LKP

That time of year has come again. Two weeks ago, Nina moved up to the next classroom at her daycare from the Teeny Kids Place to the Little Kids Place or as Nina calls it her "big girl" classroom. Transitions are filled with mixed emotions. She is excited to be with the bigger kids, doing new activities (they get to use scissors - Nina's new favorite!) and having bizarre little conversations with her new peers (Nina asked me "why?" the other day. I am fairly certain she has no idea what it means, but she hears it a lot from the other kids). On the other hand, she very much misses her old teachers and the friends she left behind. If you ask who her teachers are she still names the four from the previous room.

The soundtrack to Nina's life will no longer be provided by Daniel, the beloved morning teacher.

Visiting the new room, Nina already knows who to curry favor with.

Beach, of course

No visit from Grammie would be complete without a trip to the beach, no matter how cold the water is!

Grandparents

Grammie and Grandpa came for a visit last month for a fun-filled week. First up on the agenda was coloring Easter eggs! Nina was game for an Easter egg hunt the next morning.

And with just a little help managed to find them all! Eating them... not so interesting.

Easter lunch at our new favorite place in Los Altos.

Nina very much enjoyed spending the week at home with her grandparents. She definitely remembered Grammie from her visit last fall and won't let her out of her sight for the first several days. She was slightly more wary of Grandpa at first, but they bonded over a walk to Walgreens that possibly involved the purchase of a pink beany pig.

Grammie, are you feeding Nina chocolate for lunch??

A highlight of the week was Mirko's birthday, more specifically Mirko's birthday cake. We lit the candles a couple times and must of sang the birthday song 50 times. She loved it!

"Happy Birthday, Daddy!"

Bike

Just to update the official record, on Monday, May 4, Nina rode her bike all the way to the park and all the way back! Wow!

New Loves

Coupla pictures from the weekend showing off Nina's new loves.

Balloon penguin bracelet made by the ubiquitous Palo Alto balloon animal guy.

Dora bike!!! Her feet can reach the pedals (barely), but we've yet to see any unassisted forward motion.

Les Trois Mousquetaires

Between the various cameras snapping away like mad for a week, we have some 800 pictures of various adventures with the cousins, Stanford campus, the farm, the zoo, the park, San Francisco. Of course, only a handful when they are all together, in focus, and with somebody looking vaguely in the direction of the camera.

Filip, Nina and Stefan.....already up to no good.

Lovely Auntie

Trip to the Stanford museum.

Nina's favorite statue, "Little Girl with the Broken Fingers"

Snack after a visit to the Lego store.

Quiet play.

Movie snacks!

"Cooollld!"

Somebody's ice cream was starting to melt.

Either our tolerance for chaos has massively increased or our guest were particularly well behaved because our house didn't seem quiet as crazy as one might have expected with 7 people in it for a week. Wonderful visit!

***

In other news, overheard just this morning:

"I am improvising my thingies"

"I am done with this activity. I want to do another activity"

huh?!

The Boys

Nina's Canadian cousins have been visiting this week. Here is a sneak preview of their adventures.

Spring

Winter was long and tough for Nina... jackets, boots, no sandals or summer dresses (well maybe occasionally.)

so sad.

But now spring is in the air!

Time to freshen up and enjoy the sun!

Because

Nina's language abilities has exploded so much in recent months that is it nearly impossible to capture it for the blog. One thing that I just noticed in the past couple of days is that she is experimenting with "because". Sometimes she hits is spot on, for example:

"We need to move this because someone will trip."

"Put this on my back because I am cold."

Other times, she tries but is not quite sure where to go with it.

"She has ouwies, because she has ouwies.

"I need my pillow like this because ...... [silence]"

Recent pictures. Here are a few shots from our trip to the wine country for Mirko's marathon a couple weeks ago.

On the gondola at Sterling. Big hit with Nina as you can imagine.

Visiting St. Francis at Mondavi. A big hit with Maria as you can imagine (what?! I didn't have to run 26 miles the next day!)

The weather didn't hold out for the race though. Mirko ran the entire marathon in the pouring rain. We cheered for him at the finish line. Nina was somewhat bewildered by the whole thing, but at least had the sense to steal his banana.

Nina's favorite friend Hannah came over for the day. I bought the girls matching Easter dresses, which as you can tell from the pictures, was just too much!!

That evening when we dropped her off, we met Hannah's new baby brother, James. Yay! Many congratulations to the Chevalier family!

Many facets

Such a ham....

So irrepressible...

yet pensive....

and seriously infatuated.

Camera Phone

Here are a few recent pictures from my camera phone. Not always great quality, but they capture the moment.....

Snack at Starbucks on a "sick" day.

Got tutu, got Dora, will travel!

This was from last Saturday. Nina's daycare organized an Ice Skating Party Party at the local rink. At first she didn't want to put the skates on, but by the end she didn't want to take them off!

From yesterday's daycare pickup. Nina had a fabulous hairdo and face painting and still wearing the bracelet from her first emergency room visit of a couple weeks ago (face-plant, stitches in lip -- almost healed)

Nina's 2nd Birthday

We celebrated Nina's Birthday in Tahoe this year. We had a big snow storm on January 2, so we decided that was as good a day as any for a birthday party! Nina was very excited about the birthday cake, candles and birthday song. And the presents weren't too shabby either!

Click to watch the movie!

Nina picked out the Dora theme herself! "Dooohwa"

After Christmas, Nina had become a pro at the present thing!

Nina thinks maybe not.

Mr. Potatohead

Nina happily opened more presents a few days later when Grammie's package arrived.

And now after her big birthday, Nina will gladly tell you that she is .... "tree". Oh, well, we'll work on that one.

Tahoe

We spent the week in Lake Tahoe for New Year's with Mirjana, Miroslav and the girls. Great fun!

Here we are bundled up waiting for the bus to take us to the slopes!

Annual family snow shot (last year's)

Best Buddies.

Nina was very excited to ride up the mountain in the gondola.

But for some reason when we got to the top, she decided to stand on top of a small hill of snow and yell at all the skiers. For quite a long time actually.

Beautiful views of the lake on New Year's Day.

Sunset from the condo.

The evenings were for eating, drinking and relaxing (and drinking).

Warm by the fire.

Waiting for the New Year's Day concert to begin.