New Ball

Grandpa Paul got Greta a flashy ball last weekend. She loves it! (and she loves being on camera too, can you tell?)
This video ends abruptly in mid-turn--just when my memory card ran out! But you DO get to see lots of Greta's tricks!

Cousins

Before our trip down to Seattle to see Ida and Poppy, Greta decided she needed some special time with Penguin. She set him on a chair and then climbed up on her table. Thanks to a little help from Papa, it was now tea time!
Also before our trip, Nanny Kathy and Grandpa Shayne came for a visit (too bad I didn't take any pictures!) They went out to parks, did some shopping, got treats, and played a lot together. Thanks for looking after her while I went to work, Mom and Shayne!
For Father's Day weekend we went down to Seattle to visit Grandpa Paul--who was up from Arizona--and we spent some time with our nieces Ida and Poppy. Greta had met her cousins when they were only a few days old, but this time she got to hold them and love on them properly. We stayed in a (fancy!) hotel with Paul, and Greta had a blast exploring it. Here she is eating cheerios in the lobby, on her special throne.
Yum Yum! (I tried to delete this photo from the post, I guess it's not that great, but alas, I couldn't get it to work...so you're stuck with it.)
Whoo Hoo! Fancy furniture! This lobby was such a great playground on a rainy Seattle weekend. We had hopes of going to the zoo, but this was probably just as fun for Greta :-)
Mission accomplished. Greta loves to climb on everything now!
Having fun with Grandpa Paul. She even gave him a real genuine HUG over the weekend, complete with an "Aaoooh"...it was so sweet to see :-)
Being gentle with Cousin Ida. Greta knows the word "gentle" and practices it often--she says "Gehnt".
With both Ida AND Poppy!! So much baby!!! Greta was really into her cousins. She was very, very careful with them and loved to hug them and say "Aaoooh". I kept referring to them as her cousins, and soon she would point to them and say "Cuuu" excitedly :-)
Back at home with both feet in a bucket. Amazingly, she kept her balance and made her exit from the bucket gracefully.

Today at the park a friendly little boy and his dad shared their bubble makers with Greta. She loved watching the bubbles float into the sky!
Look closely and you will see she has her fancy, shiny, black patent leather shoes on at the park. Lately when I ask her to get her shoes she chooses these every time--no matter if others are more easily accessible! So I just let her wear them, because they'll be too small for her soon anyway...!

Special news: we are moving downstairs to a smaller apartment in our building. We LOVE our apartment so much, but for Matthew's last year of school we need to spend less money on rent. Fortunately we found a way to move easily--just downstairs--to a cute apartment on the ground floor (it won't get so hot in the summer, and we won't have so many stairs to manage!)
This will mean less space for all of us. But we'll make-do! It's nothing that we can't manage with a little character and creativity (and a dash of "nesting" on my part)! We hope our next move will be to a comfortable house where we can really make a home for longer than 1.5 years!!! :-) Yes, this will be our 3rd move in 3 years. We're getting good at packing, I guess. But we love our neighborhood and building, and are so glad we don't have to leave it just yet!

Bike

As you can see from the look on Greta's face, she really likes being on the bike with Papa. A couple of days ago we took our maiden voyage as a family of 3 out on a bike ride. Some friends from our old church gave us the bike seat they don't use anymore, which was such a blessing! We got Greta a helmet, and when it was finally sunny we got ourselves all out for a ride! We rode down to the Southlands in Vancouver, which is kind of like being in the country in the middle of the city...there are lots of huge houses with lots of property and horses. Here Greta is looking at the horses.
Just outside our building...
Greta was nervous when we first put her on the seat, and she reached out for me. But once the bike started moving and she saw me get on mine she started smiling and looking around in awe of this new adventure! Now when she sees any bike she says so excitedly over and over and over "Biiii!!!"
On Sunday Greta was baptized at our church: St. John's Shaughnessy Anglican Church, where Matthew is an intern. The priest was Dan Gifford.
Greta and Mama playing dress up with scarves. Greta loves to play peek-a-boo with these! And she loves to play peek-a-boo with her hands too...she covers her eyes with her hands and we say "Where's Greta?" over and over and over again until she finally shows her face and we say "Boo!" Sometimes she makes us wait in suspense for a couple of minutes while she keeps her eyes hidden...and once she even walked around and ran into a doorway when she was hiding! Whoops!
At the park playing with rocks--one of her favorite things to do!
Rocks in each hand, doing the hand dance.
Matthew took these Bocci Balls out of the closet recently, and Greta was obsessed with looking at them and saying "Ball!" over and over and over!
After work the other day I had to make a few phone calls. I was out in the hallway doing this while Greta played in her room. When I got off the phone I heard paper crinkling--I walked into her room and saw her sitting on top of her table with her crayons and paper! She's getting really good at climbing, and she loves her crayons. She carries them around the house often.

Greta officially says "Caa Caa" for crows now (whenever she sees one she says this with enthusiasm), and she says "Daa" for "dance" (she loves to do the hand dance still...anytime she hears music she gets her hands going!)

She now has 4 top teeth in addition to her 2 bottom teeth! And just yesterday she got her first skinned knee. She was running and tripped. According to Matthew she really wailed about it, and then quickly became very interested in the blood and scab. Oh the joys of being a kid! She kept trying to get her scraped knee into her mouth after that!

She's Got the Look

Ready for soccer practice!
I really don't know why Matthew owns these sweatbands...
They've come in handy for a laugh lately, though :-)
Our little cherub
Doing the hand dance!
Wearing Papa's T-shirt...she loves to wear Matthew's shirts :-)
It's hard to tell here, but I was able to get her hair into three pony tails the other day!

The two videos below attempt to capture Greta's "hand dance". Every time she hears music or we say the word "dance" she does this movement with her hands and kind of sways back and forth happily. She's a very musical little girl!

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)

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: