Olive's Christening.

It was a wonderful weekend. We were excited to have friends and family here to celebrate with us. Thank you all!

Oh, Daffodils!

We spent this past weekend in Houston, visiting friends and family. Among others, Olive got to spend time with my Dad ...



... and Julie



Also, it was really nice to enjoy some warm weather. (Saturday WAS a bit chilly and rainy - which reminded us very much of March in the STL.) But ... we arrived home to find lovely, temperate weather and daffodils shining their faces all around the city. The daffodils and tulips are two of my very favorite things about St. Louis in the spring!

Where the Sidewalk Ends ...

Shel Silverstein is one of my favorites. I hope that Olive enjoys his words one day as well. Today we came home to new carport concrete, including a sidewalk to our back door!

A Full Weekend.

This past weekend, Kyle's parents were in town for a visit.

We had a great time hanging out and showing off all of Olive's new developmental milestones.

(Ok, we said 'tricks' a few times and realized that sounded a lot like our descriptions of Zoe's, er, tricks. Developmental milestones. Much longer. But handy, see? No confusion with dog tricks.)

The weather was chilly and damp, so we didn't get outside much. (Boo.) But Kyle and Russ made some great headway on a couple of our lingering projects. (Suffice it to say, the unusual beauties of home ownership extend beyond a clean backyard. Trim. Clean stair risers. Baseboards and quarter-round. So. Freaking. Wonderful.)

Russ and Rae read Olive some stories.



They also got time to baby-talk and make faces at our little one. She is pretty fun to make faces at. They even helped her fine tune her newest, er, developmental milestones.

Hands up high!



Keep that camera out of reach, Dad!



With all of the work going on around the house, Olive didn't get great nap opportunities. Thank goodness she still naps well in the car. I dragged Rae on two nap-outings and Kyle on one. Gotta get that baby some sleep. And, I'm willing to drive pretty far to make it happen. Life is not pretty otherwise. Let me tell you.

Now. Olive has headed to dreamland, and I am off to get some zzz's of my own.

- H

Ah, beautiful dirt!

We came home this evening to discover this:



Woo! Hoo! I am excited because 1) the sun is still shining after 6p and 2) there is an absence of both hot tub and trash.

Also, we found this little guy who was living under the junk in our back yard:



Who knew that a big empty patch of dirt and a cement turtle could make us so happy?

Hello Kitty.

No, not the cute phenom who inhabited my childhood and still appears on everything from erasers to fancy handbags.



(courtesy of JudithLeiber.com)

Our little one is becoming more accustomed to solid food, and - following the advice of some parenting book or magazine - we've introduced Olive to cups and alternate beverages. (OK, water. No juice. No juice at all. Juice is apparently the root of all evil. Who knew.)

She has largely been underwhelmed - a few sips on a sippy were about as good as we'd gotten. (Actually, this was an improvement from our first attempts: violent head shakes and tightly closed lips. We stopped offering and waited a bit.)

However, this week we gave her (helped her with) a real (plastic) cup. A cup with no lid or spout. She was patient and interested and tried mightily to get her tongue inside the cup so that she could lap up the contents.

Just like a little kitty cat.

So. Cute.

Wishful Thinking.

Spring is on its way. (And, I have been doing metaphorical cartwheels to welcome it!)

Really. Noticing growth on our roses (subtle, but true) and seeing the heads of tulips and daffodils popping up - makes me so happy that (maybe!) it is worth enduring winter.

But, yesterday I rushed out of the house, overly confident in Monday's 60+ degree weather, in a sweater and scarf ... jacket be darned. Not my brightest moment. It was in the low 50's, but it was also wet and breezy and downright chilly.

As much as I would love to believe otherwise, yesterday was a jacket kind of day.

And we have windows!

This week has been full of the usual ups and downs ... but one clear up? Our third floor windows were installed!

They are beautiful, and let me tell you, I am certain I never expected to describe a window as such.

Very, very exciting!

Jaunting.

We did make it out last weekend for a jaunt in the Park. It was beautiful and sunny, and we just couldn't resist taking our girls outside. Olive was very happy to roll around in her stroller, and Zoe definitely enjoyed some time to frolic through the leaves and gawk at the horses.

As it turned out, sun doesn't always mean warm. (Duh, I know. Notice the ice in this photo that we snapped.)



But ... there WAS sun (and, yes, ice and brown leaves) and a few signs of spring: tulips and daffodils just starting to emerge. I am praying for happy, colorful goodness in our very near future!

Kyle and I were a bit underdressed. (I am so tired of putting on a hat and gloves and scarf and and and ...) Regardless of the chill, we all enjoyed a little time outside and are looking forward to more as spring comes back to St. Louis.

Brownies. Deconstructed.

This weekend Kyle and I had some friends over for dinner. We all agreed that eating in would be very likely less impactful on both our wallets and our waistlines.

To negate our healthful decision, I decided to whip up a batch of brownies to share after our meal. (The meal was healthy: green salad, green veggies, brown rice and some grilled fish). Once the house was full of the aroma of chocolate-y goodness, the buzzer rang to tell me our dessert was done. I picked up Olive and with the other hand, opened the oven door, grabbed a hot pad mitten, and picked up the brownie pan ... and watched it flip over and land on our oven door.

I tried a magician move, slipped a flat pizza pan under the brownie pan, in an attempt to salvage some of the treats. No such luck.

Kyle came home, popped his head in the kitchen, looked at me and said, "So, dessert tonight is 'deconstructed' brownies?"

And I laughed.

Yup. We are food geeks for sure.