Two of those weekends we spent up at Andrew's family's place in New Hampshire, and the last we spent celebrating Anika's birthday at home. On our first weekend, our good friend Paul, from Portland, OR, joined us. Turns out Paul is AMAZING with toddlers. Anika still gets excited when we talk about him. Anyhow, here are some photos from our time up there:
Quite the avid hiker, plainly.
We took Anika out in our kayak twice. She loved it, and really loves wading in the lake.
Of course, she also loves ice cream... and picking blueberries in our field...
She definitely ate more than she ever contributed to our collections.
And now to back-track: in May, Anika and I (accompanied by Grandpa Wally and Grandma Karen) went to California for my graduation from the San Francisco Art Institute, and then traveled down the coast to Big Sur, Lompoc and Santa Barbara to visit family and friends. As usual, California and its company were lovely.
In June, Anika and I attended a Mullarkey family wedding in Wisconsin (complete with grandparents and a tour of Grandma's old stomping grounds). Then Andrew, Anika and I all got to go to upstate NY to attend a friend's wedding and visit several members of my beloved NY family. Here's a photo of Mama and Anika hula hooping on the farm (at our NY wedding):
In other news. Emdrew Two is steadily growing, as am I, and appears to be perfectly healthy. It's nice to feel so much less anxious this time around, both because QM 2 doesn't have any high-risk issues (like Anika's umbilical cord) and because I'm just an experienced baby vessel this time around. Now that I'm past all the illness of those early weeks, I feel great. Unfortunately, we aren't getting the fancy ultrasound photos we did with Anika this time around (nor extra ultrasounds, as with Anika), but here she is:
At this stage, she looks just like her sister. Maybe they all do? Nevertheless, we still think this one also destined to have Andrew's nose.
And Anika is thriving. As she enters her third year of life, we're delighting in her ability to really talk with us. She's occasionally using a full sentence or two, such as, "I see a squirrel," or "I play soccer," but still mostly relies upon two and three word phrases. However, her vocabulary is immense. She readily tries out just about any new word we introduce, and we're able to have little conversations about recent events.
Her Spanish skills are also really improving. Since I don't speak Spanish, it's hard for me to gauge how much she understands receptively, but she uses probably fifteen to twenty Spanish words. She can say several animals, a couple numbers, and a few other objects and expressions.
Last week we attended Toddler Yoga for the first time. She's painfully clingy and shy in new situations, so she didn't take full advantage, though she did very much enjoy trying out a few poses. Our favorite: downward-facing dog with her feet on the wall. Mama had to help her out a bit, but she was so excited to walk up the wall. I think we have a budding yogini/gymnast on our hands (Lord knows she loves climbing all over the couch).
After Anika and I go to Denver for a couple weeks here at the end of August, I'm going to try to get her into swim lessons and art class (in addition to some more yoga). Fun times!
