Around here the adults have been quite busy. Matt got an A- in his summer class (hooray!) and started fall semester, Melissa got a real job downtown (yes, seriously), and our house has been on the market for a month. Nobody wants it, though. We only had one family look at it in the first three weeks. Today we had an open house and there were apparently some interested people. We'll see. I think Matt and I are getting tired of the whole thing. But, we figure that even if we don't sell the house, at least we cleaned it super well!
Beatrice is getting to be such a big girl. She has now started stringing words together, like "Bea sit" (when she wants help getting into a chair). She's even starting to go to bed awake. Right now one of us lays on the floor next to her crib until she goes to sleep. We try to pretend to go to sleep and not talk to her. She's taking it pretty well. She whines a little for Matt, and she drops her stuffed animals on me and says "Mama? Maaaaaaama?" before falling over asleep. In a few weeks she's going to move to the toddler room at daycare. And, we're investing in a potty chair.
We're very sad that summer is coming to a close - we've really liked taking Bea and Bullet together for walks in the warm evenings and playing outside. Since I haven't posted pics in awhile, here are a few of our favorite end-of-summer memories.
Matt & Bea mowing the lawn, with Grandma Liz watching from the house -- an instant classic picture.
Here is Bea galloping with a pony she got from Aunt Renee. She's had it forever, but was quite afraid of it for awhile. Now she loves the "NEIGH!" (All things that even remotely resemble a horse are now called "neighs.")
Here is Bea kissing the Neigh. She learned about kisses awhile ago, but she has recently become much more... generous. She kisses anything she likes, she makes us kiss anything she likes, she makes things she like kiss each other (her baby dolls have to kiss the teddy bears, etc.)
She also shares her bottles and food with baby dolls and stuffed animals -- she puts her bottle up to a baby doll's mouth and makes slurping noises for probably a 1/2 hour each day.
Bea loves food. Even the daycare staff are in awe at how much she can eat and how fast she can eat it. She likes spicy stuff -- Mexican is by far her favorite, but as you can see, spaghetti is pretty exciting, too. Unfortunately, whenever Bea is really excited (happy or sad) she plays with her hair. So, when she gets food she really likes, it all goes on her head. (And yes, she does actually kiss the food she likes.)
Here's Bea in the back yard playing with Grandpa Dick and Bullet. Bullet is now totally used to Bea. She jumps on him, pulls his tail, pulls his ears, and chases him... he sometimes looks at Matt and I like, "make it stop." But, then a minute later he'll choose to lay right by her. Just like "blood siblings," they're always after each others' stuff. You bring out two balls, one for him and one for her -- and they each go after the ball meant for the other one. You get a treat out for one, you need to get a treat for the other. Actually, with treats, Bea lets you know who gets them. She'll say "Bea," "Dog," "Bea," "Dog." She always mentions herself first, but at least she shares.
Bea likes all dogs actually, Here she is in her favorite doggie pjs, holding her pink polka-dot- doggie in one hand, and a Bullet look-alike refigerator magnet in the other hand.
In the background, you see the big purple ball, which has also been a big hit this summer. One day Bea and I were in Target and saw these balls on sale. I knew it was a hit, when I couldn't keep it in the cart. She kept launching it down the aisles and laughing hysterically.
A few weeks ago, we took Bea to the zoo for the first time. The Minnesota Zoo is quite large and really near to our house, so we bought a year pass. For the first visit, we took Bea to the farm section, because she has a toy farm and knows most of the animals/animal noises. I'm not too sure she really made the correlation between the plastic animals and the real ones, though. Here she is learning to drive a tractor with Dad outside the Zoo barn.
Here we are looking at the cows, which were a little overwhelming for Bea. She kept pointing and whispering "Dog?" Moo is the one animal sound Bea doesn't do particularly well (she says "mmmmm"). So, I was hoping one of the cows would moo. No dice, though. They were all moote. (ba-bum-tsch!)
Here we are with a litter of piglets. Bea liked the more active animals the best - she liked the piglets, the goats, and the chickens. I had to intervene, however, when she tried to kiss the real chicken through the glass (gross!). There was much crying in the kiss-free chicken barn. Well, that's all for now. Talk to you soon..... well, maybe not. Talk to you in a few weeks. :)
Melissa
