First Hair Cut

Elizabeth refuses to have her hair pulled back, so we had to take her to get her hair cut. Neither one of us is fond of bangs, but somehow, she pulls it off. At least I look better than you, Mom.

You're ruining my life!(Editor's Note: Actually, she was playing peek-a-boo in the backyard with her loving father)

Making A Scene

The Grant family spent Memorial Day weekend in Hibbing to visit and check in on Will, who is recovering from a pancreatitis attack. The previous week/weekend was spent in the Harmony area as a result of Grandpa Underbakke's death.

Onto happier thoughts... On our way back down from Hibbing, the traffic became congested near North Branch and the girls needed their first break anyway. Plus, Sam likes to stop at the Outlet Malls there. In one of the shops, Elizabeth (and I, but mostly Elizabeth) made a scene. As we trotted into the store, she immediately seized an opportunity to step on the connecting pipes of those portable clothing racks. To hold herself upright on the pipes, she gripped the silver tube running upright that made one of the end poles of said clothing rack.

As a potentially redundant confession, I'm not exactly at ease in places like children's clothing stores. However, my "ease" proceeded to get worse as Elizabeth began smiling, whooping "Yeah!" as she proceeded to begin violently shaking the clothing rack. Taken off guard, I noticed some customers within earshot taking notice of the excited 18 month old.

So what's a dad to do? As the clerk begins to shift her eye from checking out a customer to suspiciously watching her clothing rack of infant pajamas come under attack as hangers flew and pajamas fell to the ground? The answer is simple: I did what any other dad would do. I yelled "Earthquake!!!!!!" grabbed the pole and shook the clothing rack with Elizabeth.

When we finally stopped, the clerk was apologizing to the customer for laughing so hard and not doing her job. Elizabeth and I were just happy Sam was at the other end of the store...

Happy Anniversary

Yesterday we celebrated our third wedding anniversary. Wow, has life changed in the past three years. We decided to hire a babysitter and enjoy a well-deserved, uninterrupted meal. It was heavenly to spend two hours with just the two of us. Here's to many more to come...

18 Months

Elizabeth is now 18 months old. We are very thankful to have such a wonderfully energetic and healthy daughter. After the rain quit, we went for a walk on the trail, as we do most evenings since spring has arrived. Elizabeth loves to check out both old and new things. Tonight we chased rabbits and spied on the ducklings at the edge of the river. Always the individual, she walked along the trail a solid 3 ft+ away from both of her parents. Except, of course, when she needed a lift to touch the water droplets dripping from flowering crab trees.

I know Elizabeth enjoyed the evening before she turned 18 months old. What could be better than "Daddy, I splash puddle!"

Elizabeth wasn't asking, she was telling.

Blame Game

Last week, Elizabeth was reading her monster book with Daddy. She got too excited and ripped one page of the book. Josh took it away from her. Although she is naughty with her mother almost daily, having Daddy take something away created quite the impression. She has talked about her monster book off and on all week. Yesterday, I was driving her home from daycare and asked her, "Who ripped your monster book?" She looked at me with a very serious face and said, "Daddy." 18 months and already perfecting the blame game...I think we have a long road ahead of us!

Easily entertained

Random things that entertain Elizabeth...

1. Having mom wrap her up in 10+ blankets
2. "Testing" everything in her mouth
3. Playing with buckets of sand or water
4. Opening the cabinets on her play kitchen
5. Playing with boxes
6. Moving objects from one bucket to another
7. Running up and down small hills
8. Singing songs over and over and over...mom and dad are getting sick of "Mary Had a Little Lamb."

We're kind of wondering why we spend money on toys!

New Toys

Elizabeth is loving up her new toyp. This weekend, Grandma Kathy came to visit and bought Elizabeth a kitchen. She loves it, and continues to yell "kitchen" and dance. We also filled up a plastic container with colored sand- a makeshift sandbox for now. Elizabeth is thrilled with it but still learning how to keep the sand in the box.