Hannah Camera

I finally got around to downloading pictures from Hannah's camera that she got for her birthday.  They were mostly blurry or completely dark, but there are still some good ones.  It's funny to see things from her perspective.  Many of these things I've blogged about like playdates with Ollie, the bird nest, and Olive's monthly pics.  Hannah was right there taking pictures with me.  I was surprised to find other things on her camera...like the facebook screen. :)  These were taken from March-May.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

McWeekend in St. Louis

We met Granny in Columbia to pick up Hannah on our way to St. Louis.  Hannah's three days spent in Chula were the first time the girls have been separated.  It was also the first time Hannah has been gone when I've been home.  I miss her on vacation, but I'm always busy and I don't think about it that much.  Being at home without her is a different story.  It is way too quiet without my chatterbox around.  Although it was nice to return to being a mother-of-one for awhile: shopping, jogging with the stroller...everything is easier with just one kiddo.  But I was very happy to get my Hannah girl back.  Olive smiled, laughed, and pointed when she saw Hannah.  Hannah said she missed me... a little bit.  But the next day she wanted to hold my hand and sit on my lap all the time.  She later amended her statement to, "I missed you...a lot." 

It has been awhile since we've visited the McGuires.  It was nice to sit around, talk, and play cards.  Hannah wasn't sure about staying at another house when she really just wanted to go home...then she saw their toys. She loved the trucks, airplanes, and helicopters.  As soon as she got home to our house she wanted to round up "all the things that fly."  That amounted to two small airplanes.  She was very disappointed in our toy collection.

 

On Saturday we went to the Missouri Botanical Garden.  They are currently having a Chinese Lantern Festival.  Very awesome.  I wish we could have seen it at night, too.  Alas, kiddos with bedtimes.  

Conversation before we left...

me: Hey, we're going to go see some flowers!

Hannah:  I don't want to go to their boretum.

me: (trying to figure out what she is saying)  Oh, arboretum!

Hannah: Not our boretum, their boretum.

 

This dragon was made of teacups, saucers, platters, etc.
 

 

 

 

 

  

This was inside the Climatron.  It reminded me of the indoor exhibits at the Omaha Zoo.
 

mosquito bite on the eyelid :(
  


Gwyn(1), Colin(4), Kevin(5), Hannah(3), Olive(1).  Kevin will be starting kindergarten in a few weeks!!  They grow up so fast...especially when they aren't yours and you don't see them everyday.  The last time we took a group picture on this couch, kids started puking.  Fun times. 

Olive's favorites: riding the horse, pushing the lawnmower and stroller
 

Jeff City Trip

We spent the weekend in Jeff City to visit Steve's sister's family and his parents came for lunch, too.  Hannah is noticeably taller than Ainslyn now, even though Ainslyn is 1.5 years older.  Main activities of the weekend were swimming, jumping on the trampoline, and swinging on the highest swing in the world.  The Guinness Book of World Records hasn't made it official (yet), but trust me.  Fearless Hannah didn't think twice about swinging a few feet above her Mama's head.  She was also game for trying some new fruits: lychee and horned melon.  I'm missing my Hannah girl right now because she and Ainslyn are spending a few days at Granny's house.  It's too quiet around here without her.  It is the first time she and Olive have been separated, too.  Olive is handling it pretty well.  She misses Hannah most right after nap because she likes to wake her up.  Now she just walks into her room and looks confused when the bed is empty.  I can't wait to see her face light up when she sees her big sis tomorrow!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Olive Stats- 15 months

Olive is now 22 pounds 9 ounces (45th percentile) and 31 inches (60th percentile).  Poor O.  I think she is going to end up the short one in the family.  This month her two upper molars have broken through the skin.  She still doesn't have many words, but it seems like she understands everything I say.  I can tell her language explosion is right around the corner since she points to things wanting us to name them.  She has learned how to say "No, no, no!" and shake her finger.  This is always in response to one of us telling her no (or her remembering that she isn't supposed to do something).  I hope I can get it on video sometime.  She uses sign language for "more" and "all done."  One of her favorite things is putting on shoes (hers or other people's).  She likes her crocs best because she can put them on all by herself.  And finally, last night she WALKED down the stairs by herself.  Oy!

Antioch Park

We finally got a playdate with Ollie and Penny!  We went to Antioch Park on a way-too-hot day to check out the new playground equipment.  Hannah fed the geese and then we were surrounded by them.
 

 

 

 

John Anderson Sprayground

We tried out a new sprayground in Grandview, MO (less than 20 min away).  It is pirate themed and also has a playground right next to it.  Unfortunately it is not fenced in, which makes it a little difficult to watch two girls when they want to be in different places.  I spent most of my time with my hands on Olive so she wouldn't fall of the playground equipment and my eyes on Hannah so I wouldn't lose track of her.  Fearless Hannah eventually joined us to climb to the top everything in sight.  One boy asked her how old she was and then said, "My brother is four and he won't even climb to the top of that!"

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dinosaurs

Hannah chose dinosaurs for her next unit of study.  Problem:  when we did our book sort we came up with just five dinosaur books at our house and none of them were non-fiction.  Library to the rescue!  Our library has learning kits that contain books, CDs, DVDs, and action rhymes.  We checked out two dinosaur kits plus some other books.  Hannah liked "Tyrannosaurs Rex up Close" and Olive liked "Dinosaur Roar!" the best.  They both enjoyed Sesame Street dinosaurs and Dinosaur Train DVDs.  Hannah didn't really like the action rhymes, although I thought they were cute.  We spent most of our learning times reading books and looking at pictures.  Hannah was really good at noticing small differences between the dinosaurs.  She saw Brachiosaurus and Apatosaurus  were different because of the bumps on their heads.  I never noticed that before.

Playing with dinosaurs at the library.  Did I mention our library is awesome?

 

We tried making dinosaur tracks by cutting out cardboard feet, but it was more fun to make Hannah tracks.  Then we made prints from leaves and other things in the yard.
 

Hannah's favorite activity: digging dinosaurs out of play-dough and making imprint fossils.
 

 

I bought these little dinosaurs for our unit and Hannah loves playing pretend with them.  We also sorted them into groups of herbivore/carnivores and number of legs.  Here she made a pattern with them.
 

 Another purchase was a kid's tape measure so we could plot the length of dinosaurs in our backyard.  It's never too young to get kids started measuring things.  They love it and it's a real world skill.  

I think could have studied dinosaurs forever, but when our library books were due I told her it was time to choose something else.  Next unit:  bugs!