Wordless Friday

Touchdown!

One of Halle's favorite shower games is for me to draw different shapes in the shower tiles closest to her, and then color them in, one by one. She supervises while I do all this, mind you. When I colored the last shape today she put her arms up and yelled, "Touchdown!"

Touchdown is the new all done. :)

Oh the Colors!

I recently commented on Keri's post that Halle seems oblivious to colors. At least, whenever I talk about color with her or ask her to point to something of a specific color, she ignores the request. Which is unusual, because she's otherwise all about pointing to stuff when asked. Yesterday I bought her this Halloween Dora coloring book and today we were coloring it together. I was coloring the flowers and vines without really paying attention to what Halle was coloring. When I glanced over, I was so impressed!! She colored the pumpkin orange, and Dora (dressed as a black cat) black, and the flower orange... and did a pretty good job coloring them at that! I guess she's more aware of color than she lets on. :)

Post Vacation Catch Up

Definitely the worst thing about vacation is the overwhelmed feeling you get when you return and you have SO much to take care of. I'm still feeling a bit of that, but its definitely gotten better over the past few days as stuff has been getting done. Still so much to do though. Sigh.

Anyway, the vacation itself was a lot of fun. The Smoky Mountains are beautiful. Gatlinburg is an adorable little town. And we got to spend plenty of quality time with my family and the Gallers family, and who could complain about that. One of my favorite parts of the trip was watching Halle and Leah interact with each other. They were so cute together, and they were both so sweet to baby Erin. I loved it.

Halle was so awesome on the trip, a perfect angel in fact... unless she was miserable. There was no in between. Either perfect sweet little angel, or a screaming, fit-throwing little demon. The demon only came out a couple exceptionally over-tired times, but those were some really ugly times. Luckily, that only lasted a couple of days, and she was perfect the last few days of the trip. Most notably on the ten hour ride home.

We left at 10:30 a.m. and returned home at 8:30 p.m. A complete daylight hours trip. I was expecting the worst, but got the absolute best. Love it when that happens! She watched the Dora DVD (Halloween Dora is now her FAVORITE episode.. thanks for the borrow, Leah!), played with crayons and paper, read her books, drifted off into two little naps, got out only once for lunch, and stayed happy the entire time. The ten hours flew by and we were home before we knew it. What a difference a happy baby makes!

Photos of the trip have been added to our photo album.

Ok, gotta get back to work now...

As Always, It's Great to Be...

... a Florida Gator! We had a blast watching the game at the Gallers' house. Here are pics of two of three cutest Gator cheerleaders ever (see Erica's blog for pics of the third). ;)

My Water Baby

So, despite my plan to take Halle swimming 3-5 days a week all summer (which I did for about a month back in May), we really haven't taken her to the pool much at all. We did go this evening though, and we were sooo impressed with Halle's confidence in the water! She's always been really good about letting us dunk her, but today... every time we'd dunk her, she'd come up smiling and signing for more! So we kept doing it. :) Then we started seeing if she'd swim from Jason to me. She doesn't kick or really propel herself, so I wasn't expecting anything. It just felt like the right time to actually let go and see how she did. And she did great! Didn't really swim, but she was totally comfortable with us letting her go for a second or two. Every time she came back up in my arms, she signed for more. Jason and I were so impressed, we must have let her "swim" to me about twenty times! After awhile I decided to see if she could float on her back without screaming. At first she was really uncomfortable on her back (even with me holding her), so I quietly started singing the Dora theme song to her and it worked. It calmed her down and she relaxed and stayed on her back (with me holding her) for the whole Dora theme song. And when the song was over, she'd flip over into my arms, and sign more, and we'd do it again. She floated through the Dora song at least three times. :) She also had tons of fun walking up and down the steps. I love how much she's enjoying all of this, and so glad that we're doing it together, the three of us. When we get back from our vacation, I may have to steal Erica's underwater camera again. :)

I Hate the Denados!

I know, I know. I was once in total support of them. Then I somehow got smitten with Jessica and Eric (I'm such a sucker for romance). When D&D turned on them, I turned on D&D. Ever since, all I've been able to hear are Daniele's lies and her ridiculous whining. UGH! I'm soooo sick of their hypocrisy. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I might actually want Zach to win Big Brother 8!

Wayne Brady's One Outfit

Does anyone watch Don't Forget the Lyrics? Have you guys noticed that Wayne Brady wears the exact same outfit every show?

Isms and Compulsions

I love all the Ianisms, Leahisms and Zachies I've been reading about. I can't wait to hear adorable and amazing things come out of Halle. We did have this converstion today:

Me: Halle, what do you want to watch?
Halle: Go, Go, Go!
Me: Go, Diego, Go?
Halle: No. Go, Go, Go!
Me: Backyardigans? Go, Go, Go?
Halle: (smiles big and claps)

I think this is one of the first times she's asked for something other than signing Dora or signing Bate, Bate, Chocolate. She's taking after Leah and loves the Racing Day Backyardigans episode and is now asking for it with words! I love it. She has also started saying "Bye Bye" when her shows are over and turning the TV off.

In other Halle news, I noticed something interesting yesterday. She was pulling counting bears out of the bucket of bears and placing them one by one into their bowls (she has a counting bears set with wide bowls instead of cups). Anyway, she would pick up a bear, turn it around in her hands until the bear was facing out and stand it up in the bowl. Every single bear was placed into the bowl the same way, facing the same direction, and every one was standing up. I got Jason's attention and he saw her doing it too. Every single bear the exact same way. Is Halle the only one showing signs of OCD, or is this normal? :)

Creative Outings

First, I want to give a shout out to Mike for TWENTY-SIX blog entries in the month of August. Way to embrace the blog, Gsheckles.

I'm also pleased to post that we've had another wonderfully active week this week. Jogged three times, yoga once, and we took a family bike ride to breakfast this morning. Bike riding is fun. I'm so glad we're getting back into it.

But what I really wanted to post about was creative outings with toddlers. It's summer and it's HOT. I'm always looking for things to do with Halle to get her out of the house but also keep her out of the sun. Two of our favorite places to go during the day are Barnes and Noble and Blockbuster.

Barnes and Noble has a wonderful kids section, with tons of bright colorful books with characters she recognizes. They also have tables and chairs set up that she can sit in and we can read books together. Since she has plenty of books at home, I don't actually buy anything while we're there, but she enjoys walking around and exploring and finding books that look interesting to her.

It may not seem like it, but Blockbuster is actually just as fun for her. The store is almost always empty in the morning when we go, so I just let her walk around and explore on her own. She's always thrilled when she walks into the kids aisle and sees the Dora, Diego and Backyardigans dvds. They're just her height and playing with the boxes entertains her quite a bit. There's also a big glass wall at our local Blockbuster where she stands and looks out the glass at the birds walking by. She'll stay there watching those birds for quite some time. I've learned that these late morning outings almost always equal three hour naps, so they make us both very, very happy. :)

If anyone else has a creative outing idea to share, please do!!