"On Our Way Home"

My little girl is so clever. She actually makes up her own songs now. First, back when we went to Starved Rock, she had her "River River over water, woods" tune. But now she does it all the time! Sometimes she seems to just babble nonsense syllables melodically, but she also makes up entire songs! She will often sing "On our way home" when we're out and about, and today she even modified it to be "On our way zoo." I really don't know if it's normal for a 2-year-old to do such things, but it sure does amaze me. She even sings on pitch, which is more than her daddy can do as an adult!

Anna's drawing has also improved immensely. Rather than scribbling aimlessly, now she draws with more purpose. In the picture to the side, she drew legs on the Mickey head that I made. And when she draws, she will make a circle for each eye and a circle for the nose, etc. Things are really starting to resemble true pictures, and she has much better control over her fine motor skills!

Miss Betty Crocker!

I've had another one of those "dream come true" experiences with Anna. This was our first week home together for the summer (yippee!!!), and the weather has been less than cooperative. First it was in the upper 90s and too hot to play long outside. Then the weather turned very stormy, and we had some of the most violent storms I have seen in quite some time. The power was off for 11 hours yesterday, and that's quite unusual for around here! We've made good use of our time though, having gone to indoor bebow, children's museum, and the zoo. This afternoon, after Anna woke up from her nap, we made brownies together. I've seriously had fantasies about baking with her, and up until this point she just hasn't been old enough to really do anything. We made cookies a couple months back, and she did help with the sprinkles, which was a good start. This time though, she seemed to know what was going on the entire time. She helped to stir the batter (and lick the spoon), and she was very excited about the whole process. My heart just melted. I am so happy to see that she enjoys baking with me, because that is going to make this summer even more fun than the last!!

Dells

This past weekend, Anna and I both had our first trip to the Dells! We stayed at Mt. Olympus, which has an indoor water park, outdoor water park, and a big amusement park! It was quite a lot of excitement to squeeze into one weekend (which was supposed to be the start of my summer vacation; as it were, I still had to go back to school on Monday because of the snow days). On Friday, we ate Jimmy Johns on our ride up, then we went to the amusement park for a bit. There were only a few rides open, but it was still fun to start the weekend. On Saturday we had a casual breakfast of snacks in our room, then we spent the whole day at the water park. Anna had a great time in Poseidon's Rage (kinda like a wave pool, but way more intense) and the little slide area. She kept going from the duck slide to the pelican to the whale slides, then repeat. She also tried out the "big kid" slides, which were mini real slides. It was amazing to see her riding on them; she's clearly not a baby anymore. We ended our day at Moosejaw Pizza, where Anna and I split a pan pizza - delicious. The next morning we all slept in (hooray!), then went to breakfast at Paul Bunyan's Cook Shanty - yum yum!! Then we went on a few more rides before heading home. It was great to spend some time with Carrie, Jamie, and Eddie, and to start the summer with lots and lots of excitement!