January

Oh January. The blah-iest month of the year. Good thing there are some new toys to go along with it! Here Greta is playing with the new train set she got from Grandpa Paul. She says "Chugga Choo-Choo!"
And she can say "train" too ("tain")...her language skills are really developing! She has so many words and is quite a chatter-box.

Lately she's taken to saying "Help Yelp" when she wants help with something. I mentioned it to Matthew and he said it's because in one of her favorite Dr. Seuss books (she LOVES Dr. Seuss, and Matthew especially loves to read Dr. Seuss to her, using a quite animated, entertaining and varied set of voices). In Hop on Pop there's a section that says "Help, yelp, we yelp for help!"

Greta is also very interested in counting. She often counts "One, two, three, ten" while pointing to things and using a very official counting voice :-)

She knows the name of her baby sister too--and the other day carried around her little baby doll and called her by her sister's name! Then later Matthew asked her what her baby doll's name was and she said "Ida" (her cousin). She sometimes spends a lot of time taking care of her baby dolls, wrapping them in blankets over and over and putting them to bed. Come April she'll be ready to be such a big helper of a sister!
A cake I made to liven up the grey days of January. Greta added the sprinkles.
Eating cake! And holding one of the new head bands Papa got her.
Satisfied indeed.
Greta has a stamp on her head--she loves getting these stamps. We have a community center down the street that has special programs for her age on weekdays as well as weekends. On weekdays there's a Gym and Sing, and on weekends there's a Mini Play Palace. The Gym and Sing is for children 3 and under. The gym is open and full of cars and bikes and bouncy things and balls and slides and other children! At the end everyone cleans up and sits in a circle to sing songs together. Then after that everyone gets the much anticipated stamp! The Mini Play Palace is similar, but smaller and doesn't involve the singing at the end. But the lucky children do get a stamp :-)

We continue to be rather lonely here in Vancouver. We've had trouble making friends, and the friends we do make just end up leaving all the time (that's what happens, people finish at Regent and go somewhere else...) But at least we live in such a wonderful neighborhood. I'm looking forward to my next maternity leave and am hoping to connect with some more moms in the area. We are also hoping that this last year at Regent proves to be a little less lonely than recent times have been...
Cake face...and she's trying to make the fish face Mama can make! She often demands that I do it "MORE! MORE!"
Watching Pooh with Mama. I'm embarrassed to admit that our child has watched far too much video the last few days...we've all been hit hard with the stomach flu. Greta was sick with it from Wednesday to Saturday, and Matthew and I have felt pretty bad since Thursday night.

Oh January!!! Get better please!!!