rainy weekend and lots of pictures

Ugh... This weather we've been having has been just absolutely yucky. I'm so sick of the cold but I can't complain too much because at least we don't have snow like in ND.

Last Wednesday evening, Chad and I took Greta to family storytime after dinner. The theme was cows. They sang songs about cows, read books about cows, and then even colored cows at the end.

Our little Pablo Picasso!

On Thursday we finally made it back to our infant class after a couple months hiatus. It's so hard to get out of the house for this early class, especially when Greta has been sleeping in until 8:30 or even 9am some mornings. It was Greta's friend Elle's birthday on Thursday so we had to go and wish her a "happy birthday".

Greta with the birthday girl, Elle.

A class photo!

Snack time!

We met Harry and Johanna for lunch at Noodles on Friday.

Shopping at Target with her new baby doll.

Watching the rain outside on Saturday.

Greta's modified crawl so she can hold her baby in one hand.

Showing us her baby is "so big".

Such a little mommy. She loves this baby. Best $3.39 we've spent!

I love this face. It's like "awe mom".

Hope everyone has a great week!

tuesday update

Today, Greta and I started off our day with going to baby storytime at the library. One of the activities today was playing with felt boards and shapes. The librarian sang a song about "5 little ducks" and then each child had a duck and different shapes to play with on their felt board. I think I'm going to make one of these boards for Greta. She loved putting the pieces on the board and then showing me what she 'made'.

After storytime, all the kids have a little playtime.

Trying to find a toy. She usually picks Corduroy but another girl had already taken him from the toys.

 On Monday, Chad was able to come to storytime with us. I promise Greta smiles. She's just so serious for pictures.

On Sunday, we went out for lunch at the Green Mill. Greta was having a great time until I gave her a few bites of my asiago garlic mashed potatoes. She had 2 bites and on the 3rd bite she gagged everything up. Chad was quick and caught it with his hand. Yuck. The things you do when you have kids. The garlic was pretty strong in the potatoes and I think it was just a litle too much for her taste buds. It didn't upset her too much though and seconds later she was smiling away.

We're having a great week so far! Hoping to get outside tomorrow and enjoy this nice weather!

kristy yamaguchi

I had a nearly perfect day today. The day started off with Chad and I taking Greta to her baby class. She had a wonderful time, as she always does. We absolutely love the instructor, Shirley. She's known Greta since she was around 7 months old and loves Greta. There is a baby doll in the class that Greta loves to hold and today she spent a good portion of the class holding the little baby doll and burping her. She just cracks me up. At another point in the class, Greta was hanging out with her friend and Greta was enjoying her company so much that Greta put her head on the little 10 month old girl's shoulder.

After class, we came home and put Greta down for her overdue morning nap. I have been so sleep deprived this week because Greta has been waking up most mornings at 5:45-6:30am. Too early for this nightowl! I really need to get to bed earlier. Note: It's 10:45pm right now and tonight we lose an hour of sleep. Hrumph. Anyway, I laid down in bed and was just going to rest for a bit. I turned on the radio to listen to my favorite womens talk radio station. The Shopgirls were on and they were interviewing Kristy Yamaguchi. She was talking about a new children's book she had just written and that she'd be signing copies at the Mall of America today from 2-4pm. It was about 12:30pm when I was listening to this and I thought it would be so fun to take Greta to the book signing but the thought of driving 30+ miles to the MOA exhausted me. Especially since I'd probably go by myself because it's rarity when I can drag Chad to the MOA. So as I lay in bed trying to decide if I should make the drive to see Kristy or if I should just take a nice nap my phone rang. It was my friend, Sarah, and she wanted to know if Greta and I were up for a girl's day? She suggested meeting at the mall so we decided on meeting at the Mall of America and taking the girls to the book signing.

We planned to meet at 3pm and thought we'd have an hour to get in line and get our books signed. Neither of us expected the mall to be absolutely packed today. It was pure craziness in the parking ramp. I was trying to park by the Sears entrance and twice while I was circling around for a spot I got pushed back out on the main road again. Ugh. We finally both ended up parking around the same time and rushed into the mall. When we got there Kristy was just getting up and was going to leave early because there wasn't anyone waiting. What?!? Here we are!!! I think Sarah gave her a look and she saw we had to little cuties waiting for their books. She agreed to sign a few more copies and we quickly scooted up to the stage.

Sarah, Madelynn, Greta, and I

You can almost feel Greta's excitement :)

After our book signing, we escaped to Barnes and Noble and hung out in the children's section for a bit so we could escape the mall craziness and chat. After, we ate dinner at Noodles and then did a little shopping.

Greta loved hanging out with Madelynn. They were both so good for us at the mall and we had an awesome time. We didn't get on the road until around 7:45pm and I was surprised Greta was still in great spirits since she is usually in bed around 6:30pm. She zonked out in the car though and called it a night.

It was such a perfect day!

last day- part two

Last Tuesday, was the last day of our evening baby class. I am really sad to see this class end because it was a fun class for Chad to come to with us. Greta has known many of the kids in the class since she was 4 months old and it was wonderful seeing them and their parents on a weekly basis.

Greta loved playing with this hanging beach ball.

There is usually an activity during every class.
Daddy helping Greta with the handprint activity.

After we have an activity and some playtime, we gather in another room for circle time and parent discussion.

Greta loves the parachute. Here are all the kids sitting on the parachute during the "bubbles" song.

Now it's time for "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" under the parachute. Greta usually shrieks in delight when they are doing an activity with the parachute. Notice how far she's crawling away from us. In just the last 3 classes, she's started to venture out on her own.

The parachute is going away but the kids start crawling over there because they aren't ready for the parachute fun to be over.

Requesting an encore of the parachute.

Greta with the wonderful instructors.

I can't believe how much Greta has changed since we started this class. When the class began at the beginning of this fall she had just mastered sitting and was just starting to hold 2 toys at a time. Now she's crawling all over the place and going from a crawl to sit position. She's also interacting a lot more with the other kids. We've learned so much in these classes and made wonderful friendships with the other families.