February Fun!

I can't believe how long it has been since I last posted on our blog! Life has been crazy busy since Christmas, but things are calming down now. We've spent most of the last few months getting our house ready to put on the market (don't worry...we just want to move across town!) and now that it is listed, we have lots more free time to have fun with friends and nature! Enjoy the pics and the stories that go with them:)

Laura always has a great time in her playroom...I'm so glad that we decided to turn the downstairs bedroom into this room! And she loves to ride on her horse (called howsey or see=saw equally often.) She doesn't stay on too long, though, before she wants to get down and "pway a wittle bit" with something else.
One fairly warm morning recently we were babysitting Laura's favorite friends Miriam and Nora (or Me-um and No-wa as Laura calls them,) The girls really wanted to play outside, so we put on their coats and out we went. I'm not sure who had more fun playing football, Shawn or the girls!
Once chasing the football got tiring, the girls had a great time on the swings. Laura and Miriam couldn't decide what swing they liked best. Often they were both riding on the see-saw, bumping heads and giggling a lot! It is so much fun to see Laura grow up and make friends. She loves playing with her little friends!
On a really warm day last weekend, the three of us headed to Belle Isle...and island almost in Downtown Richmond. You get to walk over the James River on a huge pedestrian bridge to get there. There are walking and bike trails around the island and an area of rocks where you can walk out into the river. We decided to have our picnic on the rocks. Laura thought the whole thing was great fun!

Typical Laura! Always acting silly for the camera! On the way to Belle Isle, Laura kept asking me where we were going, "Where we are going, Mama?" I would faithfully answer, "To have a picnic on Belle Isle." And then Laura would say, "to have a pic-pic on Belle Iwle?" After about the 30th time we had this exchange in 10 minutes, I told her I wasn't going to answer the question one more time! So she would say, "Where we are going, Mama?" and I would say "You tell me, Laura", and then she would say, "to an iwle!!" She had (and still has) no concept of what an island is, but she now knows the word and likes to use it a lot!

Laura is just getting used to eating sandwiches the way they are supposed to be eaten. She likes to deconstruct the sandwich and eat it one food type at a time (for example, the bread first, and then the meat, and then the cheese). She's even done this with peanut butter and jelly! What a mess! Well, she and I both had a PB&J for lunch at our pic-pic and I kept my sandwich in the bag as I was eating it (so I didn't have to touch it with my dirty hands). Laura wanted to do the same thing..."I wanna eat wike mommy! Put my sam-wich in my bag, too!" She made a much smaller mess than normal.

Even though the mess was smaller, she was still a little sticky after eating. She and daddy ran down to the river so she could wash her hands in the water. As she was running back to me she said, "The water is told (cold)!" Then she ate a few pieces of fruit so her hands would get sticky again so she would have to go back down to the river. "I'm ticky (sticky) Mommy! I need to wash my hands o-more-gen (again)!" We had a great time and are really looking forward to spring so we can spend even more time playing around outside!