Little monkey

Six Flags Special Day

Before Cheryl, Jason, and Violet move to Arkansas in a few weeks, we wanted to have a Special Day with Violet. Violet loves to swing higher, slide faster, and spin harder so we thought she'd enjoy a trip to Six Flags. (For their Special Day, Cheryl and Jason took Juniper to the Children's Museum, aka "the grabby place." It's full of interesting things she's allowed to grab and explore, with no grown-up requests to put that down, don't touch it, or leave it alone.) Warning in advance that this is a longer blog post than usual. Violet had a fun, full day, and we want to share the photos and stories.





These swings were the first ride that Violet went on. Watching her expression change as the ride progressed was worth the full price of admission. When she first got on, she was a little unsure and nervous. Each time she rounded the circle and we could see her face, she looked a little more relaxed and then a little happier. By the time the ride ended the look on her face had gone from dubious to tentative to happy to joyful.







The kiddie rides at Six Flags are a veritable history of human transportation: horse, boat, train, hot air balloon, truck, and airplane.




"What are we gonna do next?" After the first few rides, Violet had figured out the program and knew that there was something good to come. She was enthusiastic about every ride we mentioned, even before she saw it. As the day progressed, she got better at anticipating the specific fun to come from individual rides as she watched them in action.




Aaron and I particularly liked the Toro Toro Toro ride because it was in an air conditioned building!




Violet just liked it because it was fun.




Lunch break! Violet did a great job of keeping up her energy, despite the 95+ heat. Aaron had the brilliant idea of instituting a rule that she had to drink some water before every ride (particularly useful, since Violet typically subsists on about half a sippy cup of water per day).




Tweety's Treehouse may have been Violet's favorite ride. This is the very junior version of a Freefall ride. The kids go up about 20 feet and then gently fall a few feet, go back up, and then back down.




Violet was great about walking all over the park - no complaining and no requests to be carried. By the end of the day, she was pretty slow (especially going up hills), but she did all her walking on her own.






The old-fashioned carousel was a big hit, even though Violet is too young to ride on the horses that go up and down. Check out the classic Violet crooked smile in the close up photo.




A friendly big girl on the carousel gave Violet this Bugs Bunny stuffed animal. Violet was appropriately delighted. "She gave it to me to keep!"




Up in the air on the sky balloons. This ride was especially fun because all three of us could do it together.




An afternoon ice cream break helped to give everyone a second wind.




Riding the sky buckets across the park, Violet was delighted to look down and see all of the terrain and activity below.






Aaron and Violet on flying boats.




At the end of a day full of exciting rides, a good reminder that simple things are also really fun. Violet had a fantastic time balancing on this ledge as she held onto the fence.

Thank you, Violet, for giving us such a fun day!

Splash!

Juniper in the sunshine

Orange Monster

Next best thing to a trampoline

Our recent trampoline adventures were actually inspired by another bouncy afternoon activity of jumping (and falling) on couch cushions spread out on the living room floor. The girls had a blast, and their enthusiasm made us realize that they (especially Violet) were probably ready to try out the trampoline at Gramma's house.

Hippo Love

Check out Juniper's stylish polka dot outfit. A few weeks back, I took the girls to Goodwill and told each one that she could pick out any one item for dress up clothes. Juniper went for polka dots, and Violet opted for a really fantastic owl shirt. Hint - if you're looking for outrageous dress up clothes, head to the women's pajamas section. It seems to have the highest concentration of fun dress up options.

Jr. Midwife

One of the exciting things about having a home birth is how involved Juniper gets to be in the process. She's been to a couple of prenatal appointments and "helped" at the last one. Our midwives have told us that by the end, Juniper will practically be able to run the prenatal herself (or at least think she can).




Juniper always enjoys playing with measuring tapes. She was thrilled to measure Mom's belly, just like Miss Claudia did.




Checking out a life-size drawing to get a sense of the size of the baby in Mom's belly.




She was a little hesitant to try the fetoscope until I showed her that it was ok.




