Christmas Parade

Yes, you read the title correctly. Tonight, there was a Christmas parade. (You thought this should have been after Thanksgiving? Silly you.) Like last year, it was pretty much the coldest evening we have had thus far this year. Luckily, we were warned this might be the case, so the family came prepared. Michael and I wore multiple layers (nothing compared to Harbin, but still pretty impressive) but layering Tovina was a little trickier. Instead, we decided to just grab her snow gear. Not shown here are the snow pants she also ended up wearing. While she was able to walk around, her arms were most definitely not able to lay down flat to her body. She did look somewhat roundish when she was finally all zipped up. There were a few times where she sort of settled for just rocking her body back and forth rather than waving at the people on the floats since moving her arm independently of the rest of her well padded body required just too much effort.

As a side note which I am sure most other parents have already discovered, Mittens are surprisingly complicated items to get on one's hands for the first time. Getting a single thumb into the thumb part turns out to be a major achievement. I had no idea there were so many other options when donning what I once considered a simple garment.

New hobby

Tovina really likes carrying baskets around, especially really big baskets. One of her favorites is Aunt Sheila's big green wicker basket.
But carrying them around is not really enough in and of itself. To enjoy the basket fully, it needs to have things in it.
And what should a basket have in it?

Why potatoes of course!

Tovina is very carefully taking potatoes out of the bottom metal bin and placing them in her basket. She then places the basket over her shoulder, waives goodbye, and carries the potatoes off into another room.

We having been finding potatoes all over the house for a few weeks now and quietly repatriating them to the wire bin where the process then starts over.

And yes, we do realize we could stop all of this by simply moving the potatoes, but no, we are not going to move them. This is much more fun for everyone involved... except maybe the potatoes which occasionally spot a few teeth marks.

Eating a burrito

Tovina's eating experiment for the week was part of a burrito from Chipotle. This particular wrap contained chicken, black beans, Roasted Chili-Corn Salsa (Medium spicy), and sour cream.


What did she think of this dinner?

Well, after careful consideration...

And a few careful bites...

She decided it was a winner!

15 month collage

Its been a while, so today we have a treat for you...
A new collage!

You can thank us later :)

New skills and styles

Tovina has recently taken on a new project. Here she is working hard on it.

What has required so much of her attention? Her thesis concerning loud random screams and surprise attacks on a cat's mental state of course! She has been doing the field research for months.

Here she was pointing out to me some of her more interesting findings.

Why, we can hear you asking, does Tovina have access to a lap top? Well, it turns out that children really enjoy playing with their parents high tech toys. (Shocking, we know.) Since Michael and I have found it somewhat detrimental to our work to allow Tovina to work on our computers, we have converted an old, mostly broken computer for her own personal use. After this day though, we found that even a computer that is mostly broken, can quickly become all the way broken when given to a 15 month old.
Tovina is going to have to wait to finish her thesis until she is at least 2 years old.

On a different note....
One of our astute readers pointed out in our last post that Tovina's hair is becoming longer. While this is true for the back of her head, everything from the ears forward is still sort of lagging. However, we have discovered that we can still have fun with the hair that has grown.
Here is Tovina sporting her Pebbles's look

Golf and that cart that it comes with

One of our lovely new neighbors has given Tovina this golf cart to use. It even comes with its very own golf club! Tovina is trying to get the hang of it, but as you can see, she is still a little confused about the proper cart protocol. If you check out the video, you can see that her golf swing also needs some work.



As is often the case, there is a longer video on youtube.

Deer, dear and leaves (take 2)

Apparently there was some issue with pictures yesterday, so I am reposting. As I type this a deer has come to feast ont the grass just outside my office window and I am watching her nose aside leaves to get to the grass.

And now to continue with our previous post
Fall has truly come upon us. I realized this past week that I have never before lived in a house that requires raking leaves. For now it is still a novelty and kind of fun but I can see how it may become tiresome in the near future.
Here is our driveway in its Halloween costume.

I bet you would not have even recognized it under all those leaves if I hadn't told you :)And here is the deer that came to visit us the other week.
I didn't want to scare her and have her hurt herself trying to jump off the deck, so all these pictures and the video are taken from inside the house.

And here is a certain little girl enjoying the fall weather.
(These pictures were actually taken last week when the weather was a little warmer.)

Chicken Dance

Before we went trick-or-treating last week, we went over to our neighbor's house for some chili to fortify us for the night to come. While we were in the kitchen, Tovina was shown a toy on the fridge that would play music.
How exciting!

(the feathers normally covered chicken little's entire back, but some of them had come loose and that stubborn child did not want me fixing anything)

voting

I was going to write an interesting blog today and maybe even add a video, but instead I am trying to figure out the rest of my voting choices for tomorrow.
I assume you will all agree that I have made the right choice (though I know at least a few people who will think that the 2 options were almost too close to call)