The Tale of Little Blue Overalls Skirt*

Once upon a time there lived in a certain village a little country girl, the prettiest creature who was ever seen. Her mother was excessively fond of her; and her grandmother doted on her still more. This good woman had a little blue overalls skirt made for her. It suited the girl so extremely well that everybody called her Little Blue Overalls Skirt.

One day her mother said to her, "Go, my dear, and see how your grandmother is doing, for I hear she moved to within a 4-hour drive from you. Take her a kiss, and this little poofy side ponytail."

Little Blue Overalls Skirt set out immediately to go to her grandmother, who lived in another village (Marion, IN).

When she arrived she noticed all of the boxes stacked all around her house. "Grandmother, what big stacks of boxes you have!"

"All the better to move close to you with, my child."
"Grandmother, what a pretty bird you have!"

"All the better to make you smile with, my child."
"Grandmother, what tiny chairs you have!"

"All the better to entertain you with, my child."
The next day, Little Blue Overalls Skirt returned home after a wonderful time at Grandmother's and Grandfather's house. She was all tuckered out from the exploring and playing and reading that she did there. So she grabbed her bear, Bear, and went to sleep.

The end.

*Liberally borrowed from "Little Red Riding Hood" by Charles Perrault

Nap time.

As Lyla gets bigger little behaviors/mannerisms/etc. start developing that make her seem more and more like a little girl (as opposed to a baby). For example, when sleeping, she will role all around in her crib often ending up in some really funny sleeping positions. See for yourself:

The trip to Detroit

Our trip to Dallas started out rocky as Michigan was hit by a Spring snow storm on March 21st. We had planned on driving over to the Detroit area on that Friday in order to spend the night with my cousin and then leave from DTW the following afternoon. And despite getting 4 inches of snow, we carried through with that plan. What normally is a ~2 hour drive took us 4 hours and the highway was strewn with accidents and slide-offs. Needless to say it was quite stressful. It was also the first time we've ever changed Lyla's diaper in the car... parked in the parking lot of a Target... funsies.

Our evening with Laura and Andy (the cousin) was wiped out by the trip but we still had a good time talking and enjoying Lyla's cuteness. They hadn't seen Lyla since January so were quite impressed with how much she's grown. Here are the pictures of them being quite impressed:

We had hoped to spend some quality time together Saturday but (seeing as it was our first trip with Lyla) we weren't able to relax as much as we wanted. We spent a lot of the next day getting ready for our flight but did get to hang out a bit. One of the things we had hoped to do was have Andy take some photos of Lyla. Andy's quite the photographer and Lyla's quite photogenic so it seemed like a natural thing to do. Unfortunately Lyla was too tired to smile for the camera and we only got one photo of her against the stylized backdrop (we didn't even have time to put her in front of something billowy).


BTW, those are overalls, I know they look like mom-jeans... but they're not. Anyway, after a delicious lunch prepared by Katherine we headed of to the airport... which is where will pick up next time. Until then... er, bye?