Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Larkin's First Time Singing Her ABC's






Brian and I were so pleasantly surprised when we were driving to dinner tonight and Larkin started singing the ABC song. She's never sung it before for us (at least in its entirety) and we were so impressed! She doesn't know many of the correct letters, but she gets pretty close and has the tune down really well. We were excited and grateful that we had our video camera on hand to catch the moment. Enjoy the video - and sing along!

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Deanna Rose Farm with Family

Another trip to one of our favorite young kid spots... Deanna Rose Farm. This time we went with some of Brian's family... beloved Nama and Papa, Aunt Jenny, and cousin Sierra. It was stifling hot but we all had a blast nonetheless.

Our first stop was the one-room school house, and then we were off to the dairy barn. They have one big mama cow and a few baby cows. If you arrive at specific times, you can watch them milk the mama cow and then feed the milk to the baby calves. Here is a picture of Larkin and Brian with a couple of the calves. Larkin likes to stick hay through the fence and have a calf eat from her hand. The picture below that is of Larkin practicing milking a cow. They have a fake cow with rubber teats on her udder that the kids can play with (it shoots out water). It's a fun activity for the kids and Larkin always loves going over there to give the teats a tug.



After the dairy barn, we went over to the Indian encampment (it is really cool). Brian, Larkin and Nama took a picture by a buffalo statue and in the background you can see the barn which is the main entrance to the farm.


Of course... feeding the goats... This is always a favorite activity and from now on I have to remember to bring a lot more quarters for goat pellet food because Larkin gives it to them so quickly! Check out the cute video of her feeding the goats (you'd think the goats are starved by their eagerness for the food, but they are fed a ton of pellets each day).







It was so hot, everyone had to take periodic breaks to rest and cool off. Larkin and Sierra enjoyed the swinging benches throughout the farm. On one, they shared the bench with their Aunt Jenny, and on another, they sat between Nama and Papa. The video of the four of them on the bench below is really cute... Larkin gives Sierra a kiss, Sierra rebukes Larkin's attempt to hold her hand so Larkin holds Nama and Papa's hands instead, and then Papa swears at the end! Ah, the memories!







Friday, June 25, 2010

Girl Cousin Bath Time



Another joint cousin bath, except this time Larkin bathed with Sierra instead of Gavin and Luke. Both girls really enjoy their bath time, and this time in Nama and Papa Hittle's spacious jacuzzi tub was no different.

What fun is it to bathe with someone else without a little splashing, right? Larkin believes whole-heartedly in that rule and while Sierra tried to hold her own (and she was a very good sport, I might add), Larkin doused her repeatedly! You can see from the pictures, but you really get the full effect if you watch the video below.










Neither girl wanted bath time to end, so Larkin was able to extend it a bit longer by serenading Sierra and the rest of us paparazzi (parents, grandparents) with a few beautiful songs. Check out her spirited renditions of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and "Wheels on the Bus".





Saturday, June 19, 2010

First Pigtails and Water Table






This was Larkin's first time wearing pigtails! She was very excited for them and kept looking at herself in the mirror and giggling when she saw herself! She wouldn't sit still for very long for me, so my quick work ended up with the pigtails a bit uneven... but she rocked the quirky do. What is cuter than a little girl in pigtails?

This was also Larkin's first time playing with the water table that her Nama and Papa (Brian's parents) gave her for her second birthday. She loved it. She poured a lot of water on herself and even cooled off my legs for me because it was sweltering!

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Spider Head dress and Tiger Mask




Art time is one of Larkin's favorite times at school. She comes home with all sorts of artistic treasures and I love them all! I'm keeping our favorites for posterity, but I take photos of all of her art, so I can keep those memories for her. Here are a couple of pictures that I took of Larkin displaying some of her "performance art" creations! In the top couple of pictures, Larkin is showing off her spider head dress and the bottom photo is a tiger with Daddy... but where's Larkin?!


Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Goddard Tiger Room in June

Grrrrr... here come the Tigers! Here are a few pictures of Larkin at school... she's currently a "Tiger" at the Goddard School. They do all sorts of activities and I thought you'd like to see what sorts of things Larkin is up to during a typical day. They had a dog visit class one day and you'll see Larkin in the upper right of the frame. She isn't the least bit shy around dogs, not with her "puppy" Sera at home!


During the summer, every Wednesday is called "Water Wednesday". During the kids' morning outside time, they get to play in the water... whether it be a water table, a sprinkler, etc. In the first pic below, that's Larkin in the middle of the picture in the pink bathing suit. If you look beyond the white fence around their playground, you'll see another fence just up that short hill. Beyond that fence is a horse ranch and very often the horses will come over to their fence and look over at the kids playing outside. The kids love to see the "neigh neighs", as Larkin affectionately calls them sometimes. In the last picture, that's Larkin and her boyfriend Carter playing at the water table. Yay for summer!


Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Singing in the Rain, Karen's 34th B-day






We're singing in the rain,
Just singing in the rain.
What a glorious feeling,
I'm happy again.

I walk down the lane
With a happy refrain.
I'm singing
and dancing in the rain!


That's the modified version of Gene Kelly's song "Singing in the Rain" that I sang to Larkin as we sang, danced in our rain boots and twirled her princess umbrella in the rain. I don't often go stand in the rain (and it was raining fairly hard at one point), but she and I were waiting for Brian to come home and so I figured, why not? Wet clothes, but no harm done (since there wasn't lightening). And we had a blast! I took most of the pictures myself, but the very first photo is of us girls once Brian got home, and you can see that she was pretty drenched by then (I took cover occasionally in the garage while she twirled with her umbrella solo). What a fun memory!

Today is also my 34th birthday - so, happy birthday to me! With all of the family birthdays that we celebrated back in May, Larkin has gotten very good at singing the Birthday song, so I was blessed with multiple renditions of it. We celebrated at home with Brian's parents. Brian made me his amazing homemade lasagna and we topped it off with a delicious chocolate-chocolate mini-cake! I've had several people say "really, you're 34?" which on the one hand is nice because it means they don't think I look 34, but on the other reminds me that 34 is actually kind of "old"! Ah, well, either way it doesn't really matter to me... I look forward to growing old gracefully with my loving friends and family, whom I love so much.

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Larkin's first time in CC pool



Larkin loved going for a swim in our neighborhood pool. It's only a short walk from our house and its open from Memorial Day to Labor Day. It's fairly large so it can accomodate the hordes of kids that arrive there in droves from our young family neighborhood. Larkin was brave in the water, but she liked the safety of the little floatie.

We played a "choo choo train" game we made up where we'd pretend that doors of a train/subway were opening, we'd go through them, then the doors would close, we'd ride the train (i.e. pull her around the pool), and then we'd get off and wave bye-bye to the choo-choo. It was a fun family outing and I know we'll be back very soon!