My Steelers Fans

Here are a couple of cute pictures of Joe and Laina taken a few weeks ago on a "Steeler Sunday" They went out running some errands together like this and they were greeted by many Steelers fans. Laina loves wearing her Steelers gear with Daddy!

My little super reader and her voca-BOO-lary lessons!

At school, the kids learned a new set of words throughout the week. They spent the week learning the words and then on Friday, Amanda gave them a paragraph filled with the words they learned during the week and the kids had to use a highlighter to find the words they recognized. This week's words included girl, boy, mom, dad, cat, bed, ball and boo. Laina got all the words right. It's amazing to me that she's beginning to learn how to recognize words and it's fascinating to watch.


Laina is a very inquisitive little girl. I know this is very typical for a three year old but to live through it can be stressful! Every day brings a new round of rapid fire questions from Laina. Usually it revolves a lot around who purchased various things in our house, i.e. "who bought my sink", "who bought my washing machine", "who bought my crib", etc. Then there are the questions I get while we're driving in the car, i.e. "why do they have a swing set", "why don't they have a swing set", "who is following us", etc. But the topper tonight was at the dinner table when she asked "where do babies come from".......eeeekkkk! Joe and I just looked at each other with a big "gulp" in our eyes. Luckily while I was fumbling in my head trying to figure out the appropriate answer, she moved on to the next question and I never had to answer it. Now I'm working on the answer so I have it at the ready the next time it comes up!

Flashback Friday

A lot of blogs I read feature a "flashback friday" every week and I think its a neat idea! Recently Laina has been asking to see pictures of herself as a baby when she didn't have any teeth (yup, she had her first official dental cleaning this week which has led to a lot of questions!!!). Since we've been looking back at old pictures I thought it would be fun to start my own flashback friday.

A Big Day!

Whew, what a night! Joe and I stayed up way too late watching the election returns, with glee. This morning, Laina asked me who won and I was very happy to be able to tell her that yes, Barack Obama is our new President. I know she doesn't quite get it yet - but its never too early to begin talking about it. I'm so elated that during the very first Presidential election of little Laina's life, we elected a Black President. Powerful stuff!

Here's a picture of Laina checking in on the election returns - - - OK, just kidding...she's really just practicing typing letters on my laptop!

What A Glorious Day!

It's 60~plus degrees today AND we get to elect a new President!!! Does it get any better? I don't know about everyone else but I'm feeling pretty happy today! Laina went with me to vote today. I've been explaining the election to her as best as I could, on her level. This morning I showed her on the news where they were showing Barack Obama going to the polls to vote today and I showed her Michelle Obama and their two little girls and I told her that she was going to go vote with me just like Obama's little girls had gone with him. Later during the day in the car Laina asked me if we were going to see Obama's daughters when we vote. I thought that was pretty good logic. I love that it's Laina's first Presidential election. It's very exciting stuff. She keeps telling daddy that I'm an Obama Mama. I brought her into the voting booth with me and showed her how you vote and she helped me pick which people to vote for (ok, just kidding). She told me on the ride home that she hopes Obama wins first. I said me too, Boo...me too!

Here is Laina right after we voted sporting her "I voted today" sticker.


And just in case you didn't see Google's homepage today - I had to post this. LOVE IT!

Our voting location happens to be at a school so Laina lucked out with the beautiful weather and got to enjoy some playground time. She's so independent on the playground equipment now. Where I used to worry she would take a false step and land on her head, I now just sit back and enjoy the fun!

I love this shot. This particular playground has the crazyest slides. Its hard to tell from the pictures, but they are super steep slides. This shot is only blurry because she's ZOOOOOOMING down the slide!



If you haven't voted yet....get out there and DO IT! It's too important not to! Go Obama!

Laina Dances to "Little Boxes"

One of our all time favorite children's singers is Laurie Berkner (thanks Karla!!!). We own quite a few of her CD's and listen to them all the time. Well one day last year, Joe and I were watching the show, Weeds on Showtime, which is an adult show about a stay at home mom/drug dealer. Last season, every week they would have a different artist sing the opening theme song, "Little Boxes" so this one day the theme song begins and Joe and I look at each other and say "is that Laurie Berkner singing???" It was so funny to us that this wholesome children's singer was singing the theme song to Weeds. So, of course I had to download it off of itunes and its become one of our favorite songs. Laina loves dancing to it and asks to hear "Boxes" all the time. At the very end of the video you can hear her say "can you put" and what she's asking is "can you put Boxes on again".

Here are Joe and Laina dancing to "Little Boxes". Laina is a fabulous little dancer - - and Joe's pretty darned sassy too! Enjoy!

More Fun With Photoshop!