Happy Father's Day

Thank you Daddy for:

• scruffy faced tickle kisses.


• sneaking me treats Mommy doesn't let me have.


• being my own personal jungle gym.


• fostering my appreciation for toots.


• teaching me how to be a magician's assistant...

Happy Father's Day from the little girl whose eyes you make twinkle!

Vocab

Sofie's been bursting with sentences lately. Ben and I have found ourselves catching each other's eyes with a shared, "Did she just say that?" expression quite often over the past few days.

Here are some recent doozies...

"I want the other rocket." (Playing with her rocket launching toy outside in the yard.)

"Feet! Daddy's feet! Feet in the water!" (Upon catching her daddy emerging from the shower.)

"I want a burger bite." (Apparently my burger looked more appealing than her chicken nuggets!)

We've also been singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and You Are My Sunshine together quite a bit lately. She knows almost every word to both songs and every time we sing them I get that duet-y feeling that you only get when you're singing along with someone else...gauging their timing, their tone. I have to admit it makes me choke up sometimes. Especially when we get to the, "You'll never know dear..." part. Her little voice combined with her facial expressions and the way she pronounces the words is just too cute to handle. Oh what a sappy mama!

Parade the Circle

Ben and I took Sofie to Parade the Circle on Saturday morning to watch the parade. Neither of us had ever been to it so we weren't quite sure what to expect. It ended up being really cool and something I'm sure will become a tradition for our family as long as we're in this area. The parade started 20 years ago with just 1000 spectators and although it has grown to include 2000 parade participants and 70,000 spectators it still has a very community-ish feel to it. Anyone can participate in the parade for the small sum of $5 and, as I'm sure you might imagine, that means there's quite a variety of very creative spectacles. I took about a million pictures. Here are some of my favorites...

The only proof that I was, indeed, present!

Some of the 100 Marilyn Monroe's that were dressed to imitate this famous Andy Warhol painting. They paraded through singing Happy Birthday Mr. President and blowing kisses to the audience.

This group included several Pez dispensers, my favorite of which was of course our Pez-ident Barack Obama.

An underwater adventurer pushing a machine that's creating enormous bubbles and a pretty neat squiddy-looking thing in the background.

There were many very cool, very tall, puppet-like contraptions, each manned by a single parade participant. I chose to share these ones with you for no other reason than I like how the picture turned out.

There were also many many participants walking on stilts. These ones were particularly cool because they included this giant see-saw type contraption in their performance. Every so often they would stop and hoist each other into the air to perform tricks.

Here are some very elaborate painted papier-mache creatures.

And of course, I had to include a picture of the ear. This was actually one of the most interesting displays. It was the beginning of a production of sorts that was several "floats" long. At the beginning, a few wadded up paper balls were tossed into the ear canal, followed by several floats demonstrating how the paper balls set up an extensive chain reaction, and ending with a few wadded paper balls shooting out of another ear on the other end. Very neat!

Sofie really enjoyed herself. Here she is dancing to one of the many bands that performed along the way.

Freezer Plans

Maybe you've noticed my plans for the freezer posted over there on my sidebar. They're listed there more for me than anything else, because paper has a way of getting scrunched, torn, and lost around this place :) Looks like a pretty ambitious list doesn't it?! I'm really anxious to get started...does anyone have any idea how long things will keep in the freezer?

Quickie

At my prenatal appointment this morning (they think I've only gained 30 pounds...ha...haha...hahaha!) my midwife had to step out for a moment. When she returned she apologized and explained that she had forgotten to write a prescription for her previous patient for a massage. Jokingly I said, "Where's my massage prescription?" and she replied, "I can write one for you if you want..." Without skipping a beat I said, "Oh no, no...that's ok!" Um, what the HECK was I thinking?! Do you think it's too late to call and say, "Now...about that whole prescription for a massage thing you mentioned this morning..." :)

Baby Grey is cooking just fine, working on getting nice and round and juicy over these next few weeks, and it won't be too much more waiting now. Which has got me thinking maybe it's about time for me to start considering planning and prepping some freezer meals for those first few crazy weeks. We don't have a ton of space, just the freezer in our refrigerator, so I won't be making a whole lot, but I'd love it if you'd all share some of your favorite things to freeze. I've also been thinking about mocking up a grocery list with quick prep meals that Ben can take to the store in the weeks that he is off and home to help out, so if you have any easy favorites I'd love it if you'd share those too!

America's Toddlers Got Talent

This is one of Sofie's favorite songs/books at the moment...

...do you think it's too early to tell if she's tone deaf!

And here's the peanut butter jelly dance that ensued during lunchtime this weekend after she requested some "muckick" (music)...

Definitely cute, but I'm pretty sure she wouldn't make it to Round 2 :)