great-gramma's

kitty lovers

Part Two: Louisville

sitting under an old tree with Aunt Amy at Cherokee Park

playing football with Uncle Adam by the Ohio River

Climbing the pyramid

sunset
Aunt Amy, Uncle Adam, Hannah, Mommy & Daddy

baking cookies

climbing at the playground

Blast from the past

Steph's question about when Hannah 1st enjoyed to the zoo got me thinking... so I searched the archives on Em & Mad's blog, and look what I found:

Indy Zoo: July 2006

em, hannah & mad looking at the chickens

petting a goat- hannah has longer hair now, mommy's is shorter :)

Hannah was about 9 months old, I think, and she got into the things that she could see up close.... the petting zoo and the dolphin show were the things I remember her enjoying the most.

Nashville Zoo

We used our new zoo membership for the first time today. Cousin Juliana, Aunt Becca and some of their friends drove all the way over to see the animals, and since the zoo is so close, we met them. Somehow we managed to be the last to arrive, though.

The Nashville Zoo definitely has a little more of an undeveloped/natural feel than the Memphis Zoo. At the Memphis Zoo, the main exhibits all seem to have big entrances with gift shops specializing in those featured animals. For example. the entrance to the Panda bears and other Asian animals is a big Pagoda section. The Northwest Territory exhibit which holds the Polar Bears and Sea Lions has Totem Poles. The Nashville exhibits have nice signs welcoming you to them. Both zoos are very nice and worth visiting in their own right.

Anyway, the kids seemed to have fun, and we Moms survived! (I enjoyed it, but I know why we got the membership... so we can see a little at a time without getting too exhausted.)

for more pics...

from Steph & company's visit last week, check out Caroline & Kimberly's Corner.

temperment

It amazes me how certain character traits seem to stick with our little girl. When she was a baby, loud, sudden noises bothered her. If someone talked to loudly while she was eating her bottle, she would startle and get upset.

When we made cookies today, Hannah did not want to be near the electric hand mixer. Anytime I turned it on, she would climb down from the chair she was perched on and run across the room until I turned it off. Then she would climb back onto the chair for the next step of the cookie making process.

cuteness

Good thing she doesn't seem to be allergic to clover or dandelions:

Breaking into the new play dough:

1st time helping Mommy make homemade oatmeal chocolate chip cookies (and stealing some tastes of the dough).

Sweet smile after eating her baked cookie: