FAVORITE BOOK: The Book with No Pictures & Is There a Dog in This Book?

FAVORITE TV SHOW: "Kiwi's" (PeeWee's) Playhouse

FAVORITE FOOD: Quesadillas

FAVORITE COLOR: Pink

FAVORITE MOVIE: Frozen Fever

FAVORITE SONG: Let it Go

BEST FRIEND: Adalae!

WHEN I GROW UP: I will have a lot of jobs. A doctor job, for people and animals. A cowgirl job. And a mommy job.

FAVORITE THING TO PLAY: Elsa and Anna

FAVORITE THING TO DO AT SCHOOL: Be the weather person

FAVORITE TOY: Pet animals (Beanie babies)

FAVORITE THING TO DO WITH MOMMY: Go places

FAVORITE THING TO DO WITH DADDY: Look at cat videos

NOW THAT I AM FOUR, I WANT TO: Reach high things on the shelf, go on the big slide at Chuck-E-Cheese.

Some more Anouk at four facts: she definitely prefers "Anouk" to "Anne;" has jumped on the horse-crazy train about eight years early; is fascinated by baby animals; spends her mornings creating "inventions" out of ribbon and paper clips; says to me at least a dozen times a day, "Can I keep you forever?"; knows six words in French and makes up dozens more; takes regular breaks to shake her sillies out; loves to sing the Amen song from chapel; loves her friends so, so much; is the worlds biggest extrovert, much to the surprise of her introverted mother; is generous to a fault (we have to stop her giving away everything she owns); made me and James promise to go with her when she goes away to college (we readily agreed but won't hold her to it). Basically, she is a ball of equal parts silliness and sweetness and we love her to pieces.

We're continuing our tradition this year of donating to March of Dimes on Anne's birthday. And we hope you will consider doing the same if you can! Just in the four years since A. was born the treatments and prognoses for prematurity have changed so much and it feels awesome to think that we have helped in some small, with our tiny bit of support, to make it that fewer babies and families have to worry about being born too soon. I can't think of a better way to celebrate our girl and to celebrate her life so far.

Lately Anouk has been really interested in family relationships, how we are connected to all of the people in our family. "What is a cousin?" she'll say, or else, "Tell me again how I'm related to Aunt Bonne/Aunt Judy/Uncle Mike?" And so we set off untangling the thread of our family in a way that an almost-four-year-old can understand.

We got My Family Tree and Me at just the right time because it does a lot of this explaining in a really simple way. I love the author's whimsical drawings of both sides of his family (one European, one Japanese) and showing how they came together in him. One side of the book shows the members of his father's family -- and then, when you start from the back and move toward the middle, the book shows the story of his mother's family. The middle is a family portrait, with every member clearly labeled.
 

Anouk loves this book so much that it makes me wish I had the drawing skills to put together one for our own German/Dutch/English/Irish/Lebanese clan! Although honestly, I'm not sure that the page would be big enough to fit so many people...

Note: I was sent a review copy of this book by the publisher. The opinions in this post are all mine. 

The weather has been getting warmer, which means we can get back into hiking, one of our favorite family pastimes. Our old go-to hiking spot ahas long been First Landing State Park, but recently our new favorite place is Newport News Park, which features 30 miles of hiking and biking trails (among many other amenities).

Our favorite kid-friendly trail at the park is definitely the Twin Forts trail, a small .7-mile loop trail that takes you over mostly flat ground by the Lee Hall Reservoir. Not only does it start with a beautiful walk down the wood bridge that takes you over the reservoir, it then leads you past some pretty amazing Civil War fortifications left over from the Battle of Yorktown.
Besides that, the trail is teeming with wildlife -- while we were there we saw swans, ducks, frogs, turtles, and what we are pretty sure was a couple of beavers splashing around in the water. And it's just a very pretty walk all around.

There are longer hikes for older kids -- and some that would be fun for parents, too -- click here for a complete map of trails.

Once upon a time, many moons ago, before snow blanketed our world and various winter sicknesses kept us laid low, James and I decided to take Anouk to Williamsburg for a day. When we left the house it was nice and almost warm but by the time we got there, the temperature had dropped significantly, so we opted to visit the CW museums (for the first time!) instead of doing the usual walk down DoG Street.

The Dewitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum and Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum are located in the same building down West Francis Street, and can be accessed with the Colonial Williamsburg day pass or by buying a museums-only ticket (significantly cheaper). They are full of all sorts of fun things to see, like colonial-era pottery and furniture, ordinary household objects to modern folk art (carvings, weavings, and paintings).


Our favorite areas in the Dewitt Wallace Museum were definitely the dollhouse exhibit (so intricate and detailed!) and the selection of quilts and samplers -- James really liked seeing the vintage piano and harpsichords and the musketry exhibit.

The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Museum featured intriguing tramp art, some quirky folk portraits, and a play area with coloring supplies so A. could create art of her own. They also had some really gorgeous and intricate vintage carousel animals on display -- we spent a lot of time looking at those.

While I think that a lot of the nuance of most of the pieces were lost on Anouk, I do think that both museums really emphasized how ordinary objects can be art. It's something that we talked about a lot while we were there, and have been revisiting in the weeks since we went. A. will oftentimes point out to me, while we're out and about, some small artful detail that I wouldn't have noticed without her perspective. It makes me want to take a closer look at things, too.

Have a good weekend! We promise to be back on a more regular schedule next week.