every picture tells a story

Well, this picture tells 2 stories. First there is the fish. We have been making our regular weekly trips to the library this summer, and for the summer program there are prizes for reading books. Every 5 books earns you a tiny little toy or a "dollar" you can save for something big. Sylvie saw a "shiny" fish that the library had labeled as "sparkle" fish and had no doubt what she was saving for! Her shiny / sparkly fish cost 15 "dollars". So every week she earned a dollar or two and kept counting them up. Today, 75 book and 15 dollars later, Sylvie earned her special fish she named "Goldy". (At least that was his name last I checked). She was sooo excited, and I love how much she loves books. Stella seems to be following right along, although with much less patience at this stage. She will often hand me "Goodnight Moon" or one of several Elmo books to read her, and she loves it.

The other story about Sylvie's photo at the top, is that she is spying out the window at the teenage boy, lets call him "K", who mows our lawn. She LOVES when K comes over and tries to watch out every window. When she goes to sleep I always wish her sweet dreams and give her ideas of what she could dream of: pretty flowers, sparkly butterflies, playing on the beach. More than once her answer has been "no Mommy, I will dream of K". The other day she was running around the house with no shirt on pretending to be our lawnmowing boy. We are in sooo much trouble in 10 years or so!

Stella speaks

Stella is determined to add new words to her endless stream of chatter and frustrated growls, and I just thought I'd take the time to make note of them. Her clearest words are, and have been for some time: hi, uh-oh, No, Mama, and Dada
some recent additions: hello (while on a pretend phone), baby, up, Quack quack and woof woof (which sound identical :), and here (when she hands you something)

At one year she was slowly starting to walk around on her own, and within 2 weeks I swear she was running. I feel like that is starting to happen with her words. She REALLY wants to talk. Today at the store Sylvie was asking Stella "What does a duck say?", "What does a puppy-dog say?" and Stella gave her best answers each time. I am going to catch that again on video. It was the cutest!!

In the meantime, here are some clips from Stella's first birthday, just about 3 months ago:

best buddies

Everyday when Stella wakes up from her nap, always at least an hour or so before Sylvie, she tries every trick she knows to sneak into Sylvie's room. Usually, I manage to keep her busy in a different room, but every now and then she manages to sneak into the hallway and races for the door. I'm always amazed at Sylvie's response to her little sister's face 2 inches away saying "Hi!". Sylvie always smiles and is not just tolerant of being climbed on and bumped around, but usually very happy to see her little buddy. That is saying something of Sylvia, who does not react well to being woken up. I had to wake her up just a little early one day this week, and that was impossible. I think I saw the future of many difficult school days ahead! Maybe Stella will help me wake her with a smile :)
Here is a video from last January of the Sylvie and Stella show, otherwise known as Taylor Swift and her bouncing sidekick:

and another from later that same day: Daddy and his giggling girls: