Christmas

Well we've made it past the first Christmas were Anya knew what a reindeer was and clearly understood there was something unnatural about sitting on an enormous hirsute stranger's lap and asking for stuff.

Our family, friends and neighbors were absolutely wonderful and generous with Anya. With the exception of Amy being sick and the absence of Amy's half of the family, it really was a great Christmas.

I learned:

• 90% of "The Night Before Christmas" has no meaning to a contemporary American English speaking 2 and 1/6th year old. It's pretty much "blah blah reindeer blah"
• One should always give a child the boring gifts first, or they won't make it past the doll house.
• Even 2 1/6th year-olds love handing out the gifts.
• Christmas ornaments that are simply smaller versions of your child's toys should be put out of the child's reach.
• I really like playing cars with my kid. It feels great to say, "Vroom, Vroom! Reeek. Vroom Vroom," again.
• Anya consistently pronounces "Marsupial" "Sarmupial".
• Having a sick mom/wife for 5 of the 12 days of Christmas pretty much stinks for all involved.
• That being said even after 5 days of being the sole provider, I still enjoyed hanging out with Anya. She pretty much charms the heck out of me all the time.
• If dad is the only one hanging out with and disciplining the kid, MOM suddenly looks like the good/fun one.

I hope everyone else had as good a Christmas as we did.

meeting Santa

Lynn (Grandma Lodwig), Anya, and I ventured downtown yesterday afternoon to ride the carousel, and pot around Westlake Center. On the spur of the moment, we went to Macy's to see if Anya could get her first visit with Santa. Surprisingly, there was no one in line so we were in luck. Anya, however, was not in the mood to sit in some weird, bearded old man's lap. She refused to get out of the stroller, saying "I don't want to see Santa!". Mean mom (me) made her get out anyway, assuming she'd change her mind about the whole thing. No such luck. She clung to me for dear life. And if Santa reached out to her she yelped as if she was burned and buried her head in my shoulder. He did finally manage to get her to talk a tiny bit. When he asked what she wanted for Christmas, she responded "a crow." Obviously what every child wants for Christmas, right?

So I sat her in my lap and Santa snuck around to get in the picture. I tried to move out of the way for the shot, but she panicked if I moved an inch. So below is my expert cropping of the picture, so my face isn't in it. I would have considered leaving my head in there, but the picture is pretty bad. Like really bad. To where Chris joked, "aww, it was charity day and they let the homeless people take pictures with Santa, too." Dude, had I known or thought about getting a picture with Santa, I would have spruced up at least a little. And Anya too. Oh well. It's here for the record. Anya got to meet Santa and get her picture taken with him. 2009.



I've probably scarred her for life. Lynn and I asked her later if she met Santa, and if he was nice, etc. She said "no, he was not nice. I didn't like him". Maybe if a crow ends up under the tree Christmas morning, she'll change her mind.

--


She did have fun the rest of the time - riding the carousel on the "pink and purple up and down horse", and the escalators at Pacific Place were a hit.

The Names of Things

Anya has very interesting way of naming her stuffed animals and dolls. She changes the names fairly often, but the names themselves are a bit curious in that NONE of them are names we ever say, all of them are real names, and we don't know anyone with theses names.
Here are some:

Doll --> Alex
Giraffe --> Kip
Different Doll --> Alec (yes different I asked)

Amy, Grandma help me out here, what were some others?

Kid Quote of the Day

[After breaking her first Christmas ornament]

"I ruined Christmas."

(No mom and dad were not mad at her).

Kid qoute of the day

(Hitting her bed with a stick)
"I'm hitting it with a stick because it's sticky. I'm tapping it because it's tappy."

Best Friend

Laika, our long suffering, ever hang-dog dog.

She's not behind me is she?

The things I have to endure...

Anya Helps with a Pie

Man, this took me forever to get created and uploaded. Some wonky stuff with the computer. So you relatives had better enjoy it!

Anya is at one with her spirit animal.

From late October, when Dondon and Grangie were visiting. She wanted to show them her Halloween costume.

