spring happenings

The spring is trucking right along and it's pretty wonderful. For one- the weather is (mostly) great ("mostly" because we've had some terrible storms and tornado warnings that I could do without, but for the most part...great). Secondly, a new season means a new Millie wardrobe, and not to pat myself on the back too hard or anything, but...I mean, dang. I sure know how to pick the cutest clothes for the cutest babe I've ever seen. 

Here she is modeling some of the moves she's learning in ballet class (or so she says). But this also serves to show how extremely adorable she is in a purple romper. UGH. Can't handle it. This is the only one piece "romper" type thing I bought this year because I felt like it wasn't very freshly-potty-trained-toddler-friendly...but #worthit. 

We've had some windy days, and it occurred to me that we should get a kite for such days! So we did and it's been great! I must report that kite flying is a more athletic pursuit than I had anticipated. In case it's been awhile, I'll let you know: you pretty much have to keep running the whole time to keep it in the air. Or at least I do. Maybe more advanced flyers or more advanced kites or more windy skies call for less running...but we had to keep moving. I was pleasantly shocked to check my FitBit stats after a half-hour of kite flying!

Check out Millie's face. The tongue don't lie: that girl was working hard!! If you ask her about flying her kite, she will say "you WUN WUN WUN or kite FALL DOWN!!!" and that pretty much sums that up.

In more domestic news, Millie has a new favorite place to grocery shop.

Like most other sentient beings, she knows that Trader Joe's is really the only place worth shopping. Millie-sized carts!! What could be better?! She has so much fun helping pick up items and put them in the cart. Although she naturally wants to grab everything at eye level, she's been good about listening and putting back things that I didn't actually want. It helps that all I have to do is threaten to put the "Millie cart" away and make her sit in my cart (a fate worse than death) if she isn't listening. And then she listens.

In other domestic- but non-Millie- news, Matt put down new floors in our master bathroom! We have had the same nasty linoleum since we moved in. Naturally, it was one of those things that we thought we would replace as soon as we moved in...but then 8 years passed and we are still looking at that stupid gross linoleum. Ha. We are planning to have all of our floors replaced in the somewhat-near future, but we've had friends recently try the DIY vinyl tile route with good results, so Matt wanted to give that a try (in a small, rather inconspicuous space) first. And I've gotta say- I am THRILLED with the results!!

There's no "before" picture- just picture the ugliest linoleum you can, then make it ten times uglier, and you've got a good mental picture of it. So this is a HUGE improvement! You don't have to grout vinyl tile- literally you just peel and stick (and do lots of cutting to get around toilets and such), but I really like the look of grouted tile, so Matt went the extra mile. I am so impressed with how it turned out! So now I will hopefully get him to do the other bathroom, haha.

Now, back to important Millie news. She knows her shapes. Sorry, that's boring, but what's NOT boring was what I heard her say as she was putting this puzzle together the other day.

"Cir-cuh. Twi-an-gul. Star! Phone."

Yup. Good ol' rectangle has been renamed "phone." For obvious reasons.

Last Wednesday was a nasty, stormy, tornado-y day, and I just couldn't bring myself to leave Millie at school (or stay at home in a window-y house with no basement). So she spent the day at work with me (I work in a solid concrete building with lots of window-less interior rooms, in the middle of a downtown with no trees). She actually did a fantastic job, thanks in part to my coworkers who managed to find no end of amusing things to bring her. Here she is starting her open mic night career. She's a natural!

We celebrated a successful tornado day with Mexican food (really, the only way to celebrate anything), and Millie insisted on sitting in our laps and being tickled for basically half an hour. We were happy to acquiesce. 

Laughing babies aren't the worst.

We've had some fun egg hunts and Easter activities already, and we are excited for a fun Easter weekend!

Please note the kitty cat face paint. She spends about half her time pretending she's a kitty cat, so this is really living the dream to have the face to go with it.

All ready for her Easter party at school!

On a final important-but-unrelated note, I got a really cute bathing suit this week and I feel compelled to share! I wouldn't call myself "summer body ready," exactly...more like "ready to hibernate or survive a food-less apocalypse for quite some time," but whatever. I still wanted a new bathing suit, and when I saw this mega-cute, mega-cheap one on Amazon, I had to give it a try.

Source

It came in yesterday and I gotta say- SUPER CUTE. At least in my dimly lit, mirror-optimally-angled bedroom. If you look at the other pictures on Amazon you can see that the straps do a cute criss-cross in the back, and the back comes up nice and high, kindly hiding any less-than-optimal BACK FAT you your friend may have. Anyway, for $17 and Prime shipping, I say you can't go wrong. I may even order in another pattern. (And I read all the comments and labored over sizing, but ultimately just decided to go 'true to size' and with what the sizing chart suggested, and it worked out just fine.)

We're heading for a little beach mini-vacay next weekend, just the three of us, and I can't wait! Millie, on the other hand, likes to ask "why" about everything, INCLUDING THIS.

"What dis lotion, Mama?"

"It's suntan lotion, Mills, for when we go to the beach next week!"

"Why we go beach, Mama?"

"Umm...because it is the BEACH, Millie."

"Why?"

"Because it just is."

"Why we go?"

"IT IS THE BEACH, WHY DO YOU NEED FURTHER EXPLANATION!?!??!"

Just kidding, I didn't actually scream that at her, but seriously. One need not question the need for the beach. I can't wait!