Tulip Time Pictures

Here's December rolling along down the street as we do Street Scrubbing. She is in heaven because she is surrounded by dolls!

December and Emilia in the wagon together (this is when they were getting lots of stares and "awww"s from people. They both loved that tennis ball December is holding and kept on stealing it from each other)

The two girls are watching the parade pass by, along with my cousin Justine (in front) and me

They are enthralled by the sounds and movement of the marching band



We are taking a break from our Street Scrubbing in the Dutch marketplace. My cousins, Justine and Makayla, are on the left and in the front. In the back is my Mom, my sister Kelli, and I. Everybody's holding someone!

Markus is giving a kiss to Emilia, before we start on the Street Scrubbing parade (there's that tennis ball again)

Markus is pretty cute!

We are very focused on watching the parade

December is carrying around a doll dressed in a Dutch costume

December and I hanging out before we walk to the parade

We stopped at the greenhouse that Mom works at to look at flowers and take some pictures (December's not in this one -- she's asleep in the car)

December is all ready to scrub the streets!

This is my Great-Grandma...she is December's Great-Great-Grandma! She loves Tulip Time and the parade and was there to watch us all walk down the street.

We had so much fun at Tulip Time! The pre-parade that we were in was called Street Scrubbing. Anyone can come line up to be in the Street Scrubbing, as long as you had on a Dutch costume and were preferrably wearing wooden shoes. You also need to bring along a bucket and a broom, to scrub the streets. The firemen open up the fire hydrants ((not full blast)) so that there are filling stations for your buckets as you walk down the street. You dump your water on the street and scrub with your broom (but no one does this with any kind of gusto)! There were TONS of people there to do Street Scrubbing -- mostly parents with small children.

On Saturday, my Mom, December, and I went back to the greenhouse pictured above and got flowers. I've been planting them today and have really been enjoying myself. I still have lots more to plant, too -- and my Mom says it's time for the bean seeds to go in the ground. December loves to be outside and has already brought me her shoes to put on so that we can go out...so I'd better get planting!

She's not a baby girl, she's a spider monkey!

December learned how to climb up on the couch yesterday. Yikes! She's too good at it already. She sometimes just sits up there, lounging about, like Brad and I do, but she also likes to jump up and down on the couch and flail around. The couch just isn't big enough for her to do that and be safe! She needs a super close eye on her. If I look away for a moment, she's climbed up on the couch and is bouncing around or lounging around. Ha ha -- even as I wrote that, she climbed up on the couch, and I had to go rescue her. Oh! There she goes again...I think I'd better go.

Playing Around

Ever since she was able to crawl, December has liked to play with doors. She finds it fascinating to open and close them. She likes to close herself into a room...and then get upset if the door can't be opened up again. She was doing it again today, so I thought I'd take a couple of pictures. As you can see, she is mighty pleased with herself!

We're having another house showing tonight. We had one last night and the night before that. So now our total is 7 showings in 3 weeks. I think what's scaring people off is that our basement gets wet (Brad and I think we live on top of a spring). It's not like you can go swimming in the basement or anything (you MAYBE can splash in a little puddle, if you tried really hard), but Brad's going to install a sump pump. We sold those when I worked in a hardware store, but I never really knew alot about them. Now I'll get to know one first-hand...unfortunately!

Where's Waldo?

Did you ever do any of the "Where's Waldo" books? Well, this is "Where's December?" (it's not really that hard, though..)

December is inspecting a fluffy white dandelion

Yesterday we had a blast at Tulip Time! I want to get some pictures from Mom before I put them up here, though. The day started out super rainy and dark, but a few hours before we needed to walk in the parade, the rain stopped, the ground dried off, and the sun came out! It ended up being quite warm, actually. So it was a wonderful day for a parade! December loved being in the pre-parade...she got to ride in a red wagon. At one point, December and Emilia were both in the wagon together, wearing their matching little dresses, and they were soo adorable! They got lots of stares and pictures taken of themselves. They looked like little twins riding in the wagon together. Hopefully Mom has a picture of that -- we were far away from Brad and the camera at that point. I'll tell you more about the fun day when I get some pictures up.