I know, I know . . .

It's been a while. Sorry Emma and my one other fan.

Tomorrow the roofers arrive. We are having our roof ripped off and replaced. Hopefully we won't find anything too grizzly when we remove the current roof. It's exciting on one hand: I'm pleased that my house will finally look decent from the outside (assuming of course that once the roof/soffit/fascia/gutters are done that I also replace the railing and FINALLY get around to planting some flowers in our dirt/weed beds). On the other hand, it's a little depressing to spend $12,000 on your house and still have a nasty old kitchen and gross bathrooms. Green faux marble linoleum can only look good for so many years, and at 30+ years, it is definitely past its prime.

I spend the majority of my time inside my home, and so that's where I want to spend the money on improvements. Sigh. However, I am pleased that we will rise up a bit in our ranking for curb appeal of all the houses on the street.

In other news, Baby Jenny continues to be adorable and learn new things and develop new skills all the time. She frequently speaks and signs simultaneously. Her vocabulary includes, but is not limited to: ball, dog (actually she signs "dog" but says "woof"), socks, shoes, more, Daddy, Mum, kitty, Jenny, and banana. You should really see her sign banana. It is utterly adorable!

Her cognitive skills are advancing at a quicker pace than her physical skills, but she is now walking around while holding onto my fingertips. She also can go up and down staircases with little or no help, and can turn around and slide off a couch without injury.

Her favorite playtime activity is throwing the cat food into the cat's water dish (she likes the plunking sound, I believe), and splashing her hands in the same water dish. She likes to eat crumbs off the floor after having thrown them there herself. She likes to play with my red telephone booth magnet that hangs on the refrigerator. She likes to sit in a pile of books and take her time perusing each one. She especially likes the snowman book that has a stuffed snowman head on the back page, and holes on all the previous pages. She amazes herself by sticking her foot in the hole and successfully pulls it out again.

Another game she has just discovered, with the assistance of her Auntie Shelley, is pulling objects out of a bag or bucket and handing them to you. This is only fun if you say "thank you" in increasingly strange ways so that she can laugh uproariously at you before handing you the next object.

She is an absolute delight, and I am so grateful to be her mother.