School pictures/Happy Birthday, Juniper!

Our big girl is 4! Birthday photos to come soon, but in the meantime, here are some of Juniper's recent school photos. (The complete set is available on Aaron's website.) Once again her dad was the school photographer; all reports indicate that Juniper and her friends had a great time on picture day.



She's grown quite a lot since last year's pictures (and gotten much better at jumping).

LEGO girls

It's no surprise to anyone that Hazel loves LEGO. Anything that Juniper loves is automatically fascinating to her. And she'd probably love LEGO even without her sister's influence. An infinity of little pieces, in different colors and shapes--what's not to love about that? Now that Hazel is past the point where she immediately puts everything in her mouth, she enjoys being allowed to play with LEGO with Juniper.



While Juniper builds and sends her LEGO creations on elaborate adventures, Hazel diligently and happily transfers LEGO pieces from point A to point B--in this case, from the pile on the floor to Janet's lap. If you look closely, you can see that her shirt pocket is lumpen and full of LEGOs.

She also loves hats, which in Hazel's world includes things like this giraffe headband. Any time she sees a hat, she'll pat her head and say "Ha. Ha! HA!" with increasing urgency until we put said hat on her head.

Jordan Almonds

Juniper's take on Jordan Almonds: "It's candy on the outside, with real food inside!"

Hazel's vocabulary

Hazel's vocabulary is still small enough that we can list it, but this will not be true for long. She's started using at least one new word most days, and I'm betting that in just a week or so we won't be able to keep track all of her words.

Mama
More (moa)
Dada
Banana (bayah)
Flower (wowah)
Bye-bye
Yes (essh)
Bath (ba + sign for bath)
Water (wah-wah)
Hello (woh-yoh, typically said while holding a phone or phone-like object)
Hat (ha + patting head)
Up (uhh)
No no (nyah nyah)
Baby
Shoe (shuh)
Uh-oh

She also knows a wide variety of animal sounds, some of which she uses to name the animals.

Storytime

On the playground after preschool. Claudia, the reader, has been in Juniper's class since they both started preschool last year, and she's been a true book lover the whole time.

Park time

A few weeks ago, Juniper's friend Jack came over to play. We went to the park, where all three kids had a great time. Juniper and Jack stayed hidden under their hoods, but Hazel the little furnace had no need of hers.



Hazel tried out the see-saw for the first time...



...and had her first self-initiated, solo ride down the slide. (Usually, she only goes down the slide when we plop her down at the top of it.)