Grandma Johari

Grandma and she made me Grandpa. (A resale shop find!)

Purple Girl!

Carmel and Johari at hospital to meet Carmel's new baby sister, Eva.

Holding hands with Eva

Rhyming QUEEN...Fo Feen

Johari loves to say things in rhyme. She makes up the words that rhyme with what she is talking about. It is fun stuff. Let's go to Target Barget. She went through a period where everything she said had a rhyming word after it. It has fizzled bo bizzled out a bit now but the rhyming mood still strikes her every so often.
We have gone to the swimming pool a couple of times lately. She is building confidence but still pretty cautious in the water. She doesn't like going under. She has a blast when we go to the pool. At the swimming pool is where she got turned on to showers instead of baths. She really likes showers now. She likes to stand and let the water hit her back and do some dances with her arms in it. She can stand in a shower for quite a while.

To the zoo and family square dancing....

The crew at the zoo

This past Sunday we had a whole lot of fun on a beautiful sunny day.
We went to the zoo for the first time in a long time. We got a new membership there. I think we will try to get there often. We had fun checking out the "orangee-tangs". Johari said we were at an "Orangee-tang party." We saw the baby gorilla growing up. Johari went on the carousel. We tried dipping dots ice cream for the first time. An interesting twist to ice cream. Some super freezing process that makes it ball up into tiny pellets. Johari wanted the rainbow kind. She enjoyed feeding it to Ibrahim as well.




After the zoo, we headed to a family dance. Square dancing!!!!! Yee-haw. We had fun, but wow, that is a workout. Especially doing it while holding Johari in my arms. She enjoyed it but wasn't ready to do it on her own. Once she got comfortable she did her own freestyle dancing for a bit. She likes to run and kick her leg out to the side and twirl around. I don't think I have done square dancing since I was in elementary school. It was a good time.

Swinging

This is what Johari calls her playground in her own backyard.

Our house in the middle of our street....

View from the kitchen sink

Office/Den/Hang out room

Playroom

Living Room

Stacy, Ishmael and Ibrahim's room

Johari and my bedroom

Kitchen from living room

We have been living in our house for at least a month now, I think. Probably a little longer. It is wonderful. It is a great space. It feels good. We have an amazing backyard and front yard. Johari loves to just run in circles in the backyard. We put up a couple of rope swings on our big tree in the back. They are awesome. I had to make the swing pretty low and now it is perfect because she can do it all on her own. And she does!!!!
One huge blessing that moving into our house has been that we don't have a TV here. It is the chance to wean from watching her DVDs everyday. What an amazing difference! She spends all of that time creating, imagining, pretending, hopping, running, exploring, singing, and so much more. I love it. We read so many more books. We have been hooked on Alison Lester books lately. It started with this really cool book that we borrowed from the library called Ernie Dances to the Digeridoo. Then we saught more of her books. We both really enjoy them. They have travel and imagination and different kids enjoying life in different ways. They are super fun.
We have tons of colors on our walls inside of our house and now the outside has begun to get painted. Just the front for the moment. The comments of neighbors and passers by.... "Your house really looks different than it did." "You won't have any trouble telling people which house is yours." "Now, I can tell people I live next to the orange house." "I like it." Along with people pausing to check it out from the corner. It is sunshine on a cloudy day.

A first....

It is a lifetime of firsts, right? But after they are happen a few times it all just becomes normal. Johari just crawled into a bed and went to sleep on her own for a nap. WOW!!! Incredible!