Obsession

Since Alice was little, we have been showing her movies by Hayao Miyazaki. 
We started with My Neighbor Totoro and Howl's Moving Castle
Graduated to Kiki's Delivery Service
and now, she is obsessing over Spirited Away

Every morning when Alice gets up her first words are "Away".  She wants to watch it morning, noon and night.  The difference with Spirited Away, is that Alice has begun to imitate and mimic the movie.

There are several scenes where Alice will copy Sen's movements and words.  The more she watches it, the more she is begining to understand it (we think....)

Yesterday and today, we saw a new development.  There is a scene where Chihiro's parents have been turned into pigs and Chihiro's is very upset.  Alice is now scared of this scene.  She starts to shake and cry along with Chihiro. 

This is very interesting and disturbing to us as parents, because she obviously understands this is an upsetting scene, and is sympathetic to Chihiro.  However, we all hate to see our children upset, so we will be forgoing this scene for a few years. 

We just hope that the scene hasn't made her afraid of pigs for the rest of her life!

Bobby

Although Alice can say doggie (goggie) and puppy, Alice prefers to call dogs she likes - Bobby. 

We think Bobby comes from Alice trying to say Bailey when she was younger, but the term has morphed to also encompass all cuddly animals Alice wants to hug.

Todd's dog Ginger has officially earned status of "Bobby"

Here, Alice is feeding Ginger (AKA "Bobby") a treat.

It's Good Luck - Right?

It is Sunday morning, and we are back from our family vacation from South Padre Island.  We take Alice to Terraburger to swing and play while Larry and I drink our organic coffees.  Alice sees all the birds (who are waiting for a free meal) and she wants to chase after them.  A while later, I notice something in Alice's hair.....
I've heard that a bird pooping on you is good luck, so I guess Alice is the lucky one today.

Finally Home

It is 5:30 pm, the day Alice comes home from spending 4 days with her Grandparents.

Vacations are tiring!

Pumpkin Patch

Today I took Alice to the Pumpkin Patch.  There were thousands of pumpkins in all sizes and a petting zoo too. 

We walked around for about an hour and a half and Alice finally picked her pumpkin.  Alice liked the smaller pumpkins she was able to pick up.

 

She spent about 20 minutes lining up pumpkins and putting them back, lining up pumpkins and putting them back....

Toddler Monday at the Childrens Museum

Since today is Columbus Day and Alice's school was closed for a teacher work day, I took Alice to the Austin Childrens Museum for "Baby Bloomers".  From 9-12 they are open for kids 3 and under.  My friend Sylvia brought her daughter Maddie along too. 

We first stopped at Mom's office - to park since it is right across the street from the Museum.  I took her up to the office to show her off and attend a quick meeting.  Alice was charming ;-) and told everyone BYEBYE in an outdoor voice when we left.

During Toddler Time, the Museum volunteers had story time (which was not interesting to Alice) and Sing-a-long - which Alice loved and participated - in a way I had never seen before.  She laughed, clapped and joined in on the hand signals during the songs for "Wheels on the Bus", "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" and "If Your Happy and You Know it".

After we left the Museum, we headed back towards home. It was quickly approaching nap time. We stopped at Taco Cabanna for lunch. Alice and I shared chicken nachos. Then it was off to the the house for nap time.

It was a great morning.

Alice TV

Althought its not ALL Alice ALL the Time, its pretty darn great.  As mentioned in the top 5 reasons we picked Alice's new school, our new favorite past time is watching Alice play and sleep at school on the web cam.  Here is a sampling of Alice at school doing various things.

Alice Sleeping

Alice sleeping 1/2 off the mat

Alice Sliding

Alice reading a book

I don't know what she's doing, but look at how cute she is ;-)

I've been told I'm stalking my daughter, but until she's old enough to KNOW that I'm stalking her...I'm tuning in daily (along with other family members I know)