Friday, May 21, 2010

In and Out

Just recently Greta has taken quite an interest in climbing into her baskets. This basket houses some of her toys out near our living room--and now it often houses Greta as well!

What a cozy spot!
Glamorous Greta :-)
The other day we had a picnic snack in the afternoon near our neighborhood park. Aunt Jenny gave Greta these sunglasses for her birthday, and--surprisingly--she kept them on for nearly our whole outing!
All ready for summer! Sunglasses, sun hat, sandals, skirt, and sun lotion!
Mama and Greta. She really says "Mama" for me now! Matthew says that sometimes when I'm away she looks at my picture and says "Mama"......aaaaaahhhh :-) She kind of says it like a little French girl or something: "ma-MA"
Last weekend our friends Curtis and Julia and their little Lillian came for a visit. Lillian will be 2 in July--she and Greta are about 9 months apart. Every time we get together they have more and more fun together!
Here they are spending time together in Greta's tent. It was almost like they wanted to be alone to tell each other secrets or something! Greta would run in there so fast to escape from us if we tried to snatch her away for a diaper change or a nose wipe. Sometimes she'd go back into her tent in such a hurry that she wouldn't even take time to duck to get through the tent doorway, she'd just let her face and head collide against the tent, sometimes causing her to smack face down when she finally got through! It was hilarious!!! (until she got hurt...)
We hadn't seen Greta this hyper since Christmas--she had a blast with Lillian!
Sitting in another basket in her room. What a nice spot to read a little story :-)
There is a hockey rink a few blocks away from us. During the late spring and all throughout summer it is converted to a "Play Palace" for children. There is a toddler area with lots of slides, tunnels, balls, and blocks--and there are huge bouncy castles and slides for older children. This week I worked from home, so I was around quite a bit more than usual. I took Greta to the Play Palace one morning and then Matthew brought her back there again for the afternoon. She and I had a great time! I even went in a bouncy castle with Greta (no one else was in it) and down the "big kids" bouncy slide with Greta (I later discovered that I wasn't really supposed to do either of those things...bummer for next time!)
Greta spent a lot of time playing in this house at the Play Palace. I guess she played in this house quite a bit in the afternoon with Matthew too. She liked joining in with the older girls "playing house"...even though they mostly wanted her out of their hair! Fortunately she found something else to do before they got too grouchy with her!

Out for a walk to the park today! I love the pigtails! She looks so grown up, doesn't she?
Definitely not a baby anymore.
I think she's either pointing to the rhodadendrons or a crow...she's really into birds lately and I think she even tries to say "Cah!" like a crow.
She also has been trying to say "bear" and "bummer" lately (I've been encouraging the "bummer", I have to admit...)

I'll leave you with a video of Greta climbing into a basket; enjoy!
(sorry, it ends abruptly because my memory card was full--oops)

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Watch What You Say!

The other day we saw that Greta had found her dress and decided to try and put it on herself!
We helped her get it right-side-out and then she tried again!
All dressed up and ready to go to Granville Island for the afternoon. I decided to give Greta a new hair-do...as long as she doesn't remember she has a clip in her hair, she leaves it alone :-) But as soon as she discovers that clip, she yanks it out, examines it, and then tries to put it back in her hair!

At Granville Island.
We took a nice walk through a neighborhood on the edge of downtown. It was a beautiful day!
Sorry this is upside down...Matthew took this picture of Greta napping a few days ago. She goes to sleep for her naps all on her own now! We used to have to rock her to sleep for a nap, but just recently she has made it clear that she does not like to be rocked anymore (she squirms and fights us)...so now we just put her in her crib and that's that!
Our cute girl!
Greta likes to stand on her rocking chair...it's set up against the wall so it won't rock, and she's really cautious about it. If it does wobble just the slightest bit, she gets scared and reaches out to be let down! But she loves the thrill of standing on it!
Last weekend we went down to visit our moms for Mother's Day. Here's Greta in Nanny Kathy's room--wearing Nanny's headband too! Greta had a fun time checking out the many rooms of the house and watching the ceiling fans.
Playing with Nanny. They had tons of fun together! I wish they could play together more often!
Here she is at Nana Judy's house. Nana has lots of kid toys at her place, and here's Greta eating a pretend ice cream cone.
Out on Nana and Grandpa Hans' beautiful deck with Papa.
I put this picture on because it has Grandpa Hans in it too...
Matthew and I became an aunt and uncle just recently, and now Greta has her first cousins! Melissa's twins arrived last Thursday. Ida is in this photo (Poppy still needed help and was in the nursery...) They are so teeny tiny and so cute! We can already see the difference in how they look. Greta said "Aaaoooh" sweetly when she met Ida--that's the sound she makes whenever she holds her baby doll!
Going down the HUGE SLIDE at Group Health in Seattle. I especially loved it and went down it many times!!!
Greta really wanted to put Papa's shirt on the other day---so I helped her. She walked around with it on for quite some time.

Greta is showing that she really catches a lot of what we say. The other day Matthew said to her "Where's the piano?" and she went to the piano to play it! I tried out this game later and got her to show me her piano, pillows, books, maracas, crayons and then her tent!!! What a smart girl :-)

Here's a video of Greta stomping around on her rocking chair: