pictures, as promised

I finally uploaded them to the computer and can post them now.

The present opening began on Christmas eve with the traditional Christmas PJs. We always got to open one present on Christmas eve growing up, and it was always PJs. I'm continuing the tradition, and here she is.

A tradition Daddy wanted to start was to read "Twas the Night Before Christmas" and the real Christmas story before she goes to bed on Christmas eve, so he did that as well.

He was pointing up to the star on the Christmas tree and showing her the star above the stable in Bethlehem in the story.

After she went to bed, Santa's elves got to work putting things together and getting them all set up. He made me get in here to pose for this!

Here is is all put together.

And here's the big gift this year: a table and chairs that Daddy made for her by hand. He worked soooooooooooooooo hard on these. He started in September!

The day before Christmas eve he had a catastrophe while trying to stain them--the type of stain he decided to use didn't work right and it ruined the table. I was crying because I felt so bad for how hard he had worked, and now it was ruined. But he was able to strip it off using bleach and use a different kind of stain he had used before, and it ended up looking just gorgeous.

Here's one of her favorites...

And then it was Christmas morning. A lot of it we got on video, so we don't have as many pictures as we normally would, but here are a few.

Enjoying her new playhouse

Sitting at her new table (with her ice cream....another favorite)

Enjoying the playhouse and her play food (and grocery cart) all at once!

At Grandma's house (we did video at Granny's house, so

I'm afraid we don't have pictures of that)

The day after Christmas I went up in the attic at my parents' and found my old dolls and high chair. I loved watching her play with dolls I once played with. This is "Baby Heen." Her real name was "Baby Ann," but I couldn't say that, so she became "Baby Heen."And this is our little family....before Christmas we had our picture taken, but I couldn't put it on here because it was a Christmas present for our parents! Her hand looks so funny because she was throwing a ball to the guy who was there helping the photographer to make her smile! I had to scan it in, so there are some lines and things in the picture that aren't actually there, but you can get the idea.

holiday highlights

Whew, it's been a busy week! I've been wanting to update for days, but we've been out of town since Christmas day, and there are always other things to do than sit around with the computer, so I haven't had a chance.

So....Christmas morning.....what a blast! It was our first year in our own house to wake up Christmas morning and go downstairs to open presents. I woke up really early with so many things on my mind (we were leaving around 10:00 for several days and I still didn't have everything packed at that point, and didn't know how I'd get it done with the present opening and everything we had to do). Finally around 6:00 our little one started stirring, and instead of letting her talk awhile and maybe fall back asleep, we went ahead and got her up. I gave her her milk upstairs instead of going downstairs like I usually do--I wanted to make sure she drank it, and knew she'd be WAY too distracted if I took her down and she saw all of the presents! So after the milk, Daddy filmed us coming down the stairs. She had a huge smile on her face as she just stared around the room at everything--she knew things were different but I think it must've taken awhile for it all to register, because she just stood there. Finally she took off running across the room for her new kitchen. She immediately turned on the burner, which makes a sizzling noise, and turned it on over and over again.

I couldn't believe she hadn't noticed her playhouse yet by this point, though, so I rang the doorbell on it to get her attention. She then came over to see that. She enjoyed ringing the doorbell over and over and opening the door. Her stocking was inside the house, but she was too busy that she didn't even notice it, so we had to take it out and get her interested in that. She immediately pulled out the chocolate santa on top and wanted me to open it. She was allowed a little tiny piece of that before we moved on to other things.

After her stocking, we opened our stockings while she continued to play with the kitchen and house. We then let her open her first present--a huge box of play food. She got the hang of opening presents right away, and had to get every little scrap of paper off and put it in a certain place before she could look at the present. We took the food out of the box and she just went to town touching it all, putting it in her mouth, and carrying it all around the room. Her favorite were the ice cream cones ("ice," is what she calls it). She carried those around for hours.

We had to pull her away from the play food to open another present, and another, and another. Eventually we gave up, let her play, and opened our own presents! It worked much better that way. And every so often she'd come over and want to open one, so we let her, she'd play with it a bit, and then go back to the food! It was definitely a hit! She just had so much fun all morning and was so happy.

After presents, breakfast, and packing, we got on the road and headed for Granny and Papa's (Daddy's parents' house). She slept almost the entire way, and was a perfect angel. When she got there she was so excited to see their tree (she has fallen in love with our tree, and therefore any tree!). She had a good time exploring things at Granny's house (especially the snow globe, which she kept turning over and wanting us to wind it up to play music, like hers, but this one didn't play music! Apparently every snow globe is supposed to have music, if you ask her!). We had lunch and opened presents at Granny's, and she was such a good girl all afternoon.

We headed to Grandma and Grandpa's for dinner, and again she was an angel in the car, which isn't usually the case. So this was quite a treat for us! She was happy, looking at some new books she had gotten in her stocking, and playing with the ice cream cones. When we got to Grandma's she practically jumped out of my arms when she saw Grandma standing at the bottom of the steps by the back door. She was so excited to be there, and everyone was so excited to see her, too.

Next came a whirlwind of presents and chaos, as we all tried to open presents, but also help our little ones open presents and get those confounded toys out of their boxes, with the fifty zillion twist ties. Ugh! But it was all lots of fun.

She continued to be so happy and well behaved the whole day and even went to bed really easily, even without her usual bathtime routine (it was past her bedtime and I didn't want to make it later by giving her a bath). All of that changed around 11pm, just when we were thinking about heading to bed, when she woke up crying. We let her cry awhile, but it kept getting worse and worse. We got her up. She pointed downstairs, so we took her downstairs, but as soon as she got down there and saw people she didn't know very well (my aunt, uncle, and cousins were still there), she decided she didn't like that, and wanted to go back upstairs. I got her calmed down and put her back in bed, but before long she started crying again. After she wouldn't calm down on her own, I went and got her again....this went on for quite awhile. Eventually everyone went to bed, but she wouldn't stop crying. This was so unlike her--I'm sure she was just so overtired and stimulated from her busy day of people and presents. Well, I finally sat downstairs in the dark with her, rocking her back and forth, singing, "Go to Sleep, my Baby," over and over and over and over until my throat hurt! Everytime I'd stop she'd start to fuss, so I'd start again. She fell asleep, so I was transferring her to my shoulder, when she woke up and started again.....so I started the rocking and singing again, and kept it up for probably a half hour. Finally she was asleep (and snoring softly, so I knew she was really asleep), and I carefully transferred her to my shoulder so I could take her back upstairs. I laid her gently in her bed and collapsed in bed myself at 2:30. Oh my, was that a long night!

But every other night was a breeze....as was every day. She was as good as gold the whole time we were gone. She loved being surrounded by so many people who love her so much and was just as happy as can be every minute! We couldn't have asked for better behavior from our little girl.

The most exciting thing for me was that she's finally, finally, in the last day or two, started calling me "Mama!!!!!" My mom kept pointing to me and saying, "Who is this?" and she'd say, "Da da da da" like she always does. And my mom would correct her and tell her no, that I was "ma ma ma ma ma." So she finally started saying it. She'll say "da da da da" sometimes, but if you ask her again, she gets it right. Hooray! I'm finally Ma ma!

Pictures will be forthcoming. I haven't uploaded them yet, and will get to it soon. We still have toys to unpack, clothes to unpack, and more toys to unpack. And we thought we had a lot of toys before.....sheesh! That was nothing!

When we got back today it was like Christmas morning all over again as she saw her presents again after several days. She played for hours with the food and kitchen again. Definitely her favorites, I think!

Pictures later...check back soon! Merry Christmas!

ho ho ho

We just got back from seeing Santa. I'm not sure it was the best decision to go on December 21st at one of the most popular shopping venues in the city, but we didn't decide until just a couple of days ago to actually go, and we chose this particular Santa because on their website it says they allow you to take your own pictures without buying a huge, horribly overpriced package of a poor quality photo (we know....we did it last year, on a whim because we went to a mall back home that's now almost empty and we felt sorry for Santa, who had no one visiting him).

So we decided a few days ago, like I said, but I was sick, then my husband was sick, and today was the first day we could actually do it. We had decided to meet during his lunchtime on a week day, thinking it would better than trying to go on the last weekend before Christmas, when this shopping area would be packed. Me and my bright ideas.... I knew as soon as I had to wait in a huge line just to get into the parking garage that it was probably not a good idea, but we had gotten this far.... I found a parking place (no easy feat with my monster truck I have to drive), got everything unloaded and into the stroller, and made our way into the area where Santa was. The line was miles long, with millions of parents and dressed up children of various ages and temperaments, waiting for their turn with the man in red (okay, millions is probably not an accurate number, but there were lots, and lots were excited, lots were crying, and lots were dancing around pulling on their parents' hands). We saw Daddy make his way down the stairway to where we were, shaking his head at the scene before him. We got in line, but were seriously second guessing ourselves, especially when our little one started throwing a fit when I wouldn't let her get out of the stroller when I took her coat off. But we had gotten this far....

After awhile (and lots of cheerios for our little one, who had cheered up), we decided to take turns waiting in line while the other one took her around the mall to look around. This worked rather well, as she was very happy to run around and let off some steam. At one point she was up on the second level with Daddy and he was trying to point to me, to show her where I was. For awhile she couldn't see me, but all of a sudden the look of recognition flashed across her face as she smiled a huge grin, let out a very loud squeal, and waved and waved to me, like I was the biggest celebrity in the world. It was too cute.

As I got closer to the front of the line, I saw everyone with envelopes describing the packages you could buy (the cheapest being $20, which is outrageous, if you ask me), and though I did see a couple of people take a few pictures themselves, it was always when Santa's elves were also taking a picture, so I was doubting whether they would really allow us to take pictures without buying anything. There were several times I thought about getting out of line, afraid I would've waited in line all that time for nothing, because I did not want to spend $20 for a silly picture with Santa. But once again, we had made it this far....so I decided to stick it out.

As I neared the front, Daddy brought her back and she could finally actually see Santa from our place in line. She was very excited and waved and waved at him, saying "hu hu," which is her own version of "ho ho ho." She started getting impatient as we got closer because she could actually see him and wanted to go to him, so we passed the last few minutes by asking her animal sounds and body parts (Where's your head? Where are your feet? What does a lion say.... you get the idea). This kept her occupied well enough until it was finally our turn.

The elf asked us, "Do you know which package you'd like to purchase?" when we got up there. I said, "Online it says we can take our own pictures," to which she nodded and said, "Okay! Go ahead!" Hooray!!! So we approached Santa and our little one had a smile on her face, but I wasn't sure how long it would last, as she's sometimes a little leery of strangers for a few minutes (but not usually for long at all). But she went right up to him and said, "hu hu!" to which he answered, "Ho, ho, ho!" I put her on his lap, and though she wasn't quite sure she wanted to stay there, she did, and actually smiled at me when Santa pointed to me, after I went over by Daddy so he could take some pictures. Of course, she had to point to me too, so there's a lot of pointing in the pictures, but oh well!

Mission accomplished!

two steps forward, one step back

Things have improved since I last wrote...she's been tantrum and terror free for two days. Those are the two steps forward.

The one step back is that now Daddy is sick with the flu. So we've got Mommy with a cold and Daddy with the flu. We're a picture of health here! I'm actually feeling better, though my cold's still hanging around, but it's a good thing, because I have to take care of him! Hopefully our little one won't catch germs from either of us. She's had an ongoing cough, runny nose thing going on for a long time, so she's had her share of germs....I just don't want her to get any more.

But despite the sickness, it's been a more pleasant place here for the last couple of days without any tantrums and a full night of sleep. She's back to her usual happy, funny self. Her newest thing to say is "moon, moon, moon." It's a song on her favorite CD, but she also says it when she sees a picture of a moon. She doesn't just say "moon," though. It has to be "moon, moon, moon." What's strange is that she can say "moon," but she can't say "moo" when you ask her what a cow says. Instead she says, "Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm" for a cow sound.

She's also started nodding, which is quite helpful in communicating with her. I can say, "would you like some crackers?" and now she actually answers me with a nod (and her own little language, too---not that she would ever answer "no" to that question. The girl would live on crackers and milk if I would let her.)

tantrums, terrors, and trucks

Seemingly overnight my sweet, funny girl has turned into a tantrum-throwing toddler. I don't know how or when it happened, but for the last few days we've been seeing at least one tantrum a day. Where do they learn these things? She's not around other children very much to see them do it....I guess it's innate, but that's a little frightening. She's thrown them when a puzzle piece wouldn't go in the way she wanted it to, when she couldn't carry three toys at once and kept dropping them, and when she couldn't brush her teeth before her bath, like she wanted to (that one was quite a doozie, lasting all through the bath, while we put her clothes on--because it took two of us to do that with a screaming little tantrum thrower, and even through the usually pleasant milk drinking and rocking before bed). It was very, very frustrating. And I'm sure this is only the beginning. It's so puzzling because it's such a difference from her normally sweet and happy disposition.

In addition to this, she's also having night terrors, waking up screaming in the middle of the night without being consoled. It's scary and exhausting. Anyone have any advice about these?

To top this off, I'm sick with a bad cold, and hardly feel like dealing with a tantrum throwing toddler, and yesterday I tried to go through the new drive through pharmacy window lane at my local grocery store, in order to prevent having to take my fussy daughter in and out of her car seat one more time and discovered that the turn to get into the lane wasn't designed for an extended cab truck like I have to drive....and I proceeded to bang the back end of the truck into a pole (a pole that is padded, indicating that other people have had this same issue). The icing on the cake of my frustrating few days. I've always hated driving that truck....this just adds fuel to my fire and I've had it! I had to call the insurance company today to open a claim and we have to have it looked at on Saturday. Just what we want to be doing on the Saturday before Christmas. Ugh.

When it rains, it pours, I guess.

funny girl

Here are just a few of the times I laughed today at my funny, funny girl....

...She was playing with her little people nativity set. She took Jesus out and said, "baby." Then she took off for the dining room, where most of her toys are. I figured she was getting a baby doll, since she was saying baby. A few minutes later she comes back pushing her doll stroller with the tiny little baby Jesus figurine taking a ride. Isn't it strange to think of baby Jesus being pushed around in a stroller by Mary? (that is, if they had had strollers back in that day....even so, it's strange to think of Him being a regular little baby at all who cried and had stinky diapers and didn't sleep through the night!)

...I was reading "Five Little Monkeys" to her. When I came to the part, "no more monkeys jumping on the bed," instead of me wagging my finger like I usually do, and her joining in wagging her finger like she normally does, she took my finger in her little hand and wagged it for me and said it herself, except it sounded more like "nnnooo mmmmoooo mmmmmkkkssss asdf ;lkj asdflajsdf ja;lksjdf." The first three words were pretty clear (especially for her, who doesn't speak clearly at all.) I had to do it over and over just so I could hear her do it a bunch of times because I thought it was so funny. My husband wasn't here so I didn't get so share in my laughter with him. He'll be sorry he missed it.

...While looking at an animal book she found a spider and pointed to it. I said, "spider." She then got a wide grin on her face and she put her little fingers together (think "itsy bitsy spider"). She waited for me to sing the song and then grinned all the while when I complied.

...We were watching her Laurie Berkner DVD (she loves that thing and sits still for the entire half hour!) and the song, "Moon, Moon, Moon" came on. We've heard the song a zillion times and she loves it, but this time, she heard the first line, smiled a big smile, and ran into the dining room (her toy room). She came running back with the book, "Goodnight, Moon!" Amazing!

And those are just a few of them. I can't remember the others. I just know that she keeps me laughing and amazed all day.

I love my sweet, funny girl.

four for four!

Ha! I didn't even realize that title was all the same words...just spelled differently...until after I wrote it. Hmmmm....

