Our young maestro

Elizabeth still loves all kinds of music. She seems particularly fond of classical music - especially her Baby Sleep and Baby Einstein CDs from her aunts. She'll now go over to the radio and point, grunt and "dance" until we turn music on for her. And, she really loves to play the piano. She'll pull herself up and start playing the keys:



David swears he heard some Mozart the other day while she was pounding. She's also turning into quite the little composer. Her favorite new piece is entitled "Ode to Barney" with subtitle "Bang a little louder, please." She particularly likes to play the high notes, and she seems to have decided it's more fun to stand up on the piano bench to play them, so she can get a true fortissimo:



Of course, mommy or daddy has to be close by to catch her while she's doing that, as she tends to get carried away!

Working with Mommy

Today, we drove to a small private fairground outside Cincinnati for a claims association picnic I had to go to for work. Not a bad way to spend a Sunday afternoon - if you have to spend it working, that is!

Elizabeth got to ride her first carousel. She loved the lights and the music, but she didn't like sitting on the horses when they went up and down. She was still a tad bit too small for that!





She also got to ride the kiddy cars that went around in a circle. They were actually pretty fast, but she enjoyed it once she stopped hanging on for dear life!



Add into the fun some balloons...





...and some ice cream...





and it was a perfect afternoon!

Dog days of summer

This is a post I wrote yesterday, but the power went out before I could get it on the blog!

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I've been neglecting my blogging duties this month. There's still not very much to post about, but I figured I'd post something before I start getting nasty e-mails from some of you. Sorry, but we haven't taken any pictures in a while to share with you. We're neglecting our duties!

It has been really hot and humid in Kentucky this week. Reminds us why we don't want to live in Houston! Elizabeth has enjoyed a lot of time in her wading pool. After a nasty fall when she tried to climb out of the pool on the concrete (which resulted in her first bloody lip), David got smart and moved it into the grass under a tree. Now, he sits on a lawnchair in the shade while she plays in the water. Looks mighty comfortable to me! I had a major "redneck" moment one evening this week when I took Elizabeth down to look at her pool, and she wanted to get in, so I just stripped her down and put her in there butt-naked. I have to admit, she looked pretty cute! Fortunately, none of the neighbors were around!

Last night, there were nasty thunderstorms in the area, so we took Elizabeth to play at the playground in the middle of the mall. She absolutely loved it! She flirted with everyone she saw, waving and grinning. And, we even caught her trying to kiss several of the little boys on the playground. One of the older boys (~3 years old) started following her around, alternating between trying to hug her and trying to sit on her. I have a feeling we're in for some trouble in her teenage years!

Not much else going on around here. David's still painting the outside of the house and we're both playing tennis in the little spare time we have. Elizabeth's still growing like a weed. Her favorite tricks are trying to see how much food she can fit in her mouth at one time and trying to kiss the cat. The latter activity has resulted in the following conversation:

"Elizabeth, what does a cat say?" Her response: "Mow" (rhymes with "ow")

"Elizabeth, what does a *mad* cat say?" Her response: a fast, quick "Hiss" - complete with spit.

I'm afraid she still likes Scarlet a whole lot more than Scarlet likes her!

She's still not walking, but we're convinced she'll learn before she graduates from kindergarten, so we're not worried about it. She'll occasionally humor us by "walking" a few steps while holding onto her hands. She'll primarily do this to walk down the stairs, because she sees no need to turn around and back down them - after all, nobody else seems to do it that way! So, she'll probably be the only child in history to learn to walk down the stairs by herself before walking anywhere else. Figures, doesn't it? :)

Daddy the Painter

David is working hard to get the outside of our house painted this summer. David loves to paint, and in fact is planning to become a painting contractor when his stint as a SAHD (stay at home dad) is over. However, it is quite difficult to get the exterior of a house painted in the 20-minute intervals he can scrape together in between watching the baby, doing the grocery shopping, cleaning the house, and doing the laundry. We've been sending Elizabeth to a DMO (daddy's morning out) program 2 mornings a week to help him get time to finish. However, that still leaves only about an hour to work each morning, after taking out time for prep and clean-up. Given his time limitations, he's making great progress!

To help him out, I've watched Elizabeth during some weekends/evenings, to give him some time to work. Elizabeth loves to watch her daddy paint. She'll sit and stare at him through the window like she's watching kiddy TV. If only he would sing and dance while he paints, he'd be as cool as Barney!

Here are some pics of Elizabeth being mesmerized by watching her daddy paint. She is definitely a Daddy's girl!

