Walks and More...

Most days Alicia and I go play outside.  She LOVES to be outside.  In fact, I can't mention the word unless I'm ready to take her out!  Mostly our play consists of walks down the sidewalk and to the neighbors yard.  Considering it is winter, Alicia thinks everything green is a weed, and she's becoming good at pulling them!  Here is her working on some stubborn weeds.

She also sniffs the flowers - well, sort of.  She blows out rather than sniffing in!  When  you ask if she wants to smell the flowers she bends over typically several feet away from the flowers and blows.   Then she will work her way closer, still blowing out - "smelling the flowers"!  This is Alicia smelling our neighbor's flowers.

And sometimes we play with friends.   There are a lot of little kids in the neighborhood.  We played ball with a 2 yr. old neighbor named David and ever since Alicia has been able to kick a ball!  I'm impressed with that.  She doesn't get her coordination from me!  When she says "kick it" it sounds like "khaki."  And "kicking it" isn't limited to balls.  A few days ago she was playing soccer with her doll's bottle across the den.  At least she is creative!   Here is Alicia with Brayden.  He's still a bit too young to play much, but they pose for a great picture!

Sometimes our walks become educational.  Alicia has known what stars and hearts were for a long time, but those are pretty easy since they look so different from other shapes.  However,   I thought she only knew circles and squares when shown them from her shape books or puzzles - more memorization than getting the concept. Well about 3 weeks ago we were walking down the sidewalk, and Alicia starts running and saying "durcle! durcle!"  She goes over and picks up a discarded milk carton top.  Sure enough - in the shape of a circle.  That was the first time I realized that she understood the concept of a shape.  Now she can tell us the shape of bracelets, balls, wheels, etc...  We are working on colors and other shapes now.  I think she has memorized some colors, but I don't know that she has gotten the concept yet.  But that's also what I thought about circles, so who knows!  Here is Alicia and one of her favorite circles - the man hole cover!!

And just for fun...  Here is Alicia lounging in Daddy's chair.  

And this is the face she makes when we ask, "Can you make a face?"

Doesn't she look mischievous?