More fun with speach

Dad needs to watch what he says:
[Anya to Morgana the cat in my lap]
Morgana don't step on dad's nuts.

First surreal story:
[Driving past the little Gym]
Anya: That's the little gym. I have friends at the Little Gym. My friends are gonna leeeeave.

Dad: Where are they gonna go?

Anya: Go ride up-and-down horses!

Dad: Where are they going to go ride the up-and-down horses?

Anya: At the carousel. At the zooooo. They're my carousel friends at the zooooo.

Everyone is sad:
Anya is only aware of one emotional state it seems. Sad.
This coupled with her very rudementry understanding of causality makes for some interesting conversations.

Anya, why did you put the blaket on the cat?
Because the cat is sad.

Anya, why did you throw your food on the ground?
Because it's sad.

Anya why is the bird flying away?
Because it's sad.

You get the picture...

More fun with speach

Anya keeps getting wordier and is starting the stage of saying weird and funny things. Here are my favorite examples of late.
After a trip to the dog park where we saw both seagulls and eagles (and possibly a beagle) we returned home. A few hours later I found her in her room with an aphabet book in her lap trying other letters on for size: "a-gull", "c-gull", "d-gull", "e-gull"...
the other day she was up set and had her hand in her mouth.
Are you molars coming in?
No my molars aren't comming in, I have ducks in my mouth
what are the ducks in your mouth doing?
Quacking.

Test

Testing posting from iPhone. Disregard.

Fun Snipets

The scene:
Dad and Anya sitting on the floor playing with Play Doh. They are making little walls and putting little humpty dumptys on said wall.

Anya: Humpty is sad because he fell down.
Anya: Humpty sleeping because he's sad.
Dad: What are you going to do for humpty?
Anya: I give him a blanket because he's sad.

[later]
I make Humpty a butt. Humpty has a butt.

The scene:
Mom is driving Anya to the Little Gym. The family is staying up at Grandma and Grandpa's house for the week because we're getting the floors redone. Mom is trying to use Grandma's GPS and is frustrated because it's not working correctly.

Anya: What's the matter?
Mom: The GPS is broken.
Anya: GPS broken. When we get to the Little Gym we fix GPS.
Mom: I don't know how to get to the Little Gym.
Anya: [pauses] Follow these cars to the Little Gym.

The scene:
Dad and Anya are sitting in the car in front of the house. Mom has gone inside to judge the level of fumes in the air and decide if it's safe to let Anya in.

Anya: Where momma go?
Dad: She went in the house to make sure it's safe for us.
Anya: I wanna go home!
Dad: Mom has to make sure it's safe first.
[Mom gives thumbs up and the whole family goes in]

Anya proceeds to walk from room to room. Then vigorously nods her head in each.
It's safe! This is safe.

conversation

Conversation from this morning.

...

me: What does Grandpa do at work?
Anya: He looks at airplanes
me: What does dad do at work?
Anya: He plays with his friends

Picture sneakpeak

We had a photoshoot over the weekend with Judith Fernstrom, Deborah (from PEPS) very talented and very cool sister. It was great to finally meet her, and the shoot was a lot of fun. Here's a little teaser on her website. Yay!

click here for photos

24 month update

This is probably the last of my regular monthly updates, now that Anya has hit the big zero-two.

What's new? Well, since the last update (really, in the last 2 days) she has figured out how to climb over the baby gates in the house. This presents a new set of challenges for Chris and me. Anya cannot be trusted on the stairs. Given the opportunity, she jumps, dances, plays on them, or uses them as a springboard. So we need to figure something out. We might put the door back at the bottom of the stairs, but the cats won't be able to get their food....and if we move their food downstairs, she WILL find a way to reach it and mess with it (usually involves mixing dog and cat food together or drinking their water or dumping food in water), so....I dunno. We'll do something. For now, we've added a handle guard to the basement stairs so there's an extra deterrent to getting over that gate.

Speaking of climbing, she's also figured out how to reach this tiny little shelf we moved up high (about 8 feet) in her room. It stores the diaper ointments and hand sanitizer. I caught her playing with the hand sanitizer on her dresser while she was "napping" a few days ago. So I had her show me how she managed to get to it. The little monkey stood on her tippy toes on the top corner of the dresser, wedged her right arm into the little window sill for balance and stretched her little body until she could just barely pull something off the shelf. Said shelf is no longer in her room. We are slowly moving our way to an empty, padded room, but I fear she'd just find a way to climb that too.

Potty Training. Anya, like her mother, is stubborn. One month ago she was doing great. And just like my friend Shannon predicted, she got over the novelty of it. Since then, she's about 1.5 weeks "on" and 1.5 weeks "off", or refusing to go near a potty (meltdown if I try too hard). But at least she's no longer peeing on the floor/chair/me to get attention. So we've backed off. I still tell her she has to before a bath or something she really wants to do and it works for the most part. But that's about all the coercing that's effective. She's in charge of this one.

Nannyshare is going great. She picks up all sorts of phrases and ideas from the older kids. Some nice, some not, but it's all a part of childhood. She uses the "big kid swing" like a pro and does fun art projects. She never wants to leave when I come to pick her up...usually because she's on the swing or looking for "pirates" or something with the other kids in the backyard. She adores them and Sheri and I think it's such a wonderful place for her to be those few hours each week. It's good for the both of us to get that bit of time away from each other.

To sum up my impression of Anya....she's curious, independent, a problem-solver, empathetic, strong-willed, full of humor, outgoing, loves to learn, fearless, and amiable. And fiercely loved by Chris and me. I look forward (mostly...) to what the next year brings for her.

2

Anya is two today.

Happy Birthday, big girl!

obligatory monthly report to follow soon...

Birthday Party

We celebrated Anya's 2nd birthday on Saturday at The Little Gym. It was a fairly small affair and the kids had the run of the place. Lots of fun was had by all, especially the (almost) birthday girl. As a bonus, my dad and stepmom, Angie, came to town, along with Bob & Amy. All to celebrate with Anya. Lucky her! (and lucky us!)

testing out the equipment before everyone else arrived

basket hang!

Grangie, Grandma Lodwig, and Great-Grandma Scheuer

Noah and Alexa pause for a picture

Flynn rockin' the uneven bars

Max on the balance beam

please do not photograph the princess. She is not amused.

Riley and Kalea

Dad, Bob, Amy (and Dave & Alexa in the back) hanging out and watching the kids run amok on the big, unflatable bouncing mat thing

blowing out her birthday candle

the kids down their cupcakes while Anya savors her pure, straight-from-a-box and not watered down juice (probably what she considers the highlight of the party)

Baby Ramoma, fresh from the oven (with dad, HP).

Juice has been consumed. Now on to the cupcake.

opening her loot at home

Anya attempts to wear some of her new clothes at once

Sidewalks of New York

My dad and stepmom ("Don-don and Grangie") are in town visiting. Chris's parents ("grandma and grandpa") joined us for dinner. For an after dinner treat, Anya serenaded us all with her rendition of the 1890's classic song, "Sidewalks of New York". I was too lazy to move out of my chair while filming, so you all get a back-of-the-head view of the grand performace.

Sleeping...or not

Anya is getting into some interesting sleep patterns (writes her dad as he sits up in the middle of the night).
Most notably:
She's decided she likes sleeping on the floor.
This is probably why she wakes up in the middle of the night.
The good news is that when she wakes up at 3 am she's usually very cheerful. She says (very loudly) "Hey mommy! Watcha doing?" or she sings "Baa Baa Black sheep" very loudly, or she talks to elephant.
So while it keeps me and Amy up, at least it's cute.

Makin' Daddy Proud

I've been extremely busy lately, so I get the feeling that my kid is growing up when I'm not looking. She's doing some really amazing stuff right now.
This morning the sun was in her eye and she said, "My eyes are bright". Sure it doesn't make sense exactly but she put together some interesting ideas, and used a word I didn't know she knew to boot. When asked about a of picture of a monkey flying a kite last night, she said, "The Monkey is pulling a shape." You can't argue with that.

