Joy's new words for today are "Yes" and "Wiggles" ...well, she can't fully say "wiggle" but she can grab their video and make a two-syllable sound that starts with "w". And she even watches for a few minutes before being distracted by something else. She's also still picking up signs. I taught her "paper" the other day, so now she can ask for that with her colors (crayons). She kinda mixes "please" and "hungry" but at least she says "please" now. For about two weeks she absolutely *refused* to say it. Would rather wait us out. I wonder where she got that from?

Her favorite words it seems are "Elmo" -- no longer "momo". About a week ago Sunday she clearly said "Elmo" and rarely uses "momo" to talk about the red monster. She also says Ernie pretty clearly. Can't get her to say Big Bird or Cookie Monster yet. Her fave sign is "cookie". Go figure on that one, huh.

And boy can she work the VCR. Time to move it up out of her way.

x-post with Musings

The Big Melt

Well, it's been a fun few days the last week. We usually get a little snow here on the valley floor, about 1/4 of an inch or so, just enough for a good snowball fight. We didn't have any last year and Mother Nature more than made up for it this year. We were snowed in! And asked by the local authorities to stay off the roads as much as possible.

Tim braved the weather and went to work. My home inspection has been reschuled a few times, but we are finally melting. Joy is not happy about it, not happy at all. She practically through a hissy fit the last few days because I didn't want to let her go out and play (well, it was ICY and she doesn't have the best balance).

A light dusting began on New Year's Eve. On New Year's Eve Josh showed Joy how to make a snowball. She was all for getting out and doing that some more during the whole time it snowed. We thought that was cool and that it would be gone by morning, latest, the next afternoon. Boy were we wrong! It snowed all night long and stuck. I took a picture the next morning of our car. It was at least two inches, which, belive it or not, is a lot of snow for this area. Really, the City of Portland began to shut down. Don't laugh. It finally melted by the 4th and we were able to get out of the house to run some errands and get some groceries. Good thing we did. The snow came back the next day. With ice. And Joy wanted even more to go out and play in the white stuff. This storm had wind and freezing rain to go with it. Our porch was covered. I thought it odd that none of our neighbors (on the same block) had snow on their porches. Wednesday Tim had to stay home. It was too icy for him to walk safely and by the time he got to work it would have been time to come home again.

Pictures can be seen in my online photo album