Fluffy is Juniper’s baby. I got her for $.50 at a thrift store. Juniper LOOOOVES Fluffy. She now has her own baby stroller though it’s waaaay too big for her. Fluffy likes all kinds of food, sometimes she even likes things Juniper doesn’t like. She also needs lots of bottles and lots of diaper changes. Juniper sings and coos to her and talks to her in high pitched mommy voice. She rubs her head lovingly and wraps her in blankies.
I decided to get out out of Portland for the morning and go somewhere new. I’d heard the Children’s Discovery Village was pretty cool so we headed out.
It was fun, the big kids playground is probably the coolest part, and I wasn’t about to brave the three story structure with her and all those 8 year olds, so we kept to the easier stuff. Cool bubble room. I think that might have been my favorite.
Big sand pit with fake mammoth bones
The big chair
Juniper is the littlest one
I think our lunch was more fun than the museum. We ate at Casey’s
Juniper is a fan of lemonade
Chicago style dog
Funny sign in Aurora
I was folding laundry on our bed and Juniper got up on the bed. “Blanket?” so I tucked her in. “Mommy night-night too. Snugglie, please?” I complied, how could I turn her down? When we got all settled in under the comforter, she said “Mmmmmmm, good.” and fell asleep.
Hi, we had such a lovely day. In the morning, before it got too hot, we went for a hike at Sandy River Delta Park, an off-leash 1400 arce park adjacency to the Sandy River near Troutdale.
What Juniper had to say about the hike:
Juniper crashed out in the car on the way home from hiking
More hiking cuteness:
We stayed home for the rest of the day and enjoyed the backyard.
Dad made me BBQ chicken, grilled asapagus, and baked beans (upon my request)
And we had a lovely asortment of treats for dessert. Marionberry cheese cake, carrot cake and fruit tart:
We had Easter all over the place this year. Juniper loves looking for eggs so much, Easter may just continue indefinitely.
Everything this week is in two words. Garland cute, Gigi jump, cute baby, milo puppy, bye daddy, pretty eggs, elbow hurts.
Juniper’s vocabulary continues to blow my mind. The other day she was playing with a string of beads. She was fixated on a particular bead, so I said “that’s a butterfly bead.” And she replied: “Oh cute, it’s a butterfly.” Of course her “butterfly” sounds more like fubbay, but I knew what she was talking about.
She’s using more and more little sentences and is getting pretty good at colors and numbers. We try to count to 10. She gets pretty close to guessing the next number a lot of the time. And when we get to five, anyone present needs to do a high-five with her.
First Carousel
We went to a little carousel not too far from our house for our first ride. She was very trepidatious at first. She wouldn’t even let me put her down to walk around the carousel, she wanted to be held tight. We got some cinnamon chips and watched for a while until she started asking me for a ride. The first ride was just on a stationary bench, she shook her head “No” when I asked her if she wanted to ride the horse. She said “weee, weeee, weee” the whole time and after the first ride was up, was raring to go on the horse.
I’m attempting to go to a gym where they have cheap childcare. The first visit we only lasted 15 minutes before a total meltdown occurred, but last night’s visit lasted 30 minutes, and I was able to come get her before she melted down. I’m going to try and do little 20 minute workouts for a while until she gets used to being there. Fingers crossed, because it feels so good to be on that treadmill and just meditate.
New Table
I got Juniper a new work table for my office. She loves it and enjoys her first experiments at coloring. Her crayon marks are still so dainty and she enjoys putting them in bags and boxes more than mark making. She loves smashing playdoh at her table too. Before I got this table, we tried to do crafts at the dining room table, but she just wants to stand in her chair and Mississippi just wants to eat anything that drops from the table. SO even though she didn’t like playdoh, she’d have to put each and every stray piece in her mouth and get it all dog slobbery. Gross. The new table is great because it’s not a place where Mississippi expects food to be and it’s much shorter, so when she stands on her chair or on her table, it’s a shorter distance to the floor should she loose her balance.
Wow, really? THat’s just crazy. How did you get to be such a big girl?
You’re so happy and fun. Even your occasional tantrums are cute (still). You’re learning so fast. I’m impressed little one. We started Gymnastics class this week at Playground gym and yesterday you walked over to the balance beam by yourself, got on and took a few steps. I nearly fell over! So talented.
You’re learning your numbers, colors, and alphabet. You’re picking up the color blue, orange, pink and yellow with a little coaching. You love singing the alphabet song, which right now sounds kinda like “Ah bee she dee bee see kee bee.” It’s really cute. I think my most favorite is the way you say “robot.”
You can climb up the ladder to the big slide at the park all by yourself. This blows my mind.
You like to lay in bed and read:
You like to do barrel rolls:
You’re so fun to be around. I love you to pieces. Happy eighteen months, little bird.
And thanks Hildreth for the super duper present:
Doggy love
We went to Florida for 9 days to visit grammy and poppop. It was an amazing trip and it was too short. I’m so sad to be back. The weather was amazing, the granparents were in love with Juniper, and we had so much fun. Juniper did great. She slept well and was happy all the time. She did great going out to dinner, sitting in the car, going to museums. She had a blast the whole time. Juniper is a natural beach bum. We stayed in Siesta Key, just west of Sarasota.
We went to the Ringling Museum, the Mote Aquarium, and the beach, beach, beach. I took her to a drop-in gymnastics play group in Sarasota and I’ve never seen her happier.
She picks up new words every hour and is thriving. She’s been trying to sing the ABC song for the past three days now. She strings together singsongy letter sounds. She’s gotten as far as A B C, then it sort of turns into A B C B Ah D Key B. Trying to catch it on video.
Tomorrow we embark on an epic journey to the other side of the country and south, to FLorida, where the weather suits my clothes. Well actually, trying on summer clothes felt really weird. Anyway, This will be Juniper’s longest trip away from home. We’re flying red-eye, which is either going to be fine because she’s be too tired to be upset, or it’s gonna suck. I can’t really imagine a middle ground there.
It’s raining and snowing in Portland right now. Temperatures in the 30s and 40s. Temperatures in Florida will be nearing 80°. I cannot wrap my head around this right now. I’m wearing fleece pants as I type this.
Anywhoo, wish us luck.
Atleast the snow has been beautiful:
Here’s some cuteness just for fun:
She’s obsessed with books right now.
Mo Phillips show at Sound Roots
Jack and Juni. Jack calls her “Juji”
Sharing a banana