The Lord's Prayer

Mommy got a link to the cutest video and I'd like to share it with all of you. Maybe I'll sing like this one day :-)

Happy Easter 2008!

I had a wonderful Easter with my family. I hope you were all blessed in celebrating Christ's resurrection as well.

It all started with my first Easter basket (since I was only 3 months old last Easter, my parents skipped that detail).

Due to all the chaos of late, this was a hand made job by Mommy. She used a cute bag one of my bday gifts came in and cut out pieces to make the card. She used some construction paper as the "grass". Turned out pretty nice I think (or at least Mommy hopes so). Here I am still waking up and taking a look:

I got a cool bubble maker from the Easter Bunny. Here you can see it in action:



Then it was off to church for a wonderful mass. The music was so beautiful with the choir, organ, and an ensemble with flutes, trumpets, guitar, violins, upright bass, cello, french horn - oh and some bells at points too. Amazing! The place was packed. Here are some photos, we really are lucky to have such a beautiful church, St. Mary's

No, I am not sitting in the priest's chair! But Mommy thought this would be a good shot. I, however, am very tired after quite a long mass. Time for lunch...

Then it was off to Willow Valley where Great Grandmom (aka MomMom) lives. She rents a room for us to all get together each Easter. This is Grammy's Mommy (Daddy's Grandmother).

Here I am with Claire and Brigid, my second cousins - long time readers have seen them here b4. Aren't they getting big (just like me!)? Guess what, in August, they will have a new brother or sister - yeah!

I finally had a BIG lunch, and got some energy. Brigid and Claire taught me "Ring around the Rosie". I think I caught on pretty quickly. And I think I kept up with them pretty well also:



Here's a really nice picture of the Shirks (Daddy's sister/my Aunt Kris, cousins Ally and Kate and Uncle John):

Another hunt for those brightly colored plastic eggs, aka an Easter Egg Hunt. Still don't like touching grass it seems. Here we are with our goods. Hey, where can I get me a pair of these fancy white gloves like Brigid? And when did Ally get so darn tall?!

The eggs were taped together very well, so Mommy had the pleasure of getting all of that off of them:

Thanks Mommy!

Well, I konked out around 4pm and home we went. What a busy, fun, Easter spent with my wondeful, loving family. I'm a lucky girl :-) Happy Easter everyone.

And the Zimmerman Run of Bad Luck Continues

So, in a former post, you heard about the big tree falling in a wind storm. Well, since then, things just haven't been the same. Not that I'm complaining, just seems a lot of bad luck hitting at once. Mommy's computer seems to have died in the power surge. We're not sure, but it's not behaving and Daddy has tried reformatting it several times to get it back to normal. Didn't work the first couple of times, things kept corrupting (aren't you amazed at how techie I am at 1 year old?!). We'll see how this last try goes...

Then, on Tuesday 3/18/08, our refrigerator died! So once again, Mommy and Daddy got to empty the whole thing out. They used our big cooler and a bunch of little coolers to hold it all with ice until it could be fixed on Saturday 3/22/08. We decided to wait for Sears where the fridge was purchased almost 5 years ago, since some of the parts were still under warranty. Luckily, the freezer downstairs, not even a year old, could take all the frozen stuff. However, that thing has been stinking and we were thinking it was dying too. Turns out when the power went out some chicken juice dripped down into some of the parts and needs to just wear off. Gosh, it stinks bad! Luckily, the freezer is fine.

So, on Saturday 3/22/08, Mommy did a huge cleaning on the whole fridge before the repair man came. Since it was empty, this was a good time to give it a good scrub. She had no idea it would take almost 3 hours however! So, I stepped in to help her:



Good news is, the fridge is now fixed. Bad news is it cost almost $300!!! Sears stinks. $60 to come in the house, $50 for the part and $180 for 15 minutes to remove the small part (fits in the palm of your hand) and replace it. Plus, Daddy wouldn't have even used Sears if it weren't for the warranty, but, that's right, you guessed it, THAT part was not under warranty. Gotta love it! Hoping Good Luck is soon on the way. Still, we're all safe and lucky to even have a fridge when you think of so many in the world!

Plastic Eggs can be fun!

I have found that I'm not very interested in the junk food that comes in these brightly colored plastic eggs. Probably cause Mommy doesn't give me much of that stuff, so I'm not used to it. However, I have discovered endless ways to play with these wonderful eggs. You can pull them apart and place them on top of stuff then sweep your hand across and watch them fly everywhere. You can stack them. You can fill and empty the basket repeatedly. And best of all, you can put them on your toes! The possibilities are endless. Just look how much fun it can be:

Easter Egg Hunt with Playgroup

On Sat 3/15/08, my playgroup had an Easter Egg hunt at Alleha's house. What a great time.

