A girl's gotta have a fabulous purse...

Here's Gen and her purse. You see, the advent of walking has brought about a new love -- carrying things while walking! Genny does laps around the house carrying various items: empty water bottles, babies, my makeup bag, and most often, her pink purse.

She's like Sophia on the Golden Girls, I tell you!

Aunt Kate

Friends, I just wanted to share this. This is a picture of my Aunt Katie (my grandfather's sister), holding Genevieve when she was 2 months old. Katie passed away tonight, and I just wanted to mark her passing somehow.

Katie had her sense of humor intact to the very end. She used to joke that if I had any trouble teaching Trigonometry, just to call her and she'd be glad to help. Now, I never knew if Katie knew what Trigonometry was, but we always had a good laugh about it. I think she just liked the sound of it, but I always knew that Katie took the time to care about what I was doing.

Katie was a symbol of strength and hope to me. She faced what many of my generation can only imagine, losing her husband on the beaches of Normandy 6 weeks before the birth of their only child, Karen. She was a reminder of the cost of freedom.

She lived into her 80's with dignity, enjoying her friends and her life. She was a lot of fun. I was lucky to know her.

Still walking

Wow, she's made a lot of progress in walking in a short time!

Mini-me

Cookies

In this picture, Gen just got up from her nap and is having some cookies and juice.

I remember when I was really little, sometimes I would wake up from my nap and Mom would have made homemade cookies. That's the best way to wake up from a nap, by the way! I think the adult equivalent is waking up to coffee brewing and breakfast cooking.

So yesterday I had some time during naptime, and I decided to continue on the tradition and make homemade cookies for Gen to wake up to.

For the love of a wagon

My dad got Gen a red wagon for Christmas, and she loves it. She really likes to be pulled around in it. She climbs in and points to the handle and hollers "Mama" and she is happy to be pulled anywhere, as long as you will pull. Cautious little girl that she is, she holds on to the sides tight with both hands as long as it's in motion......

She has also discovered that red wagon is a good place to play if there's no one to pull. Here she has put her babies in and climbed on in.

In this one, she put it at the front door and decided to feed the babies.
And here she is sitting in it, watching Sesame Street.

Nap Strike

Well, ladies and gentlemen, Genevieve has declared a nap strike. I've asked her what she is striking for, and the only response I got was "ba." Now, this could mean she is striking for bananas, babies, a ball, a diaper (not sure why this is ba, but back to the story...) or the dog. If anyone can translate, negotiate peace and re-establish naptime at our house, please let us know.

The Interceptor

Well, Robert is living his dream of building a kit cobra. (Can see the progress at http://robertbuildsacobra.blogspot.com/ ) But in the meantime, he needs something cheap to drive to work. After several weeks sharing a car, we finally made a purchase: a 2002 Ford Crown Victoria, recently retired from police work.

It was missing its police badges, so a friend fashioned new badges for it...... Thanks, Mike! And this is a good place to answer questions.

No it does not have a light bar. But it has holes where one could mount one.

No it does not have a spotlight. But again, the holes.

There are not bars between the front and back seats. But there is a tap light in the backseat so someone could see to fill out paperwork.

No it is not still black and white. Just white.

Siren == no.

Do people slow down when they see it coming? Yes.

Beautiful day in Amarilloland!

Eyes and Ears and Mouth and Nose...

Gen's getting pretty good at pointing out her eyes, mouth and nose. It's pretty cute....

Proof!

Here's how we got her to walking. We had a tin of butter cookies from Christmas. Gen didn't really like them that much, but she liked taking them to Robert! Getting something in one hand somehow encouraged her to walk without help.

Gen's Walking!*

Well, at long last, we finally declare that Genevieve is walking. Clearly she didn't want to rush into this major milestone too fast...

*We define walking as willingly taking 7 steps between people without holding onto anything.

About 3 months ago, Gen would take a couple of steps between people. For about a week. Then she decided not to do that anymore. She had a few weeks where she didn't even want to walk holding our hands. I feared she would never walk. People would say, "I bet she's running all over the place now!" and we had to say no. I even read this week that 90% of children are walking by 15 months old (she was 15 months old this past Tuesday...). As many times as we told ourselves that she would walk when she was ready, let's face it -- we were ready! We have learned through this that she is a very cautious child -- a trait that will probably serve her well in life.

So hooray!

Waiting for Daisy

When Daisy takes herself outside, Gen likes to wait for her at the dog door. This makes me laugh!