Road trip

We are getting ready to head to Saint Louis for Splash of Color. Given what usually happens when we travel, there will likely be a break in blogging. But with any luck we will get some great footage of Tovina joining in the singing with her own special harmonization.

Improving vocabulary

Tovina has reached that awe-inspiring stage where she seems to learn 20 new words a day. (Yup, Mommy needs to start being more careful about what she says!) Yesterday Tovina was impressing us with the 2-syllable word "apple".
Here she and Daddy have decided on a book to read that shows off her identification/speech capabilities.
You can also see a short example below.

If you'd like to see more and longer versions, then check out our YouTube site

The danger with cribs

At home Tovina sleeps in a pack-n-play with soft mesh sides. At my parent's house she sleeps in a real, honest-to-goodness wooden crib. (Actually, she sleeps in my honest-to-goodness 30+ year old crib. We believe in very serious recycling in my house.) But I have noticed something sort of uncomfortable looking about how T sleeps in the afore mentioned crib. Can you pick out what I mean?

No?

Well, let me give you a close up.


Did you catch it that time?

It doesn't seem to bother her...

And the big red mark in the middle of her forehead did fade within a day so no harm done.

More boots and walking

And now some actual boots (albeit purple) for that walk T wanted to take.
These are more shots from State College.
In the first one, Tovina just had Tasha help her get the boots on and then stand up. Tovina is actually quite happy though it is a little hard to tell in the picture.

In this second shot, Tovina convinced Tasha to put the boots on (since they belong to Tasha, this made sense to the rest of us.) Meanwhile Tovina put on Sam's shoes to see if those might do her better.

Guest appearance

One of the fun things about a blog is that it tends to reach beyond where I initially expected it to reach. For example, I have heard Tovina referred to as "my favorite baby that I have never met."
In honor of her far flung fans, today we are featuring Roz who has now in fact met this famous baby and even managed to entertain her for over 2 hours!!! There was much running and ball rolling and playing of a piano. Here you can see T very seriously examining a card whose cover showed a baby playing a piano.
And here you can see her emulating the baby on the card.
We are trying to get a keyboard set up for her at home. Even though it does not produce music yet, T likes to press the keys... a lot!

These shoes are made for walking

Though they are really meant for someone a little bigger to do the walking, in this case, Aunt Sheila's.

You will notice that she is actually quite smooth in her gate, well, at least as smooth as she is without the shoes.

This is just one in a long and ongoing series of shoe experiments. No footwear is safe!

Ice Cream for Breakfast 2

We wanted to continue spreading the joy, so we celebrated part 2 of this lovely holiday this past weekend in State College. Here you see my mom, Mary, Sam, Tasha, Karen, Niki, Molly, and Roz. We were too slow to also capture Phylis, another Karen, and Rick. You are also not seeing Tovina who was consuming mass quantities to the side. But no worries, if you look at the video, you can see her in action, asking for "more".

Yo!

Tovina seems to be becoming fonder of hats. She especially likes hats that are a little large as you may recall. The other day she discovered some baseball caps. You can see the result.

(sorry for the short post. need to go pack and get ready to drive.)

Heading to PA

Tovina and I planning to drive over to PA this weekend. This wasn't meant to be a surprise but it was sort of last minute and I seemed to have forgotten to tell people.
So I'm telling you now.

Just wanted to make sure that Baba and Zaida and all the assorted PA folks are getting the recommended monthly Tovina allowance.

Happy International Ice Cream for Breakfast Day

Saturday was International for Ice Cream for Breakfast Day. Unfortunately we were unable to celebrate on that exact day, but this is a pretty forgiving holiday so we celebrated it today! We actually had a pretty tame time of it and only offered 2 flavors of ice cream and 8 or so toppings. We did learn that cinnamon is quite good on vanilla (we will be trying this again) and garam masala is okay but has a slightly odd after taste if you add too much. We will be going back to curry powder and ice cream which was a delicious combination we picked up last year.

We were able to round up all the local Sullivans for todays extravaganza which definitely created a festive mood! Thank you folks for being willing to come over so early and share your morning!

ps. For those of you in State College who may feel left out, Tovina and I plan to help you celebrate this coming Saturday so don't worry!

