the last of our beach pics...

on our last day at the beach, a friend named josh, helped mommy & daddy with their new camera. on saturday night, he took pictures of our family and he also took pictures of mr russ & mrs stephanie (the people we were staying with.) we were pretty amazed at these pictures because josh took them at about 7pm!! the sun had already set, but he is just a really good photographer!

delilah the dolphin & other fun stuff...

on friday at the beach, we visited gulf world, which is like a mini-sea world aquarium place in panama city beach. lately, the dolphin has become a favorite animal of mine -- in fact, i love them about as much as i do my old duckies. at gulf world, i actually got to touch & feed a real dolphin!! our dolphin is named delilah & she is 38 years old! at first i was hesitant about touching her, but i warmed up to her pretty quickly! i did pretty well at patiently following the instructions of delilah's trainer so that i could interact with her.

in the first pic, you can see me feeding delilah a fish as a reward for following commands. i cannot believe i actually touched the fish!! in the next picture, i am rubbing delilah's belly.

you can also see some of the tricks that delilah performed for us. ("us" was just me, mommy, and one other little girl that you can see in these pictures. so my encounter with the dolphin was pretty up-close-and-personal.)

gulf world also put on a big dolphin show. sometimes i have trouble paying attention during things like this, but this show was very exciting! here, you can see one of the dolphins is throwing her trainer up into the air!

on friday afternoon, of course we went to the beach again. i enjoyed running in the waves & throwing sand some more. daddy brought a kite & he let it fly up ReaLLy high!

let me tell you a story...

i like to fashion "dolphins" from my play-doh. here are some examples of my work. during some downtime in our room yesterday, i told mommy a story. it goes like this: the little red dolphin asked, "who will help me take the cheeseburger in paradise to the margaritaville?" "not i," said the orange dolphin. "not i," said the teal dolphin. "not i," said the blue dolphin. "not i," said the yellow dolphin. the little red dolphin said, "then i will take it myself." and she did.

we're at the beach! woo hoo! the beach!

we have taken a trip to panama city beach, florida. i am having SOOOO much fun! we arrived about 3pm on wednesday and immediately went down to the beach. our weather is a little cooler than when i have visited the beach before, but it is still warm enough for me to play in the waves! i like running through the water & yelling out "we're at the beach! woo hoo! the BEACH!" (dora the explorer says this in one of my favorite books.)

we also played some in the pool. but my favorite is definitely the beach!

we usually see seagulls when we visit the beach. but this time we got to enjoy this brown pelican too! he spent some time floating on the water but he also came up to an area of beach beside where i was playing. daddy took this picture -- he says the pelican actually allowed him to come fairly close.

we have already visited margaritaville. i have been talking about "cheeseburgers in paradise" since our beach trip last year.

celebrate Easter every day!

i went to church with daddy & mommy on Easter sunday morning. i really enjoy my sunday school class. but we knew there would be a big crowd & i didn't want to get upset like i had at the egg hunt. so we only stayed for about an hour (while mommy & daddy were in the church service.) then we came home & looked through my Easter basket. i received several new books & some candy! i also received some little stamps that have quickly become favorites. i put them in my purse & call them "my special things." one of them is the same shape as my blue hamster wheel. i LoVE it!

you may also notice that i am wearing sandals in these dressy pictures. last summer i was afraid of sandals, but mommy has been talking to me about these shoes for a couple of weeks now in preparation to wear them. now i like the sandals because the flowers on them have little "reflections." they are actually just little metal brads as the center of the flowers, but i can see my reflection in them! mommy is so proud of me for discovering that these shoes really not scary.

sometimes i am afraid to go outside -- i am scared of barking dogs & buzzing bees. but i did really well on Easter morning. we "borrowed" the backdrop of our neighbors' azaleas. they compliment my new dress nicely, don't they? (thank you, aunt lorna, for my PrETTy dress!)

then we went to grammy & pappy's house for lunch. after lunch, we had another egg hunt. notice -- i am wearing a different outfit in these pictures... i had my first outside-the-house potty-training mishap! i fell asleep in the car & peed on myself! so i had to change clothes. (but mommy just didn't realize that i would fall asleep that quickly!!) but i am still doing SOOO well with the potty-training! i am truly growing UP!

my own Easter egg hunt...

this morning was the big egg hunt at church. the festivities began in the sanctuary where we sang songs & listened to a story. i behaved *sooo* well -- and this included wearing panties instead of a diaper!! (we have continued to be totally diaper for since last tuesday!) then the children & parents broke up into different age groups. we were on our way to the playground, but i just could not handle being so tight in a large crowd. i was so upset that we didn't even make it to the hunting grounds. but that's ok because we had our own private egg hunt when we returned home!!

after i had gathered up all my eggs, we sat on the patio to inspect the treasures in the eggs. one of the first eggs i opened contained a tiny bottle of bubbles. well, i was no longer interested in the contents of the remaining eggs. i just wanted to BLOW BUBBLES!

my blue wheel & my pollys...

today was a special day for many reasons. i had my first totally diaper-free day!! i even had to go to school, grammy's house, and other errands -- so we were in the car quite a bit too. i got so many stamps, i look like i am covered in tattoos! then when we got home, a package was waiting for me. allow me to preface this story a bit... lately, i have started watching my baby einstein videos again. in one particular video, there is a little hamster running on a blue wheel. i have fallen in LOVE with the blue wheel in this video. well, daddy found one just for me!!

in this first picture you can see me waiting patiently for daddy to open the box. at this time, i still didn't know what i was about to receive.

now i have my blue wheel & the little running hamster!! i LOvE this! i enjoy just watching him run & i also let my zhu-zhu pet watch too. (the hamster & zhu-zhu pet look a lot alike.) i was SOO excited!!!

then i played with my polly pocket dolls too. grammy found some more pollys at a consignment sale, so i enjoyed lining up all my new dolls.

potty training, phase two....

today we don't really have any errands (or excuses!) to leave the house. unfortunately, i have really regressed on the potty training scene. so mommy says we are done with diapers, at least when we're at home. my original prize for "pee in the potty" was getting to play with the phone. but at school they give me stamps for pee & stickers for poop (haven't gotten any stickers yet!!) so we are trying the stamps here at home today. it's working pretty well -- in fact, mommy & i have a competition going on. every time i pee in the toilet, i get a stamp. every time i have an accident, mommy gets the stamp. so far, we are pretty even in the competition, but i hope to win by the end of the day. in one of these pictures, you can see my "MK" stamp on my arm. and yes, i AM wearing a halloween shirt. but when you are getting all your clothes wet, you just kind of have to wear whatever is left over! wish us luck!

painting!

i painted for the first time yesterday using real paint! aunt judy gave me some wooden cars a while ago, and i've recently lost them. mommy and daddy think they must be in a grocery cart somewhere. i loved those cars and was very sad when they were gone, so mommy and daddy stayed up after i went to bed friday and made me some more! only they weren't finished painting them, so me and daddy finished them. that's when i got to paint! i was very careful and gentle with the brush. you can see my finished art on the plate!