Easter

Carina and Natalie had a great Easter. They woke up to find a trail of jelly beans outside of their doors heading down the stairs. Carina wanted to get on the hunt immediately and started heading down the stairs. Natalie, on the other hand, was more than content to eat the trail one bean at a time. Once Carina finally persuaded Natalie to hurry up, they found two nice baskets in the living room. Carina's basket included some clothes for her teddy bear, and Natalie's basket included some dancing shoes. The girls also had large chocolate bunnies in their baskets. Carina admired hers for a minute before nibbling on it (and later filling it with milk and using it as a drinking glass); Natalie unceremoniously tore the foil wrapper off her bunny and stuffed its ears as far into her mouth as she could (about two inches). The picture below is the girls this morning in their Easter dresses.

A big bad wolf with good manners

Carina and Natalie came across the Easter baskets yesterday and decided to play Little Red Riding Hood. Carina declared herself to be Little Red Riding Hood, wrapped a blanket around her head and shoulders for a hood and grabbed an Easter basket. She roped Laura into being the Grandma, which left Natalie to be the big bad wolf (a natural fit). Laura waited on the bed while Carina and Natalie went off to get Natalie a costume. They came back with Natalie wearing a bib with utensils stuffed in her pocket. Carina told Natalie "Go eat Mama!", so Natalie ran over to Laura, whipped the fork and knife out of her pocket, said "cut, cut cut!" and then made big, mean eating sounds while she pretended to eat Laura.

Hola! Hola! How is it going down there?

This morning we have some Mexican workers cleaning up our crawl space. (We had some rats running around there a few months back. The rats were taken care of, and now it was time to clean up the mess. The workers are replacing the vapor barrier and the insulation around the floor joists.) Carina noticed that we can hear their conversations through the floor. She couldn't resist being friendly, so she put her mouth down to one of the furnice registers in the floor near where they were working and started shouting "Hola! Hola!" to them. They heard her and ended up having a little conversation through the furnice register.

Carina has also apparently picked up on the fact that oftentimes when she does something funny I end up writing about it in this blog. The other day she did something funny, we laughed, and then she said "Ohhh... Dad, blog it! blog it!"

Who stole the kitchen?

Our remodeling project started today. We are getting a new kitchen and new bathrooms. Our contractor started by ripping out the kitchen cabinets today. Natalie was napping while he worked, and he was done before she woke up. When she came down and saw all of the cabinets gone, which were there when she went to bed, her little jaw dropped and her eyes got big, and a moment later she said in a shocked voice "No....kitchen!." She couldn't believe it.

Marshmallow Peep Grandpa Terry?

The Seattle Times does a contest before Easter every year asking readers to use Marshmallow Peeps to make artwork / dioramas / etc about pop culture. Laura, Carina and I were looking at this year's entries when we came across the picture below. Carina's comment when she saw it was "Hah! Isn't that funny, he looks like Grandpa Terry!"

After Laura and I finished laughing, we assured her, he definitely doesn't look like Grandpa Terry. (Note to self: we should get Carina and Dad together sometime soon so she'll be able to differentiate Dad from Senator Craig.)

Carina the Counterfeiter

Carina and Laura have worked out an arrangement to ensure that Carina isn't watching too much TV in a day. Laura gives Carina four pieces of "TV Money" at the start of the day, which Carina can cash in to watch TV or use the computer during the day. For example, two dollars of TV Money might buy Carina a "Dora the Explorer" show.

Yesterday, Carina came up with the bright idea of counterfeiting the TV money to see if she could get an extra show. Take a look at her handywork below. The real TV money is on the left. Her counterfeit TV money is on the right. Not a bad imitation, but she got busted and all her money was confiscated.


Look out secret service...

Natalie's Birthday

Natalie had a wonderful second birthday. When Laura asked Natalie what kind of cake she wanted, Natalie replied "a happy cake." We weren't sure what flavor of cake is happy, but the cake Laura made (the smiling butterfly made of white cake and yellow buttercream frosting in the picture below) seems pretty happy. Laura apparently got it right because Natalie endorsed it as "happy!" the first time she saw it.

Natalie practiced blowing out the candle a few times the day before her birthday and was able to blow it out on her first try. Shortly after we took the picture below she leaned her face right up to the cake and started saying "yum yum yummy..."

All of Natalie's grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins in Seattle came to her party. She has figured out how a birthday party works: she dived right into the presents and the moment they were all opened she ran out of the room, leaving us all behind, saying "Cake!"