Here, Daddy is showing me how it works...

Okay, so you look for these brightly colored plastic eggs and throw them in this basket. What the heck is this all about?

Nathan seems to be enjoying it...

Alleha's still thinking on it, but she does have the cutest peep basket! And the hat as well as the rest of her outfit speaks volumes on style!

Oh no, Ava is caught in a maze of tall, scary, wood-like shrubbery! Will she get the egg?

Here are 2 video clips of me trying to get eggs. I found that I don't like the feel of grass, so Daddy had to pick up the egg, then I would take it out of his hand:





After all of that hunting, we all worked up quite an appetite. Here we are enjoying some freshly cut grapes. I had to stay on top of getting my quota between Nathan and Brandon.

Geez Mom, I got as many grapes in my mouth as I can right now, but they're still eating them too, and now Ava is joining in - HELP!!

Well, not to worry. I think I got the most grapes anyway. All in all, a very fun day.

I am Now Officially Walking

On a much lighter note, before they removed the tree on Tues. 3/11/08 - I realized I can walk all over the place. WOW, this is cool. Not just a couple of steps anymore. I can go the whole way across a room now:



And of course, I still love to dance:

We Got Whipped by the Wind

Boy did I see something very scary on Sat 3/8/08. At 5pm, Mommy was laying on the couch sick as can be with a bad case of the flu. I was playing at our big window in the living room. Daddy just got home from the grocery store and was putting away all of the groceries. All of a sudden, the wind started blowing like crazy. Then, our big pine tree in the front yard came crashing down with a big BOOM! I turned around and looked at Mommy who sprang from the couch (even though she was so sick - that's adrenaline for ya). My eyes were HUGE. She scooped me up and yelled to Daddy "Bill, the tree is on the house!" We were all very lucky. It fell at an angle and grazed the roof. It hit a big branch of the gum tree and tore that off which we later found out went through the roof. It also took down the power, phone and cable lines. It was crazy! We ended up going 2 days with no power, which means no heat, so we stayed with Grammy. I ended up with a slight case of the flu too. Poor Daddy had to handle most of the grunt work of getting everything up and running again. What a long couple of days it has been.

Here are some shots of the tree taken the next day (Sun 3/9/08), you can see how lucky we were it didn't fall straight back!

Then here are some pictures from Tuesday 3/11/08 when we were finally back in our house:

Here is a view from the front door. The branch literally stops right in front of the door!

Hey, what's with the tree at the front door?:

Mommy even took a break from being horizontal from the flu so we wouldn't miss out on these shots since the tree was about to be removed:

See how the top of the tree is on the roof and the rest bent near the front of the house. Amazing!

Here's the branch in the roof underneath the top of the tree:

And the huge roots of the tree:

An Amish man and his son and another young guy worked from 1pm to 4pm on Tuesday 3/11 and got rid of the whole tree - roots and all. We took some photos from inside of their progress. They had the chain saws going and the big wood chipper.:

So, the tree is gone. Power is back, cable is back and the phone line was finally reattached yesterday. Now we are just praying that the roofer comes today as it's supposed to rain starting tonight and the next 4 days... GULP!

I Love to Play with (Torment) Herbie

Boy, Herbie sure puts up with a lot from me! Although I do sport occasional claw marks on my face now and then...

Hey, not so fast - gimme that tail...

Now I have you...
Oh no, now you have me!
Hey Daddy, why did Herbie scratch me?!

I'm Fourteen Months Old!

Time keeps on tickin'! Here I am at 14 mos. on 3/5/08:

Dressed as a Cow for Church

I finally fit into my cow dress. Another cute hand-me-down. This is me on Sunday 3/2/08:

I Like to Put My Socks on My Hands

If you can see this video (it's dark) you'll see what I mean:

I Love Fingerpainting!

Here I am on Sunday 2/24/08 with my playgroup. We had a great time fingerpainting at Ava's house.

First, here's Kaden riding one of Ava's toys:

Next, here's Ava with her Mommy, Cherie:

Here I am with Alleha and her parents Huong and Eric:

I enjoyed painting myself as much as the paper and plates:

So did Alleha:

Here's some videos from the day too - I sure had a great time!: