Sugar and spice and everything nice

Here's the only ingredient needed for one sweet cupcake!

Wavy wavy

Natalie has this habit that she loves to wave at the cars as they go by.

The other day, Natalie and I went down to the end of the driveway to empty the mailbox. As we got near the end of the driveway, there was a big pickup truck coming down the road. The driver looked like a real rugged farmer - you know, like this good ol' manly man type dude. And - he smiled and waved back! It was so cute - one of these random things that just make you smile.

Maybe you'll be the next one to get a chance to wave back from the car and bring a big smile to somebody's face...

A new cart / At the park

We got a new little cart for Natalie. She seems to really like it. The first time we tried it, we went for a long walk outside. The cart has two seats. When we finally got back in and opened the seatbelt, Natalie got up - and went to sit down in the other seat in the cart with a look like "Okay, now I'm ready for the next walk!"

Last weekend, we took it with us to the park:

Eventually, Natalie wanted to get out and push the cart herself:

It turned out, she just wanted to be able to steer it so that we would get to the play area faster!

Daddy, push me! Again! Again!

Karsten would ask now and again if Natalie was ready to go back to the car, and whe would shake her head no very energetically. She sure likes the swings.

You say potato...

On Thursday night, we were going grocery shopping. Karsten and Natalie had the following conversation in the car:


Karsten: Natalie, we are going to buy food for the next week. What do you think we should buy?
Natalie: Ahhppp.
Karsten: Okay, we'll buy some apples. What about some pasta?
Natalie: Dha!
Karsten: Sounds good. And how about some bread?
Natalie: PtsssA!
Karsten: What else should we buy?
Natalie: Phoh-tjea-poh-tjea-phoh-pjeah-po-Tjea.
Karsten: Okay, we'll remember the potatoes.

Roadmap of the day

Have you ever noticed that by the end of the day, your toddlers clothes serve as a roadmap to the days events? Especially if the clothes were white sometime in a previous life...

Here's an example from this Sunday:

Yep, we had a great day!

At the Wildlife Sanctuary

We went to the Wildlife Sanctuary today. Natalie had a blast walking on the trails and looking at all the animals:

Look, there are some animals in there!

On to the next one...

Here's a little video of Natalie walking around and telling us of all the things she's seeing!

Look at all the duckies! (But daddy, the duckies in my bath at home are all yellow...?)

What did you do on your day off?

Karsten and I had taken Thursday and Friday off. We had our own little "Mini-vacation". So what did we do on our day off? Well, we went to Fleetfarm, and then we took a long nap... Doesn't that sound romantic? Well, the truth is, it actually was really romantic. Natalie has been having some tough nights (she's doing better now, knock on wood), so we were pretty tired. And a day of doing nothing was just what we needed.

Of course, we did other things too. After we dropped Natalie off at daycare, we went out for breakfast. And Natalie was still on our mind while we were at Fleetfarm, which was probably why we bought her these cute little rainboots.

The forecast says it might rain tomorrow, so we'll probably go looking for puddles...

Anyway, we did go home and got some sleep. Then we picked Natalie up early, so that we could spend some time together before we went out that evening. We left her with a sitter, so we could go out for dinner and go to a show with the Blue Man Group - which was totally awesome, by the way.

So yes, we did spend our time off napping, and yes, we had a great time!