500

It's hard to believe that this is our 500th blog post! (We've even had a few posts from Juniper.) A couple of years ago, we did a round-up about our first 200 blog posts. The three hundred posts since then have covered some big events in our lives.

Hazel! I got pregnant, and we had a second daughter, and she's terrific! She celebrated her first birthday and will turn two next week. In the past two years, Hazel has gone from an adorable lump to a solid, chunky log to a quirky, delightful, and independent little kid. She went from mewling to signing to a few isolated words to two-word phrases to full and complex sentences. (Did you hear the one about the time Juniper stepped in the mud puddle and it was messy and Hazel didn't touch it but she saw it with her eyes? If you answered no, then you probably haven't seen Hazel in the past few weeks.) She learned to crawl, and then to walk, and now she even runs. She's discovered the joys of good books, good food, and good friends. With interests like that, we'll keep her!

Juniper started preschool, just kept getting bigger, and started pre-K this year. She's made lots of good friends and had many great adventures at the Oakhurst Cooperative Preschool. Her love of learning and discovery is--quite literally--a blast. Over the past couple of years, she's had life lessons and science lessons. But no need for super hero lessons; we've never had a bad guy attack, so clearly, she's already doing a great job of keeping us safe.

Our extended family got bigger (and better, and cuter) with the arrivals of Luke and Henry. Our extended family got even better when DeeDee moved to town and the Delaneys moved back to town. We've celebrated holidays in traditional and non-traditional ways. We've visited family from Virginia to Texas to California, and have enjoyed numerous day trips here in Georgia. We've also had wonderful times at parks, pools, libraries, and playgrounds close to home.

The girls are adorable together and clearly enjoy each other's company. Juniper is a terrific big sister, and it's heartwarming to see how much Hazel adores her (and how well deserved that adoration is). We really couldn't have asked for more. We've seen our girls grow and learn new skills that are at once amazing and ordinary. We are sometimes exasperated, usually satisfied, and always grateful. We enjoy having this blog as a place to share our girls' lives with family and friends; hopefully you also enjoy reading it! We occasionally hear from people that you follow our blog or get comments about a specific post, but we really don't know who is out there reading this. If you do read our blog, we'd love to hear from you in the comments or in an email - just to satisfy our curiosity! (Don't worry, grandmothers, even if the two of you are the only ones reading the blog, we'll still keep it up.)

Lego adventures

Thomas: I think we should go to Ireland.
Juniper: First, we need to go to New York because New York has some really nice dinosaurs. Then we can go to Ireland.
T: Ok. [pause] Where's New York?

Juniper and Thomas were fully immersed in a Lego dinosaur adventure when Violet arrived at our house this afternoon. Violet initially had a hard time integrating herself into their play. She got really frustrated and felt excluded when no one would tell her the rules of the game.

Violet: Why isn't anybody teaching me? I don't know the rules.
J: There aren't any rules. We just kind of made it up as we go.
V: Can I catch up?
J: You just do it. [hardly a pause] RAWWRH - this is a good dinosaur!!

Violet finally realized that there were no secret rules and went on to build an elaborate cave with flowers out front, a ruby and a trumpet on the top, a goblet that appeared to have juice but was really full of a potion that puts bad guys to sleep, a magic bow and arrow that only shoots bad guys, and numerous other features I'm sure I've forgotten.

V: This is fun playing with Legos!
J: I knew you might like it once you started.

Little girl in a big airport