Mama, DUTCH VILLAGE!!!

Stella was playing in the grass with me while Leila helped dada plant some seeds in the garden.

Leila got to plant her own pumpkins this year, we will see how big they get!

Here she is helping dada replant some beans.

"I need a rest!"

Stella gets into everything, especially now that she is walking part of the time!

I love how in the beginning they sometimes walk with their arms up in the air for balance.

The girls are loving playing house lately

I bought this baby doll station at a garage sale and it is a big big hit with the girls.

There have been a few squabbles and Leila takes the swing off and carries it around the room so that Stella can't play with it, but otherwise they do pretty well sharing it.

Finally to the title of this post - Dutch Village. Every time we drive by in the van Leila yells out - Mama, DUTCH VILLAGE!!! She really loves to go there and I think even more just loves the idea of Dutch Village.

I was surprised by how scared/shy Leila was today while we were there. I had to climb part way up the wooden shoe staircase to get her to go up inside there (it is quite dark to be fair :)

No fear on the carousel, I was a bit nervous to let her do it by herself without me holding on, but she loved it.

Stella loved it too. I tried to get a better picture, but it was hard to do while also holding her on the horse.

Leila has been talking about going to see the animals ever since I told her we were going to go to Dutch Village. She was excited to go see them and told me that was where she wanted to go - again, I think she really likes the idea of the animals (like in her books at home) more than the animals themselves. Because when this goat came up to us, she started to scream and cry.

This area was a goat-free zone. She even enjoyed quacking at the duck over by the water.

While we were watching the dancers, they handed out popcorn, and I am pretty sure that the goats know about this, because there was a goat behind us in the stands and Leila was doing great watching the dancers and eating her popcorn until she happened to turn around and see the goat right behind us. Then she scooted as close to me as possible and kept turning around to check what the goat was doing and if it was going to try to come steal her popcorn.

On our recent garage sale expedition we bought this really ugly doll for a quarter - Leila has fallen in love with it. I don't know what she sees in it, other than that this bottle is the perfect size for its mouth. This is the first toy she has wanted to sleep with other than her blanket. I am happy about that since it may make the getting rid of blanket transition easier, but why couldn't she love a cute toy? :)