UNO

Liesl has been working dilligently on getting potty trained. And why not? She gets all kinds of treats for "being good on the potty". Yesterday we celebrated a whole day of being dry. She had a very good day. Mostly she plays with her animals on a little table in the bathroom. Yesterday she worked on puzzles all day. Last night before bed when she needed to go we played about 7 games of UNO which she won all of the games (and no I didnt just let her win). She is really good at it and likes to play. I have a Whinnie the Pooh version of it for her. She is really rocking out the trainer pants and panties. Sometimes wearing 2 trainers and 2 panties stacked on top of each other. Hoping that she keeps up all of the hard work. She has been dry every night as well in either a trainer or diaper.

She has also been sleeping very well in her toddler bed. She loves to go and sleep there and drag her chosen stuffed animal of the night to snuggle with. For the most part she has not been found without this round plump soft sheep that she calls Lammie in there. She has recently acquired a T-Rex called Rexie and a fuzzie little bear that Daddy is calling her Courdoroy Bear. She sleeps in there all night on her own like a big girl. When she wakes, she sings Mom-ma over and over until I come. ifk I do not wake up she will crawl up and turn on the light in her room and leave, closing the door and then come into our room and close the door climbing up with us to snuggle until her "POST TEST" has completed. Sorry a little computer humor we use.

Dennis brought her some books again this weekend. Courdoroy Bear, Where the Sidewalk ends and one other I cannot remember that was too old for her as of yet. She is loving Courdoroy Bear and read almost all of the poems in Where the Sidewalk ends. She really liked the cadence of the poems. We have been reading nonstop lately for her.

This past weekend Oma Gabi and I took Liesl to see the dinosaurs at the Detroit Science Museum. They have an amazing exhibit with anamatronic dinosaurs showing proof that many dinosaurs has feathers. Very super interesting. She watched both the IMAX and most of the planetaruim shows both on dinosaurs cuddling her Rexie the whole time. She really enjoyed all the fun dinosaur facts that she learned there. She is fascinated with how dinosaurs become the fossilized bones that we see today and tells everyone that they fell in the mud and became bones. That evening we BBQ'd with Aunt Gloria who gave her this cute little hawaiian outfit that she has been parading in ever since. We then watched the 2nd Pirates of the Carribean movie to get ready for this Friday. We plan on going to see the new 4th movie at the drive in at "the Dome". Sunday we had all of "the Halsalls" and Ota over for BBQ rescheduled Mother's day dinner. We have been having a great time with our new grill I got on Mother's day. I think we have almost gone through a whole tank of gas with it.

With all of the vacation I took in the past couple weeks I have gotten a lot of gardening done and I am really ready to to for the spring planting. I have some veggies indoors waiting to be planted. Jim put in an edible cherry on the side of the house to replace my cherry that blew down this winter/spring and I have a peach that I am hoping to put in soon too. All of the flower beds are ready for more flowers and I had daffodils and grape hyacinths come in. I am also getting my bearded irisis budding now and the lilacs have bloomed. I am so excited about getting my lavender in the garden I have been working on too. Just wish it would warm up enough to do it and even mow the lawn again!

Playing Catch up

Dee, there is no shame in getting busy and not being able to blog regularly but I am sure that the updates will flow a lot more freely for you. Hopefully I will be in the same situation that you are in now soon too! NOT WORKING! I have been off alot in the last week because mom and dad are on a bike trip in New Orleans. having a great time. Basically, sitting for Ota and Liesl. One of them teases the other incessantly... you can guess which one which makes the sitting more difficult. Other times he is a great "Mother's Helper" which allows me to get some housework and gardening done.

Which reminds me, Liesl is starting to get interested in our garden prepping. I have been cleaning out the beds out back for my "Salsa Garden" and the flower beds on the side of the house with her help. She loves to be shown all of the different "creatures" as she calls them when I come across them while digging out the overgrown grass and weeds. We found a hibernating toad, worms, a grub and some spiders in there. She doesn't want to touch them of course but she loves to look at them when I announce them. She has her own Dora Gardening Gloves, shovel and rake (pink of course). I am hoping to get more done this Friday when I am watching the 2 of them again. Last week I bought a chainsaw to remove the tree that had fallen between the houses and shocked daddy.... I don't know why that would shock him. It was fun to be able to take care of that myself. I am hoping that it gets moved to the back (by his big strong hands) this weekend. I have aspirations of getting the front yard weeded and edged too this week since I have few plans through Tuesday. We shall see.

Easter was great. Thanks to uncle Dennis for the special Easter treasure chest, gold doubloons, booty and special riddle story that I would LOVE to make into a book. You put some serious work into that mister. Thank you also to the Perrys and especially the Perry kids for sharing Easter with us and our 93 egg hunt. It was a blast! Cant believe the eggs all got found so fast! Also thank you to the Easter bunny and helpers for all their hard work hiding all of those eggs and coloring them for the kids to find! Thank you to Oma Ronnie and Opa Peter for the fabulous Easter dress that Liesl wore (pictures will come soon) Like I said this is catch up time here.

I have been able to get a lot of organizing in Liesl's room done in the past week too which was my 2nd project on the "list". I put up a shelving unit for her to organize her endless supply of plastic animals. Melisa and I were talking yesterday about how great her pretend play is. She really does play by herself well and make up stories with all of her animals. They talk to each other and act out great screenplays in the back seat or living room. I have moved a lot of her toys into her room including her desk and I am looking to put in shelves in the closets of her room to hide her toys. Got rid of all the "baby" toys and boxed them up too. Thanks mom for going on vacation!

Liesl has been sleeping strait through the night in her own bed for some months now. We are so proud of her but miss her so much cuddling next to. She loves having her own room and her own space to sleep in. Next to go through is the hard core potty training which she has actually been more than half way to most of the time. When she is at home she will ask to go to the potty 50% or more of the time which is good but when she is on the road it is much harder for her to focus on it. Potty treats really have been encouraging for her.

Last week, Thursday we visited the U of M Museum of Natural History with Ota and Daddy. Liesl loved the Dinosaurs as usual and wanted to take pictures with every one of them. She really knows what all of their names are too and can branch similarities with them and modern day "creatures". She has quite an extensive Dino collection now too which is super cool for her to be into "boy stuff". We finished off the day with a dinner at the Blue Tractor which has killer burgers which Liesl really seems to be into as well. Driving home was not the greatest though. I was sooo tired and Ota was teasing her a little and she hadn't had a nap either so was babbling and yelling and at one point had to tell the two of them that I needed 5 minutes of quiet or I was going to pull the car over.

Monday, we visited Kiki and Sydney (Sydney is a little younger than Liesl). The two of them had an awesome time at camp. We went for a flower hike and took a lot of pictures and stream jumped. it is so funny watching the two of them because they look so much alike and sound identical and have the same weird sayings that I cannot come up with right now. They played alot with babydolls, and horses (which Liesl is also way into) and Barbies. What a great day that was. Been too long since we all got together.

Tuesday, Aunt Melisa and Liesl and I went to the zoo via the Science Center... apparently the Science Ctr is not open on Tuesdays. Who knew. Guess we will try the Science Ctr Friday Maybe so we can see their new Dinosaur exhibit. The zoo was great. Liesl wanted to run the whole thing though. We got her some frog figurines which she has been playing with. She says the frogs are Hoppy... we thought she said Happy and she corrected us. Think she had a little joke there without knowing it. Thanks for all of the fun for the past 2 months. pictures hopefully to come soon!

Oh yes! and dinner on Easter was great Melisa and Scott. Thank you so much for your hopitality