We Love Elmo

Natalie and I broke in our Sesame Place season passes this afternoon. We had so much fun! The weather was nice. A little warm, actually. It would have been nice to hop in the lazy river or go down a water slide, but I wasn't prepared for that today. Next time!

Our Bunny

The bunny made an appearance in our yard again yesterday afternoon.

Me: Look Natalie! The bunny is back in our yard!
Natalie: Ooh! (scrambling to climb on the footstool to get a better view out the window). Hi bunny!
Me: Do you think that bunny has a name?
Natalie: (silence for about 10 seconds). Hoppy.
Me: What a great name for a bunny!
(bunny hops away)
Natalie: Bye bunny! See ya later, Hoppy!

I am so proud of her for coming up with a name for our yard bunny, and it's a name that makes sense! She probably came up with it because we went to Petco last week to look at animals. There was a rabbit there available for adoption and we stood and watched it for a good 10 minutes, just hopping around in its cage. She showed the bunny how she hops too.

We can't wait to see Hoppy again!

Communiversity

This afternoon we went to a big annual event in downtown Princeton called Communiversity. There are all sorts of vendors and booths set up with food and drinks, games, music and dancing, and more, and Nassau St. (the main drag in downtown, right in front of the university) is blocked off for the festivities. It was crowded, but such a gorgeous day to be outside! After we had walked around for a while, we headed over the the Princeton baseball game for a little while. They are admittedly not very good, but it was so nice to see some baseball! I didn't take a camera with me, so all I can give you is a cell phone shot of Brad and Natalie at the game. Natalie was sporting her Princeton hat in support of the Tigers!

A Year of Pies -- Month 11

There are a few fruits that Brad doesn't like in pies, and since I have run of out ideas, I decided the last couple of months he could request repeats of his favorites. Well, I may have run out of creativity, but he certainly didn't! A couple of his favorites were strawberry and lemon meringue, so he decided he wanted a combo deal -- lemon pie topped with fresh strawberries instead of meringue. Excellent thinking on his part; it was delicious!

Mousie's Coming To Town!

Two months from today, we will pick my mom up at the airport. Hooray! She was only here for a couple days to help when we moved here back in September, so I can't wait to show her around now that I know of fun stuff to do and how to get places. Not to mention this time she won't be involuntarily subjected to the exhausting manual labor of unpacking. Hurry up, June 17!

Terhune Orchards

We met up with some friends yesterday afternoon at Terhune Orchards. It was the perfect day to be outside! I took Natalie over a little early with grand plans of taking some nice pictures of her. I got her dressed up in a dress and her new sandals and had this vision of her cooperatively posing in front of the blossoming apple and cherry trees. Well that didn't happen! She gets so excited when we go to the "farm" (as she calls it) that all she wants to do is check out the animals. Oh well...we had such a fun time anyway!

Chasing a goose. At one point she was surrounded by 3 or 4 of them all at once and I just knew they were going to start pecking her!

Here's a decent close-up of her new haircut with bangs. She looks like such a big girl with a real hair style!

Natalie and Caitlin being silly together, as usual :)

She was so brave with the animals! Sticking her hands right through the fence to pet them. She LOVED when the goat was licking her fingers.

This is the child who drinks only water. No milk, no juice, just water. She was loving the fresh apple cider. Who wouldn't?

Curious George

Curious George came to our library this morning! He is near the top of the list of "favorite shows" for Natalie...and definitely at the top of my list for "tolerable kids shows." This is the first time Natalie wasn't scared when she met a character. She loved him!

They had some fun crafts for us to work on while we were waiting our turn to meet George.


All that hand-shaking we practiced last night paid off!

I Love Cats

Natalie decided she was going to read Lily a book this afternoon, so she ran off to the other room to find just the right book. She came back with I Love Cats. Lily wasn't as into it as Natalie hoped, but I give her two thumbs up for appropriate book selection!

The Grass Is Always Greener...

You may remember a couple of months ago when I posted this picture of Brad shoveling the snow off our driveway while our neighbor used his handy snowblower. Well, I am now convinced that this neighbor sits watching out his front window waiting for Brad to go out to do yard work...then comes out to one-up him. He could at least volunteer to drive that nice piece of John Deere machinery across the street and help a neighbor out, right?

How High?

Natalie very proudly stacked all of her nesting blocks by herself. "No help, Mommy!"
Working up the courage to knock it down...
Boom!
She's also been having fun with the Easter stickers that my parents sent. They are everywhere!

Easter Weekend

The weekend started off with a little spring cleaning...
Then we headed to one of our favorite places in the area, Terhune Orchards. They are open year-round but this weekend was their first event of the season. Hooray for warmer weather!
We lost count of how many cats were wandering around the farm, but there are at least four. They are all so friendly! Natalie loved this one in particular. She spent a lot of time just following it around. I think the animals were glad to see warmer weather too! Goats, sheep, horses, chickens and turkeys were all out and about.


I think this barn is so neat...a great place to take pictures. Check out the solar panels on the roof! Natalie tried really hard to find a way in.

More cat following...
And even more cat following...
And some chicken following!

She found another cat to hang out with on the porch of the farm store. She was pretending to eat an apple (we all know she would never actually take a bite) while Brad and I shared some freshly baked cookies and apple cider. We also picked up a bag of cider donuts for Easter morning.

Riding the tractors was fun even though she has no clue what to do with the pedals. That just means Brad has to push! We found Caitlin at the tractors too! Too bad she got a bum steering wheel.


Our last stop of the day was a wagon ride around the farm.
Happy Easter! I know the picture is blurry but it was the best I got of her in her dress...I had forgotten to turn my flash on for the first picture. And of course, all the rest of the pictures I took were of her lifting her dress, making weird faces and running away. She's definitely 2!
The Easter Bunny brought a Mr. Potato Head bunny!
I managed to figure out the auto-timer on the camera, so I set it up, pushed the button and ran to get in the picture. Not too bad, huh?
I kept the meal simple since it was just two of us eating it. Honey ham, mashed potatoes, roasted asparagus and rolls.
Lemon bars for dessert. Wanna bite?
Happy Easter! He is risen!

Getting Ready For Easter

This morning Natalie and I went to the Easter egg hunt at church. She was thrilled to find plastic frogs, fake coins, a ring and a bracelet inside her eggs. Just the perfect amount of goodies for a 2 year old...it doesn't take much to impress her!



Hoppy Easter!