Greetings from the Future

Hello out there!  Unfortunately, due to an endless sequence of little fragments of "life happening", I have neglected this blog for ages.  As you can see, the last post was written when Piper was 7 1/2 months old; now, our girl is graduating high school!  Yes, and heading to college in the fall.  Time really does fly.

Kidding, kidding, of course it hasn't been that long.   (By that time, I hope to be writing this blog from Barcelona, looking out from the window of an incredible apartment, where Piper has painted murals on the walls of the top floor, and our favorite flowers completely cover the rooftop.  Ahem...) In actuality, it's been a bit over a year since the last entry, and I'm totally ashamed.  But the good news is that we are all healthy and well, and Piper has grown into a running, jumping, singing, dancing, reading, drawing, swimming, climbing, happy little girl.  If I tried to play catch-up with the lost time, I'd probably be writing for hours on end.  Thus, in the spirit of laziness, I shall begin again and start with this very day.

Piper loves waffles and macaroni and cheese.  She calls waffles "wa-waffs" and pasta "new-nulls" (noodles). She is talking and mimicking EVERYTHING, including songs, which is cool.  She can "la la la" the tune and rhythm of a few songs.  She likes to bang on the keyboard and guitar, and loves identifying objects in her books.  She can pick out a few letters in the alphabet, and the numbers 4, 6, and 9.  She always says she wants 9 of everything (for example, "Piper, how many crackers would you like?", "nyyyy", "ok, we'll start with two", "ta-tu").  Yes, she is very polite, always saying please and thank you, sometimes needing to be prompted and sometimes not.  She loves squirrels and fish, "curl" and "eesh".  And she knows what it looks like when I start photographing her with my phone, so she wrinkles up her nose and squints her eyes to show her teeth.  That face is called "pretty eyes", and it's hilarious.  She loves swimming, and wishes I would just let go of her so she could paddle out with the big kids.  Her favorite color is purple, and we have to keep buying new crayons because she carries the purple crayon around and we lose it.  Like this morning, I noticed the purple crayon is missing again.  This is the third purple crayon to go missing.  I think she is hoarding them in a secret place.  And she loves stickers and Dora the Explorer.

Harvesting vegetables at Nonna and Pop-Pop's house

With Mom and Dad in February

"Piper, where's your bellybutton?"

Pulling up carrots on Mother's Day

Surveying the garden

Piper Pilar - 20 months

(Thanks to Andrea for the Mother's Day photos)