Just Nuts

Today Morgan was feeding the squirrel some peanuts.  Grandpa told her to sit quietly (hard for a two year old) and hold the peanut out.  The squirrel cautiously approached and then, sensing only love and friendship calmly took the peanut from Morgan’s outstretched hand.  He came back numerous times to get more peanuts, but nothing can match the joy and surprise in her eyes when he took that first peanut from her.

Morgan’s A

This morning Morgan pulled up her chair at her drawing desk, pulled out a piece of paper and a marker and starting writing A’s, B’s, and C’s.

She did this completely on her own and without any help.

Pretty cool!

Baby Sitter

Charlotte surprised us today by sitting up on her own.

Charlotte Sits On Her Own

She has really ripped abs and she was totally showing off.

We also started feeding her fresh home-made apple sauce made from Grandma and Grandpa Lehmann’s apple tree.

She demolished it. We have a good eater on our hands.

Family Portraits

At the end of August the Lehmann Family headed to Cliff Gilker Park with photographer Michelle Crosby-Smith.

The Lehmann Family

I think we got some good shots considering none of us were very cooperative.

“Read More” for the selected pictures.

Language

We’ve been working A LOT on Morgan’s speech lately.  Colors, numbers, letters, animals… you name it.  We’ve stopped letting her get away with sign language or worse, pointing and emphatically grunting.

And it’s working.

Except the other day, it backfired.

I asked Morgan to go and get her towel from her room.

She looked at me over her should and clearly said, “no way man”.

Beth swears she’s didn’t teach her this so I can only assume it must be the grandparents.

I think we are all going to have to watch what we say around her from now on.

Fruity Kid

We picked strawberries and raspberries today.  Some made it into the bucket.  The awe in Morgan’s eyes when she realized that food actually grows on all that green stuff.  Astounding.

Charlotte is a Tummy Sleeper

Whenever we peek in on Charlotte we find her rolled over on her tummy.

Tonight we put her down (completely asleep), went and closed Morgan’s door, and came back to find she had flipped over in the 10 seconds we were gone.

We’re leaving her to it, then =)

Morgan Loves Everyone and Everything!

Yesterday when I was making dinner Morgan came into the kitchen with her arms holding her tummy.

I asked her if she was alright and she only pulled her arms tighter.

At first I was worried but then I realized that she was hugging something.

I asked her to show me what she had…

She showed me a beautiful dead woodbug that she had found outside

Absolutely everything gets lots of hugs and kisses from Morgan.

Kisses to Everyone

Morgan is such a loving child.

We went to pick dad up a new shirt and when she wasn’t running around the store trying on hats and socks and grooving to the music, she was standing at the front door holding the manikin’s hand and kissing his leg.

As much as management may have not liked her hiding in the racks of shirts, they certainly had a lot of smiles for her.

Relational Thinking

Morgan has been advancing at a phenomenal rate with respect to her ability to identify objects and characters in books.

We have long since passed “find the duck” to “find the duck that is making breakfast”.

She’s also started showing off. When a page has many purple umbrellas, she will point simultaneously to all of the umbrellas. Pretty cool stuff!

We’ve also started finding LETTERS in books – sooo cool. She can now pick out A’s and O’s and we are working on B’s and C’s.

So…

We were putting Morgan through her nighttime calm down routine when were going through her books. This was a book with very oddly drawn animals.

We got to one page that she asked us what the animals were so we started naming them off for her. She started getting out of bed (which isn’t all that unusual as she likes to find ways to delay bed time) and we kept putting her back in. She finally slipped around us, sat down on the book, and started bouncing up and down.

We didn’t understand until she put her hands out in front of her to hold the “reins”.

Ah! – one of the characters was a horse. She was showing us that she understood horses and this is what you do with them. Those cousins of hers will soon have us building a paddock!

Morgan Becomes Helpful Part II

Morgan has just been developing in leaps and bounds lately.

She has been helping with the dishwasher and the laundry for months now, but she’s starting to do even more around the house and out and about.

On Sunday Morgan and I went grocery shopping while Matt and Charlotte had some quality time at home.

On this particular grocery trip Morgan got to be out of the cart for the first time ever. She did really well. She didn’t run off and she really helped with picking out the groceries.

She helped to pick out the oranges and the onions. Then when we went down the cookie isle she wanted to get special cookies for Daddy.

When we got to the deli she told me she wanted to get rice wrapped in grape leaves. She told me to get one for her and one for her Daddy

The best part was when we were down the cereal isle. I asked her to pick a box of the purple Raisin Bran. Morgan has never seen a box of Raisin Bran before but she picked it out right away.

It was great having such a good helper, however we did end up getting much more than I had expected

Morgan Becomes Helpful

Just a short little story.

We were having dinner on the deck and I had finished a bottle of beer.  I asked Morgan if she would take back the empty bottle, put it on the counter, and get me a new cold one from the fridge.

It was sort of an experiment.  We’ve been working on all sorts of multi-step instructions, but this was probably the most complicated we’ve tried.  That was a lot of instructions for a 2 year old.

Morgan happily grabbed the empty and headed into the house.  I jumped up and watched her through the kitchen window.  She went into the kitchen and very carefully put the bottle on the shelf.  She used both hands over her head to make sure it was pushed back on the counter so it wouldn’t fall.

She then turned around and was heading to the fridge, when she suddenly stopped, had a thoughtful look on her face, and then spun around on one heel and headed back to the empty bottle.  She had to stand on her toes to reach the bottle.

