Our weekend activities

Listening to audio books at the library

Tiger Tales at the Walker - She sat attentively for 30 minutes!

Sculpture Garden

A warm walk around Como

Block building - 15 high!

One and a half!

It's hard to believe that she's already getting this old!  Nina measures 2 feet, 7.5 inches and weighs in at 24 lbs, 9 oz putting her around the 50th percentile in both.  The doctor is impressed with her words, eating, sleeping, and called her precocious.  She yelled pretty much the whole check-up in fear of the shots that never came because she's up-to-date with all her immunizations.  She did enjoy reading some of the books while waiting.  We had some birthday muffins to celebrate and she did a good job cleaning up afterward.

Nina still loves going to daycare and playing with all her friends.  She likes hugging the babies and telling some of the boys "no" and "shhhh."  They all love getting to play outside in the mid-forties weather in January, who would've guessed?!

Nina and her best frenemy Kenzie  -----------  Nina and Mia

Watching the baby -------- Her favorite toy, the shovel

Playing "Go Fish" against her toes

Holidays at High Speed

Here is a video jam-packed with our holiday break action.  One of our favorite re-occurring moments was during breakfast every morning; Nina would take a few bites, look up, see the tree, and then she would point and say "oooooo" until we turned on the lights.  I'll give $5 to anyone who can memorize the words to this song.  Back to work!

Minnesota Warm Winter (so far)

It's been unseasonably warm this Christmas season and Nina has been enthralled to be outside again.  She loved going back to the park and other places she hadn't seen in months.  Nina is quite the ham this break; laughing, dancing, drumming, shouting and she never stops moving.

Penguins and trying to touch the ray at the Minnesota Zoo

Nina the Explorer

Checking out the ice at the Rec Center

Reading her Gus book

Christmas

The Naks liked staying home for a change and gladly welcomed the Zeilingers in for the holiday.  Nina was so excited for Santa to come that she threw up the night before.  Her health made her a bit crabby, but she still loved getting to see Nana and Papa.

 Going to the Minnesota Zoo with Annie and Adam

Christmas Conservatory

As mentioned earlier, Nina has loved her Christmas music and has tried to make some of her own.  Here's a collection of some of her greatest hits:

Owatonna Christmas

The Naks headed down to O-town for a celebration before Grandpa Rod and Grandma Katie head South to visit Cassie in Florida.  We played a lot of games and Nina loved hanging out with Gus.  The biggest influence on the weekend would be the gift of a PERCUSSION SET from Aunt Annie and Uncle Adam.  Nina loves banging on her drum, using her maracas, and hitting things with her drumsticks.  She puts her heavy drum over her neck and tries to march around while playing (video upcoming).

Nina has also taken to playing the harmonica as of late.  She has progressed quickly; she used to just pretend it was a hot food item and blow on it, then she started saying "shoe" into it to make some more noise, and now she's getting pretty good.

We took Nina to get her first "real" haircut and it went as well as her trip to see Santa.  She did like the bubbles, the sucker, and the kids, but she still wailed throughout the actual cut.  The only time she let up was when a giant clump of hair fell into her lap and she had to analyze the situation, say "hair," and give us a confused look before resuming her screaming.

Santa! Yay! Wait... don't give me to Santa!

We made another trip to Holidazzle this year and Nina was very excited.  She loved all the lights, seeing all the kids and talking about Santa.  No surprise, when we actually got to see the jolly old guy, Nina was not happy to be given over to him.  There's a bit of a difference between last year's photo and this year's.

Nina did enjoy the parade.  She yelled a lot, did some dancing, and LOVED the moose (reindeer).  Between each float she would always say "more, more, more."  She says oooo whenever we drive by Christmas lights in the car and demands Christmas music more often than not.

Nina will now try to say most short words if you ask her and is working on some phrases.  She likes trying to say "I love you" but often gets so excited she just shouts out "YOU" and gives a big smile.   Of course her favorite words are still "mine" and "no," but "bus" has been another favorite this week, maybe because Great-Aunt Rocky gave her that bus book.

Chillin with her snowmen friends

Rocking her snow-suit