Sophie is 18 months old

Sophie turned 18 months old yesterday. In the past few months, she has learned to walk, learned to dance, had 2 more teeth come through, had strep throat for a second time, and explored along side her sister. She still has no fear. Yesterday, I was making dinner and when I turned around Sophie was sitting ON the kitchen table. She was so proud that she climbed up on top of the table.

Her vocabulary is expanding too. She understands so much when you talk to her. She has learned to call for "Ma,Ma," "Da,Da," "Lillie," and "Mitties." She even learned to say "Oh, Oh," (her version of "uh, oh," when she drops something.

The past 18 months have been fun, exciting, and exhausting experience and I can't wait to see what happens in the next 18 months.

Playgroup - Parent's as teachers event at a farm

Our Playgroup started a "Parent's as Teachers" playgroup event. Our first event was at a farm. We had been there before and Lillie couldn't wait to go back. This time, Sophie was able to feed the chickens too.
We got to pet the chickens. Lillie is petting the chicken in this picture.

After feeding and petting the chickens, the kids got to pick the eggs. Lillie asked if there were any green eggs. (Yes, green eggs.) They call them Araucanas or Easter Egg Chickens, because they lay eggs with a blue-green shell. In this photo, the parent hosting the event just lifted Lillie up to pick a green egg out of the top roost. The light green egg is in her hand.

After Lillie picked a dozen eggs, she jumped in the toddler trampoline.

This week, we also went to a summer Library event featuring the bubble man. Both Lillie and Sophie enjoyed watching him make bubbles.

Lillie has also been busy attending birthday parties. She went to 2 birthday parties in the past 2 weeks and she has 2 more birthday parties next week.

We finally have a pumpkin growing in our garden. It is about the size of the lemon. We also have a 2 more that are each about the size of a grape.

Kite and Bite

We don't get a lot of wind in Michigan, but the other day we did. Lillie noticed the wind and asked Brian to help her fly a kite.
They tried several times to get the kite in the air.

And they did get the kite in the air a few times. Until the wind died down.

This is one of my favorite pictures of Lillie running with the kite string.

Lillie had a great time, but the next morning she woke up with 2 goose eggs on her head. She had a bad reaction to a mosquito bite. One the size of a nickle and the other the size of a quarter. Benadryl and hyrocortisone helped bring the swelling down. The quarter size one is in this picture and the nickle size one was under the edge of my hand. We found the smaller one a few hours later.

Camping

Tonight, is the first night that Lillie and I will not be sleeping in the same house. Why? Brian and Lillie are having a camp out in the backyard tonight. Brian and Lillie set up their tent near the fire pit in the backyard.
We all had to have smores.

Then it was time for Brian and Lillie to lay down and go to sleep. They have been out there for an hour, so maybe they fell asleep.

Update: They came in the house to sleep in their own beds at 12:20 a.m. The motion lights, crickets, locust and frogs were keeping them awake.

Kalamazoo Valley Museum - better than Chuck E. Cheese's

Yesterday, Lillie Sophie and I met our playgroup at the Kalamazoo Valley Museum. It is a free Children's museum, so, you only have to pay for the parking downtown. Yesterday, they had a "hands on" event featuring Curious George. There were 10 tables set up with different craft activities. Lillie and Sophie had a great time. We were there for 3 hours. They did a lot. Here are a few pictures to show you just a few of the things that they did. They played in the "preschool" area.
Lillie played a bango.

They played in the learning area. In this photo, Lillie is linking washers attached to the magnet.

Sophie's favorite thing (see photo below) was dropping the balls in at the top of the box and watching then roll down to the bottom.

Lillie had such a great time that she said, "It was better than Chuck E. Cheese's."