cuteness abounds

Have you ever visited Cute Overload? That's what this post feels like.

Above is my niece, Hope, who is growing up so fast and getting cuter by the day. She's eight months old now and has lots of red hair - I'd like to think she takes after her aunt Lisa! Mike was visiting her this morning and sent me the above camera phone photos. I just want to squeeze her.

While I was receiving all sorts of adorableness over the phone, I had a houseful of cute, myself. I got to babysit my favorite little neighbor for six hours today and we had soooo much fun!



It's the first time she's stayed at my house for the afternoon; usually I go to her house to watch her. She played with Sophie and Sadie, jumped on my mini-trampoline, played with a pile of teddy bears, and watched some Noggin.

Oh! Has anyone out there ever seen Yo Gabba Gabba? She was playing in the living room, but when this show started, she stopped, sat down, and was mesmerized for a half hour. The same thing happens when Laura's girls watch it. I don't know what it is about that show, but I love it, too! It's kind of retro-1980's-Devo-Atari-game meets Sesame Street. I've never seen a preschooler who could resist it. Or, apparently, a 39-year old.

Here they all are:

I know! But it's strangely addicting.




Here she is, eating a cracker after what was supposed to be nap time. That didn't go very well. I don't think she ever shut her eyes. Every time I peeked at her, she was smiling at me.

She's being potty trained, and every time she goes successfully, she gets a sticker. Somehow we lost her stickers after about 10 minutes at my house, so I used my return address labels instead. She thought it would be funny to stick them all over herself, so I gave her the roll and let her have at it.



We read books and then she occupied herself by taking all the lids off my Yankee Candle collection and putting them back on. I had all these toys out for her to play with, and she had the most fun with the candles.

And if you don't feel you've been sufficiently bombarded with cuteness, please enjoy these two little camera phone videos of Hope.