My little snow angel

(Continued from yesterday)
On the way back up our driveway, I picked Tovina up and laid her down in the snow and moved her arms so that she made a snow angel. I then picked her back up and set her on the driveway so she could see what she had done.
She was duly unimpressed and wandered farther down the drive. I, of course, was overwhelmed by Tovina's image in the snow and stopped to take a photo. By the time I was done, I noticed T had sat herself down in the snow and was energetically moving her arms back and forth. Since she was in a sitting position, this didn't exactly make a snow angel, but it did make some great snow flurries.

This is the first time Tovina has willingly sat in snow. She's kicked it before and brushed at it. She likes to watch it fall from my glove. Occasionally she'll even bend over and touch the stuff (though this is dangerous as she is not the steadiest thing on 2 legs in general and the snow gear seems to reduce what balance she does have. She has been known to bend over and then just keep on going till her head is resting on the ground. Luckily, this rarely startles her.) But here she was happily playing in the powdery stuff!

Good little snow baby.

Light flurries?

Yesterday the weather man was telling us we would be getting light flurries. 8 inches later I have begun to doubt his word.
(Doesn't T look skeptical?)
When we were considering moving to Cincinnati, I was told that they don't really get heavy snow falls here. See, previous conclusion.

But I must admit that is is pretty perfect snow, all light an powdery. Tovina and I couldn't resist and went out for a walk in it this afternoon - runny noses and all. Actually, Tovina was so excited that when I asked if she wanted to "go out for a walk" she immediately asked for her shoes. When she saw her snow pants she wanted them too
and her hat
and gloves.
She even laid down on the floor without prompting so that I could get the pants on her. In case you were wondering, this is not the usual steps involved in getting Tovina ready for the snow. I had thought that the sledding experience had not gone so well, but I now suspect that I misread the expressive T.

Whatever the case, we had a lovely walk up and down our lane. Tovina enjoyed making footprints in the snow.

The suspects:

That's it for today. I'll post some more of our grand adventure tomorrow.

Sick puppy... er... baby

Tovina still hasn't kicked this cold that has been beating her up, off and on, for the last 2 weeks. Sometimes the cold makes Tovina tired and grumpy. (Such a surprise, right?) When Tovina is tired and grumpy she likes to be held. She often decides she is tired when I am at the stove of course.

This time Daddy decided to help distract Tovina by putting her on his shoulders which is something she usually adores and gets very excited about. This time, poor T was so tired she couldn't even provide enough energy keep her little tush from sliding off Michael's shoulders let alone her usual bounces and such.
To tell how really done she was, you can see she is not even reaching for Dad's cell phone - Shocking!

Sledding

(This was suppose to post last week. Not sure why it didn't but I just noticed, so I am posting it today.)
There has been a wee bit of snow in the area recently and we were invited out for some sledding. While she likes walking in the snow, this was Tovina's first sledding experience. A fantastic hill was located and off we went.
Here is Danny and Emma taking the plunge.

And here is Cindy and Brendan after one of their succesful runs.

And here is Tovina enjoying her favorite part of sledding....sitting in the car getting warmed up and eating grapes. We did actually go down twice in a sled. One of those times Emma went with us which was much fun. But twice seemed to be enough for T and not even the lure of kicking snow mounds over could keep her from longingly asking for the 'caaa' (car).

Before we drove away, Emma helped entertain T - Thanks Em!

Then it was back to the house for some quality cousin time which seemed to even beat out grape eating as Tovina's favorite activity of the day - especially when Emma and Brendan let Tovina press the buttons on the computer's keyboard!

All by her self

One of T's fabulous new skills is her ability to climb up on the kitchen chairs all by herself. Tovina is quite proud of this skill especially as it means she can reach things that were previously out of her reach on the kitchen table.
We have been somewhat more hesitant in our endorsement of this particular feat as it means she can reach things that were previously out of her reach on the kitchen table. Also, the chairs just happen to rest on a very hard tile floor and T is none too stable when climbing on and off the chair. (Though really, how often do toddlers* accidentally fall down? I'm sure I am worrying over nothing)

Luckily, she is also slightly too weak to pull the chairs out from the table, so if we can simply remember to push the chairs in every single time we get up from the kitchen table, then everything should be fine. At least until next week when she is strong enough to pull them out on her own.

*Toddler: from the word toddle
Toddle: one who walks unsteadily