Junk Food Junkie

We stopped at a gas station mini-mart over the long weekend to fuel up the car and ourselves a bit, and Helen very much got into the spirit (I think here, she's saying "gum-mi's" as the camera clicks- she loves gummy bears, unfortunately...)
Junk food re-group. We only ended up purchasing a snack mix that left her face and fingers bright orange (no pics, sorry).
Can you hear the music in the background? ("...but at night I'm a junk food junkie, good lord have pity on me..." [Larry Groce])? :-) Very apropos given the youtube link I just sent dad and Cath not too long ago! ;-)

August Catch-Up

More from the Michigan trip, bubble-palooza, part II.
John makes awesome bubbles.
So does Sophia.
And Chelsey.
Here are some pics from when Helen opened up presents from Aunt Naomi and family and Aunt Sarah and family - it was a clothes and sticker extravaganza!! (note stickers on Helen's new shirt).
One thrown in from last night actually - silly goose throwing herself on the couch.
Modeling Aunt Naomi's new outfit - she loves the elephant!
This one was taken on her birthday proper, before we left for the day. In this picture, she is officially 2 years old!

Sandbox

It's shaping up to be an interesting week thanks to a sandbox, a tongue and a red, plastic shovel. Helen had a nice, big lick of her sandbox shovel caked with wet sand and various other detritus at the local park Monday evening which I think is the culprit of a lovely night of vomiting Tuesday and diarrhea filled Wednesday. Mom always said - listen to that gut level, but Helen wanted to play in the sand SO BAD and it had been SO LONG since we had played in the sand... ! I'm a sucker and a softy, but no more (when it comes to sand). Here's hoping this experience will prepare her stomach and intestines for a tour of a far off distant land someday.

Anyway... she's loads better now. Keeping down liquids and food so far and developing a per-chant for long rides in the country before bedtime (we've done this 2 nights in a row) and I rather like it (she has a strong aversion to home at bedtime, made more keen by her upset tummy - "no home, mommy" is often repeated and now with heartfelt tears). It's really pretty around here with hills and curves and lots and lots of big trees. If you were here, I would show you one of them I stumbled on last night - it's gorgeous, enormous and absolutely perfect.

Birthday Girl

We celebrated Helen's birthday over the weekend. Can't believe she's already 2 years old as of tomorrow... time flies when you're having fun! Almost exactly 2 years ago to the hour, I woke up with contractions and that was the beginning of the beginning! Who knew she would end up with ringlets, a deep and zany laugh and a deep and abiding love of "crackies" (cookies/crackers) and Elmo.
H and the F cousins.

Peeing our pants and attack of the large-footed baby!

We are peeing our pants, we're so excited to see everyone! See you soon!

Helen was kindly given a Bitty Baby from someone at work who I call her "toy benefactress" (her daughter is a year and a half older than Helen). Helen wanted Bitty Baby to have some shoes on, so on went the tennies. She looks like she's ready to go clobber some really itty bitty townspeople, doesn't she?

Long time no see!

Yup - we're still here. Another month behind us and half the summer to go! It's been really hot, go figure, and I think we're finally getting used to it. Here are the things we've been doing lately:

1. Dancing to Crocodile Rock from season 2 muppets (see 1st 2 pics below). In the first one, Helen realized these glasses are similar to the ones Elton John wears. Groovy. She also likes to dance with stuffed animals and makes sure we both have one to dance with too.
   
2. Swimming on the weekends - found a great pool nearby. She enjoys watching the big kids dive and jump.
3. Watching sesame street skits over and over and over again online (we're back to that again).
4. Running around in just a diaper after bathtime (huge win for H - delay in bedtime, but gets her in and out of the bathtub without tears).
5. Crafting, crafting and more crafting (gluing things to paper and drawing with markers).
6. Crafting while wearing only a diaper.

Boogy-ing.
Some pics from tonight.

She likes to pull the things off that she glues or sticks - double the fun!

Pigtails

Every time I muster up the courage to put pigtails in Helen's hair, I have to take a picture and share because it's just so darned cute. I'm pretty sure the last time she had pigtails is documented somewhere down there in the April or early May archives! I should document how this looks at the end of the day - soooo much different. She has been very patient lately when I mess with her hair too, so I'll have to try more.

We've been having a great and mellow week. Helen's sense of humor seems to be coming out at the seams all the sudden - everything is silly and funny! Yeah! There's nothing better than to giggle over flung captain crunch that was once on your frozen yogurt at yogli mogli thanks to some serious elbow grease trying to spoon some up to your mouth (side thought - who knew captain crunch could be so good on frozen confections? I would never buy a box for breakfast, but I might now for an ice cream party). Anyway - happy Thursday! Almost Friday and I am sooo looking forward to the weekend. Super hot here and muggy. I miss the drought.

Fun Memorial Day Weekend with the Fam

Helen and I made a quick trip up to MI for the memorial day weekend. She did a stellar job on the plane, on my lap, both there and back. Thank goodness for early flights, huge Elmo sticker books and small ziplock baggies full of snacks!
We had so much fun with bubbles this trip. We ran through an enormous bottle of bubbles!
J and S (above) are excellent bubble blowers.
Helen, not so much. She puts the wand right on her lips and blows, but by that point, all the bubble juice is on her face, so no bubbles. Probably not very tasty.

Dad got a new, nifty riding lawn mower - here's his first ride. Helen loved seeing Grandpa on his "go-go".
It was very warm over the weekend, but none of the local pools were opened up yet. Luckily grandma had this kiddie pool to play in. Helen and Aunt Judy enjoying spraying and splashing each other.
Helen really likes to help (as she says, "hep") out. Here she is helping grandma get all the freshly cut grass of the driveway.
More bubble playing in the street!
Grandma was so cute - she set herself off from the rest of the pack and quietly blew bubble wand after bubble wand. There's something mesmorizing about it!
The wii dance revolution in G&G's basement. That was so much fun to watch! Sadly, the three in this picture will be beaten by yours truly in the next dance competition.
Had fun playing in the sprinkler too!

