Hot Diggety Dog!

We went to Dogg Nation this evening for supper, and Marianne tasted her first hot dog! After giving it to her plain, I was pleasantly surprised to find that she likes her dog with mustard and sauerkraut! So far, the only food that she doesn't like is ketchup!

Cheese!

Marianne loves cheese. Who doesn't?

Coming to America

Nathan and Manu came to visit on Wednesday as part of their whirlwind tour of the east coast. After spending time in Hickory, Blowing Rock, and the Blue Ridge Parkway, they came to Pinehurst before heading to Columbia, Charleston, Savannah, and finally New York City!

Marianne adores her Uncle Nathan, and was enchanted by Manu, bringing her books, playing with Mr. Potato Head, and hiding behind her legs. We hope they get to come again soon!


Uncle Nathan, don't leave!

Flirting and Flexing

Marianne enjoyed her second Easter. She started the day off with the Kolster family in church, and only had to leave the sanctuary three times! Right after church we headed to Newton to see the Yoder family. We were especially looking forward to seeing Uncle Nate and meeting Manu!

Marianne quickly warmed up to her uncles, and apparently has a baby-crush on Uncle Josh (or Uncle Junk, if you ask David). She kept giving him a big goofy smile and batting her eyelashes at him over lunch, and then tried to follow him into the kitchen for some alone time. Luckily, Jen wasn't worried about her competition. If I could bake a pie like Jen, I wouldn't be worried either!

Marianne impressed Uncle Nate with her flexing skills, which we didn't know existed! Nathan and Manu were so thoughtful and brought Marianne a plush donkey and cow hand-puppet. Marianne's only animal sound thus far is to "hee haw" like a donkey, so it was very appropriate! She loves her new toys almost as much as she loved seeing Nate and Manu, and she'll have fun playing with them on Wednesday when they come to Pinehurst.

Marianne was a trooper today with all the time spent strapped in a car seat (almost six hours!). She only napped about 30 minutes each way, so thank goodness for the DVD player! We watched "Baby Signs" five times and "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse" twice. If you don't have a toddler, then you probably didn't know that "They Might Be Giants" does the music for "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse". It's a cute show, and the finale always gets Marianne groovin' -- "Hot dog, hot dog, hot diggity dog...." is usually stuck in my head for hours.

We were back in Pinehurst by 6:30pm and Marianne got to spend some time playing with GaGa and Grandpa, and wouldn't you know, the Easter Bunny came to visit! He brought Marianne some additions to her Potato Head collection and some good books, as well as some candy for mom and dad.

After a day full of excitement, Marianne is in bed and I think it's time for Mama to get to work on that Easter candy!

Baby Bear, would you like some porridge?

GaGa and Grandpa gave Marianne two cloth books today, "Mother Goose Rhymes" and "Goldilocks and the Three Bears". "The Three Bears" comes with four little hand puppets so we can act out the story while we read. After looking intently at the pictures, Marianne put the baby bear's mouth up to the picture of porridge. Too cute! GaGa and Grandpa gave Marianne a special Easter Egg decorated with Disney characters. Mom was looking through all of her Easter decorations and found an egg-dyeing kit from "Caldor", a discount store in Connecticut. The significance of this is that it means she's been saving it for 18-20 years. They used the kit to make eggs for Marianne, and they turned out really cute. As you can see, Marianne got a big kick out of her egg. It lasted in her hands for about three minutes until she decided to pound it on the table.

Easter Egg Hunt

Marianne went to her very first Easter Egg Hunt today! We had a great time at church dyeing eggs, playing games, making Easter Bunny ears, and of course hunting for eggs. I think Marianne enjoyed snack time most of all!

Hmmm, what's inside this egg?

Future Hula-Hoop Champion of the world!


This is one serious little girl! She's on a mission!

Score! She found an egg at the bottom of the slide!

Who cares about finding Easter eggs? I love slides!

Marianne loved the parachute; it was like playing a gigantic game of peek-a-boo! After peeking under the parachute several times, she finally got brave enough to run (rather, toddle) underneath.

