Dancing

Morgan got a book from my Grandma Ginos (her great-grandma) for Valentine's Day that plays music. When she first opened the package, she decided to show her appreciation for the gift by doing a little dance. Thank you so much, Grandma! Morgan loves it and we love to read it to her! (Note: she got it on time, I'm just a little bit belated in posting it to our blog)

Lesson Learned...For Mommy!

Morgan always likes to help and most of the time, I try to make a way so she can help. Today, she helped bring in and put away groceries. She has helped me bring them in for a while now, and I usually find a lighter, non-fragile bag for her to carry. Then, she usually wants to play while I put them away.

Today, she decided she wanted to help. I usually bring the groceries into the house and put the bags on the kitchen floor as I put everything away. In the past, this has always worked, but from now on, I can only leave the non-fragile items on the floor.

Big helper, Morgan, decided, while Brian and I weren't looking, to unload one of the bags. You can only imagine what happens next. Well, she tried to pick up the egg carton and bring it to us. Next thing we know, we hear an egg break, and then, and "uh-oh." Morgan, in trying to help, had spilled the eggs and one of them had broken on the kitchen floor. Somehow, all the other eggs managed to stay in the bag, unbroken. She felt so bad. She had a sad look on her face. I didn't get mad at her, I just told her that Mommy needs to put the eggs away and clean up the mess.

But I learned a lesson, and thankfully it only cost us an egg. Morgan (or any toddler, I'm sure) loves to help, but she needs to be CONSTANTLY supervised. Even if I'm just putting a box of cereal away, she can get into something!

Like Mother, Like Daughter

Morgan loves to talk on the phone. Well, she kind of has to love to talk on the phone! Look at her mother! Yes, at such a young age, Morgan has already mastered the skill of multi-tasking. She can talk on her "phone" and play at the same time.
And, for those of you that have actually talked to her on the phone, you know she can be quite the storyteller. So, from what Brian and I can gather from this video, she's doing her rendition of "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" and then talking about her bunny and bananas. Really, it's just the usual nonsense that we can't make out, but she's definitely telling somebody something!

Morgan's First 3-Syllable Word

Well, her first clearly enunciated 3-syllable word. She's been saying words like "med--cine" and "el--phant" for a while, but hasn't quite got the entire word down. On Friday, at the grocery store, we passed by the bananas and she pointed and, clear as can be, said, "Ba-na-na." It's been "bana" or "nan" for the longest time, but she finally got it! So, we caught it on video tonight.

Oh, why she's running away, we don't know. But hey, she said the word!

Cowgirl in Training

Morgan got a giant horse from her aunt Freida for Christmas and absolutely loves to ride on her "Horsey." Today, Brian put a different twist on her usual ride and put the horse, with Morgan on it, on his lap. It was quite the wild ride! I don't know who had more fun...Brian or Morgan! Maybe she should try mutton busting in a couple of years???

Owie!!!

Morgan came home from the babysitter's today with a small cut. I noticed it but didn't think anything because she has bumps and bruises all over the place. For those of you that have seen and/or heard about our New Year's Eve fall, this is NOTHING compared to it!

Anyway, all through dinner and Family Home Evening, she kept showing it to us and telling us all about it and how it was an "owie." By the end of her bath, I was tired of hearing about it, so I asked Brian to get out a band-aid, hoping to make it all better. Boy, was that a mistake!







After we put the band-aid on, Morgan started crying, "owie, owie, owie!" She kept sticking her hand in my face and Brian's face to "kiss it better." We thought the band-aid was supposed to help make it better. I guess we were wrong.



When bedtime came, she couldn't even hold her cup of milk in her right hand. When she was pointing to the duck in her book, she had to use her left hand to point, which was not nearly as successful, but her "owie" hand couldn't even be used to point to a picture. Morgan's "owie" bothered her so much, she couldn't even carry her blanket and bunny to her bed. So, I, mommy, carried her things and tucked her in. It's been over 10 minutes and she's still in her bed saying, "owie, owie..."



Oh, and look how big the band-aid is. You can only imagine how small the actual wound is.


Can we say DRAMA QUEEN???? I wonder who she gets it from?!?!?

Our Latest Video We Love!

Morgan says "Just Right", very cute!

Every night, if Morgan gets to choose her books to read at bedtime, she picks Old Hat, New Hat. While she doesn't seem to interested in most of the book, she anxiously awaits the ending!

Let It Be Christmas...

It's just not Christmas without baking a few goodies (or shoveling the Colorado snow). Morgan decided to help her mom bake this year (and her dad shovel). I'm not sure what was more fun, watching her "help" shovel or watching her "taste" almost every cookie before putting it on the plate. I think she took the Quality Control to the extreme!
Nevertheless, we ended up with enough untouched cookies to take to some neighbors and Morgan had more than enough to be satisfied.


Here she is helping put cookies on plates when they came out of the oven.



"Mixing" the batter to make the best Christmas cookies!

A true cook must always test the recipe!

Little shovels are for sissies! Morgan wants the real thing to help get the job done!

Here Morgan is helping dad with quality control. Hey, somebody needs to stand on the porch and make sure the snow gets shoveled!

Phoenix Trip

Brian's company had training in Scottsdale last week, so we turned it into a family vacation. The weather was fabulous for us (we left snow in Denver) and we enjoyed staying at the Phoenician (a very nice resort), and visiting friends while we were there. Morgan met a new friend, Avery, and enjoyed playing with all of her toys. (I can't get rid of the underlines, sorry)



Here are a few highlights from our trip.


This one is from just before we left, when Brian taugh Morgan how to "lick the bowl" from the cake I had baked.

Morgan's latest fetish is shoes. She always wants to be wearing some, even if they aren't quite her size. Here, Lauren helped her put on her rain boots. They went up past her crotch, and she couldn't walk at all, but Morgan sure thought she was cool!




Morgan went on her second carousel ride at an amusement park called Castles and Coasters, in Phoenix. She wasn't too sure about the horse moving up and down. She preferred the "bug" ride, which was more like the teacups at Disneyland.







The park had a kid-sized ferris wheel, and Morgan really wanted to try it out. So, Brian buckeld her in and she made it around 3 times before wanting off. (Don't worry, the ferris wheel only had 4 cars and Brian was standing right next to it, so Morgan was fine the whole time)




Another thing that only the first child ever gets to do at this age. Morgan and Brian took a ride on the bumber boats. She loved it, until it was time to get off.

She couldn't ride on the bumper cars, but she made sure to direct traffic the whole time! She was yelling at people passing by, and at one point, Ashlyn had to pull her head out of the bars (she was about ready to climb in!)

Miniature golfing with an 18 month old is quite an adventure. Brian tried to teach her how to golf, but to no avail. The entire 18 holes, it was more like hit your ball and try to get it into the hole before Morgan picked it up and dropped it in for you!

Here we are with Mike, Ashlyn, and Avery. Ashlyn and I (Mackenzie) were roommates in college and it was so much fun to meet their little one, and remember the days of an immobile child (you know, when your house actually looked somewhat together!). We had lots of fun with them!

Don't You Remember Days Like This???

On the way home from the beach over Thanksgiving, Morgan and Elaena got the bumpy ride in the "loft" of the Yukon. For those of you not in the Ginos family, that means the third row (you know the back seat nobody really wants to climb into). Anyway, California roads are very well traveled, and, thus, a bit bumpy. So the girls decided to have some fun with it.
You might need to turn your sound up a little bit to get the full effect of what they're doing (as if the camera bouncing all over doesn't give it away).