Happy Easter!

Hope Your Easter was as Wonderful as Ours Was!



Tickles & Giggles

Somebody has ticklish lips! And the greatest smile ever!

Family

Today, Teagan came for a visit (yay!) and being such a grown up little girl, has expanded her movie watching from simply Winnie-the-Pooh and the extras from Happy Feet, to include The Muppets Take Manhattan, The Aristocats, The Jungle Book, and Veggie-Tales Christmas. (Finding Nemo was too traumatizing: she kept calling out more & more frantically for Nemo and, since his dad doesn't find him til nearly the end of the movie, we decided to turn it off and look at Auntie M's seashell collections instead!)

When Teagan watches a movie, she really gets into it~she likes to snuggle with Pooh and Eeyore when she's watching them. Someone playing in a band? Out come her instruments. Today, we were watching The Jungle Book...one of my favorites!

So I pulled out a stuffed animal she hadn't seen since she was really little (like crawling) and re-introduced it to her, along with an animal that is always in her toy basket but often ignored: a mama and baby monkey:

She loved them...but: "Mommy and baby...no daddy..."

So Gramma went upstairs to get a very special stuffed monkey:

While this monkey may look just like the other monkey, it is special because it was purchased for my nephew who never got to play with it. It has been tucked away in a special place in Gramma's room but she had been talking about getting it out for Teag and Dante to play with. (I'm glad she did: unused toys are so sad).

Teagan was thrilled: "A mommy!...A daddy!...A baby!...A whole Family!!!"

Yes...a whole family. Think about it: this is an amazing concept for a child who is 2.2 years old. She spent the rest of the afternoon with her family...

They snuggled together

They learned about Italy together

They looked at themselves on the computer...

Family...

...such a joy!

I think her cousin would be pleased to see how much happiness his stuffed animal brought to her.

Hangin' Out with Van

Had a fun weekend with "little" Van...only he is getting so tall! He is growing up so fast!

We took him to see our new house~he especially likes that the kids will have their own room. That night, at bedtime in our old house, he lamented the fact that he didn't have his own room here. But he very happily fell asleep on an air-mattress in Gramma's room.

 Checking out the new house

That night, Van treated us to a performance of strength and agility~bouncing around from couch-to-couch and fliipping around and doing karate chops, etc. 'Til he literally dropped over with exhaustion.

The next morning, I couldn't find him, and there he was, curled up on the couch, like a rubberband....

Van the Rubberband Man

It's been a while since we've spend one-on-one time with Van. What a treat!

Smiles, Sunshine, and Spring

Doesn't this just make you smile???

How about this smile?! Someone was 2 months old today!!

And to keep gushing, how freakin' cute is this? TeaRose singing You Are My Sunshine with her daddy.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5B6Nf2C2z0

Crank up the volume on this one!!

Speaking of which...we had enough spring sunshine to help the cherry trees burst into bloom...then it got cold and rainy again. On the bright side, the weather helps the blossoms last longer.

 

Auntie M's Love Bugs!