Easter 2009

This year, Easter coincided with Daddy's birthday (his 42nd), so we all went to Granny and Pa's house for a double celebration. Jessica hunted Easter eggs in Granny and Pa's back yard. Here she finds one cleverly hidden in the grass:


And runs off in search of more:


She found one by a statue:


And another one hidden near the porch:

She then went contentedly forth in search of more:


Later, she enjoyed some of her candy on the porch:


This is Jessica on Easter of 2008:



and Easter of 2009:


What a difference a year makes!

Portrait of the Artist as a Little Bear

Among Jessica's favorite things to do is drawing and coloring, usually in appropriate places like her coloring books and notebooks and loose blank paper, but occasionally in inappropriate places like one of Mommy's or Daddy's books or the wall or the top of her Diaper Genie.

Here are a couple of pictures of her drawing this past Tuesday morning:

Visiting Lucye; More Reading with Mommy

A couple of weeks ago, Daddy and Jessica went to Roswell to visit their friends Audrey and Lucye. Jessica was very interested in exploring their house (Stairs to go up and down! New toys to play with!), while Lucye was very interested in catching Jessica to give her a welcoming hug:

(photos by Audrey Loverin)
* * *

We do a lot of reading at our house--the daughter of a writer/college English instructor and an elementary school librarian, Jessica was fated to either love or hate books. Fortunately, she loves them. Here, Mommy and Jessica read a back issue of the now-defunct Wonder Time magazine:

Jessica's Desk

Jessica's great-grandfather, Grampa Ray, sent her some spendin' money for her birthday, which we used to buy her a Step 2 The Write Desk. She loves to sit at her desk and draw with her crayons or washable* markers:


*You must always buy washable markers for a toddler, for sometimes the markings need to be washed from her hands and arms and face and Mommy's and Daddy's hands and arms and face and the cat and the wall and her lunch and the car and the refrigerator...

Stone Mountain

On Sunday afternoon, Mommy and Daddy and Jessica went to Stone Mountain Park to enjoy the beautiful seventy-degree pre-Spring day. We spent the whole time exploring the area adjacent to the walk-up trail, which abounds with sticks and rocks and other wonderful things to play with and experiment with. Here are seven pictures of Jessica, the Adventurer and Explorer:








Nota bene: Richard Louv wrote a book called Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder about "the staggering divide between children and the outdoors." As long as there are sticks to drag around and rocks to throw, it seems that Jessica is in no danger of suffering from this disorder.

Dad's Breakfast

This morning, Jessica's preschool had a Dads' Breakfast for all us dads. Here's a picture that Ms. Karen, the music teacher, took of Jessica and her daddy:

(As you can see, Jessica was about half-way through a powdered doughnut at the time.)

Here, Jessica takes a contemplative break from enjoying her powdered doughnut:

Snow!

On the first day of March, less than three weeks from the beginning of Spring, it began to snow here in Georgia, and it didn't stop until we had four inches on the ground!

Here are several pictures of Jessica experiencing her first snowfall, first on Sunday afternoon while it was still snowing:







Here, Mommy realizes happily that, since this isn't Minnesota, all of the snow will be gone in a couple of days:

(In fact, the current forecast calls for temperatures in the low 70's this coming weekend!)

Here's what the playground looked like Monday morning, after the snow had stopped falling but not yet started to go away:


Here's our whole little family, surrounded by snow, on Monday morning:

And two more pictures of Jessica playing in the snow (yes, with socks on her hands):

Reading with Gramma and Grampa; Self-Inflicted Tatoo

For the past few days, Jessica's Gramma and Grampa (Anna's Mom and Denny) have been visiting on their way back to Minnesota from their winter vacation in Texas. Here, the two of them and Jessica look through Mommy and Daddy's wedding pictures:


This morning, while Daddy was busy checking his e-mail messages, Jessica was busy with her new (thankfully) washable Crayola Markers, giving herself a tatoo, which she shows off proudly here:

Reading With Pa

On Sunday we went to Granny and Pa's house to celebrate uncle Jeff's birthday. Jessica loves to read with her grandfather, as you can see from this picture:

Making Valentine's Day Cards

Second Birthday

Today is Jessica's second birthday! We had a small party at our house to honor the occasion; here's a picture of Jessica happily opening presents:

And another of Jessica showing how happy she was to be getting all those presents and all that attention:

And finally, the cake:

Reading with Mommy at Granny's House

The ZOO - Northwest Florida

On Tuesday we went to the zoo in Gulf Breeze:


Jessica's favorite part of the visit (besides the delight of watching the cows eat the Petting Zoo pellets we bought for a dollar a bag; that elicited great squeals of delight) was going up and down the stairs at the playground:


She was also delighted that she got to ride a horse and a zebra (though they weren't real ones):


We also took lots of animal pictures, which you can see here:

Zoo Pictures Slideshow

Blowing Bubbles, Feeding Seagulls, Building Sandcastles

We're currently on our annual post-Christmas trip to Pensacola; this is the eighth time Chris and Anna have made the trip, and the second time for Jessica. Yesterday we stopped for a while at a rest area just past Auburn, Alabama, where Jessica and Mommy played with bubbles:

(That expression, by the way, is what you get when you ask a two-year-old to smile for the camera.)

Today we went down to the beach so Jessica and Mommy could feed the seagulls:


and build sandcastles:


Tomorrow we'll be going to the zoo in Gulf Breeze!