Lest we forget Boston

Our dear old cat Boston passed away last December.  He was a such a good pet, and I used to miss him every day, but time passes, and I think of him less often now.  Boston had many favorite things like sleeping on our heads and sitting on laps.  But highest on his list might have been his love of roast chicken.  In his old age, he had lost his hearing, and like an old man shouting because he couldn't hear himself, that cat MEOWed!   It was nearly unbearable to work with a cooked chicken in the kitchen because of the loud, incessant meowing.  Our friends that visited would pity our "poor old cat" (he could really put on the old, pathetic cat show for others) and we would laugh, because even up to near his last days, he was willing and able to take flying leaps off of anything to get to a roast chicken.  Anyway, that brings me to Stephie-cat.  Stephie-cat is Stephanie's self-developed cat persona, and she breaks it out whenever it strikes her... grocery store, diaper changes, heading up to bed are the most common times.  She meows, refers to herself as Stephie-cat, and will say things like "Stephie-cat needs a new diaper".  This afternoon, I was pulling chicken off the bone for dinner, and Stephanie started meowing and saying "Stephie-cat need chicken". After a few minutes of this, I got laughing because it was like old times.  It made me miss our old Boston, but I was grateful for the appearance of the Stephie-cat at the opportune time for a nice memory.

Boston never minded sharing laps!

New Mommy

I have managed to come down with a cold and an exhausting cough that just won't quit.  Last night, Stephanie was playing in the dining room and I went in there with her and sat (collapsed) in one of the chairs.  Stephanie said "Mommy sit down in chair."  (100% correct observation).  Then she says "Mommy old." (okay, I'll give her that one, too, especially when compared to herself).  And she repeats that a few times, just to rub it in.  Then she says "I need new Mommy."  COME ON now Stephanie!  Give me a chance to get over this plague you brought home before replacing me!  She repeated that a few more times, and I picked her up and took her into the kitchen and got her to reenact the conversation for Kevin, and she indeed told him I was old and she needed a new Mommy. I think it is fair disclosure to tell you all that I think she learned this from someone (fine, she learned it from me).  She sometimes asks me to do things for her that I am not quite physically capable of (like flying her around the house in various baskets), and I've said to her, "Oh honey, Mommy is so old!  We should get you a new one!"  I think her translation last night was hysterical.  It reminds me that she really does hear everything we say and absorbs it all!  I'm glad we are a household that generally speaks kindly to one another, because if she can turn my joke into that, imagine what she could do with unkind words!      

The Hunt is On!

The new chair from Grandma and Grandpa!

We were fortunate enough to have two egg hunting opportunities over Easter.  The first was following church, set up on the church lawn, and the second was after nap on Easter for just her at our house.  I forgot my camera for the church one, but she moved so fast, I'm not sure I would have been able to take pictures.  It turns out that Stephanie is an egg hunting machine.  In retrospect, this is the perfect task for Stephanie-  she is plenty low to the ground and is really into picking things up and not all that into candy (yet).  In fact, I'm not sure she knew the eggs even opened, so while the other children at church couldn't resist opening and peeking, Stephanie was practically vacuuming up the eggs.  We had to un-hunt behind her by secretly emptying her basket, because she clearly had a "no egg left behind" policy that seemed unfair to the other children :).

I put finger puppet in her eggs instead of candy, which turns out was wise because chocolate was NOT going to hold up in the nice warm sun we had that day!

It was a little odd at first that the eggs weren't on the ground like at church, but she got the hang of looking high and low.

Ultimately the eggs guided her to the rabbit booty, which she had to figure out how to carry all at once.

And yes, those are the cutest socks ever!

She did make me "hide" the eggs about 2 dozen more times that day, but the weather was beautiful and Kevin was out gardening so that was no problem!  I actually tried to hide them the first couple of times, but she kept trying to come with me, and I finally realized that all she really wanted me to do was to put the eggs all over the lawn to be picked up again- not that that should come as a surprise.

"Pick up you"

I am sad to announce that Stephanie has mastered correct usage of the words "me" and "you".  When she first started stringing words together and she wanted to be picked up, she would look at me and say "Pick up you!". 
I have a rule that I try to speak correctly to her regardless of how precious her phrases are-  She would ask for "wawa" and I would hand her water and say "Here is your water".  She likes to eat "noonoos" so I offer her "noodles" (fine, I sometimes offer noonoos, but come on, how can I ALWAYS resist that one!), and slowly but surely, she is correctly saying alot of words. 
As it would turn out, gently and slowly fixing pronunciation is quite easy.  I find it a little sad that water is now "water" and not "wawa", but I know it is for the best.
And then, enter pronouns.  The first time she told us to "Pick up you", we tried to repeat it to her correctly and realized just how hard it is to learn language.  Explain this to a two year old:  When I say you, I mean you, but when you mean you, you should say me, not you...  ACK!  But, suddenly, she seemed to just figure it out.  At first she was super proud of herself, and would say, "Pick up ME!", shouting the "ME" part, but now the pronoun "me" has become so commonplace that it isn't worth shouting, apparently.  Like all of the little speaking quirks, "Pick up you" was short lived, but remains a fond memory of her learning to talk.  I almost feel like I should consider renaming the blog "Stephanie no longer says..."

Elmo Daddy

There were a few weeks in which Stephanie would mention Elmo's daddy and then mess with my computer.  We have a book with Elmo's dad, but we could not figure out why she kept saying it and then heading to my computer.  It was usually on a Saturday or a Sunday when everyone was home, but she finally did it on a Wednesday when it was just her and I, and it finally dawned on me that she was saying "email daddy"!  Kevin and I exchange several emails everyday, so I have probably told her dozens of times that I need to email daddy.  I think I figured this out a week or two ago, but this morning when Kevin left he said, "I'll see you on the email!".  After he shut the door, she shouted "See you Elmo daddy!"  and I realized just how funny it was when she replaced the word email with Elmo. 

The Misc. Photos of San Antonio

A collection of the remainder of the favorite photos that were not immediately tied to some event!

We told her it was Santa Claus, and she was really excited
to pose.  We have a hard copy of this one, and she keeps
telling us about Santa.  Guess who suggested to Steph that this was Santa?
Perhaps the person who makes her sit on cannons?

One of the Alaina mirror series

I remembered this tile mural from my last trip, but it took a
while to accidentally rediscover it.  

We did take the river taxi, but just didn't get many photos.

At a brewery a little ways from the riverwalk.  Stephanie walked a LONG way
with us to get there, but the service was premium!  Not that it took much to impress us!

These trees were in bloom every where, and I thought Alaina's picture was neat!

Alaina also took this near the brewery for Stephanie-  I'll get it printed up for her room.

Seafood on the riverwalk

Ready to hit the town!

We had big plans to go out, have a nice dinner and see more riverwalk.  Thanks to the laughably bad service at yet another restaurant, we ended up lingering around one area, waiting forever for a table.  On the bright side, the blue moon beers came with oranges, which provided a great photo later in the night AND we got our only group photo.  We also found a shop nearby, and I ended up getting a necklace that I loved and a giant blown glass vase to bring home to help memorialize the trip!  The seafood was terrific, something we don't get much of in Kansas.    

A really cute picture from the Alaina mirror shot series

Stephanie and Alaina's orange kiss

This is the only picture of all of us on the trip!

The Alamo

The Alamo is right in downtown San Antonio with free admission, so stopping by was a no-brainer.
I am not proud of it, but I didn't know all that much about the Alamo before I went, and I can't say that I know any more now.  Since it is free admission, there were tons of people and we had to keep eyes on Stephanie, so it wasn't exactly easy to read all the info and take it in, but we did see some crazy cool coy and satisfy Alaina's urge that Stephanie pose for photos sitting on things that I would not normally encourage her to sit on.  

Waiting in line to get in the Alamo

Stephanie really likes horses... sigh

Alaina got Stephanie to sit in whatever this is for a photo op.

And then Alaina got her to ride the cannon.  This is part of a series of vacation photos we like to call "Things Alaina got Stephanie to ride." I love to tease Alaina about it, but we have some hysterical shots. 

Japanese Gardens

After a fun day of caving, we headed right to the lovely Japanese Gardens.  Stephanie was simply too tired to make the traffic ridden trip, and of course fell asleep for a nap 15 minutes from the destination.  Happily, there was a little cafe on the premises, and Kevin and Alaina ordered lunch for everyone, and we ate while she napped.  Alaina and I started garden explorations while Kevin sat with the little napper, and then we all convened in the garden for some terrific photos!

A quick snack on the road-  of course most people remove the
grape through the top opening of the bag, but that is neglecting
the opportunity to squeeze it out of a tiny little hole in the bag!