Seeing that my last post was over 2 weeks ago, I guess it goes without saying that I’ve had a bit of writer’s block. Sometimes, I have tons of stuff to show and tell and other times, I just don’t feel like doing so. The latter has been the case for the past few weeks. But now I do feel like sharing so here’s a bit of catch up.
Easter was a fun, family event. No Easter egg hunts for us because The Little Empress is still too young but our friends Meg and Mitch came over to shoot some 1 year portraits of TLE. We invited them over for brunch with the family and they shot a bunch of portraits throughout the afternoon. We also managed to get some babywearing shots as well as family shots since we don’t have an official family portrait. 
I can’t wait until they’re done with the post-processing!
Since we live in an area that is well known for its u-pick farms, I got a bunch of friends together to go strawberry picking. I discovered that strawberry picking isn’t as easy as I’d like with a baby on my back but it was still fun! It was great to hang out with friends and enjoy wonderful, fresh from the field sweet berries! YUM!! Cherry season is almost here as well. I can see myself gorging on cherries in about a month. Plus there’s a bunch of pluots, apricots, peaches, local honey, fresh pressed olive oil and farm fresh eggs available at local stands, too! I swear, living near farms and having farm fresh produce at your fingertips is a godsend for a foodie like me. I could get spoiled on good food living out here.
The Little Empress is growing by leaps and bounds. She has gotten much better at walking and is now happily running. She still falls from time to time but she gets up and goes right back to running. She’s also climbing up the stairs (while being watched) and can climb up and down on the stairs of her little indoor playground.
We visited the mall a few weeks ago where she threw a fit because she didn’t want to be in her stroller. She just wanted to walk but we couldn’t let her. Oh boy, we learned our lesson. After a bit of internal debate, I went ahead and bought her a child harness in the form of a monkey back pack. She doesn’t seem to realize what it is yet, which is fine by me. I initially hated the idea of a child harness but when TLE walks, she isn’t easy to wrangle and I don’t want her to run off without me.
She “talks” a lot more now though we’re having a hard time discerning what she’s trying to say. She babbles with a lot of inflection and it is clear that she seriously thinks she’s saying words but aside from the occasional “Daddy” or “Mama”, it’s hard to tell exactly what she said. She has a bunch more sounds and it seems like she learns a new syllable every other day or so. Hopefully we’ll be able to begin communicating more efficiently.