Needless to say, Helen was EXHAUSTED this week. Thanks so much to everyone for traveling so much up/down to G&G's house. We can't wait to see you again!

Home safe!

We made it home alright today and are trying to catch up on:

1) Sleep. H in bed by 6:45 pm and badly needed. Me soon too.
2) Blogging. Took a quick video of H on the flip tonight after her bath, right before bed. She was so cute pushing her kitty around on her pooh-mobile.

More updates later - had so much fun in MI and miss you much. Pics of that soon. XO.
(P.S. bought just dance online tonight too - Cecily, Joe and Sophia, you are going DOWN in July. DOWN.)

Iseedis?

So, about a month ago, I sit down at our regular desktop computer at home after a day at work and a night with H where things weren't super hunky dory (i.e. H was a super crank-en-fuss). I put this in the google search engine: "extremely guilty working mother". I look through the search results. Click on a couple, skim some stuff, then hmmm. Something seems to be wrong. There are messages popping up that say that I'm unprotected and am being attacked by a virus. And then my web browser starts spawning windows such as ww .viagra.com (and much worse things) and then I know I've been duped. Must of been some right-winger evangelist hacker who thinks working mothers are the devil who planted that bug. That made me feel better.

We figured out what it is and still haven't fixed it per se. For some reason, it's sort of went away and we can pretty much use our computer, but I still stay away from it mostly. I think D is going to repair it soon, if possible (or wipe the drive), but it's so hard to fit things like that in, especially when you have other computers at your disposal and it's not a priority (eh hem, I'm not on the clock).

So... that, plus I've just been pooped lately = no posts. There will be more soon, especially after this coming weekend. I can't wait and H nods her head "yes, yes" when I ask her - "are you excited to go see grandma, grandpa and your aunts and uncle and cousins?". So excited.

H has been adding steadily to her vocabulary lately (and phrases) after a long dry spell. Daddy went to get her Sunday morning from the crib while I continued to lay in bed still and she toddled into the room saying "Get up! Get up! Get up mommy!". Where did that come from? And she says this constantly all the sudden - "Iseedis?", meaning "can I see this?". And, my favorite, "sTOP!" whenever I so much as start humming anything. She does not like my singing, no she doesn't. I suspect it's not because she undervalues my superb melodious voice so much as "can it! they play simpery, kiddy music ALL DAY at daycare and I need some silence PLEASE!". I get that.

Anyway, in lieu of a current photo of H, here are some ramblings. See you soon! XO

Token Pic

I know it's been a while. Here she is on Friday morning.

Lovely visit with my mom and dad!

My mom and dad came down for a visit last Friday and we had a wonderful time hanging out together over the weekend. After arriving, my mom and I picked up Helen and brought her back home to grandpa and daddy. She was a bit under the weather (umpteenth cold so far in her life - child's nose is apparently only in the "on" position for the foreseeable future...), but was still her cheery self and brought G&G quickly into the "read to me, play with me, kisses, kisses, hugs, hugs" fold. Seriously - it's like they live next door and come by everyday - she adores them.
After a brief hiatus, H loves to read books again. A lot. As you'll see.
Helen doesn't like to say a whole lot of words right now, but she knows what a lot of words mean. When we drill her on what's in a book, she knows what a pumpkin, hot air balloon and other things are without missing a beat. She still won't say her name (we had about 3 lovely days where she said it when we asked her what her name was about 2 months ago) and won't say anything we ask her to except "apple" and "go-go" (which means any cool means of transportation, like a motorcycle, bike, go-kart, etc). She has a nifty "things that go" book, her fave, hence her love of things that "go-go". She did try out three new words this weekend, ever so slyly and very shyly - grandma (gan-ma), grandpa (gan-pa), and banana. I guess she doesn't like to mince words. And she won't say them anymore, no matter how nicely I ask. I wonder how many other words she says that I miss completely because she says them so softly or when I just don't notice!
Ganma and ganpa playing with H at the park.

Some computer time with grandpa. :-)
We spent a lot of time on our porch, thanks to the fact that our chain-smoking neighbors moved out (hooray!) and that I bought a shop vac to clean it up (1/8" of pollen coating everything was just too gross to deal with a broom and dust pan anymore!).
Read.
Read read read.
Grandpa does such an excellent job playing the boob and Helen just eats it up. Here, grandpa is putting Helen's shoes and socks on, which first started off with grandpa putting the socks on Helen's hands! After that point, Helen paid close attention to grandpa to make sure he was doing things correctly. :-)
Grandma had lots of fun with Helen at the park!
They even found a fuzzy caterpillar!

Southern Belle

Here's our little southern belle, just a walkin' up Stone Mountain. I do declare, she looks so dainty in that hat.
Eatin' chips and guacamole with a spoon - mmm.
Lately, Helen enjoys bringing us lots of things. Here, daddy is the king of stuffed animals.
A little piece of - toast!
Putting caps back on things is another fave.
Here, Helen is giving Sebastian a sticker. Aunt Sarah sent her some easter stickers and they were a HUUUGE hit. She enjoys placing them all over, including our legs and bellies until they run out of stickiness (then they work great in the bathtub). Speaking of bathtubs, she insisted on getting in the big tub today and I don't think there's any going back - she was absolutely delighted with the extra water and space to scooch around. We accidentally found out today that one of her foam toys makes an excellent stopper, so viola! A real bathtub for Helen!

Ala Peanut Butter Sandwiches, Part 2 (videos)