Easter

Happy Easter! It’s been a quiet week for us here as Aanika has had a bit of a tummy bug that she decided she’d share with her momma. We’re on the mend thankfully and are looking forward to a wonderful week with the temps forecasted to be in the 70’s-80’s all week and mostly sunny. This week has also involved a huge jump in language use for Aanika. She’s starting to put together sentences that tell you exactly what she’s wanting. It’s so great to see the changes - I’m really looking forward to the days that I don’t have to be a mind reader or an interpreter!

We’re pretty excited that we were able to get Aanika’s tables completely finished this weekend. The picnic table is stained ‘Rosewood’ and has a nice varnished finish on it. The white play-table was quite fun to do too. I cut up a wallpaper border and did a decoupage technique with it (just a fancy word for tons ‘o glue) around all four sides of the table and down onto each leg. When I was thinking of how to decorate it, I could see it being fun and playful with a bit of a whimsical flair…mind you, this is a huge feat for me seeing that I like everything symmetrical and linear - we think it turned out great!

The picture is of Aanika wearing her new easter hat from Bompa Marx.

Furniture 101

Well, things are back into the groove again this week. Kevin’s brother and his wife (they’re from Kansas) came to visit us this past week for spring break. We went to Rodeo Houston and saw some awesome bull riding, spent an afternoon on Galveston Island and ate some fantastic seafood ~ basically we had a really great time. The guys actually managed to get in a round of golf on Friday before they had to leave. We’ll have some pictures later to show you. Aanika sure loved having them here!

The last two weekends were spent doing projects…Thankfully, Aanika is such a Daddy’s-girl on the weekends, I get to do the household projects with little interruption. Oh, in case you’re wondering, the bathroom is now Bullfrog Green (you gotta see it…very cool) and the office is almost the color of butterscotch. Both colors are very unique but they “fit” the rooms they’re in. Yesterday and today were Furniture Building 101. Kevin and I built, from scratch, a child-size play table that Aanika can use for drawing, Legos, or her little people village. The other item is a picnic table (just her size) that is absolutely adorable! Aanika was very helpful too! She would hand Kevin screws and was helping me with the sanding. We had to draw the line though when she wanted to play with the wood glue and paint!

Aanika is doing really well and is still just the sweetest little kid. We truly are blessed to have the opportunity to have her in our lives. The other day we were trying to remember what we used to do before she came ~ she has given us so much!

Girlcat

Aanika turned two and suddenly became a comical and funny kid. We always thought she was silly but it’s like something clicked and she knew she was funny! One event that really tickled me was that she was trying to stand like me one day as I was waiting in line at a store. I have a tendency to lean my hip into things and rest one foot on top of the other and, like I said in one of my other posts, she wants to do everything that Mommom is doing…well, after falling over a few times, she decided she couldn’t do it and gave up. It sure gave everyone around us a pretty good chuckle! She’s really quite amazing and continues to thrill us. Last night we were watching a movie that she had never seen and, as the music crescendo’d as the movie came to a close, she hollered out “all done” and looked to us to turn it off! We have no idea how she knew it was done, but she did…we can’t figure it out. Every day it’s something new!

On a sad note, another event that happened this week was that our sweet little kitty “Girlcat” unexpectedly passed away during the night on Wednesday. She was almost 15 years old and had been with us since she was only a few weeks old. It’s crazy how attached you get to a pet but, needless to say, Momma did not and handle it very well and cried for 3 days. She had a great year though and really seemed to enjoy it here. She was a sweet natured and lovable pet and will be terribly missed.