This morning she pointed out that she was "itchy", (has a rash) which blew my mind for some reason. I think it's the grasping of state-of-being verbs.

I've begun having conversations with her where real ideas and opinions are being expressed.
"What did you do today?" Is followed by a discussion of her day, albeit rather curt. "I play game with Malakai. I ride swings with Eloise. Ect."
"Do you like Malakai?" is answered, "Yeah, he my friend."

I've come to believe that very few things in this world are as cool as laying on your back with your kid laying next to you, her head on your shoulder talking about stuff that matters to her, or just counting the lights in the ceiling fixture.

Potty Training Set Backs

I've always been pretty superstitious about celebrating or getting too arrogant before the job is done. In my experience cool confidence only leads to heart break.
As it goes with home projects and work and novel writing and budding musical careers. So too with teaching a human being to poop in a designated spot.

It is not stupidity that keeps a child from doing the right thing. Anya was very quick to go from acknowledging the potty's existence to making it days with nary a soiled nappy. No, it is the chaotic hammer smash of infantile emotions vying for dominance in a child's head that is to blame. I'm sure it sounds something like: Wet diapers are very uncomfortable, going in the potty is fun, approval from mommy and daddy is great especially when stickers are involved, but the ability to affect shock and horror is pretty cool too.
Once the novelty of the potty wears off it's pretty much a crap shoot (no pun intended) as to which of these conflicting motivations wins out during a given bodily function.

Additionally, Anya has learned to strip down to her birthday suit and is very fond of doing so. So we're pretty much at her mercy. In the past week, she's pooped on the floor, she's tinkled between the ottoman and the chair (with company present no less) and, following the dog's lead, pooed in the back yard...Let me tell you a little about how gross dogs are...no let's just skip it. Suffice to say my very busy day working from home today was interrupted by the bestial growl of an extremely fed-up wife, a few moments with a pooper scooper and a very guilty dog in the bath tub.

Anya, now you know why daddy never never chose to work from home when you were growing up. And my liberal brain finally comprehends why, when men were in power, we called child rearing "woman's work".

Down with ABCs

Deep conversations

this morning...


Anya: Anya MAD

me: You're mad? Why are you mad?

Anya: because I happy



I'm pretty sure it was a thoughtful critique on what's wrong with Western culture.

23 months

Anya is 23 months old today.

The big change from last month is the whole potty training thing. Since my last post on the subject, she has had 0-2 "accidents" per day. So it's going quite well. One of my friends gave some advice on the subject and said that when the novelty of it wears off in a week or 2, she'll probably start having more accidents -- because she doesn't want to interrupt what she's doing to do the chore of going to the potty-- and then it'll slowly taper off again. Interesting. Either way, it sure is nice not really having to change diapers anymore. Nightime is a whole other story and I expect it will be many months before we attempt anything besides a night or pull-up diaper.

Anya's speech always improves. Many sentences are complete and gramatically-correct. Not all of them of course. She uses articles, pronouns, and plurals more often. We're working on manners and asking for things "nicely," because whining is pretty common and pretty annoying.

Physically, she's starting to get her 2-year molars in. Hands are constantly in her mouth and some days it seems pretty painful for her. Fortunately it's not a contant pain as these molars sure are taking their sweet time breaking through the gums. Her hair is finally long enough for little ponytails, which I've been waiting for. I also think she went through a big growth spurt recently. She seems as tall as some of her bigger friends and clothes that seemed like they'd never fit all-of-a-sudden do.

Anya enjoys puzzles, playing cd's on her cd player - especially "reading" along to books with accompanying cds, dancing, legos, and she is crazy about all animals -- loves the zoo, learning about new and interesting animals, and looking at pictures of them. We've also recently started playing very simple games of matching and memory (the card game). She doesn't quite get the concept of memory yet, but it's not far off.