Happy Easter!

"Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall..."

Marianne is obsessed with mirrors today! She always enjoys looking at herself in the bathroom mirror (and pounding on the mirror at the same time), but today she got the opportunity to admire her reflection at several mirrors in stores across town.

Our mission today was to find a pair of shoes to match her Easter dress. I know, this is cutting it close for me -- not only because Easter is in just a few days, but also because I love shoes and you would think I'd have had her Easter shoes since Christmas! Nope, not this time. I thought it would be pretty easy to find a pair of white dress shoes, but not today. We went to four shops before finally settling on a pastel pink pair of shoes (with built-in squeakers! Those will have to be removed before Sunday!) at my favorite store, Lil Branches.

Four stores! Marianne definitely has radar for mirrors, and enjoyed posing, dancing, and playing peek-a-boo with herself in every mirror in Southern Pines. And even back at home this afternoon, she has been finding all of her toys with mirrors (the little compact in her play purse, the mirror on her brush, mirrors on two of her blocks, and a picture of a mirror on a flashcard...I'm sure there are more mirrors but that's all I can remember).

I sure hope the Easter Bunny will bring her a full-length mirror!

"Where's your nose?"

Oh, how my baby loves to eat. As her Daddy says, "She's a hoss." And now that she can climb up into her highchair all by herself, she wants to eat all the time! Her faithful friend Minnie is always nearby at mealtime, hoping for Marianne to drop (or fling) food onto the floor. Thank goodness we have a dog!

Marianne is learning about noses this week, and is beginning to point at noses when asked. This afternoon, I asked her, "Where's your belly?" and she patted her belly with gusto. Then I said, "Where's your nose?" and she put her finger on my nose! She's good at pointing out dogs' noses, and she pretty good at finding noses in photos. Her current favorite picture is of Grayson, her cousin.

She's infatuated, and I must say his picture is especially darling --he looks like a baby on the cover of Parents Magazine. His nine-month photo is on GaGa's fridge, and she cries for it. When the picture is finally in her clutches she points to his nose. What will she do when she sees him in June? :)

Peek-A-Boo!

"Crack! Crack!"

We are back from Hickory, and are anxiously awaiting "Selection Sunday" to begin at 6pm! David has tickets to the first round of games (this Friday and Sunday) in Raleigh, so we're really hoping that Daddy will get to see Duke play.

We had a great time in Hickory, and Marianne enjoyed her tour of the farmhouse. We even drove over to the pasture to get a closer look at the cows. The big black bull was pretty near the fence so we didn't get too close but maybe Marianne will get a close-up look at the cows next time we visit. Last October at the State Fair Marianne really enjoyed all the animals, and the highlight of the day was at a cow show when a cow came right up to the fence and mooed at her.

Marianne shared some gingerbread cookies with Grandpa Jake and Grandma Anna, and enjoyed exploring the house, always heading back to the fridge every once in a while to check on her magnets. She continued to say "crack" (for cracker) and even started saying "cook" (cookie) when holding her gingerbread men. It's exciting to see her vocabulary grow. I'm looking forward to her screaming for crack the next time we're at Wal-Mart!

Last night GaGa and Grandpa watched Marianne while David and I went to see Pinecrest's spring musical "Beauty and the Beast". Not a Rod Harter production by any means, but they had a good crowd and quite a few of the students were impressive, especially the Beast and LeFou. GaGa and Grandpa took Marianne to church, where apparently she danced when the choir sang and kept trying to make a beeline toward Pastor Pam while shoving Cheerios in her mouth by the handful and eating the ones she dropped on the floor. She eventually ended up in the nursery. :)

Today (Sunday) she impressed -- and scared -- me by climbing all the way up into her highchair unassisted. Yikes! We're going to have to practice climbing back down, or start eating on the floor.

Cross your fingers that Duke will be playing the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament in Raleigh!

This little piggy got a pedicure

Marianne got her toenails painted for the first time this morning! To be honest, she didn't have the patience to keep all ten piggies still, but the two little piggies who went to the market are cute! Maybe the rest of the piggies will get painted over the next few days. She was so interested in my pink toenails this morning, and we were stuck at home all week, so it sounded like a great idea at the time.

