May and June Fun!

We've been busy with lots of summer fun! Hannah seems to be gaining personality and independence on a daily basis. We frequently hear "I want to do it!!" or "You stay there! Let me do it!". We love this new found independence (most of the time!) and it's so fun to see her personality form. She's spunky, fun, free-spirited, energetic, emotional, talkative, and enthusiastic. She's a two-year old with tons of energy and she's lots of fun to be around. Greg and I both wonder just where this spunkiness is coming from...her personality seems to be much stronger (and way more energetic!) than both of ours put together :)

That first picture is Hannah's hand after she's been "dying stuff". This is a new activity that she loves--using food coloring, cups of water, and a pitcher to dye water different colors and mix them together, etc. She loves it and I think especially loves that she can do it "by herself" and create her own concoctions without much help.

These are some pictures of Hannah in the strawberry patch in the backyard. She was a big "helper" picking the berries and eventually learned to pick the red ones :) She also loves the little ones--green or red. We picked a lot of berries and made homemade strawberry jam a few times too. Yum!




A recent new hobby for Hannah is playing with tools :) She loves to raid Greg's workbench and find all of the hammers, screwdrivers, screws, etc. to pretend with. Her favorite tool is the studfinder...here she is searching for studs on her stuffed lamb :)


Mees cousins! Hannah loves her cousins and these boys love her. When we go to Uncle Jeff and Aunt Teresa's house, she always loves to play with the boys until she's absolutely exhausted (and so are we!). They have a lot of energy! :) What great cousins they are and she's always glad to see them!





Fishing fun at Papa A's house! Hannah helps dig for worms and loves to feed the fish too. This was our first fishing experience at Papa's pond. Hannah even managed to catch a bluegill :)












We went to the Memorial Day parade in Columbia with Gramma Jan and Grampa Bill and Geni and Sam. This was one of the first parades we've been to and she loved it--although it was a little loud...hence the covering of the ears almost the entire time.




Liberty spray ground! This is one of our favorite places to go. A simple spraypark here in Liberty. She was apprehensive at first and wasn't sure she wanted to go in, but once she did it was pure bliss :)






More water fun!







We've also had lots of fun with visits from family!
Papa A came to visit and we had a great time at Deanna Rose Farmstead, played in the mini-pool and slip and slide, and went to the City Market!












And Gramma Jan and Grampa Bill have come up to visit a couple of times too! Hannah adores all of her grandparents and we love when they come to visit!






We went on a trip to Omaha recently to visit Mark and Mandi and the kids. We had a great time at the zoo and the Children's Museum. We even managed to get back and forth to Omaha without too much difficulty despite the extensive flooding of I-29.

Omaha Zoo






The Amazing Pizza Factory--this place is really quite incredible. It's like Chucke Cheese x 1000. There are bumper cars, a "roller coaster", skee ball and tons of other games, mini-golf, etc etc. It was fun but completely over-stimulating for kids AND adults!


I love this picture. Greg (and Hannah) were so excited to earn tickets so they could cash them in for a prize :) Hannah put a token in this machine and the two of them pushed a button...it stopped on a random number and it happened to be the jackpot. Greg was even more excited than Hannah :) Tickets kept spilling out. At the end of the night they cashed in their millions of tickets for a little toy each for Hannah, Nora, and Nate.




She demanded that I step outside the train area so that she could ride this completely by herself :)


Children's Museum--a fun place! Hannah's most recent preference is to ride the bench on every carousel she sees. She prefers that to the horses...so here we are riding the carousel :)


Nora, Nate, and Hannah on a crazy car at the museum.