Welcome to Austin, Grandma!

Last week was my half birthday, and I celebrated by starting the day nice and early so I could appear on the morning news at my school.

When students have birthdays, they get to choose a book from the library that is dedicated to them and they get to check the book out before anyone else. Since my birthday is in the summer, I got to do this on my half birthday. I chose Earth Day: An Alphabet Book and we're really enjoying it.

Every morning, students at my school deliver the day's announcements over tv screens in each classroom. Part of this program is the birthday book kids. So last Tuesday, I lined up with the others and they asked me my name, when is my birthday (when I turn five and six) and what I want to be when I grow up (astronaut). Turner's voice made an appearance, because he and Mom were in the room in case I needed them (I didn't, but it was reassuring to have them there). Dad and Hazel watched from the library. Mom and Dad were really impressed that students put this whole thing together themselves, with just an advisor overseeing it all.

When I woke up Friday morning, I was happy to see we had a visitor in our guest room -- Grandma! She came for a quick long weekend trip. We spent a lot of time showing her around our new place.

I really prepared for Grandma's visit. My teachers told Mom it was all I talked about for two weeks beforehand and I made a list of things I wanted to do with Grandma. I wanted to take her to the Apple store, make a pineapple upside down cake and lemon blueberry muffins, and show her my toy vacuum, beads and magnets.  We did all those things except the muffins, which Mom and I took care of this afternoon.

We also took lots of nice trips to the park and really enjoyed waking Grandma up in the morning, having Grandma snuggle us, read us lots of nice books and play some fun games she brought us. We also liked all the star cookies she brought for us, going to the fun restaurants she took us to, and hearing stories of Grandpa; Aunt Lauren and Uncle Ryan; Uncle Daniel; Aunt Amy and cousin Mianna; Gigi; and Grandma's big dog Bruiser. We hope Grandma comes back again soon! 

Turner had to go to the doctor while Grandma was here because he wasn't feeling well. Turns out his problem was four new teeth coming in! Also, we learned that he's up to 20 pounds now.

For photos of our visit with Grandma, click here.

Happy 2012!

Happy New Year! We hope you found a fun way to spend New Year's Eve.  We sure did!

One of our all-time favorite books is Irving and Muktuk: Two Bad Bears.  It is about a little town called Yellowtooth that celebrates every new year with a blueberry muffin festival. This year Mom and Dad helped us have our own blueberry muffin festival, just like Yellowtooth!

Mom made some yummy blueberry muffins. We had a muffin parade. We even had root beer (Dad's note: okay, it was sparkling apple juice). The craziest part was that Irving and Muktuk, the two bad bears from the book, kept trying to steal our muffins.

They kept appearing around the house, sometimes wearing disguises (we thought Elton John had broken into our home at one point) trying to get the muffins. Whenever we spotted them, we would take them to our bear jail, but they kept managing to escape.  Fortunately, through our vigilance, we prevented them from getting any of our blueberry muffins.

Irving and Muktuk

It was just like the book and lots of fun!

 

Tooting my horn

Turner didn't make it to New Year's Eve. He didn't take a nap that afternoon so he went to bed early. Instead of partying with us, he sat down with Mom for a New Year's photo op.

Turner is nine months old and very cute

To see photos of our New Year's fun and good times we've had at the playground lately, click here!