Marianne said "crack" again this evening (Yeah, yeah, I know what you're thinking. She was requesting a graham cracker.) so it can officially be added to her growing vocabulary. She was very happy to see her Grandpa and GaGa return from Florida this afternoon, and enjoyed a good tickling and her "puppy lessons" with them. We are headed to Hickory tomorrow afternoon to see Grandpa Jake and Grandma Anna, and we're looking forward to seeing the progress on the farmhouse. This will be the first time that Marianne will walk through it all by herself!

An afternoon in Camelot

We're having such lovely weather this week, so we went to the park for about an hour and a half today. We are so lucky to have such a fantastic park here in Pinehurst; it is very appropriately named "Camelot" and I actually helped build it (well, spread mulch and lay tiles, not actual construction) when I was in high school. It's so nice to have a park that is enclosed, shaded, and absolutely full of slides, swings, bridges, and other structures that encourage creative play.

Now that Marianne is much more proficient at walking, she was really able to enjoy it. She loved the rubber bridge and kept running across it as only a little Franken-baby can do. Then she realized that she can bounce on it, too! She loves to play peek-a-boo, and enjoyed the tunnels.

Mostly, she spent lots of time investigating and admiring the tall pine trees swaying in the wind with the bright blue sky as a backdrop.

Fun times! And the added bonus for Mommy is that now I have the lyrics to "Camelot" stuck in my head for the rest of the day!

Sweetly sings the baby...

Marianne's Grandpa Jake has been singing the sweetest song to Marianne for almost a year now.

"Sweetly sings the donkey
At the break of day
If you do not feed him
This is what he'll say:
HEE HAW, HEE HAW, HEE HAW, HEE HAW, HEE HAW"

All children love animal sounds, and Marianne loves to hear all the different verses and meows, woofs, oinks, etc.. This week, she started chiming in with the animal sounds at the appropriate time. However, no matter whether I'm singing about a puppy, pig, or donkey, she makes a "hee haw" sounds! It's too funny; I hope to get it on videotape soon.

She also likes to "hee haw" at the grocery store, so my little donkey and I go up and down the aisles getting very amused looks as we shop!

Hello, World!

After thinking about blogging for the last few months, I've decided to just dive in. Hopefully this will be a great way to keep our many friends and family updated on what's going on in Marianne's world. At sixteen months, she is changing everyday!

Today we had another "milestone moment" -- Marianne didn't take her morning nap for the first time ever! Perhaps it was mother's intuition (which I don't think I've had much of, until this morning), but this morning I decided to take a shower and get ready before Marianne woke up. I usually wait and get ready when she takes her morning nap at about 9:00 a.m., but for some unknown reason I got ready before she was awake. Thank goodness I did!

We already had a day of fun planned -- babysitting Claire from 11-1pm, and then Kindermusik in the afternoon. But Sara called this morning and needed me to watch Liam since Joss was sick and needed to go to the doctor.

Thus....I was outnumbered, and the toddlers took over the house! No, I'm kidding. We had a great time, and it was so fun to see them all dancing, sliding, climbing, and doing other toddler-type things in the playroom. Marianne likes to watch from the sidelines before jumping in and playing herself, and she was fascinated by Liam and all the things he could do (Liam is almost two).

After Claire and her mom left at about 1:30, Marianne finally crashed and slept for about an hour. Mom and Dad are in Florida this week, so her naptime was spent playing outside with Liam, taking out the dogs, and drinking as much caffeine as possible.

Marianne had a fun day; the weather is so nice we were able to play outside all afternoon and she loves to watch the dogs run and chase each other. You should hear her little high-pitched scream of delight as the dogs race around the yard! This evening, she took extra delight in her bath when she discovered what big splashes she could make. Of course Minnie had to peek over the edge to see what was going on, and in return got splashed which made Marianne laugh and squeal. What a sweet little baby. I hope she takes a morning nap tomorrow. :)

First blog entry accomplished. Hello, World!