Official Toddler

I still need to post about our Utah trip, but I couldn't resist writing about this first. At 13 months old, Jessica suddenly started standing without holding on to anything.  We were thrilled, after months of encouragement, to see her wobble around on her feet.

During our Easter trip to Utah, she took more and more steps, loving all the praise and attention it got her. By May (age 14 months), she decided walking is her favored mode of getting around. (Read: She screams and thrashes when we try to strap her into a shopping cart or stroller--she'd rather walk.) Below she is walking at the tulip festival.

Now she's on to the best part of walking: holding things in her chubby hands while she moves around the house. Like shoes...

and cell phones. (Why does she perform such good stunts after we've taken her cute clothes off for a messy dinner?) Note how she needs to stick out her tongue to keep her balance.

We love it and are eating it up. And covering our sharp edges with blankets.

March Stuff We've Been Up To

(I know it's May. This post is my attempt to catch up.)

Jessica charms us everyday, but March 31 almost made me cry I was so pleased. We were sitting at the dinner table, all eating hot buttery carrots out of the same bowl. I told Jessica: "These are carrots. Bunny Foo Foo eats carrots" and in the next second I thought 'I'm wasting my breath--she won't remember that connection.' 

And all of the sudden she hummed 6 perfect notes in a high voice: "huh, hu-huh, hu-huuuh, huuuh" and Dave and I both looked at each other shocked and said "Did she just sing 'Little Bunny Foo Foo'?" It was the first time I heard her sing, without help, a recognizable song, and the happy glow of that memory is going to last me a long time.

She is also learning to climb into the tub and up the furniture,

learned to crawl out the cat door (which she only accomplished once, not being a skinny minnie):

opens the cabinet to her toys, takes the lids off markers just to put them back on, pinches her nose, puts anything on her wrists like bracelets, including my sandals, and puts things on her head. She made Dave laugh really hard one day when she put a kitchen towel over her head, and started crawling blind, smack into our wooden chest.

And about the time she turned one she started eating all her meals with a fork:

 I saw the last launch of the space shuttle Discovery from my front porch, being only a 3-hour drive south of Cape Canaveral. The picture only shows the smoke trail, but I could also see the bright fire of the rockets.

I have about a dozen piano students, and this spring is busy with concerts and progress tests. I'm bribing them with music CDs for extra practice, but made them buy CDs from me if they didn't practice enough. I teach Tuesday and Wednesday nights, thanks to Dave who is glad to have a mac and cheese night.

I also entered a local tennis tournament and enjoyed seeing this second place finish in the next newsletter:

Palm Tennis Singles Winter 2011 Winners

North Palm Beach County Ladies Night 3.5

Champion: Mary Donovan * Lake Park Tennis Center

Finalist: Elizabeth Robertson * Carlin Park

Dave has been woodworking on our porch making storage cubes for our DVDs. He likes his new clerking job, and spent hours with the other clerks cleaning out enough old records to make a good bonfire.

We watched some BYU basketball, impressed by Jimmer Fredette. Smokey has needed a lot of medical attention, but I think he's better now. Dave chose Arsenic and Old Lace to watch thinking I would like the love story, but I have to warn you: I think it's better for Halloween, FYI. I rearranged all the pictures in our front room, and hung our newly framed, first family picture on the wall. I just listened to a fabulous book on tape: The Help, and started another funny book about adoption and family: No Biking in the House Without a Helmet.


That's mostly all. April 20-30, we're flying to Utah for the BYU graduation of Dave's siblings, Easter, and I'm going to attend BYU Women's Conference.