airplane!

Guess where we went last weekend?

No seriously, guess?

The airshow!

It was my first time experiencing an airshow and it..was...awesome. I thought it would be geared towards a certain, ahem, clientele of people: hillbilly's and hicks. And mostly I was correct, but really it was so cool.

That morning we dressed in our hiking duds and headed out to a nearby nature preserve to do a quick hike. Along the way we saw the signs for the airshow and decided what the heck, why not, and we pulled in with other cars heading into NAS Jax. Before we knew it we were in the traffic line for the parking area and then we found ourselves being directed into a parking space in what was surely the worlds largest parking lot. At that point we were locked in so we headed into the airshow completely unprepared with no snacks, water, cash or folding chair (everyone had one). It was super fun and Piper was a total trooper. The planes were amazing and LOUD! and I was sure that at any moment one was going to go crashing into the crowd in a gigantic fire ball blaze.

Piper in front of a Piper Cub Airplane! Get it!

We headed home around noon for naptime, and that was a good thing because on our way out we heard that once the Blue Angels started flying no one is allowed in or out of the airshow, and that following their performance the previous day there was a 2.5 hour traffic jam to exit the navy grounds! good god!

new (old) music

This is the new song that is playing on repeat in our house currently. This song makes me want to jump up and down and shout obsenities and violently fist pump the air. Give it a few seconds and I promise you'll like it.

As per the usual, Mark Malloy was into this song about a year before us.

new family

I took these photos last week. They were referred to me from a friend and it was my first time meeting them. It was a little awkward at first, but they warmed up as we started taking pictures and my gawd...their little girl was so adorable. I couldn't stop laughing at her - she had the sweetest, most curious little personality and the mom and dad were crazy about her. Very sweet.

The first few pictures aren't that great, but I think they get better as the slideshow goes on. I'm very slowly learning.

31 months

Oh little Pip. You are an absolute joy right now. Lately I've been telling anyone who will listen just how crazy I am about you. It's safe to say that I've fallen in love with you all over again the last few weeks.

There is so much to say about you. You are full of life and love and spunk. You weigh 25.5 pounds, we know this because you love to weigh yourself on the big scale each time we walk into Publix. You still love breakfast and definitely eat the majority of your calories in the morning. A normal breakfast for you is 3 *cold* pancakes (you are really into eating cold pancakes right now, in fact you demand for us to give them to you frozen!?) and a small bowl of cereal.

You love your big girl bed and the floor in your bedroom is always pristine because anything that would be on the floor is on your bed! Every possible book, teddy bear, toy, pillow or dress-up item you can find goes in your bed and we find you late at night spooning all of your toys. I went in to check on you the other night and you were sound asleep, cuddled up with your lunchbox.

Your imagination is blooming right now and I love hiding from monsters with you, making pretend phone calls into rocks that you find in the park and feeding "waffles" (walnuts) that we find on the sidewalk outside your pre-school to your babydolls each day.

Your vocabulary is soaring and the words you pick up each day amaze us. Yesterday we were driving home from the park and you said to Daddy and I "Let go look for some decorations!" Of course, you've still got your sweet baby voice and the mispronunciations are precious - the Barbie Fairytopia DVD I checked out for you the other day is "Barbie Fairytokyo" to you.

You love your pre-school. You were starting to develop some bad nap habits last month that concerned us. I got pulled aside twice in one week by your teacher who told me you were being naughty at naptime and keeping the rest of the kids awake. According to Ms. Morgan you were sitting on your mat singing songs at the top of your lungs, dancing in place or holding onto your stuffed rabbit and throwing it as high as you could in the air. This cracked us up because it was so not naughty and really just plain hilarious, but we were still worried that this was the start of a bratty stage. So we worked with you all week talking about how important it is to take a nap, and how important it is to listen and help our teachers. Within a few days you were back to taking 2 hour naps at school and delighting your teachers with your sweet, helpful personality. We realized how much you want to please us and how proud getting those stickers and hugs from your teachers made you.

You are constantly picking your nose. Constantly.

You love to boss Sammie and the chickens around. You are constantly shouting "No ma'am Sammie! No ma'am" as poor Sammie lies on the rug doing absolutely nothing except for ignoring you.

On a walk the other day you sat in your stroller and sang to yourself, then you made pretend phone calls to your cousins and your pre-school teachers "Hi Ms. Lachy, it's Piper, I call you back, bye-bye." Then you stretched your arms out as wide as they would go and looked up at the sky with a huge smile and said "Mommy, it is a beautiful day!"

We ask you each morning if you slept well and what you dreamed about. According to you all you ever dream about are your cousins and Avery.

You are doing fantastic with the potty. You haven't had an accident in months, and your poopie-anxiety is getting so much better. You use to get so nervous and scared before you went poopie, but now you do a little nervous dance and then bolt to the potty clutching your hiney and tell us you have to go poopie. This makes us so proud because we were really thinking we were gonna have to take you to a child psychologist over poopie issues. Ends up, all you needed was a Fiber One bar every other day!

You are so excited about Halloween and tell everyone (including Halloween decorations that you apparently think are people) that you are going to be "Dorothy!!" for Halloween.

We are so crazy about you sweet Pippie, thank you for being you.