When she finally got it down she drank off the little bit of beer that was still left.  MMMMmm! she declared.  She wiped her mouth, put the bottle back on the counter, opened the fridge and got a cold one, and then ran outside and presented it to me.

There was a little bit of beer on her upper lip.

I think we are going to have to be very careful around this one.

The Girls are Growing!

July was just as busy as June (then again, when aren’t we busy!).

Best Friends

Charlotte got her 4 month shots in July.  She was 15 lbs. and 25 ” long and just keeps getting bigger.  She is growing by leaps and bounds.  She loves to spend time in her Jolly Jumper (even if Morgan does see it as an opportunity to try to pick her up).  She is also desperately trying to sit up on her own.  No more leaving her propped up anywhere!

In mid-July we had a great visit with Robyn, Raven, Mason, and Cordelia (we missed Jon, Brandi, and Isobel, but we’ll have to try to get in to Vancouver to see them sometime).  The kids had a great time running around and playing, while the Moms and Dads got to chat.

The same day that everyone visited, I got my hair CUT!!  It felt so good to finally make a change.  For those of you who don’t know, or can’t tell from the pictures, my hair was down to my bottom.  I really got it chopped off, it is now just a little longer then chin length.  I have to say that it is really nice how fast I can take care of it in the shower!

We went to Matthew’s parent’s house for his Mom’s birthday party early in July.  Morgan had an absolutely wonderful time with her bigger cousins.  She just adores her big cousins.  We had a great time too, we both managed to have our hands free!!  With all the family at the party there was always someone to hold or watch both the girls.  We even briefly considered just going home and leaving them there

Earlier in the summer we pulled Morgan’s tricycle out of the shed for her to try out.  She loves it and she is almost big enough for it.  She has the concept of pedaling down but her legs just aren’t quite long enough.  We even went out and bought her a beautiful blue helmet to go with the tricycle.  Unfortunately we had to put the tricycle away for the season when Morgan decided that she could ride it on her own all the way down the driveway.  She didn’t have an accident, but it was close enough that we didn’t want to chance her playing with it on her own.

We bought a power washer in July.  We had been uncertain if we should get one or not.  When the gentleman we were going to get to do our driveway told us we should just get one and do it ourselves we went for it!  After spending a good hour putting the thing together Matt took it out for a little test drive on our old grey fence.  WOW!!  The difference was amazing!  The next weekend Matt did our driveway.  It started out black and now looks brand new.  Morgan and I watched him from in the house and I have to say it was hypnotizing to watch.

I guess that brings us to August.  It may only be half way thru but we have been just as busy in August as in July.  Matt finished insulating our shed on the long weekend.  This is a project we started last year so we are very happy to finally have it finished, well almost finished.  I still have to go thru everything and find a proper home for it all.  The next weekend we had a great BBQ at Tracey’s.  Once again Morgan just had a blast playing with her cousins.  She also had a great time on the trampoline all by herself (it looks like we may need to get one sooner than anticipated).   The next day we went to the Hackett Park Arts Festival.  We have visited the fair every year since Morgan was born.  We always pick up a little something for Morgan, and now for Charlotte too.  This year we got a beautiful ceramic dragonfly (for Morgan) and an adorable ceramic ladybug (for Charlotte).

The best part was when we all sat down on a little grassy knoll for lunch.  We each had a hotdog and we shared a lemonade slushy.  This was the first place the Morgan was allowed to run free and she had a great time.  It was so strange seeing her like that.  It was like a glimpse of the little girl that she will be.  After we had lunch we did one last tour of the festival and Morgan got her face painted.  The woman who did the face painting was so good!  She was just amazing with the kids.

The final big event of that weekend was feeding Charlotte her first solids!  Of course this was a big family event with Morgan needing to play a big part.  Charlotte did great, she just gobbled it up.  She was also very patient with Morgan shoving the spoon into her mouth   Ever since we fed Charlotte she has decided that she likes food.  She is always trying to steal food from us anytime she is in our laps.  It looks like we will have 2 big eaters on our hands very soon!

Check out the 3 online albums here:

https://picasaweb.google.com/mainstaycomputing/LazyJuly?authkey=Gv1sRgCOj44_nu4d2-bg

https://picasaweb.google.com/mainstaycomputing/Driveway2011?authkey=Gv1sRgCMGvi_uB-JChXQ

https://picasaweb.google.com/mainstaycomputing/August2011?authkey=Gv1sRgCImJu-70jofdKw

Butterfly

Today something happened with Morgan that can only be described as miraculous.

We were outside in the gorgeous sunshine.  Morgan was sans clothes, as that is the best way to get potty trained.

It is also a really good way to get some vitamin D.  She was heavily sun tan lotioned up.   The lilies, pansies, and clematis were in sumptuous and heady bloom.

Morgan was playing on the front lawn in all this natural splendor, when a huge Monarch butterfly flew toward her.  Morgan’s eyes grew huge and she indicated she wanted to kiss and feed the butterfly.  I told her we should just let the butterfly come to her.  Well, it did.  Right to her, and lighted on a lily right at her hand.  It actually came right to her.

We have the most extraordinary pictures of a tiny, naked nymph feeding this glorious creature of nature.  They were a match made in Heaven.

New Kayak

Today Morgan got to sit in Grandpa’s new kayak.  She wanted to ‘go’.  It was so much fun to see her try to make it move.  After the kayak ‘trip’ her and Grandpa picked all the green beans.  She ate a few, so look out Mom and Dad!