north

tuning help?
Originally uploaded by Kristy and Eva.

we're in north dakota, and it's so nice to be here with my whole family in the same place. it seems to take more work to make that happen these days, so i appreciate it even more. we had a smooth trip here, but i've never had so many offers for help as i did that day flying with eva.

some highlights... grandpa made eva a snowman, mama got to go shopping and actually *try on* more than one pair of jeans (i bought two pair), we drove through a pumpkin patch at night with 1,000 lit jack-o-lanterns, and during the vikings game eva learned to do "touchdown!" with her arms upstretched. we've just been having a nice time hanging around playing -- eva's the center of attention, and everyone seems content to sit around on the floor and play with her all day long. i can't argue with that.

this week, eva has learned to say "pumpkin", "snowman", and "apple" (we've been eating tons of apples off the tree) -- all words of the season, it seems. well, that and "pillow" which has little to do with anything. but more than talking, she's been doing funny things in association with talking in her sleep.

i'm accustomed to her smiling in her sleep (which has progressed to laughing recently), but the talking is more or less new this week. once she reached over and poked me (eyes closed, asleep) and said "mama". (she does this identifying game all day long, and i've noticed particularly when someone new comes along, as if to say "this is my mama, you can't get me."). she rolled over this morning and an extra bit of pillow sham was hanging onto her head, and in her sleep, she signed and said "hat". a few minutes later she rolled over and woke up, and signed "where is?" and said hat. i guess she was looking for the hat from her dream. a few minutes after that, when she was more awake, she lifted the blanket to look under it, looked around, then again signed "where is?" and said hat. so funny. and the other morning, she woke up and signed "where" and made her first attempt at saying "julie" (at least that's my guess). she also woke up one morning and looked at sue's organ and signed "music", though she's not seen a piano played in at least 5 months. who knew she could remember things from when she was that young?

this photo is of eva "helping" grandpa with his guitar. she sees him and starts signing "music", and he lets her strum the strings. here, i guess she's helping him adjust the tuning?