It's a Big World Out There

Adelaide has discovered the greatness of the outside world this week. It's finally warm enough, and she's walking well enough to explore our yard. We've been spending at least a couple hours a day outside. I'm usually picking weeds (we've got alot to do in the yard right now). She does all kinds of things.

The first day out she just walked around, checking everything out. The next I filled up a pot with water, gave her a wooden spoon, and let her pretend. Today we moved to the front yard (no fence. ah!). At first I just tried letting her walk around but after awhile the neighbors across the street came home. They've got a little girl around 5 years old. As soon as Adelaide saw their car pull up and the little girl get out, she ran, yes ran, down the side of our yard waving frantically at her. The little girl waved back but went inside. After that Adelaide was drawn to the street so I had to distract her with toys. I gave her an old formula can which she continually filled with other toys and pretended to drink them. Then I let her play with my yard gloves. Obviously she was paying attention because she was able to put them on by herself. Anyway, awhile later the neighbor came back out with his daughter. They came over to say hi. Again Adelaide had the frantic waving going on. [She's really waving alot now. Today we went to Wal-mart and she waved at almost everyone. It's so cute! I've been also trying to get her to blow kisses and she's done it once. She's got the sound down; it's just the combo move she struggles with.] Anyway, back to the neighbor. We've been suspecting forever that our neighbors only spoke Spanish. It was confirmed today when our conversation consisted of Hello and Hola. Alot can be said without words though; I'm counting on that.

Today she also managed to get into an ant pile. I checked our entire yard for piles but didn't think to check our neighbor's yard. That's where she found them. Luckily I caught her before they were all over here, but I still had to take off her pants and diaper to get them all off. I think she only got two bites. She didn't have an allergic reaction or anything so that's good. My brother is allergic to ants so I definitely watched her closely for awhile after it happened. Plus after the Tanners' son, Jude, swelled and his throat closed up after ant bites I've been freaked out by ants.

It's hard to get good pictures of Adelaide these days. She doesn't sit still for long, but here's a few from our time in the yard today. I like the ones of her trying to figure out the gloves. She also really liked playing with our gardenia.





Here's another random photo. Yesterday was Rocky's birthday and the Tanners, our neighbors, made Rocky a special plate of birthday cookies: