Nice try

I took Danica to Target Thursday to get some Valentine Day treats to take to daycare on Friday. She was walking around with me (since I couldn't convince her to sit in a cart--I only needed a baskets worth anyways) and helping me pick out the "presents". I was looking at something while we were in the isles of V-Day stuff and I turn around and she is clutching a teddy bear that was about as big as she is and looked up at me, smiled oh so cutely and said "I have that?" I told her "No, put it back." Without a complaint she turned around and put it back. Two seconds later I looked down at her again and now see her with a much smaller teddy bear (only about 6-8 inches high) clutched in her arms. She smiled again and said "I have this?" The look on her face was absolutely precious! I again told her "No, you need to put it back you have enough bears" and she pouted but put the bear back. It's a good thing that my parents had already left and weren't with us otherwise I'm sure we would be stuck with a giant V-day themed teddy bear!

Good visit with Grandpa and Grandma

I left Danica at daycare when I went to the airport to pick up my parents. It was right during her nap time and 2 hours that she didn't need to spend in the car. We picked her up and she just ran to the car in excitment. She gave big hugs and was it was difficult to get her to calm down enough to buckle her in the carseat. Shy she is not. She snuggled right up to them and it was "play puzzles with me?" and "read books with me?" for a solid week. And you know my parents just hated that!
Snuggling with Grandpa on the couch.
She saw everyone else reading the Sunday paper and wanted to read it too. She even picked out the section that I go to first too!

We spent some time on Saturday out on the coast. Being February it usually isn't too nice out there but there weren't any clouds and not too much wind but the waves were huge!

We stopped by a lookout and she wanted Grandpa to pick her up so she could see better.

Danica thought it was sunny enough to be wearing her shades. Her she is watching Grandpa get as close as he can to the ocean without getting wet.

Snuggled with with Grandma and Grandpa on the beach. I know you can't see it but my Dad is smiling!

Watching the waves with Grandma. And if you look carefully you can see Grandpa down on the beach. I hadn't noticed that when I took the picture. I think it's neat.

This was actually from the first day that they were here. Danica cornered my Mom and "forced" her to read to her.

Danica thoroughly enjoyed having Grandma and Grandpa visit. I think even more this time than the last time. Every time she is just so much more aware of everything and is starting to have such a vocabulary. So the conversations are more than one sided like they used to be. She was really well behaved while they were here too. Show off. She'll probably act up for the next two weeks to make up for it.

Dancing on feet

I vividly remember doing this with my Dad as a little girl so I am glad I was able to get a picture of Danica dancing on Grandpa's feet.

I'm not sure who liked doing it more....Grandpa or Danica!

Great-Great Aunt Martha

Everytime my Mom and Dad come to visit we go up to Portland and visit my Dad's Aunt Martha. She was the first person Danica went to visit when she was less than 2 weeks old. Martha loves to see how big Danica gets every time we go. This is Dani sitting so nicely at Aunt Martha's.

Danica went straight up to Aunt Martha and gave her a big hug! Within 5 minutes she was on her lap and snuggling.

Last time we went Danica was a little shy but not this time! She wanted to show Aunt Martha her piggy tails and her video player and pretty much anything she could think of.

She was so well behaved until about 4 o'clock hit and she needed a nap and a snack big time. We left about then and she crashed in the car.

No I didn't!

Danica had been quietly coloring the the other room and I knew it had to be too go to be true. She found a black crayon in the middle of all of her color wonder markers and proceeded to color around her mouth. And a little on her nose.

When asked what she did she replied "I don't know." Did you color on your face? "No I didn't!"

Fortunately it was a washable crayon and easily came off. She didn't get any on her teeth or anything else either. Makes me think she was pretending it was lipstick!

Potty Time!

No pictures with this post, just an update. Monday morning Danica started wearing "big girl panties" all the time. Well, a pullup for nighttime but you know what I mean. She was soooo excited to put them on! She had four accidents on Monday but also went in the potty 5 times so got 5 stickers on the fridge. On Tuesday, not a single accident! Woohoo! She also doesn't want to sit on the little potty any more and only on the big potty. She was so funny when she pee'd in her pants Monday. She would walk all bow legged and say "Yuck, it's gross!" Hopefully this continues and I can stop buying mass quantities of diapers and pullups! She was at daycare for some of Tuesday (I got at little "mommy time" with some friends-no toddlers allowed!) and didn't have any issues. I was wondering if she would since she had previously refused to even sit on the potty over there. It even matched the one we had at our house! I'm going to take her to the store and let her pick out a package of new panties today. I'm sure that will be a big hit with her!

Winter Wonderland

The pictures of snow that I posted about 2 weeks ago was the first snow that we had. So I thought that I would post some more pictures of the rest of the snow. Notice the depth that we had on the top of the house and the garbage cans. Some lovely icicles overhanging our pond out front.

See our neighbors hedge? It was completely bent over our cars. We had planned on having a fire on Christmas morning but Jason would have had to climb on the roof and cut some of it down since the arbavida was bent over our chimney onto our roof.

The big branch of the willow tree. This branch used to be up pretty high in the air.

Now it shall be in the air no more. Due to the massive crack in the limb. We are very happy to have had the tree trimmed back last summer or else we could have ended up with a branch through the roof. Of course now we hope that having to get rid of this branch doesn't send the tree into shock and kill it.

This is what our cul-de-sac looked at evening. I'd forgotten how much I like late evening when there is snow. I love the colors in the sky that reflect up from the snow. It stays light a little later. If I hadn't had to go to work the whole time I would have wanted to play in the snow. Plenty of snow to go around. Since there isn't much traffic on our street, people with light little cars would easily get stuck. We made the decision to not drive our little Mazda Protege and just drive the Subaru Outback. We didn't have any problem getting around.

This picture gives a pretty good idea of how deep the snow was. Good thing we had a shovel! They were sold out in a lot of the stores.

A good picture of the pretty snow falling and our now ruined tree branch.

Most of the snow is gone now and we were some of the fortunate ones that didn't lose power for days on end. (I felt so bad for you Jocelyn!) We had a couple flickers and were without cable and internet for 3 days (turns out that totally sucks!) but for the most part escaped unscathed.