Hi everyone!

It's Tuesday already! My Mom and Dad are going to my Mom's high school reunion (50th!) in Kentucky on Friday, so we are without a babysitter, BUT I decided to take Friday off and then just decided yesterday to take Thursday off too to make it a nice 4 day weekend! We plan to take Marissa to the zoo on Sunday (first trip!) and then to a rollerskating birthday party for our little cousin on Sunday afternoon. I don't know if Marissa will want to get on skates, but we are going to let her if shows an interest (and she wants to do everything the big kids do!).

Last week one day my Mom watched my cousin's kids and they played with Marissa and played hard. I have never seen my girl so tired in my life! She would gladly not take a nap every day, but this day her treat was to play with the kids all day and not take one. By 6:00, Phillip was driving her home and she was out. I mean OUT. To the point that he fully changed her into her night clothes and she didn't wake up. And didn't wake up until 6:30 the next morning!! If you know Marissa, you'd know she isn't the greatest of sleepers, so this was BIG! ha! She had a great time though with her cousins!

We are still enjoying our family room, although Phillip and I feel it won't be officially complete until the patio is finished (it didn't get finished last week) and our roman shades are on the windows (they look sort of bare!).

I have attached a couple of pictures of our room and our piano (that we hope Marissa plays beautifully!) and also the curio cabinet/clock that was my Grandma's, along with some of her bird collection. Most of you know that my Grandma is still living, but is in the process of getting her house ready to sell since she is in an assisted care facility now. In a way it's nice that she is giving us the things she wanted us to have while she is still living because she can see us enjoy it in our homes. She turns 95 in about a month. Wow.

Oh, also I'm going to include a couple of our girl too. She is obsessed with this raincoat and boots!! My co-worker bought it for her and also bought the boots in Japan when she was there. I almost have to hide it from her so she'll possibly forget about it (fat chance!), but she usually catches a glimpse of it and then has to have it again. haha! It's actually a 12 months size, but fits her nicely (runs big obviously!!). We'll have to get another when she outgrows it...

She is talking more and more now. It's just amazing how she took off overnight on this. As most of you know, Marissa is in speech therapy just to help her say more words. It wasn't something she had to do, but something I wanted to try to catch early if something was wrong. She wasn't where she should be as far as what the "guidelines" are, so we decided that it couldn't hurt her. I'm not sure if the speech therapy actually helped or she just finally started talking on her own. She is not where she should be, I guess (according to the "experts"), but is quickly getting there. She went from saying virtually nothing, to saying 2-3 word phrases. We still freak out when she actually says something more than just a word!!

I think that's it for an update for us!! Better sign off now before I get started on the high gas prices and my opinion on that....ha!

Have a great week!

Kristi, Phillip and Marissa