Woody's aunt Carol recently kept Hope for a few hours. She is an elementary school teacher and therefore has some credibility, I believe, to her statement that Hope is very smart. I'm beaming over that comment! Every mother is biased, but.... To celebrate, I thought I'd post Hope playing with what I think is a little higher level toy that she's just mastered. You actually have to hold the thing still while you press the big green thing and watch the little balls spin around. When they spin, Hope says "baa" which I'm sure is "See Mom, the balls go round and round when I push this!" She's also just gotten two teeth! If you look very closely, you can see them popping through. (bottom center.)

And here's Hope with her best buddy Daisy. This is also my non-traditional Janna Woodfall would be proud snap shot of the two of them.

Hope and I recently went to PetSmart to get Daisy a new toy. We also wanted to see all the other pets there. Hope saw kittens: loved those, birds: ehh, they're okay, fish: totally boring, big dogs, little dogs: loved those, and gerbils: totally terrified of them!

Here's Hope lovingly gazing at Daisy....

and Daisy lovingly gazing back. Daisy is great with her so far. When we go on walks, Daisy doesn't even know she's there, but Hope loves to watch Daisy run. In the back yard, Daisy has in the past had a bit of a jumping problem. Okay it's still really bad, but we're working on it. With Hope, she is not jumping. It's the craziest thing. She's super excited to see her, but has always known the limit. Aren't dogs smart? Does she sense that I'm a momma bear and she'd better watch out, is she a girl dog and have a sense about babies, is it that labs really are as good with kids as people say?...

Then a little family outing to watch the Maglinger men minus Woodrow play softball. Susanna is our full of life as usual.