Springtime

We all took a walk at a local regional park nearby this weekend and the late afternoon sunlight was too beautiful and golden to resist taking pictures.  Lulu had a great time exploring and we even picked up some local greens to take home to the bunnies.  Everything was SO lush and green!  I turned on the auto-filter to highlight the green-ness (which you can see in some of the photos below).

Here's a slideshow of the park (told you the light was too beautiful to resist!):

And I managed to get some pretty cute ones of Lulu picking flowers, examining a ladybug, and walking with her daddy.

Play Time.

Lulu and I headed to the park to give Daddy some time to himself on Saturday. He was hoping for a little peace and quiet and I was hoping to sufficiently wear her out that she'd want to go home and take a nap!

So, we headed over to the small playground that's in our subdivision's private park around the corner. It was a lovely day and Lulu was in a great mood!

She had fun on ALL the stuff--slides, swings, rocking horses. Who can resist this smile?

Then another, much older, girl came along and starting swinging in HER swing (nevermind that there are two of them and Lulu was on the rocking horse at the time). The older girl was very carefully observed and after we joined her on the swing set, Lulu told me that she didn't want me to push her on the swing anymore. I think if I were displaying this next one at an art gallery, it's title would be "Jealousy."

A FroYo Afternoon

Lulu and I met our friends Tina and Shaya for some froyo (that's frozen yogurt to the non-California crowd) and playing in the park yesterday afternoon. The weather was finally sunny (but not warm!) after a week's worth of rain, so it was good to get outside and let the girls stretch their legs a little.




It was the first time we'd seen Shaya since her "tricycle accident" at daycare that resulted in her losing her tooth (the ENTIRE tooth--I saw it later at Tina's!). Poor thing will have to wait until she's 6-7 before she has a full smile again. I still think she's beautiful though!

Lulu discovers baby chickens...

At the feed store. We may have rabbits but we aren't that crazy (yet!).

Breakfast with Lulu

Just a little taste of our breakfast(s) with Lulu:



Personally, my favorite part of this video is how Walter steadfastly refuses to acknowledge the camera...

Malapropism

Known for these myself, Lulu unintentionally uttered a pretty good one last night while Walter was fixing dinner. He was making gnocchi (little ricotta cheese dumplings) with a simple tomato sauce and someone was having trouble pronouncing "gnocchi" (nyoh-kee).

Apparently Daddy and I were having "nooky" for Valentine's Day dinner.

How did she guess??

Happy Valentine's Day

The children in Lulu's class at Merryhill did a card exchange for Valentine's Day, so she came home with an entire bag full of cards, stickers, lollipops, and other candy.  As you can see, the M&Ms were a BIG hit withs someone....

Lulu with her loot
(if you look closely you can see the chocolate drool on her chin!)

Adding to the fun was a surprise present in the mail from both sets of grandparents!  In addition to a cute card from Nanny that she got earlier in the weekend.  Apologies for the following photos, but I didn't have the most cooperate photo model on my hands...

kitty cat card!

always excited to open presents

No offense, Oma and Opa--she didn't seem too thrilled with anything today
other than chocolate...

opening Umpapa and MauMau's card

Refusing to try on her cute, new purse, too.
Sigh.

In other news, we finally gave in and dosed her up with children's Mucinex, too.  Her upper respiratory crud and constant snot dripping out of her nose was making her miserable and unable to sleep (which means that we, in turn are miserable and unable to sleep!). 

My favorite time of day...

...is when Daddy puts Lulu to bed.  She has started showing a distinct preference for Daddy's bed-time book reading abilities and I'm *not* upset by that.  It's sweet to see her prefer his company to mine (esp after a day when she's been my shadow).  I tried to snap a surreptitious photo this evening of what I saw as I shut Lulu's bedroom door:

Pretty sweet, huh?

A couple of photos

We have a couple of photos as evidence of Lulu's emerging fashion-sense:



She looks a little bit like a homeless person and ingenue...



And this is the sight that greeted me this morning:



Now THAT is a serious case of bed-head!

Random Photo Update.

Here are random photos taken over the last week in no certain order:

Hello Kitty underwear
(last weekend when we had a test-run of potty-training)

coloring with homemade crayons
(we melted them in silicone muffin cups in the oven)

bathtime funny faces!

trying out the meal scowl--Grrr!

and back to happy again

a particularly inspired outfit for school
complete with pink shoes and pink swimming goggles

nothing matches hot pink like orange and brown!