Better Late Than Never...

I haven't neglected writing because I have nothing to talk about... Quite to opposite in fact. I was ready to upload more pictures a couple weeks ago and we lost our source of internet due to a bulging battery. It took well over a week to finally track down a place that would replace the battery and then in the meantime we decided to get CenturyLink since the speeds would be faster and it actually works out to be cheaper, but we still had to wait another several days for the router to show up and for the service to get activated. So basically we've been without internet at home for a few weeks. In some ways it was nice but my conclusion was that society depends too much on internet these days to do without it for long, if at all. Bottom line, so far we're loving our new internet service!

As you may remember, for her birthday Mira got to pick out a little potty, since she's been showing some signs that she's getting ready for potty training in the near future. She definitely loves to sit on her "throne," but nothing we can do will convince her to sit on the potty the correct way. So for now she has a nice seat.

Now though she's discovered she can close the lid and use the potty as a step-stool to get to stuff on the counter in the bathroom. So now we can't convince her to sit on the potty at all. I guess I need to remember it's a good thing she's so curious, even when it's potentially destructive.

She absolutely loves apples and begs to have one. Hard to discourage that behavior.

And speaking of destructive:

Cheeeeeeeeese!

Since we're all getting some spring fever from being cooped up in the house all winter, it's been very nice to have the membership to Discovery Gateway. I remember going to a children's museum back in Tennessee as a kid and I remember a large stuffed brown bear, a log cabin with pioneer dress-up clothes, a large wooden space ship, and the gift shop. This museum is so much cooler, and even though a lot of the activities are geared towards older kids, Mira loves loves loves going there. She gets so excited when I ask her if she wants to go to the children's museum! The best part is letting her get all her energy out in an educational setting.

Designing her own radio show.

She loves the magnetic toys.

A big thanks to my grandparents for making this gift possible, she absolutely loves it!

Her speech is still behind but her garbled talking still makes me smile.

I took her to her 2-year well-child checkup a couple weeks ago. It's weird to call it a "well-child" checkup instead of a "well-baby" check-up. She really is growing up! But she's right on track with her growing, she now weighs 27.6 pounds (63rd percentile, the highest she's ever placed on the chart!), is 35 inches tall (just one inch shy of 3 feet - eep), and still has a tiny head in the 20th percentile. Besides her speech delay she's hit all her other developmental milestones. My PA didn't seem too concerned as long as I wasn't (which I'm not because everything else is normal) and so we'll just watch it and get Mark's mom involved to do some speech therapy if we need to. Then we finished off the appointment with a couple of vaccinations, which Mira definitely did not like, but as soon as they finished they offered her a sticker and lollipop  and she completely forgot what she had been so upset about. Plus she got to show off her owie to Mark later.

And finally a few days ago the weather has been getting warmer! We can finally see grass in our yard and I can take Mira for walks again, which is great for both of us.

Mark and I have still been doing our ski days, although we're going to really start cramming them in because, much to my disbelief, the ski season is coming to an end. :( I can see now why people take vacations to New Zealand in the summer so they can get more skiing in during the year! Too bad we can't afford a trip to New Zealand.

Just for fun (?), here's a few pictures of that slope I fell down recently. It's still kind of hard to appreciate how steep the slope is based on the pictures but it gives you an idea of how far I fell.

I started to fall about here and didn't stop until just past the bend to the left, in the trees.

Looking up from about where I stopped - I had started to fall at the tree line.

One of these days I'll conquer this slope - once I get over my fear of slamming head-first into a tree trunk and suffering a traumatic brain injury. Sometimes I really feel like my job in a major hindrance.

And now some random pictures of my silly kitty Wallace in his new favorite spot - sitting on the top of the couch so that he's halfway on my head.

Finally, a short video of Mira showing that she definitely knows how to show off and be silly on purpose. One of Ally's (our babysitter) kids recently had a birthday and we joined her and her crew at a place called Kangaroo Zoo, which is a room full of huge inflated slides and obstacle courses and such. Mira had trouble figuring out what she wanted to do because there was so much, but once she figured out she like this one she seriously went on it about 50 times in a row. Enjoy.