One month to go

Let the birthday party planning begin. Though we were hoping to limit Quinn's exposure to kids cartoon characters as long as we could, we're going to try to let Quinn pick her own theme and we're guessing there will be a toss up between Elmo and Thomas.

In recent weeks her love of characters has become obvious. One day she flat out stopped eating Yo-Baby which had been her favorite yogurt for a long time. Trying to figure out why she wouldn't eat it any longer was a little puzzling. Then one day at daycare she said yogurt and pointed to her friend's Trix yogurt that was a chartruese and hot pink in color. I then realized that she only wanted the characters on the side of the packaging. So, although she doesn't know anything about Dora yet, we purchased some yogurt with Dora on it and alas she's eating yogurt again.

The joys of new experiences

A new hat.



A new use for a box.

A Little R&R

Pardon me Roy...

Is that the cat that chewed your new shoes? Eh em, I mean, is that the Chattanooga Choo Choo?

Now that the weather has finally warmed up, we have been taking advantage of the more mild temps by planning more outings. Over the last two weekends we have fostered Quinn's love of everything train by visiting the train museums. This last weekend was the Jackson Street Roundhouse.

The prior weekend was Twin Cities Model Railroad Museum. We had been desiring to take her there for quite some time since she had started showing an interest in trains last summer. As we expected, she had a blast! She kept saying "train, choo-choo, there's one, another one, I see 'em, I hear 'em." She also hollered in excitement when trains would come around the bend and out of tunnels. One mom there with her toddler son said "it's so nice to see girls fascinated with trains." After hearing that comment I came to realize that of the two dozen or so kids there, only 3 (including Quinn) were girls and she seemed the most excited.

Model train hobbies run in our family. My (Heather's) late Great Uncle David's hobby began as a way to help his son Johnny develop fine motor skills and Johnny kept the tradition going. They both had rooms in their house just for their train sets. Though on a smaller scale, my Uncle Mark also has an interest in model trains. Perhaps we will continue the tradition someday.