Perfect size!

One very slow winter day when I was a nanny, the three children in the family suddenly discovered that they fit into the bottom cupboards in the kitchen.

Alex (age 7), Brian (3.5) and James (5.5), for those of you who don't know them, circa 2004.

It was a really fun day.  There were lots of em with these three.

So now I'm a parent and Kendra is starting to approach the age that the youngest child was when I came to work for them (Brian was exactly 2 and a half when I started) so I'm starting to be able to compare her to them.

But she discovered how perfectly-sized the kitchen cupboards are a little earlier...

...and now it's her favorite little place to go get away from it all.

"MOM!  How'd you find me??"

It's an exclusive place.

"I better see what she's doing with that camera..."

But then it's time to get back to business...

I purposefully pretty much only keep tupperware in that cabinet because we've just been too lazy to baby-proof it and it entertains her endlessly while I'm doing dishes or cooking dinner.

She's also out of the stage where exploring things means immediately putting it in her mouth, so it's much less disgusting than it was about a year ago.

AND she helps clean up when I start singing the little song.

It's a Win for everyone.

Simple pleasures

EVERY single time Kendra sees one of these carts, she's overwhelmed with a surging desire to crawl in it and just go nuts...so today I finally broke down and let her have a few minutes in one when she spotted one outside the grocery store across the street where we drop off our mail.

You see that tongue sticking out?

That's how you know we're taking this seriously.

Very, very seriously.

(So seriously she might have thrown such a fit when I told her it was time to leave that I had to carry her all the way back to our apartment, literally kicking and screaming the whole way.  I didn't think that "across the street" was that far until I had to walk it six months pregnant and holding a squirming 2-year-old.)

Something different...

Grant is a big Nerd.  It works out well because for all my adult life I've described myself as "all but the official elected leader of the Dweebs" and it turns out that Nerds and Dweebs get along really, really well.

A few examples of Grant's Nerdiness:

1.  When he was a child, his favorite books growing up were not comic books or adventure books, but books about aquarium fish.

2.  One day while researching from topic to topic (thank you, Wikipedia), Grant discovered that the most energy (and thus, cost) efficient refrigerator would actually be a slightly modified deep freeze--and now he wants one.

3.  His pre-marriage music collection was almost entirely either classical masterpieces (including the complete works of Mozart), selected church recordings and the songs largely played at the dances he attended throughout his youth.

I could go on, it's a pretty impressive list and all of it added up together makes someone unlike anyone I've ever met before (a big part of what I first noticed about him and attracted me to him).  However, his most recent Random Act of Nerdiness just might take the cake...

Grant has long complained the the lights in our house always make the sweet, sweet pictures we take turn out yellow.  This is bad.  So after some good ole Farnsy style research, he discovered that common house lights provide a warmer (more yellowish) light, however daylight and photo lights are white-balanced and a bit colder (more blueish).

So naturally, after lots of perusing in on-line stores and several trips to Home Depot...he gradually replaced all of our bulbs with these white-balanced ones.  Which means better pictures, if we would just take more...

Apparently, they're also helpful for seasonal affective disorder (aka: The Winter Blues) because the light they produce is very similar to daylight--I'm not sure if it's the light bulbs or if it's the promise of Spring being just around the corner (and not a moment too soon, as far as I'm concerned!) but I have been feeling much better than I was about a month ago...

And maybe it's these new lights that help you see how we have exactly the same eyes...I love that.  :)

Yeay for Nerds!

Peek-a-boo!

Sometimes, I can't see Kendra, but I can hear her.

Now, I know where to look.

It's pretty much her favorite little nook.

Can't you tell?

Christmas Morning

Here are a few shots from Christmas morning.

First, an easel from my Dad:

She loooooves this thing.  She plays with it every single day!

And this was the first occasion she caught onto the concept of unwrapping presents.

It didn't take her long to become a total pro.  :)

We gave her a shopping cart because she really loves stuff to push around.

And the minute she saw it, she knew what belonged inside: a little girl!

Actually, this picture doesn't do the moment justice because as soon as she saw what the cart was, she started looking around for this doll she'd opened a few minutes earlier from Grant's parents and quite purposefully set it in the cart--because she knows that babies go in the cart, I guess!

We also gave her some pretend food to go along with the cart...

We weren't sure if she'd "get it"...

But she very enthusiastically caught on.

It was a very Merry Christmas indeed for our little family!