Sib Visits!

This past week, Scott and I got to see some of our favorite people... our siblings! Kyle and Hannah came to KC for an extended weekend, and I traveled to Northern CA to see Karla (and Matt for a bit). It does our souls well to hug on our siblings and spend some time with them.

Kyle, Hannah & Sienna. She loved seeing these two! She is still talking about them today! She thinks any girl with long, brown hair is Aunt Hannah -- too cute!

Sooooo happy! She was outside playing ball with Kyle, Hannah, Daddy, Pops & Grandma.... heard they all had a great time!

Having fun at dinner with Gramma, Grampa, Kyle, Hannah, Scott & I

I definitely was sad to leave Scott & Sienna to travel to California, but I was excited to have some time with just my sister. I got to see their new town, and we traveled to Sausalito, Muir Woods & Napa Valley. We had such a good time! Nothing is as good as having a sister for your bestie.

Sausalito... insanely beautiful town right across the San Francisco Bay. It really does feel like a little piece of Italy from the shops, to the food, to the scenery (reminded me a little of our time in the Almalfi Coast). We had lunch right on the water & then some shopping.

That's San Fran in the distance.

We drove up to Muir Woods and did a 3 mile hike through the redwood forrest... beautiful & so much fun!

My co-worker lent me her Joby (best invention ever --- definitely want one for my b-day), which allowed us to take so many fun pics together.

Failed picture with the Joby... but you see the fun we had!

At the top of our hike.... we had a gorgeous view of the mountains and of the ocean (right, Karla?).

In Napa.... lots of good wine & good food!

Sentences... and other fun times with our chatterbox

Sienna hit a big milestone this week! She has started putting two words together. Her first two words smashed together were "Mommy Dadda". The video quality is bad (me trying to video on Scott's blackberry while we are driving at night... not a great idea), but the sound quality is awesome. Just tonight, Sienna also said, "I love cookies". We were laughing so hard!!!! Her language development keeps on speeding ahead, and it is so nice to be able to communicate fairly easier with her, especially at such a young age.

(I have to take a moment to brag... Sienna's language development is already at a two year old's level! I think she can say about 100+ words... literally. And our PAT contact said her articulation is better than almost any child she's met at this age. So either she's going to be a writer, editor, speaker, or President of the United States... ha! Okay, thanks for letting me have a proud mommy moment. Isn't it crazy how kids develop so differently?!)

We had friends over to watch the Superbowl last Sunday, and Sienna loved playing the kids (Caden & Aliyah). Sienna followed Aliyah (who is 8 months older) the whole night. When she wasn't in the same room with Aliyah, Sienna would say "Le-la? Le-la?" The kids also played ring-around-the-rosy... we captured their cuteness on video.

Sienna's love of the song Old MacDonald continues. She usually wakes up singing the song in her crib, and she likes to sing it in the car, as well. The below video is of Sienna singing "e-i-o" in the car one night... plus some other colorful commentary from her on the car light, her shoes, etc. :)

This is SUCH a fun age!

Snow days

This week, we've been snowed in (with nearly the rest of the country) thanks to the blizzard of 2011. The snow started coming down on Tuesday, and I didn't make it out of the house for work on Tuesday (my day off, anyhow) or Wednesday. We've had a lot of fun being couped up together as our little family of three. Scott had a trip planned to Chicago that he cancelled, and it's been such a treat to have him home all week! I was a little worried that we'd go stir-crazy not being able to get out of the house, but we've just had to get creative!

Sienna has learned to do head stands! (Well, almost!)

We've watched Toy Story 3 (or "Buzz", as Sienna calls it) every day. Well, at least 20 - 30 minutes of it. Sienna's attention span does not tolerate an entire movie at this point in her life! Her favorite part of the movie is the opening scene, and also she likes to dance to the music during the ending credits.

We also checked out a ton of new books at the library. Sienna's has two favorites. She likes for us to sing, rather than read, "I'm a Little Teapot" with Scott playing along on the piano. Her other fav is "Old MacDonald". The book came with a CD, and she will run over to the CD player and exclaim, "e-i, e-i"! She likes to shake her booty to the song while flipping through the book... quite the multi-tasker!

Dancing to Old MacDonald while holding onto her 'colors'.

We've also had fun playing dress up with my jewelry. Sienna calls my necklaces 'pretties', and she loves to wear them around her neck, and on her arms. She loves to put on the necklaces, and then go 'show' Scott.

Eating snow & wearing her 'pretties'.

On our second snow day, we really had to start getting creative. So, I gave Sienna some chocolate pudding, and let her 'paint' the bathtub walls. I saw this on a TV show once (think it was John & Kate Plus 8), and it looked like fun. Sienna loved it! I think she ended up eating more than painting, but who can blame her!

Just getting started...

Decided that eating the pudding was better than painting with it!

Figured out she could lick the pudding off the tub!

Finished with the pudding, back to her bath toys!

That same day, we built a tent out of bed sheets in our living room. Sienna loved to take her basket of plastic food underneath, dump it out, fill it up, dump it out... you get the picture. She also thought it was hilarious when Maddie would get under the tent.

Sienna was intent on getting a taste of snow each time Scott or I would go out to shovel the driveway. The girl loves to eat snow! (Also, Sienna had a lot of her other favorite snack, 'cracky' (a.k.a. saltine cracker), this week. Why does being cooped up inside all day make you want to eat more?!?

She was so excited to go outside!

We got about 12" of snow.

We also did a lot of playing chase, playing with her 'dino' (Sienna's gigantic plastic T-Rex), coloring, going down the slide in our basement, stacking blocks to make 'castles', and playing 'Ring Around the Rosy' ('ashes', as Sienna calls it).

All in all, it has been a fantastic week. Lots of family fun time! Hope you all are staying warm -- it was -6 degrees here this morning! Burrrrrrrrrrrr............