But once she warmed up to it, she was delighted to hold the fetoscope...




...and even more delighted to listen to the baby. Pretty impressive that she can hear the baby's heartbeat without even having the fetoscope in her ears.

Trampoline fun

Rough and tumble Violet is really in her element on Gramma's trampoline.




Juniper practiced somersaults...




...and both girls enjoyed wrestling and tumbling together.




After Juniper left the trampoline, Violet got me to jump and bounce her: "Higher! Go higher, Sally!"







But she's pretty good at going high all by herself.

Painting

We have a few (tightly sealed) paint cans in our laundry room, from past or planned home improvement projects. Yesterday, Juniper and Violet were holding paintbrushes and going back and forth from the paint cans to Aaron.

J: We're painting you! We're painting you brown. [The girls run back to the paint cans and then return to Aaron.]
J: We're painting you red.

Repeat multiple times.

J: We're painting you purple.
A: Can you paint me purple with yellow polka dots?
J: [seriously] We don't have any polka dot paint.
A: Can you paint stripes on me?
J: We don't have any stripe paint.

A few minutes later...

J: We do have polka dot paint! I'm painting you striped polka dots!


Later that day, after Aaron thought the paint adventures were over, he walked into Juniper's room (on the far end of the house from the laundry room) and found them with two paint cans - a quart and a full gallon. Violet looked up at him and informed him, "We can't get them open."

Note to selves: make sure the paint cans are well out of reach before the girls have the strength and motor skills to open them!

Summer sleeping bag

After reading our recent post about having to take away Juniper's beloved sleeping bag, Dee Dee made Juniper a nice lightweight summer sleeping bag. As a bonus, some of her favorite animals got matching bags too. Juniper is really enjoying the kitty cat sleeping bag (and I'm sure Hippo and Teddy Bear are too).

Finger Puppet Monsters

Thanks to Memaw (Juniper's maternal great-grandmother) for the very fun animal finger puppets! (They were originally intended for all the kids, but Juniper and Violet were much more taken with them than Jorge, Alondra, and Emily were.)

Violet rides

It's nice to have older cousins who share their big girl toys. After seeing the girls on Emily's tricycle, we're thinking that a trike might be in Juniper's not too distant future.

Classic June Bug

She's not always quite so sweaty and dirty, but this is a very Juniper expression.

Toddler obsession

Juniper recently got a hand-me-down dollhouse from one of my co-workers, and she absolutely loves it. (She says a big "thank you" to Miss Cam and her daughter Sarah.)




The only downside to the "little house" is that Juniper is a bit obsessed with it. She wants to play with it constantly and is sad when she can't (stupid bedtime and mealtime and bathtime getting in the way of her fun). Before bed this evening, she negotiated being able to look at it "for just a moment, but not touch it." She lay down on her belly in front of the dollhouse, with her chin in her hands and her legs kicked up, looking at it longingly for about 30 seconds before getting into bed. Lying in bed after lights out, she told Aaron, "I can still see my dollhouse in the dark." Note to self - wait until the weekend or some other long stretch of uninterrupted play time to pull out amazing new toys. We're hoping that giving her the opportunity to play with it for as long as she wants on Saturday will help take the edge off of her obsession.




Note her somewhat bleary eyes in this picture. The morning after she got the dollhouse, when I went in to get her out of bed, the first thing she said was, "I want you to get me out of bed, and change my diaper, and then I can go play with my little house." In less than 10 minutes, Juniper went from being in bed to being fully dressed and playing with her little house. (Normally, that process is a series of negotiations that takes much longer than 10 minutes.)




Ta-da! It all fits inside the house!!

Happy Father's Day, Grampa

To celebrate Father's Day with my dad, we went out for a steak dinner the Saturday before Father's Day. (On Sunday, Aaron got gourmet doughnuts. Different strokes for different dads.)




Juniper made herself right at home in our private room. She was especially fond of the sliding doors (though she struggled with the concept of closing them gently).




She also had a great time running around the table with her cousin Jorge.