gymnastics

thought i'd share this picture of greta and her cousin ellie on picture day at gymnastics. i wish i knew how to make it bigger. i love this photo...it makes me giggle everytime i see it. i'm not sure why....maybe it's their leotards. or their pigtails. or how they are posed ever so carefully on that little ladder.

anyway, we are in austin texas for sxsw....joe has been busy taking part in some of the 'interactive' sessions of sxsw, which means the kids and i have been hanging out and enjoying the beautiful weather. so far we've done lots of playing at playgrounds, shopping (and eating) at whole foods, and yesterday we enjoyed a kite festival at zilker park. we'll get back to blogging and posting photos soon, including one of otto's black eye he got the day before we left!

no pets

growing up, we could always count on our dog, smokey, to pick up any table scraps. looks like in our household, otto is our trusty companion. here he is, crawling all the way under the table and over both of those iron bars for a tiny piece of cereal.

scrapes and leotards

t

i took this photos to show greta's unique clothing choices of late. greta is able to get dressed (and undressed) with minimal help from us. she seems to enjoy practicing these skills and likes to change her clothes a few times a day. she will make up an excuse like, "these clothes are wet" or "these have pee and poo on them" so that she can change. i don't mind a bit...the educator in me loves that she is obviously driven to hone these skills. the mom in me appreciates that she can get ready independently. but i am struggling with ACCEPTING her clothes choices....some of the ensembles she comes up with are pretty fantastic. like this day....her hot cocoa shirt on a 60 degree day, blue leggings a few sizes too small, and her gymnastics leotard pulled halfway up. love it.
oh....i forgot to mention the scrape on her nose. that's her latest accessory. she went for her first bike ride of the season and i guess took a little spill. just in time for all our vacation and easter photos. :)

cousins

as if a whole of snow tubing wasn't enough, we followed up our trip to perfect north with dinner at grandma joan's. greta and otto's cousins roman and shamus were there visiting, so we got to see all the cousins in one day!

perfect north

for christmas, greta and otto's uncle bill gave all the nieces and nephews (both our kids plus jacob, hannah, cassie, and ellie) passes to perfect north slopes to go snow tubing. what a BLAST! otto took a few trips down the kids' hill, and greta enjoyed riding down the kiddie hill on her own and riding down the regular hill with papa. it was such a fun day! both kids (and parents) were exhausted after the day, as evidenced by greta's tears at the end. we hope to make this a yearly outing! thanks uncle bill.....

i am having technical difficulties trying to get our video of otto and greta snow tubing to work. stay tuned....

playdoh

more blogging to come....

we've been busy hanging out. oh yeah, and we went snow tubing at perfect north too....more photos and videos to come....