our little girl

Liesel's domain-- her little world-- is our front porch. We have it gated, so every morning after breakfast she drags her stuffed animals and doll outside and proceeds to buckle all the buckles on both strollers and give her animals "rides" while I listen to a stream of the cutest little words and phrases as I clean up and do the dishes. She likes to bring her books out here too and flip through the pages or sit in the chairs. My favorite thing is to hear her sing. I recognized a song for the first time this week! "Ashes, Ashes fall down!" and "Sunbeam, Sunbeam, Sunbeam. . ." (she doesn't really know how to end this one). melt.melt.melt.melt. 

Liesel is also on an affectionate kick. She asks me to hug and kiss almost everything. Her nickels? Yep, I have to hug them (it's pretty hard to hug nickels, btw). Her elk? Yep. A feather, rock, a glass of water? Yes to all of the above. And as I was kneading the bread the other morning, she insisted that she hug and kiss it several times (I don't mind my bread with a little PB, honey and Liesel spit-- do you?). 

Another favorite word is "touch it?" or "hold it?" She says this even while reading books-- she puts her chubby little hand in a scoop and asks to "hold it" (like a duckling or picture of grapes) as she proceeds to pick it out of the page. It has never worked, yet she seems determined. Maybe 3D vision is her superpower?

Her biggest advancements lately are definitely verbal. She is talking constantly these days. Our alarm clock is usually Liesel in a stream of words. She is using short two or three word sentences more and more. Here are a few examples:

"hapo up high." (helicopter up high-- she is SO obsessed with helicopters)

"daddy working"

"mommy's soup"

"I sleepy."

"I want more wa-wa." 

"buckle up Doe" (doe is her bear's name)

and the list could go on forever. She is seriously always talking and will surprise us with words or things she knows. Like the other week we were hiking and she starting counting 1-8! (omitting the number 4 which she will not say). . . and the other day she drew a circle and said, "circle." Say wha. . .?

One of my favorite things is watching her during nursery through the glass. She is hilarious! She was getting rocked in a cradle by three 3-yr-olds today and she always seems to be eating (since she doesn't get goldfish or animal crackers at our house, she goes a little nuts there). She still seems social and plays really well with other kids for the most part. 

Her nature vocab is off the hook. She pretty much showed up a 20-yr-old girl a month ago at church when the girl pointed to a picture of a buffalo and said, "guys, look at this whooly mammoth!" to which Liesel walked by, pointed and said, "Bison!" Everyone started cracking up. She knows all sorts of animals, their sounds and their habitats (pika, moose, elk, bison, squirrel, fish, manatee, dolphin. . . you name it). 

There is tons more I could write about this little one and all she's learning. As a matter of fact she's looking at this right now and just said, "cute!" But alas, we have to leave for church #2 in a few minutes and so I'm cut short. Here are a few more Liesel photos for your enjoyment: