Bunnies and Eggs

Happy Easter! To kick off our long weekend, we got to visit some real little bunnies at Phllips Toy Mart here in Nashville.

Aren't they cute?!

I basically grew up right around the corner and never even knew about this annual tradition. You can even hold the bunnies! I think I was more excited than Jane.

My favorite part was when Jane looked at the bunnies and did her "hug" sign. Precious.

From there we headed west to Memphis. On Saturday we went to the botanical gardens where Jane got to participate in her first Easter egg "hunt." You will see that the eggs are actually just scattered on the ground, so it was more of an Easter egg gathering race.

You may also observe that all the other kids are quite a bit older (and faster) than Jane. That is because we missed the "two and under" hunt so we had to sneak in the "six to nine year old" hunt; I mean race.

But Jane was quite happy with her single egg, so I don't think anyone minded.

When Jane finished opening and closing her egg a few dozen times, we wandered over to a pond to see the ducks. There were even five little ducklings! It was pretty cute to watch them plop in the water and line up behind the mom as they paddled away.

On Sunday Jane participated in her second ever Easter egg hunt at Fancy and Papoo's house. This time she got three eggs set aside in a patch of grass just for her. The other children (cousins and neighbors) were surprisingly respectful of her eggs. No one attempted to swipe them, even though they were tantalizingly sitting in plain sight.

Token family photo.

Finally, the singing bunny. You can always count on Fancy to have a holiday character who plays music, sings, and/or dances. In this case, the bunny's ears flop around while it plays a bunny themed version of "Rockin' Robin." Jane thought it was so funny and just wanted to hug him while he was playing.

Do you remember the dancing penguins from Christmas? If not, click here and scroll down to the second video. Jane still does a little wiggle dance every time she sees a penguin. Ha!

Walk of Life

Jane is walking! For real this time... not in a walker, or holding our hands, or pushing a toy lion (which did eventually work, once she became more stable). Now she is so confident and proud of her new ability, that she chooses walking over crawling, even when she is sitting on the floor and wants an object that is also on the floor about ten feet away. Instead of quickly crawling over to it, she takes the time to stand up (quite a balancing feat at this point) and walk over to it, then sit down again (also a bit of an effort if she wants to land softly). It's pretty cute.
So, here she is on two legs!

One of my favorite things about Jane's new independence is the way she can choose her own activities instead of me saying, "Hey, here's a ball. Can you roll the ball?" Now I can just open a cabinet and see what happens... Well, I just had to take a picture of this discovery I made after Jane had been unpacking the lazy suzan.

It may not look like much, but it just struck me as so cool and funny and cute that Jane decided to turn the big bowl upside down, set a funnel on it, then top it off with a little cup. I don't know... it was just cute.

Ok, last tid bit for today: The Evolution of "Mommy." When Jane first started referring to me it was "ma ma ma ma ma" times infinity. Then it became "mam mam" then "Mama" and finally the most common "Mommy." Needless to say, I was pretty thrilled. Although, after about five hundred times a day it can get a little tiresome. To get an idea of what it is like to be Jane's mommy, watch this:

Last Sunday, after all those progressions and finally landing on the word we all say when referring to me (Mommy), Jane decided to take it one more step. So for some unknown reason, I am now "Mommy-o."  Go figure.