Charlo's Garden

On Saturday we had breakfast at our dear friends Paul and Charlo's house. Paul had a soccer game and we were sorry not to see him, Ally kept saying the rest of the day "no Paul today". But we managed to enjoy the beautiful spring day in Charlo's garden.

Ally liked playing in the fountain, and I just could not believe how spectacular the flowers looked with Ally's dress. It was very special because Paul and Charlo brought Ally this dress from Mexico.

I just love how Ally and Becky have the same expression. They were playing "roll the ball" which was a giant balance ball.

Running!

So, if you have never lived with a two-year-old, this is a little window into something called "bedtime". The video is only 2 minutes long, but the reality was more like 15 minutes of this before we were able to wrangle her towards bed.

A couple action photos:

Potty Training?

Right now, this is as close as Ally wants to be to the potty. Ally is very entertained by her toys peeing on the potty, but when the toys are all done and it's her turn, she wants nothing to do with it. Oh well, Julie and I may be ready to start potty training, but that doesn't mean Ally is!

The orangutan needing to go potty was Ally's idea. The poor thing sat there all day...

Happy Easter

We had a great weekend at Grandma Barbie and Grandpa Franks' house for Easter. Ally got to spend some good quality time with both grandparents.

Grandpa read Ally her favorite story.

He also took us with his dog Java to let her go swimming!

Grandpa Frank, Ally and Julie all posed for a photo at the pond.
Mommy, Grandma and Ally anticipate egg dying.Grandma Barbie colored Easter eggs with Ally!

Note Ally's new cowboy boots - a real find at the secondhand store! She is very much into Toy Story, and now can dress up in "cowboy boots and cowboy hat".

On Easter, Ally found a basket left by the Easter Bunny!

There were even scented bubbles - mint and strawberry!

And a BIG treat - Gummy Bears!
Here Ally is dropping an egg into the collection basket for the egg hunt. She is sucking on a gummy bear - they were hard to chew, so she sucked on them until they were soft.
"Oh, I found a plastic egg full of Cheerios! Time for a break!"
"Oh, I got distracted by Ernie and my doll, how about another egg hunt break?"

We took a lot of egg hunt breaks and needed to help Ally with some egg hunting motivation. Once she found some eggs with goodies, the motivation to continue seemed to drop!

Grandma Barbie gave Ally some new pajamas!

After Easter morning, we went on our way home to visit our friends Jay and Michelle. Ally got to spend some time with their girls, Julia and Karina. Karina first told Ally the story in the books, then Julia read to them both! It was very cute to see them all sitting together.

We had a great Easter with Julie's parents. It was great to watch Ally's anticipation ("go see Grandma Barb and Grandpa Frank, and Java!") and to let Grandma and Grandpa have an excuse to ply Ally with extreme amounts of treats. Good news is that it she did actually sleep - the large amount of exciting activities seemed to counteract all the sugar!

An Ouchie and An Obsession

In the last post, Julie alluded to the fact that Ally had a little bike/trike accident. I was pushing her and saw her looking straight down. I thought she was just watching the pavement go by. Next thing I know she is screaming and I look at her face and there is blood everywhere. I think she had been biting the handlebars and when we went over a bump in the sidewalk, she bit her lip - on both sides - very hard. I picked her up and pushed the bike home. We cleaned her up and she was just fine. It was our first boo-boo that really bled! I don't even think it hurt her all that much because she was quite calm about it very soon afterwards. We could only get photos of it while she was brushing her teeth.

In the last photo, you can catch a glimpse of her latest obsession: Ally's Buzz "jammas".

Bike, really a trike

We finally put Ally's tricycle together this weekend. Actually Becky put it together and I just harassed her to do it.

Ally was so excited I could not get her to look at the camera.

We tried it out in the house first. I think this captures the excitement pretty well as she crashed into our bed.

Look it has a bell!

Fashion plate toddler on her way outside to try "Ally's bike" outside. She was very excited to find out it had a bar so that mama could push her.

All serious and ready for a ride.

Isn't my family cute?

No the helmet is not too big but Ally kept looking down at her feet.

We kept asking her to make the bell ring so she would look up for a picture.

I stayed home to get dinner started while Becky took Ally for an inaugural spin around the block. We'll report on the outcome in another post.

Too cold giraffes

Ally and Alice are becoming good friends, much to our parental delight. This weekend we had a play date at the zoo with Alice and her mom. We like to talk about our day with Ally and let her know what is going to happen the next day or a few days in advance. So on Thursday we asked if she wanted to go to the zoo over the weekend. She said yes (you all know her bus and little people have been going to the zoo regularly). We asked if she wanted Alice to come too.

That got a resounding YES.

So we ask what will see at the zoo, and Ally says gorillas, giraffes, elephants. Hmmm - here in Boston there is a fantastic gorilla exhibit, but no elephants, and the giraffes only come out in warm weather. So we talked about the lions and tigers and zebras and kangaroos and snakes we would see. Then Ally would get excited about the animals and say penguins. So we would explain penguins are at the Aquarium not the zoo. "Zoo", she would say "gorillas, giraffes, elephants." so then we told her we might not see giraffes it might be too cold for giraffes. All day Saturday she would repeat "see Alice go to zoo...see gorillas too cold giraffes" Becky and I would chuckle each time, yes even the 25th time we still laughed. Here are pictures from our zoo trip.

The lion was pretty cool.

Ally got tired and did not want to walk anymore. Her moms got tired of carrying her, she did not want to be carried in the ergo, so Alice was nice enough to let Ally ride in her stroller. Then Alice pushed her around. Can't we all have friends like that?

After a quick snack break Alice wanted to ride in the stroller and Ally wanted to push.

Turns out Alice is heavier and and taller than Ally. What was fun and relatively easy for Alice was pretty hard for Ally. She tired of that really quick!

But soon we entered the gorilla habitat. Ally was so enthralled by them. She was very brave and not scared at all. Alice was kind of afraid. We adults were overheard asking Alice if "the gorillas were scary...yes gorillas are scary" so now Ally says Alice is scary of gorillas. Toddler speak is so cute sometimes. We're working hard on the concept of scared of instead of scary but she is only 2!

mommy and Ally

Cheryl carrying Ally

Becky ergo-ing Alice

It was pretty neat at the end with the girls being carried by the other's mamas. In the past this might have sparked some jealously or frustration, but not this day. They actually seemed to think it was neat to share their moms and stuff with each other.