Encore ...

* I can't get enough of the fields full of sunflowers, turning with the sun (and, how they seem to be confused when it's cloudy, lol)

* Andi visited her first 12th/13th century castle

* Playing at the beach of a nearby lake. Andi loved treading through the water, stomping with her feet and swimming. Hands in the sand is a different story though. :)

* Andi playing with her nephews, Ivan and Tesse

* Andi fell face first onto a metal grate yesterday. Not so pretty. :(

* Some of the delicatessen eaten so far this trip: goat cheeses, sheep cheeses, duck sausages (can we say MMmm MMmm MMmm!!), and cured horse meat (not very fond of that).

* Andi loves, loves, loves visiting the neighbors sheep, and knows very well how to make their sound.

* Buying a piece of french bread and a chunk of stinky cheese in some small town, and devouring that with my family under the trees in the town square as an afternoon snack.

* More vineyard walks and runs with my sister.


Last day in France today. Tomorrow morning we leave for Holland! Family road trip!

En France!

Andi and I are in France! We are staying with my parents and my sister in my parents' home in the country side in the South, and it is wonderful like always! The stone house was built in 1761, and is so much fun to get to stay in. Quite something to watch Andi climb up stone stairs everyday that are ~250 yrs old! The flight was long and tiring, but very much worth it :) Because the internet is as slow as molasses here (forget facebook), I will leave you with a few snippets only .... more details and pictures to come later!

* Sunshine, bikini, pool.

* Andi playing with grandma, grandpa and my sister from morning till evening.

* Fresh French bread and Mmmm old Dutch cheese.

* Reading books and magazines.

* My sister and I finally get to run together! We went on 2 runs so far to the neighboring village. It's a beautiful run through the vineyards and fields, and although it's only a short run (15 minutes to the village), it is a tough and sweaty one....heat, humidity (!), and HILLS! Have I mentioned before that I don't do well on hills? My sister kicks my butt!

* French bread and cheese.

* Some more sunshine, bikini, pool. :)

* Evening walks with Andi to feed the neighbors' horses and look at their sheep. Beehhhhh

* We take little walks with Andi through the grass, stopping to look at the flowers so she can "smell" them. She doesn't quite understand how to smell something, and thinks the sound we make when we smell comes from blowing, so she wants to stop and blow on every flower :)

* Delicious fresh cherries, and drip-down-your-elbows peaches and nectarines.

* Mmm chocolates and black licorice.

* Andi doesn't do so well sleeping here, so most nights she ends up in my bed at some point. Though it's a little tiring, I have to say it is actually quite fun and cozy. Besides, with a buzy daily schedule of poolside lazyness there are plenty of opportunities for naps :)

* Did I mention the french bread and cheese? (you get the drift ... see why running with my sister is becoming sort of a must? ;) )

* Visiting old villages.

* This weekend my brother, his wife and their two kids are joining us. I wish Ben could too. Miss you my man!

(* P.S Did I get you jealous yet? hihi)

Random Andi updates

Andi and I are packing and getting ready for our 4 week trip to see my family! We'll be having fun in France for two weeks, then Holland for two weeks!

For the first time, today, Andi managed to get a spoon of food in her mouth by herself!

She's starting to develop a little shoe fetish. I posted earlier about all the shoes that she has, but she never really liked wearing any others than her robeez. Now she is interested in all shoes, and even likes to try her daddy's on for size.

Her walking is getting better and better. I bet that by the time we come back from Europe, she'll be running!

Last week wednesday, her third tooth finally came through. Two days later though, it was back up in her gums, and she's been back to having only two teeth ever since :) Now I'm confused which day to mark on her calendar for when her 3rd tooth came/comes through!

I can finally make out some of the words she is saying! When a dog barks, she says "woof woof", she says "Sage", she says "Bird", she will ask sometimes "What's that" and she has a word for flower, but it sounds like a mix between "flower" and the Dutch "bloemetje". I'm pretty sure there are more, but that's all I can think of right now. We're working on getting her to say "please" when she wants something.