All-in-all, she's as active as always, empathetic, stubborn, independent, and kind. And loved :)

Potty Training

I guess we started officially potty training Anya a few days ago. It wasn't quite my intention to start now, but something in her little brain clicked the other week and she gets it. I'd love to take credit for it, with all the talking about it and putting her on the potty for the past 6 months. But I really think it was hanging out with the nanny share kids those few hours each week that made it really sink in. The others there are all potty trained (and 3+), so she gets to see all the big kids doing it.

She was giving lots of signs of readiness and going to the potty on her own a fair amount at home. So Monday I just decided to see what would happen if I put her in underwear at home and pull-ups when out in public (and naps). She initially had lots of accidents, but also requested the bathroom when we were out at stores or a playground. And each day there was a little improvement.

I'm proud to say that today (day 5 I guess) she only had one mild accident, and quickly corrected herself by heading straight to the potty. So I'm going to continue with the underwear and pull-ups route and officially call it potty training. I'm pretty proud of my little girl right now :-)

Mom and Bruce visit

My mom (otherwise known as "Grandma B" or "Grandma Ellen") and step-father Bruce ("Grandpa B" "Grandpa Bruce" or "Grandpa Goo") came for a nice visit and just went back to North Carolina a few days ago. It was a mellow visit, and there was much in the way of bonding with the kidlet for them (and uninterrupted showers and errand-running for me, woohoo!!). It was great seeing them both and we all miss them already. Once a year is just darn infrequent. :-( Love you, mom!

early morning reading with Grandma Ellen

Grandpa Bruce and Anya in the rowboat at the zoo

"driving" a tractor

checking out the bunny rabbits

Cycles and Cereal

I think this pretty much captures the day-to-day life of the stinker.
Good driving skills. Clear understanding of her desires and how to achieve them.

Anyarchist

Not-So-Still-Life with Anya

Shots from Olalla Cabin Trip

This weekend we took off to a cabin that Grandma and Grandpa Lodwig rented.

Here are a couple of shots of our trip.

Grandma and Grandpa walking the "kangaroo rat" up the trail from Kopachuck state park.


Looking at the muck at Kopachuck.

Anya has a great fondness for teasing poor Laika with the chuck-it

That's my kid, hanging for long periods of time on the playground equipment.

Anya on the back porch in her favorite dog boots.

Anya practicing driving me crazy, or worse: cruisin'

Running amok on the ferry home.

A couple moments of cuteness

We're up at the cabin with Grandma and Grandpa. There were a couple quotes from Anya that bore repeating.

She's started using the word "actually" as in:
Grandma: "Is that a fish?"
Anya: "That's a whale, actually."

Grandpa: "Is that a plane?"
Anya: "That's a helicopter, actually."

And my favorite quote of the day--Anya trying to get out of the fenced in yard to go look at the lawn decorations.
"Anya go look at Seagulls, I'll be back."

Our first argument

Breakin' ma heart

This morning when Anya saw me grab my work bag she said, "I want you to stay home" and cried a little.
Man, it kills ya.

