'Summer' Marches On

A cooler and grayer summer marches on in Seattle. While the rest of the country sweats through heat wave after humid heat wave, we regularly have to decide whether to don shorts or jeans. A big change from Jadyn's first summer in Seattle, which was hot hot hot and seemingly wall-to-wall sunshine! Does this faze Jadyn? Absolutely not. In fact, when riding in the car with the sun shining across her face, she frequently whines that it's too bright and then requests her sunglasses. A true Seattle-ite!

Just a few recent pictures posted below. Here you can see that she set up a "table" near her kitchen. "Mommy, this is my restaurant!"

She loves her frog umbrella from Grandma Jeanne. However, it is stored on top of the refrigerator, because she tends to gesture grandly with it and nearly injures herself and others. One of these days, we'll use it to walk in the rain (there is enough of that around this summer, unfortunately).


Our friend Pita brought some gifts back from a trip to Canada for our Jadyn. She loves the cupcake hat, and she refused to remove the Banff t-shirt; she slept in it that night, and the following day cried when she was told she couldn't wear it to school after she slept in it. Oh, what terribly irrational and unfair parents she has!


Jadyn is quite a helper around the house. She enjoys cleaning the appliances and scrubbing the sink after doing dishes. (Now, if we could just get her to do her own laundry!)





Her interest in babies has waxed and waned over time; she is currently in a waxing phase with babies. Here she is tucking a couple in for bed while she is gearing up for bed herself. (Thanks, Cassandra, for the super cute sundress. She loves it!)



Jadyn and mosquito bites are a sad combination. Here you see what happens when she gets bit, unfortunately, this time, on her eyelid while she slept. She endured this pretty well for as uncomfortable as she looks here.

And out of nowhere, the Skuut is totally "in", and Jadyn now chooses it over a tricycle when venturing out in the neighborhood. It took just a couple of outings going "around the block" (more like 3-5 blocks) and she began to lift her feet and coast. She seems to have has a knack for wheeled transport -- we love seeing her enjoy her Skuut!

Jadyn has been recognizing letters that begin her friends' names at school, and through various made-up verses of B-I-N-G-O that we sing around the house, she is learning how to spell her own name, Cosmo (our cat), and various friends and pets around the neighborhood. She will be moving up to the oldest toddler classroom at her school starting next week, and she is ready for new challenges and experiences there. Stay tuned for more adventures!

S'mores and Fireworks

So, we're a little behind in posting....

The Fremont Solstice Parade was a few weeks ago. Jadyn really enjoyed it. She saw some of it from the shoulders of our friends, Doug and David. She also tasted an elephant ear (didn't go over super big).






Jadyn and Daddy had non-Mommy time when she went to a conference in late-June. Upon Mom's return, we documented Jadyn wearing stickers


sporting little pigtails


and organizing the beer bottles to be recycled.

Turns out Jadyn LOVES s'mores. She tried them with neighbors a few weeks ago...


And then talked about them for days before our 4th of July BBQ with the neighbors.


We actually had perfect weather for the 4th -- upper 70's and sunny. Jadyn also obsessed about the fireworks, so we got her ready for bed, and walked about 10 blocks for a better view. She rallied to watch them, but fell asleep against Mommy on the way home.


We hope you all had a fun-filled 4th, too!

New Bike! Sunny Weekend!

On Memorial Day weekend, we spent hours considering wheeled transportation for Jadyn. She is very comfortable and proficient on a tricycle, but we began to consider getting her a balance bike as a new adventure in travel. In the end, after much internet research and an exhausting trip to REI, we settled on a Skuut. She like rolling around in the house on it, but she still prefers Cleo's old trike when she is outside. We had to put the Skuut together in a novel way (notice the Skuut name upside down) to help her reach the ground firmly at her current height.

Memorial Day weekend was cool and gray most of the time, but the following weekend was sunny, sunny, sunny! Jadyn and Mommy went on a walk at Tiger Mountain with some of Mommy's work friends. Here is Jadyn enjoying a wildflower + slug, a hollowed out tree trunk, and a piggy back ride from a chemist.




Near the end of the walk, she was exhausted, and napped in the car before we had a fun lunch in North Bend.

The next day, there was more sun! Mommy, Daddy, and Jadyn spent a couple of hours exploring Magnuson Park. Jadyn loved the ducks, the water, riding on Daddy's shoulders, and the abundance of flowers she could pick.






Long days with early sunrises make Jadyn think it's time to rise and shine far before her parents do. We are all a little tired here, but it looks like the weather is finally heading toward more normal for the season, and it'll be great to spend more time outside over the next few months. Stay tuned for more adventures with the ener-Jadyn bunny -- she keeps going, and going, and going, and....

Easter, etc.

It's been awhile since we posted. Just after our last post, family came to town, and Jadyn chose that week to skip a few naps and start night-waking again. Unfortunately for the whole household, sleep disruption has been a fixture for weeks, and we have all had a very sluggish spring -- fitting, though, as Seattle had the coldest April in recorded weather history, and it took until May 20th to hit 70 degrees for the first time in 2011. Because of the cooler weather, the scarcity of sleep, and overall busy schedules in our house, we haven't taken as many pictures as we usually do. But here are a few of shots from the past 6 weeks or so.

Potty training, to put it plainly, is not going anywhere. Jadyn is completely capable physically of jumping on this bandwagon, but has little internal motivation to doing so. She occasionally chooses to wear panties over her diapers. Less frequently, but still more often than she uses the potty, she wears her panties in other interesting ways. We believe she will let us know when she is ready to rid herself of diapers, so for now, we are all enjoying the panties as accessories.


Jadyn so enjoys being outside! She loves to play at parks, chase after the neighbor Cleo in our yards, walk around the neighborhood, ride in the stroller while Mommy jogs, and try any bike or scooter she can get her hands on. We will be getting her a tricycle very soon. Here she is enjoying "outside."





We did have an Easter egg hunt -- indoors, due to the weather -- that Jadyn enjoyed immensely. Next year we'll hope for better weather, so we can try it outside.





Our Saturday AMs at Lighthouse Roasters are routine, and Jadyn looks forward to the friends she sees there and her weekly scone. (She fancies the frosted ones -- blame that on Mommy, who shares the preference.)

Stay tuned for more adventures in the world according to Jadyn!