April's Over Already??

Oops.  We've been having way too much fun playing with our new "family members" and playing outside, so I haven't been keeping up with the blog AT ALL.  We've been exploring our neighborhood and Sylvia has made herself known to anyone and everyone she sees on the street.  Girl's a talker - imagine that.

Now that Sylvia's a big two year old, we decided it's time for her to start taking care of something.  And she loves fish, so it's a win win.  Say hello to Freddie:



 Sylvia feeds him every night before we eat dinner and we clean his water together every weekend. We have the same conversation every time we feed him.  I say, "Wow!  Freddie's hungry!" and Sylvia says, "Yeah, Sil-ya hun-ree too!"  Then we climb up to the big table to eat supper.  It's a pretty smooth routine at this point.

After supper, if she's had a lot to eat and she's tried at least one bite of everything on the table, we take a walk or play outside with a yogurt popsicle.  Here's a picture of the Nugget hiding from the Mama-razzi.  But take a look at her mouth...

...y'all, that's MY mouth!  I spend so much time gawking at this little clone of my husband that I rarely get to catch a glimpse of my side of the family in her.  But sometimes her mouth is all Neltner - sweetheart shaped and LOUD as can be!

She's digging those yogurt pops.  And she insists on walking through the front yard barefoot no matter how cold it is outside.  I can't deny her, it's one of my own favorite things, so....we're a barefoot family. 

A couple weeks ago, we spent a few after-dinner hours putting together baby's bookshelf.  Sylvia helped.  The room is coming along, but I'm still not quite ready to share pictures.  I have to paint the chair rail, finish the dresser, and hang some art.  Also, I need to hem the curtains and Mom's whipping up an idea for a cute crib skirt.  Once I get all that done and throw a few books on the shelves, I'll post plenty of pictures. 

Sylvia's been loving all the flowers in bloom around the neighborhood.  She has no qualms about wandering into neighbors' yards to "smell" the flowers, which she does by blowing air OUT of her nose, which is usually accompanied by plenty of snot and sometimes spit, too.  It's pretty funny to watch.

This Saturday, while Sylvia was enjoying "Sesame Street Live" without us (thanks, Grammy!), we went to buy our newest suburban homeowner purchase - a riding lawn mower!  It arrived yesterday and Sylvain could not WAIT to get out and cut that monster of a backyard.  He's been push mowing it about every other day, because by the time he gets down to the bottom to finish up, the top needs to be cut again!  He was awfully happy on this baby...

I was surprised at how nostalgic it felt to hear a riding lawn mower in the backyard.  It reminded me of summers at my Dad's house.  Sylvia and I sat on the back deck and watched Sylvain climb up and down the hill, smelling the fresh grass and listening to the birds sing.  It was glorious!  And you should see our freshly mowed yard, it's quite a sight!  We stood on the back deck after she went to sleep and Sylvain said about a hundred times, "Look at that yard!" 

So the month of April was sent off with a bang.  Now onto May....only eight more weeks until baby's here!  Yippee!!  I have so much to write about this little one.  She's a party animal, that's for sure!