Daddy takes a moment to reflect

It's been a very long time since I've posted about Anya.
In short, she's pretty awesome.
Aside from her intelligence, she shows great empathy: hugging and kissing anyone who might be hurt or is sad (often she was the cause).
I love her sense of adventure. While her climbing often stresses me out, I must say I prefer it to the alternative.
I get a kick out of talking to her as she can actually discuss and understand things these days. Tonight she helped me get ready for soccer. I asked her to go into my room and get my black soccer socks and she came back with them. Then she knocked on my gear and said "shin guards. Daddy go play soccer!" We don't sit around talking about Sartre or anything, but I did get her to say "I'm loquacious!" This propensity for words definitely works to our advantage. Aside from the fact that it's nice to have her say, "I hurt my wrist" rather than just crying. It's also very easy to know when she's doing something bad as she narrates everything she does. If I hear a quiet voice in the other room saying "That's daddy's" I know I should ask her what she's doing. Usually she comes running out with a wallet or my glasses or keys and says, "Here go daddy."
She's a kind and generous child. She often helps me get put my shoes on (whether or not I want to go anywhere). Yesterday she ran up to me with my beer. She often tries to feed me her dinner.
My favorite timea are taking her to the dog park where she rides around on my shoulders and points out all the different types of dogs. She currently thinks they are each one of a handful of dogs she knows (Ary if it's a German sheppard, Margarette if it's a Liamburger...etc.) all unknown dogs are currently "hound dogs."
She loves her grand parents very much and speaks endlessly of Grandpa's airplanes and helicopters, don-don's "ocean" and going to grandma's house, but her favorite place in the world seems to be the carousel at the zoo, riding the up-and-down horse or perhaps the Little Gym.
Her favorite CDs are currently ABBA's Greatest Hits (which we approve of) and the Smithsonian Institutes Animals A-Z which we are officially tired of.
She sings all the time. I've even seen her sit down in front of a "piano" pound the keys and sing baa-baa-black sheep.
She trying very hard to learn hide-and-seek. Currently when I'm done counting she runs out from her hiding spot and says "Hi daddy!" Even more fun, when you ask, "Is Anya in the closet" she'll yell "Noooo!" from behind the door or where ever she's hiding.

toddler bed

We finally transitioned Anya to a toddler bed last night (which is the crib with a small rail in the front). We had put it off for a little while, since it seemed like she lost interest in escaping from her crib. But at yesterday's nap she took off her sleepsack and revisited the idea of escaping. So I fugured we'd just bite the bullet and switch her over.

Last night didn't quite go as we expected. She seemed pretty traumatized by the change once it was bed time (before bed time, she seemed to get a kick out of the new setup). Which is unlike her. I know toddlers like routine and all, but she never seemed particulary unnerved by change. After an hour of screaming bloody murder and lots of cuddles from us, she finally went to sleep. And woke up in her bed the next morning all perky. She knocked on her door and said "helloooooooo!" when she was ready to get up. All in all, I'd say it went pretty well.

Her first naptime seems to be going alright as well. She laid in her bed and talked to her animals for awhile (overheard: "pacifiers are for babies, elephant"). She got up at some point. I checked on her a little bit ago and she's alseep on her floor cuddled with elephant. I kind of want to scoop her up and put her back in her bed because I don't think she'll get a full nap in this position. But I'm exercizing restraint and will let her figure it out on her own.

So, so far not quite as traumatic for us as I expected. But we're only on day 1.

arrgh

Well, what once was safe is no longer. Anya can now climb on top of *our* dresser --- with the drawers closed. She scaled up to the top using the little drawer knobs just like a rock climbing wall. This was how she grabbed Chris's wallet off the top and put it in the shower. Fortunately I caught her in the act while she was going after his phone. This used to be a place where we could keep things away from her. I guess we're going to have to start stapling things to the ceiling. Unbelievable.

Dancing Queen revisited

This is what happens when babies get ahold of the cd player.

not surprised

it's time for a toddler bed. Anya climed out of her crib at naptime today. I'm only surprised she didn't do it before now, but I'm still not ready for the poor nights of sleep ahead of us all as she transitions.

Anya Videos

We actually film Anya quite a bit, but seldom upload the videos because it takes some time and we're lazy. But now that I don't have job I figured I would spend some time keeping the family up to date. I don't know what Amy's excuse has been...

Tool Usage

Anya has been getting more interested in the mechanics of the world around her as the following clips will show.

First, a recent favorite: The plastic key ring.



Another spot which shows off this new interest in manual dexterity: The assembly of the IKEA foot stool.



Acrobatics

Anya is renown amongst those who know her for her feats of daring-do.
Here we see her leveraging a ball to perform somersaults.



And no video anthology would be complete without the naked monkey video.


General Naughtiness
Anya is her father's daughter it seems.

21 months

Today Anya is 21 months old. Also notable about today is that it is 102 degrees in Seattle, an all time high temperature for the city. The little thermometer outside our bathroom window (in the shade) reads 106. Either way, it's really hot outside. And inside. We're just having a quiet-ish day indoors, trying to stay cool.

Over the last month, Anya figured out how to jump. So she jumps pretty much all the time now...sometimes across the room while yelling that she's a wallaby.

I also discovered that she can now walk a little bit on the balance beam without being spotted. She snuck onto it at the Little Gym on Monday and took about 4 steps before I could reach her. Fortunately it's only 6 inches off the ground, so she wouldn't have been seriously hurt if (when) she fell....just enough to generate tears and bumps since there are support bars she would have hit on the way down. She is too darn fearless. Perhaps a little fall would do her some good that way, but those mom hormones in me can't yet bear for that to happen. Still, did I give birth to a little girl or a monkey??!

In other departments....the only thing I can think of is that she finally likes puzzles and is decent at solving the age-appropriate ones.

She sings more songs (her favorites to sing are: Six Little Ducks, Twinkle Twinkle, ABCs, Ba Ba Black Sheep, Row Row Row Your Boat, BINGO). Her favorite for us to sing is Old McDonald, where she names the animal for us to sing.

OK, it is so unbearably hot right now. I'm going to cool off in the kid's room for a bit. And I may or may not edit this later.

dismissed

This morning, I dropped off Anya with Sheri (friend's nanny that we use 2x a week for a few hours) and her buddies. I guess I was hanging around talking to Sheri for too long, because Anya looked up at me and said blankly, "mama, you go home."

Guess I was cramping her style. Sheesh.

flyin'

Chris' dad took him for a helicopter ride on Friday. It was a beautiful day for it too. I am incredibly jealous. Chris' mom had Anya and met the guys where they landed in Arlington.

Chris and Steve over (I think) the Snohomish Area.

Puget Sound (did I mention it was a beautiful day?)

over our house (white one with brown roof). Hard to tell on a small image, but I'm in the backyard waving, along with our neighors Shannon & Riley, and our PEPs friends Loren, Deborah and Benjamin's dog Maisy.

Anya spots the helicopter

wading pool

The wading pool was open at Dahl Park today, so we took advantage of the nice weather and played for awhile.

Playdate with Sadye

...or as Anya often calls her "A-B-C-D" (C-D / Sadye, get it?) This was a rare occasion I remembered to bring a camera on a playdate.

We don't get to see Sarah, Jeff, and Sadye too often since they moved all the way to Timbuktu (otherwise known as Sammamish), so it was a treat when Sarah and Sadye had to run some errands in our neck of the woods today. We met up at Meadowbrook, our favorite playground in the area.

Anya stylin' in her sunglasses

Sadye in all her cuteness

When trash left at the playground does some good

Seesaw. A nice mom at the playground got behind Sarah (who took the picture) and waved her arms and made silly sounds to get the girls to look in the direction of the camera.

Holding hands (Sarah told the girls to hold hands and keep each other from falling into the creek just to the right of the picture)

On the bridge in her little jail cell



tossing leaves and sticks into the water, where they supposedly saw a "blue fish"

Portland

We headed down to Portland for a slightly extended weekend to visit family and friends. The visiting part was great. We stayed with Bob & Amy (Anya's aunt and uncle), and met up with friend Carlie, and Marc & Shannon, as well as cousins David & Heather and their new son, Jackson. Trips seeing people you like are always too short, and this one was no exception. We reminded ourselves that we need to visit those folks more often. A good time.

The drive back, however, wasn't so much fun. We hit heavy traffic around Chehalis through Federal Way and it added an extra hour and a half to the drive. Anya made sure to let us know she wasn't happy about it....over and over....and over. But we sang lots of songs ("Old Macdonald" with Anya choosing the animals was a hit), played some simple I Spy, fed her lots of peas, and all eventually made it home in one piece.

Anya, Uncle Bob, and Aunt Amy

gratuitous photo of Laika.

Uncle Bob demonstrates his Cesar Milan moves. Anya is appropriately calm-submissive.

Chris tosses Anya off the top of the stairs. Good catch, Uncle Bob!

cousin David and new cousin, Jackson. Is he cute or what?

Jackson meets Laika

Anya kicking back in her chauffeured car on the way home