ABCs! (sort of)

Lisa surprised me recently by singing bits and pieces of the ABC song. So...she skips letter "d" through "h", but I'm pretty impressed. I'm always amazed at how much she is really absorbing without me realizing it. She loves reading books these days, something I had wondered if she'd ever have the attention span for. We read about 20 minutes before nap and before bed and any other time she feels like it during the day. I love looking over and seeing her just reading her books. Some of her favorites are, "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie," "Red Fish, Blue Fish," "Hop on Pop," and "Chicka-Chicka Boom Boom" (or as she says, Chicken boom boom). 

Lisa's Singing Medley

This is Lisa all day long. Singing, singing, and more singing. She will tell us, "Mommy, daddy sit down! Sing songs!" And then she performs. Sometimes we'll catch snippets of songs like, "twinkle, twinkle" or "pat-a-cake, baker's man" or "c cookie" but often it's just that serious face, hand motions, full body bends and nonsense words. We love it. 

Robe for Lisa

Does this look familiar at all, April? Lisa got a doll from Katie for Christmas that came with a robe and she keeps putting it on her  barbie because barbie doesn't have any pajamas, so I thought she would enjoy having her own robe. I remembered that I had a robe that April gave me a long time ago. (I have this habit of saving everything 'cause I'm sure I'll use it for some sewing project some day and I finally did!) So anyway, here's Lisa's little robe made from one of my old robes. 

Fun in the snow

Lisa is starting to have a lot more fun playing in the snow. She likes to scoot down hills and bury eachother and just sit on the slide and sing to us. 

Christmas Vacation

We had a fun visit in California for the past two weeks. Lots of visiting with family, lots of really fun gifts, a night out for our 4 year anniversary, and a skiing trip for Ryan. Lisa was so much fun to watch opening gifts, and playing with her cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents. She stayed up past ten every night and even rang in the new year with us past midnight, but was mostly happy playing the whole time. 

Christmas Eve at the Fieth home. It's very hard to get her to sit still AND smile for a picture...we probably promised her a cookie for this one.
Christmas Morning. New pajamas, new hat, new princess castle...what could be better, right?

First real signs of interest in dolls! She loved her two new baby dolls from Aunt Katie and Aunt Tara.

Lisa got her own toy camera from Gramommy. She loved to say "cheese" and take pictures of herself.

This chicken car was from Uncle Derek. It cracked Lisa up. She couldn't get enough of it.

Nemo costume from Gramommy. When we least expected it she would bring it to us to put it on her and then she'd just wear it around the house while she played. At one point she got down on her tummy and said, "Swimmin'! Swimmin'!"

A few family pictures taken by friend Mark Warnick, the budding photographer

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We went out on Saturday and had our pictures taken. Note to self: If planning to do family pics outdoors, do it before the December chill sets in! It was around 20 degrees, so we would take pictures for five minutes, then jump in the car to warm up and go out for more. But Mark had some great ideas and some cool pictures came out of it. I think we'll have these four matted and put in our frame on our wall. Thanks Mark!

The new dress

This is kind of a special dress. It was intended for me when I was Lisa's age and after almost 25 years in the making, it is done! (Those of you who know me well are probably laughing because that's the way most of my projects go) Well, this is special though because Lisa's Great Grammie did the needle work on the apron and collar, Marmee did the sleeves and bodice and I put the rest together. So can you call that a three-generation dress? Anyway-Ryan took a few cute pics this morning when I tried it on her. She kept saying, "Cute!" She likes it a lot.