Happy Mother's Day!

I had a Happy Mother's Day #2! The best gift was Joe posing for a family photo without giving me too much grief. I thought it was time to replace our family photo on the right side of the blog. In the previous photo we were wearing our Santa hats, which looked a little awkward since Spring is in full swing. This one's for you Holly!

Love her. Love her pigtails. Love both of her TEETH - the one you can see and the one you can't.
Hope was fascinated with my tripod. Looks like I could have a future assistant if I ever get back into taking more photos on a regular basis.

I hope everyone else enjoyed their Mother's Day as well!

Fourteen Months

Hope is now fourteen months old. She is talking more and more, and recently has been attempting to repeat words that you say. She loves to build with her Mega blocks, and I have been amazed at how good she is at it. We build towers together. She likes containers. She walks around the house with baskets and fills them up with things that she finds. Today, she filled up her hamper with blocks. She also likes to fill up the bathtub, with anything from shampoo and baby wash to books and blankets. No toilet yet. She still loves crayons. She likes to dump them out of the box then put them back again (about five times). Hope loves to play outside. If we have the patio screen door open, she will stand by it and whine to go out. She loves to run around on the deck. And we have entered a little whiny phase. Overall, it's not too bad, but I am anxious for her to learn more words. We have been calling her Squeaky. Hope's other front top tooth started coming in, so pretty soon she'll have two full front teeth. Maybe this upcoming month she get two bottom teeth to go with them?

Today we joined Joe's parents for lunch in honor of his Mom's upcoming birthday and Mother's Day. Hope was the entertainment.

I gave her a lemon to try. The face says it all.

Her kids meal came with pudding for dessert. Hope loves to stir things, and so she stirred her pudding with her straw. Still thinking with her tongue.
The stirring continued for quite some time (and quite some mess). Maybe she is ready for mud pies?

Hi Barb!!

Hope got to say hello to our friend Barb this past Sunday, and Hope was actually settled down enough to let Barb say hello to her as well. Blonde hair, blue eyes - Hope looks more like her than either Joe or me.

Hope meets Ava

On Monday, Hope and I visited with Alison and Ava.

Hope loved playing with Ava's swing. She climbed in and out and in and out....

And in....
Hope held Ava - she's learning what 'gentle' means. (Chita, Abby and Morgan would welcome this knowledge.)

I was holding Ava when Hope came over a plopped down on my knee.

Ava was pretty smiley at this point.

Then it was Alison's turn.

Still a smiley Ava.

We had a very nice visit. Well, at least until Hope started flinging her lunch everywhere. But she played herself out, because slept the entire three hour drive home.

Mish Mash

A few more miscellaneous photos from this past weekend:

Picking dandelions - then she tried to put them back in the ground.

Aunt Kathy made the best mac-n-cheese!
My buddy Jenna.

Cookout at Kathy's

Last Saturday evening, my sister and brother-in-law grilled burgers and dogs for dinner. Hope, my mom and I joined them. Hope had a great time playing outside with Leah and Devin. They had lots of cool outside toys to play with.

Hope likes to do what she sees the big kids do - she liked sitting on the tri-cycle.

Just like Devin was.

Watching Leah draw with sidewalk chalk.

Hope didn't figure out how to make it go while she was sitting on it, so she pushed it around instead. She still thinks with her tongue sticking out.

Part of the gang.

She loved the little car - getting in and out, but especially opening and closing the door.

Thumbs up! Devin made a basket!

Leah - in the middle of making a basket.

In spite of being around all of the girls a lot of the time, Devin is all boy. Just give him a ball and he is a happy camper. He might be sticking out his tongue here - he also thinks with his sticking out.

Playing at the Park with Grandma

This past Saturday, my mom and I took Hope to the park to play for a while in the beautiful 80 degree weather.

Hope loved crawling through the tunnels. That's my mom in the background wearing her Grandma sunglasses.

The breeze from swinging straighted out some of Hope's curls.

Hope also loved the slide and running up and down the ramps. After the park, we went to see my Aunt JoAnn who lived close by. JoAnn wasn't home, but our Uncle Gary was. He gave Hope her first creamcicle. I do not have any photos of this, but just picture her covered in sticky goodness with a big smile on her face saying "Mmmmmm."