Her favorite breakfast is to have whatever I'm having (even if her tray is FULL of other options she usually likes better). At least it's better than her old favorite: dry wheat bread, and gumming on an orange peel.

She loves it when her daddy comes home from work. As soon as she sees him through the window she squeals. She also gets upset when it's time for him to go back to work.

Like her mom, typical female, she gets incredibly grouchy when she's hungry :)

I'm sure there's more, but that's all I can think of for now.

Walking

This morning: more steps!

(You'll have to excuse her all the boogers ... lots of allergies (perhaps a cold? I can't tell the difference) and teething make for a lot of drainage :) )

Squirt me

Andi found my plant squirter (just water) in the cupboard and had been sitting there for a while squirting herself, and making surprised faces....it was too funny! Unfortunately by the time I got my camera out she realized something was up, and the squirts made her a little upset instead. But, still pretty funny :)

Trying not to laugh at discipline.

Over the last few weeks, I have been trying to teach Andi not to stand up in the bathtub...wobbly feet and a slippery bathtub floor do not make for a good combination.
I understand that it might be a litte confusing..."So wait, mom, you want me to stand up every where else, and start walking, and now that I want to stand up, I'm not allowed? Why? Ugh, grownups." But Oy, it is quite the process! Some nights she stands up too many times to count! I am pretty sure she understands exactly what I'm telling her when I ask her to sit back down (and say why), because most of the times, after a little while, and a LOT of "dislike" in her face, she will actually go sit back down, just obeying the command. Many times though she will purposely try to ignore me, and so I sit her back down myself....of course followed by more "dislike" on her part :)
A select few other times, it actually gets to the point where I give her a little tap on the butt, and then sit her back down...she does need to learn to listen to mom! Last night though, even that didn't quite work anymore: when she would stand up again, she would just reach back with both hands herself, and start tapping her own butt! "I've got this mom, I'll just stand up and discipline myself for it, so I can continue to do what I want?"
How can you not start laughing? :) So now what?

I am sure there are many, many more of these types of moments to follow....

Camping at Sinks Canyon, WY

Last weekend we got to go on our first camping trip of the season, and Ben decided the place to go was Sinks Canyon by Lander, WY. Excellent choice :) We had great weather, had fun cooking and eating camping food, and made a few small hikes along the Popo Agie river and up to the falls. The river was roaring due to all the run off, which I have to say also made for good background noise while sleeping at night :) Now that Andi is bigger than last camping season, she is no longer sleeping in the cubby next to me, but has now graduated to her own bed. This went pretty well ... naptimes are a little difficult (which is why she ended up asleep in the backpack while hiking one time), and we had to lay next to her until she fell asleep, but then she did great. It was actually pretty comical to see how she puts herself to sleep at night ... she s like a fish on dry land, flopping around trying to get comfortable until she finally crashes.

We have many pictures of our trip, most posted here, but here's a select few:

The fam.



The fam again :)

Mom, Andi and Sage by the campfire

Our cutie

2 little toophies!

Mmm cookie crums, sunscreen and perhaps a few boogies smeared on my face :)

Playing with rocks is fun!

Happy hikers

Having fun on dad's back

Trails, trails, trails :)

Relaxing in the shade with dad.

Today is actually Andi's 15 month 'birthday', so we went to the pediatrician for her checkup...here are her stats :)

Height: 29 3/4 inches (28th %, up from 20th% last time)

Weight: 21 lbs 1 oz (25th%, down from 40th% last time)

Head: 46 1/2 cm

She actually started taking her first few solo steps yesterday (as in: not encouraged...she took some heavily cheerleaded first steps last week :) ), and is becoming more fond of standing on her feet. I still can't really make out any specific words that she says, though I think she says "Sage" when she sees Sage, and "juice" , "that/dat" when she points at things. Though who knows...with two languages as an option there always seems to be a word that her sounds sound like :)

She recently discovered a pack of pencils in one of my drawers, and has been having fun coloring (don't think she shows preference for right or left hand quite yet). Maybe she'll become like me when I was little: always making little drawings and coloring :)

Still only 2 teeth, her bottom teeth, but I think her top two teeth are starting to come in...screaming at night, and swollen gums.