Hayride to Bunnyland

Well, on Thursday we took the annual Hayride to Bunnyland trip. This time, we had DeeRee and Nevyn and Nevyn's Nana Barbara (and of course, Mommy and Emily) along with us, too! We had a lovely time and Sophie and Nevyn got to run around the playground while Emily got excited by looking at some chickens with DeeRee. After all that and some lunch (that almost went terribly terribly wrong as most events that have to do with eating in our family seem to be going these days) we finally hopped in the tractor and took off for Bunnyland. Everyone was excited but here is what Sophie's comment was, "We're taking the hayride to go to get jellybeans!!" And as I was waiting in line with her and we were watching all the other kids disembark from the previous tractor, Sophie's eyed up every single kid's goodie bag and would say "Oh see is eating a lollipop!" or "he got jellybeans!." Truly, the bunny was lost on her. She thought he was ok of course. But her eyes REALLY lit up when the young girl that preceded the bunny came over with the bags of easter candy for each kid. Sigh. My how things have changed since that first year when I took her and I was literally in tears riding in the tractor with her because she stood up and pointed at the Bunny and was so happy and excited. Those were the days when she had never had a jellybean before. Ahh... the innocence and halcyon days of 1 year old. Which (nice segue, huh?) is what we're enjoying with Emily right now. She turned 11 months old on Thursday and she is truly such a joy to be around (mostly). She is learning words (such as clock, dada, cat, car, and more) and says "hi" and waves like nobody's business. We still can't get her to say or identify "mommy" yet and in fact, when Jim asked her recently where "mommy" was she pointed to DeeRee. So... um, ahem. I'm TRYING not to take this *too* personally. What a difference compared to my little mommy's girl (Sophie). But overall Emily is "a happy little critter" as her DeeRee says. She really is sweet and funny and learning so much. It's such a delight to watch her little triumphs of learning new tricks (like coloring!) and watching her mind process and store new words and information (like the baby sign for "milk" which she now does). She still smells to high heaven like a wet smelly cheez-it from the disgusting sensitive belly formula she drinks. But though smelly, she is so totally cute that you almost forget (almost) how smelly she can be.

Overall, life is good. Sophie is having some challenges with eating lately. She has become extremely picky and very high maintenance with her eating. All she wants is juice, which of course we moderate, but I'm starting to think she still gets too much. And of course, she loves her candy. I guess the weekend of Easter is a bad time to start a no sugar diet for her but I'm thinking that pretty soon we really might try it and see if it helps clear up some of her food weirdness of late. And we're now starting to think about Emily's first birthday party which of course we are greeting with such mixed emotions as we realize that our (very likey to be last) little baby is growing up so fast.