20 months, Museum of Appalachia homecoming, and a visit from grandparents

This week, both Chris and Elena have been sick, so we did fewer activites than usual and played at home a lot. They're both feeling better, so we'll be back to normal this week, hopefully!

This Monday was the first cupcake tasting at Magpies new location. We went and tried them, and had different favorites this time! She mostly enjoyed the milk "shots", because she could use her own tiny cup. That was kind of a theme this week-using her own, non sippy cup. Since we were home more, we did more crafts. I'll have to post pictures soon. They turned out super cute. When I pulled out the glitter, she clasped her hands and said "ohhhhh". She's going to be such a girly girl! You should see her with shoes. Where did she come from?
Reading her nightly bible story with daddy, but insisting on her baby sharing.
By Friday morning she was finally feeling pretty good, so we made it to the Museum of Applachia homecoming. We got there when it opened, and she was one of the only kids. This band talked to her from stage, which made her nervous, but she liked dancing to it.

Looking at sheep. She kept yelling "baa" at them, and actually reached out right after this picture and said "eye" and touched it before I could get to her. That was the end of the sheep. She's big on pointing out eyes right now, which is funny because she's been able to identify them for months and months.
She found ice and shrieked when she saw it. She loves it, and loves to say "brrr". I don't know the fascination, but it's there! Running up and down a ramp
Very interested in the noisy turkeys

This was her activity for about 20 minutes-picking up rocks in one place and moving them to another. Since the average age of people visiting the museum was probably 70, they enjoyed watching her.
Another favorite activity-climbing stairs over and over. We had to end this one when hundreds of middle schoolers on a scavenger hunt kept running her over.
She liked trying on these bonnets, and looked too sweet in them
We bought this one
Drinking muscadine juice out of her own tiny cup with her own bonnet. When the juice ran out, I filled it up with apple juice because she was having too much fun with that cup

John and Susan came to visit Friday night and Saturday. It had been awhile since she'd seen them, and they had fun catching up. She's a lot bigger than she was in July!
Grandpa made her the most beautiful table and chairs-he really worked hard on them. She sat in them all evening and today, and will really enjoy them.
The table was really tall, and John had brought a saw so that he could see her in it and cut the legs to size. She's helping.
Today we went to the zoo and saw all the animals she and I had missed the last time. She likes to make the noises, and there were more animals out this time.


Looking at the meerkats with Nana. They were super cute and would come right up to the glass. Since we said they were meerkats, she kept meowing at them. We don't know what sound meerkats really make, so we're sticking with it for now.

Walking with Nana and Daddy
"smiling" where she just puts up her fingers and doesn't really smile...
I'm sure we'll have more pictures from the weekend when I get some from Susan, so I'll post those then. This week is just sort of normal without major giant events, so maybe I'll try to take some of what we do regularly. Assuming no one is sick. I have another doctor's appointment this week, so I'll find out for sure about the glucose test and post when I do. Thanks for your prayers that direction.

I thought I'd add some fun stuff she's doing now too. She's counting two, three, four, five and seven, eight, nine. No one, six, or ten. Also, we sing our ABC's while we brush our teeth, and she knows maybe a quarter of her letters, but her favorites are W,X,Y,Z. She loves to sing, and can say lots of the words to The Wheels On the Bus, Jesus Loves the Little Ones Like Me, This Little Light of Mine, and Old MacDonald. She loves to jump and to tell people where to sit. One of the cutest things she's doing now is "taking roll". Sometimes it's obvious what she's doing, and she'll decide on who has a baby in their tummy, or who's at our house. She'll say something like "Mimi-no. Poppy-no. Mama-yeah. Avery-no. Daddy-yeah!". Cute. She will also walk around with her baby doll and tell it yes and no to different things. We're not always sure what that is. She also likes to "trick" us and say yes to something that is no in a funny voice. She's into pretending and likes to be a kitty or puppy or other random animal. She doesn't talk much, but can generally tell you a noise an animal makes and at least show you some feature of it for about 30 animals. She's very into shoes and dress up stuff and putting on and taking off clothes. Luckily she hasn't tried it with her diaper yet! She concentrates hard also. I don't know the right word for this, but she'll move rocks from one place to another, or organize bouncy balls by color, or line up crayons for half an hour or more sometimes. She's just very focused for a 20 month old. We love our girl! It's so fun to see her learn new things.