A Very Special Visitor

My Grandpa (or "Papa" to Violet) came to visit!! It was so great to see him! His brother, who lives in Colorado, got very sick so he came to visit him. Luckily his brother pulled through just great AND we got to spend a few hours with Papa! Violet just LOVES him and I think the feeling is mutual. They laughed and played for a very long time. Papa knows just what to do to make Violet laugh hysterically - it was so cute!
And as requested, here is a new "belly pic" of the new baby. This was taken today at 25 weeks (or 6 months). I can't believe I'm already that far along!
We have been having movie night every once in a while on a chilly weekend. Violet loves to get ALL snuggled up on the couch to "watch! watch! watch!" the movie. Here she is all snuggle-deed up with a very pregnant looking me!
We watched "A Bugs Life" and I forgot how scary it is. We had to calm her down a lot and she gets very emotional when she can tell that something bad is happening. It's sort of funny and cute but I had to say "It's okay! He'll be okay!" about 278,384 times during the movie. Of course today she wanted to talk ALL about the bugs. Hopefully it didn't give her any bad dreams!

Here is a cute pic from today.
And a few videos...

1) Since we didn't find out the gender of this new little person at our ultrasound, we have none-the-less been curious about what it might be. A few people have suggested that their other kids were great guessers, so we have been asking Violet. She CLEARLY has a favorite!


BUT here is the funny thing. Her word for "Boy" is very similar to how she says "Porter" (she calls him "Porty" or "Poh-ee" in Violet-speak). Boy. Pohee. We're pretty sure she thinks I have a small black puppy with a long snout in my belly. :)

2) Violet was playing this morning and talking a lot so I thought I'd post a video to show some of the words she's using lately. Yes, she has on a shirt, undies, and socks. It's toddler dress code! She's still not potty trained but getting closer and LOVES her undies! Anyway, you can hear her saying lots of things in this video. She calls bananas "menyas" and feeds that to her babies (along with a carrot) and asks the babies if they want more. Then when she's trying to get into her seat she says "hepeese" (help please). It's so fun to know what she's thinking lately and to understand better what she wants!



Another funny word-trick that she is playing lately is that her word for banana (menya) is very close to her word for peanut (meenyut). She is on a peanut kick and I never know if she wants peanuts or bananas! Who knew!

And LAST but not least, it looks like it's official - we're moving the first week of April! Both Jon and I are SO excited to have our own place again! Here are some pictures of our new brick ranch:
It was built in 1960 and has had one owner the entire time. What we like best is that he didn't touch a THING on the main floor. The house comes complete with "retro" EVERYTHING! We love the little details like the window between the dining room and living room as seen here...
And the VERY retro kitchen. When we first looked at the pictures of this house online I said "No way! The whole kitchen needs to be redone! Too much work!" but when we walked in and saw the details and the awesome gold-flecked countertop.... we were in LOOOOOVE! We're not touching a THING! And it even has a 1960 vintage Kitchen Aid dishwasher that works great. Let me tell you, after a year of hand-washing dishes in our rental, the dishwasher might be the thing we are looking forward to the most!AND a retro bathroom complete with turquoise tub and sink.
Nope, we're not remodeling a THING! :) We love it! The basement is actually not finished yet so we're planning to redo that with 2 more bedrooms (one of them being my sewing room), a full bathroom (i.e. "Guest Suite") and a huge rec room, along with a storage room for all the crap we lugged across the country :)

Upstairs it has 3 bedrooms and 1.5 baths. We're going to have a ton of room when the basement is finished! Plan your trips to come visit for next summer!!

Oh, and it also has a great big backyard which Violet already loves, and a cute little red barn/shed that I see becoming a playhouse in the future.

A Warm & Balmy... February?

I don't want to BRAG to my dear friends and family back in Michigan (who I know had a nice warm weekend by Michigan standards), but it was 70 on Thursday here in the Sunshine State of the West (I dubbed it that myself) so we did what any normal mother/daughter team would DO on a warm February day. We went to the zoo.

All the animals seem to be enjoying the weather too and gosh darn it, we had MISSED them! I feel like we went to the zoo every few weeks this summer, but hadn't been in a few months. Here's Violet watching the hippos dozing in the sunshine:
Violet and her pals watching the birds.I also got this great video of Violet and her friends running around. She just recently got to the point where she can kinda/sorta keep up with them and it was so fun to watch. You'd never know she spent 6 months of her life in a spica cast, huh?


In other news... WE BOUGHT A HOUSE!!! I'll wait a bit to post more details (we still have to get through the inspection) but we're super excited to have our own place on a nice quiet street and actually unpack tons of our stuff that never found it's way out in our rental. I missed my STUFF! Of course I also know I can live without it for a year so perhaps we're due for another purge :)

Stay tuned for more details!

New Haircut & Budding Artist

Violet got her hair cut! My friend Sarah cut 1-2 inches off and it looks SO CUTE! It curls right up on its own and she now actually *gasp* wears it DOWN instead of always in pigtails or braids. Hurray!
Here is a little video of her and her new haircut. She is meowing like a kitty:



She has also become quite the artist... although she prefers to draw on herself instead of paper. A budding tattoo artist, perhaps? These were supposed to be washable markers so I didn't stop her when she started the body art, but it took a good scrubbing in the sink and later in the tub to get it mostly off. We visited the Science Museum today - it was really cool! Very kid friendly and lots of room to run. Here are Violet and her pals manning (and womaning) the space shuttle.
And later, riding llamas in from of the llama exhibit.
They also have a fun kids area where Violet played in the bubbles
And tried to blow them.
Since turning two, she has decided that she can finally string 2 words together (Bye-Bye Daddy!) and has been doing that a little more which is fun. We also got her to say "Love you!" too which, of course, is the sweetest thing we've ever heard. It sounds more like "Wuv ewww" but you get the picture. One other funny thing she is doing is learning her shapes. Circle. Square. Pizza. That last one is a triangle. Of COURSE! But she makes sure to point it out wherever we are.

She has taken a break from potty training (sadly) but always wants to wear her "undies" regardless of the accidents she has in them. The Hello Kitty ones are her favorites.

We had her 2 year checkup last week and she has grown a TON! In fact they measured her twice because they couldn't believe it! She is now 34 inches tall and 25 lbs (tall & skinny). Everything else looks great and the doctor was very impressed with how well she's walking and running - no limp!