A Mostly Picture Post

After realizing that we had taken very few pictures of our girl last week (and even let the camera battery run down), I've been trying to make up for lost time. It's helped that we've had a few fun events this past weekend that we wanted to commemorate, too.

First, our friend Kat (who is also an adult reflux adviser) came to visit on Friday. She brought Hallie a belated holiday gift/early Valentine's Day gift, and Hallie, needless to say, loved it.

If it's Elmo (or Sesame Street), Hallie adores it.





Witness her royal treatment of 'the boys,' as I like to think of them. Ever since Renee and Kim gave Hallie these finger puppets right after she got home from the hospital, she's been mad about them. Never mind that both of their hair is a bit shorter and more matted than when we received them. (Hallie has sharp teeth, and they will rival any barber's razor). She always pairs them up and frequently carries around big Ernie and little Ernie or big Bert and little Bert. It's interesting to watch her categorize. She has also begun saying a version of "Ernie" (it sort of has a 'd' or 't' in it; I am not certain why, but we'll take any name approximation) and now, along with calling Big Bird "buh buh" she calls Bert, "beh".



This next shot is a set-up. I just thought that pockets were the ideal place for Hallie's pals:



Little Ernie and Bert are nice stand-ins for Renee, who came over for her weekly fix of Signing Times, on Friday, too.

Friday night, cousin Megan and Grammy drove down to see our girl. Actually, Grammy came down to see Hallie and, while this was a bonus for Megan, she was here to get some help on her super-cool project on Northfield from Aunt Sharon. The two of them pulled all-nighters to make a very excellent model of the attraction that Megan devised for the town in which she lives. They also had fun at Pearl buying all sorts of creative supplies. I hope that Meg gets me a picture of the final results---I promise to post it. It's great having an aunt who is an architect.

But even if Megan was mostly here to do work, she couldn't resist playing with her littlest cousin. Here's a nice shot of our young keyboardist making a racket:



And, then, if that wasn't enough, the three of us and Megan drove down to Aunt Laura and Uncle Bryan's yesterday to celebrate cousin Adam's third birthday. It's funny that he and Hallie are a mere 16 months apart (to the day...today is Hallie's 20 month birthday). The party was a nice, family-only event that was replete with firetrucks (on the yummy and beautiful cake) and balloons. Hallie was especially fond of the latter, as you can see in these shots:




Here's a cute shot of the little cousins hugging Hallie, sandwich-style:



And here's a great picture of the birthday boy blowing out his candles:


Of course, any day in Northfield would be incomplete without a snuggle from Aunt Laura.



Aunt Laura was impressed and surprised at how heavy Hallie is getting.

And, then, just because, here's a great shot of Hallie playing in a sunbeam on the office floor yesterday. It's funny how much she resembles Bailey, our old dog, who used to do that.



And, finally, here's one of Hallie doing some homework. Busy, busy, busy...Which reminds me that I need to do some, too.


But, before I go, I just remembered that I saved the best news for last: we have now made it FIVE full days without a single vomit (and just two urps). This is a huge record and I hope we break it today!