Elizabeth's 1st haircut

We took Elizabeth to get her hair cut today. I'm going to try to grow her hair out, including her bangs, but the ends were so scraggly, we just wanted to get everything trimmed up. I'm also hoping it will start growing in fuller after the 1st cut. She's definitely got her Daddy's baby-fine hair!

We took her to a place that specializes in haircuts for kids. They had a big slide for her to play on while we waited, and she really enjoyed that. They also let her sit in an airplane seat while she got her hair cut and watch Barney. Of course, she loved that! She did really well and the haircut didn't take long - after all, there's still not that much there to cut!

Here's the "before" shot:



Playing on the slide:



Watching Barney and getting her hair cut:



And, the "after" shot:



You can't tell that much difference, but all the split and scraggly ends are gone - and another milestone passed!

The big purple dinosaur

There's a word that is no longer allowed to be uttered in our house.....BARNEY. Elizabeth is absolutely in love with Barney. Everytime she hears his name, she races to the TV, points at it, and "sings" until we start singing the Barney theme song. Unfortunately, we have a few episodes Tivo-ed, so when we first realized she was asking for the Barney show, we played it for her because we thought it was cute. Now, she expects to be able to see it on demand, and she can throw quite a fit when she doesn't get it! For that reason, we've seriously started to limit the amount of Barney she gets to watch. And, David and I have started to refer to the evil creature as "the big purple dinosaur," instead of by name.

Here's a pic of Elizabeth watching her latest obsession:



David and I succumbed to the obsession on the way home from Atlanta this week and stopped to purchase a portable DVD player and a stack of Barney DVDs. We enjoyed some much needed quiet on the way home as Elizabeth bopped and sang to the music, however we both heard enough of the "I love you" Barney theme song to make us officially lose our minds!

Last week, we learned that they are no longer making Barney dolls, so we ordered one for Elizabeth off the internet. It even sings that wonderful "I love you" song when you press its belly. It arrived tonight and Elizabeth, of course, was thrilled. We may be tired of the big purple dinosaur, but it's still hard not to smile at this face:



She even insisted on holding Barney as she drank her night-time cup of milk, and now he's sleeping soundly in the crib with her. We're hoping he will comfort her when she wakes up teething tonight too!

Happy 4th of July!

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! We had a picnic lunch at the park, but David's knee (i.e., the infected cat bite) was bothering him and it was really hot outside, so we took it easy for the rest of the day. A thunderstorm swept through town around dinnertime, but it seems to have cleared up in time for fireworks. We'll see if Elizabeth sleeps through the fireworks display our neighbors are going to put on!

Here's Elizabeth dressed up for the 4th of July and, of course, participating in her favorite activity - bubbles!

Our latest excursion

After picking Jonathan up at Camp Ridgecrest on Friday, we spent last weekend in Atlanta visiting the Hobbs family. Several other members of the family, including Gran and Robyn, came too, so the Hobbs Hotel was very full!

Jonathan had a really good time at camp. He was very tired and had a slight stomach bug, but he managed to still have fun on Saturday with David at the water park. David even managed to have fun, even after a nasty encounter with Rocky, one of Erin and Brad's cats. On Saturday morning, Rocky decided he didn't like the looks of Lyra and was going to attack him. Unfortunately, David's leg was in the way, so he suffered quite a few scratches and nasty bites and ended up in the emergency room on Saturday night for some heavy duty antibiotics trying to stave off infection.

But, other than that excitement, the weekend turned out very nicely. Elizabeth and I even got to meet up with a lady and her daughter who I met through our May Mommies board on the internet, so Elizabeth successfully had her first "internet date." The 2 girls had fun eating goldfish crackers and cheerios at the park - the universal language of toddlers (or pre-toddlers in Elizabeth's case, since she's still not walking yet).

Brad and Erin managed to get their mega-swing set up before we came, so the girls had fun swinging as often as they could con someone to take them outside. Brooke is now running around and as cute as can be. Elizabeth and Brooke got along well, for the most part, as long as they didn't both decide they wanted to play with the same toy! We tried to take them in for some professional photos, and that sure was tiring! We learned that the pros aren't really any better at getting 2 babies to sit still than we are! We'll share those with you as soon as we get them back.

Of course, we have lots of pics that we took to share with you:

Playing at Fort Hobbs:







Bubbles - The girls liked these so much, we had to hide the bottle!




Oh, and I finally found and put up all the comments our loyal readers have been leaving. And, here I thought you all just didn't love us anymore!