Dylan's new best bud

We all new that cousins were special. And when my sis Lara and I had little girls 3 months apart, we thought it was pretty cool. But no one knew how fast they'd become buddies! Dylan and I just spent 4 days down in Champaign with my parents and Lara and Anya. It was so fun to watch the two little girls start to actually semi-play together! We had to do a little mediating, but mostly it was just good fun. We didn't realize Anya liked Dylan so much, until we were leaving. They all came outside to see us pull out of the driveway (Anya has a need recently to see exactly where people are going), and Anya started crying as we were leaving. She totally got it, and was SO sad! It was the most touching thing. And then when they went inside, I later learned she was still crying pretty hard and they asked her, Do you want Grandma? "NO!" Then, Do you want Grandpa? "NO!" And, Do you want Mommy? "NO!" Last, Do you want Dylan? "YES!"

Unbelievable. They are little humans!

Ooh hee haw humph

This is the sound you hear from Dylan when you ask her a question she wants to respond "YES" to. It's an adorable sound in person, and I wish I could put a sound clip here to show you just how cute it is. But combine the ooh hee haw humph with an ear to ear grin and a little jump of joy, and you can really picture it, no? A few questions she will respond this way to:

"Do you want to eat _____?" (Yes, she will seriously eat anything at any time.)
"Do you want to swing?"
"Do you want to take a nap?" (Only when she's really tired will ooh hee haw humph be the response here, but it just happened 2 minutes ago, so I'm including it.)
"Do you want to listen to music?" (which usually means to her...we're going to dance!)
"Do you want to watch Signing Time?" (the only tv she is allowed to watch, it teaches her some american sign language through songs and such...)
"Do you want to take a bath?"

Here are a couple of pics of her lastest favorite things to get the "ooh hee haw hump" response...

Dylan loves to eat anything she can hold herself and take bites...hard to do with only 1/2 of a tooth, but she tries.

Daddy and Dylan have a blast together at bathtime. Can you tell?

Zoo friends

one of the many full-faced smiles we saw that day.

I don't know how it happened. I don't really like zoos. In fact, I've always thought going to look at animals in cages was pretty boring. But we checked out the Fort Wayne Childrens Zoo when we were in The Wayne for my cousin's wedding and I don't know if it was Dylan's enthusiasm (and that is putting it mildly) or the fact my whole family was there having a blast together, but I loved that zoo! It was incredibly fun and one of my favorite days in a long time. Dylan is an animal lover at heart and she couldn't get enough of the experience. We went on a safari ride where we saw giraffes, zebras, gazelles, an ostrich, and wildabeest! It was really, really cool, and I totally remembered riding in those zebra-striped safari cars as a little kid when our Aunt Jeanie would take me, Lara and my cousins Claire and Jonathan to this zoo. The cars were the same...just a lot smaller than I remembered! And I remember thinking the steering wheel actually controlled the car...such innocence.