Anyway, here's what it means. Tonight Daddy was quizzing her on pointing to the right colors of Christmas lights. "Where's the blue one?" She pointed to the right one. "Where's the pink one?" Correct. "Where's the green one?" Right again. "Where's the yellow one?" Hooray! She got all four right! We were amazed. She can't say Mommy, but she can point to her colors! We'll see how consistently she can do it, but for tonight, anyway, we're proud parents. Let's not think about the fact that it could all be a fluke and she could get them all wrong in the morning!

o christmas tree

We finally took a few Christmas tree pictures today. Told you it was very, very large!! It continues to be the number one toy in the house, along with the Christmas snow globe (I think I mentioned her love of snow globes in the Thanksgiving post, since she's obsessed with the one at Grandma's house!). She's learned that there are two ornaments that play music, and constantly wants to hear them--both at once! I draw the line there....I'll play them one at a time over and over again, but I don't want to hear them both at once, which is what would really float her boat, for some reason. She also likes it when the wind up Santa plays his music at the same time as the stuffed Frosty the Snowman plays his song. Cacophony, I guess, is a pleasant sound to her.

Anyway, here she is, caught in the act of touching the tree....a big no-no.

And here she is being a good girl, doing what she was taught to do--pointing with one finger at what she wants to touch, whether it's a light bulb (her favorite), or an ornament. She touches a bulb and I tell her what color it is. Eventually I quiz her. She gets them right maybe 30% of the time! We have two more weeks 'til Christmas to practice!!!

And here she is posing while Daddy was testing different settings on the camera. I just like the picture and wanted to post it.

a Griswold family Christmas?

This will be our first Christmas ever being in our own house on Christmas morning since we've been married. We're both really excited to start our own Christmas morning traditions with our daughter like we both had growing up. And since it's our first, my husband had this idea, or a dream, as he put it this morning, to have an old fashioned family Christmas, including going to a tree farm to cut down our own tree. Neither of us had done this before, though I always grew up having a live tree every year, and used to be adamant that I needed to have a real tree (after about three or four years of an artificial tree in recent years, though, I started re-thinking my predisposition for live trees and recognized the benefits of a perfect looking, non-sticky, no-standing-out-in-the-cold-to-find-it kind of tree). The last few weeks as we've been discussing this, I've been skeptical, both about the prospect of having a really heavy real tree for our daughter to pull down on herself and also with the whole process of going out in the cold to find a tree we agree on, having my husband cut it down, and then dragging it back to the parking lot....all with a not quite two year old in tow.

Yesterday he informed me that he had taken the day off today, and this was the day we should go get our tree. I have to confess that I had a very doubtful attitude going into the whole day.... mostly afraid that we'd be cold, frustrated because we couldn't find a tree, arguing, and trying to juggle a cranky toddler as well. But I got up, put my long johns on (yeah, I actually have some, which I had to dig out of a trunk of clothes I haven't touched in years!) and a smile on my face, hoping for the best. We had a list of tree farms from the newspaper from a few weeks ago, and chose the closest one that was open on Fridays, which happened to be about a half hour away.

We woke up to a fresh coat of snow, to which my husband cried, "Yes! It's perfect!" All part of his dream.... It continued to snow lightly most of the morning while we were out....again, ideal for my husband. We gathered together everyone's warm clothes, a saw, the camera, the video camera, and some snacks for our little one, and were on our way.

All along I wasn't sure how we were going to tote our daughter throughout the aisles of trees--the snow is at least 6 inches deep, after all. I don't think our stroller is all-terrain! But when we arrived we found out that they provide you with a sled (a BIG sled!) with which to drag back your tree, so it was perfect for transporting a little tiny eskimo girl with short legs around, too!

We started out in the sections closest to the barn where we parked. We didn't want to venture too far, not knowing how our little one would fare out in the cold. But all of the good ones close by had already been taken and the ones left were pretty sparse. We wandered around there for awhile, retraced our steps because we dropped and lost our saw in the midst of picture taking, and after finding it, started on to another section. My husband decided to go on ahead without us, though, to scout things out, so we wouldn't have to drag her all over if there wasn't anything good, so she and I stayed where we were and played in the snow for a little bit.

After awhile he motioned us over and I dragged her to his section. When we reached him, he told me to get in the sled too and he'd drag us both. I told him it wouldn't be as easy as he thought, but he said it was no problem. Actually, it was easier than I thought it would be for him, and I had fun riding in the sled with my little girl--can't tell you the last time I'd been in a sled!

So he showed us the trees he found, and after much debate, we decided.

We were both a little nervous that it would be way too big for our living room, but it was the only one we found that wasn't sparse and had a nice shape and a straight trunk. We decided to go for it. There's not a lot of furniture in our living room anyway, because we don't use that room much, so we decided if it took up a lot of room, it wouldn't matter too much. The whole time, though, I was having visions of Clark Griswold's tree in Christmas Vacation, which, when they cut the ropes, broke the windows and caused all kinds of damage as it filled up their entire living room!

He cut the tree down without much problem--I thought it would be lots harder, but it didn't take but a minute. We put it on the sled and carried our little one back, as the tree needed the sled this time. They bound the tree for us and we were on our way. It didn't take as long as I thought, it wasn't as cold as I thought (I had my down filled "recess coat" on, which I bought for recess duty when I first started teaching and have only ever worn for recess because it's so darn hot to wear anywhere else, so I was toasty warm!), and our little one was soooooo happy the entire time. She loved the sled ride, loved playing in the snow, loved watching Mommy walking behind the sled....just loved it all.

So we had fun and fulfilled my husband's dream, all in one morning. A good ol' old fashioned family Christmas outing. A beautiful thing.

When we brought the tree inside (after naptime had begun, so as not to have a toddler running around while we did the hard parts), we found it was almost the exact height as our ceiling without the stand, so we had to cut off several inches from the top. After putting it in the stand we had to cut off even more to get the star to fit on top! When we cut the ropes we found that it was, indeed, very big, and it overwhelmed the room, but we trimmed some of the branches and it began to look better. As we put on the lights (ugh....the worst part of the day....I hate that part and definitely see a pre lit artificial tree somewhere in my future, but there were no tears involved, as there have been in previous years, and no arguments, either...just frustration), then the garland, and finally the decorations, it began to look more like a Christmas tree and less like a very large bush in our living room. I'm happy with the way it turned out. And of course it's the newest, hottest, toy in the house now for our little girl....I'm not looking forward to that battle every few minutes for the next two weeks. My nephew learned his colors when he was about my little one's age at Christmas time because he loved pointing to the Christmas lights. She's doing the very same thing, so I'm hoping it leads to her learning her colors, as well! You'll have to wait for the decorated tree pictures, though. We decided not to take any today. That'll be another fun post for some other day.

Now I'm in the mood to watch Christmas Vacation....and be thankful that ours didn't turn out like theirs!

a snowy day

It started snowing overnight--our first real snowfall of the year. We have about four or five inches right now and it's still coming down! I debated all morning about whether I should bundle us both up and let my little one experience her first snow (last year doesn't really count since we just carried her back and forth from the door to the car). Finally I decided, why not? So what if it's a lot of trouble....it'll be fun. She was watching one of her favorites, Jack's Big Music Show, so she didn't notice that I was busy digging coats, hats, boots, gloves, snow pants, and the camera out of the closet. She didn't mind getting all bundled either, because it involved her precious BOOTS (she still is so in love with those things!).

Here she is waiting for Mommy to finish getting her snow gear on, still enthralled with her show.This was her first time in her snow pants--they're humongous on her, but it didn't bother her one bit.

She was so excited when I opened the back door--up until that point I don't think she realized what we were doing. We ventured outside into the winter wonderland. The snow came up to her knees! She just stood there....not sure what to make of the whole experience. It was still snowing, so she was feeling the snowflakes fall on her cheeks as well as walking in this weird white stuff. That's a lot to take in for the first time! Yes, she's standing in this picture....that's how much snow there was!
I took her out into the yard and she walked a little bit (well, walked is a generous term....she really wobbled her way through the snow!) and then just stood and surveyed the situation. Then she started singing "B-O-O-T-S!" (well, her version of it, anyway) and stomping her feet. I made some snowballs for her, which she enjoyed throwing up in the air, shouting, "wheeeeeee!" I tried starting a snowman, but it didn't pack very easily, so I gave up before too long. We'll save the first snowman for another day....

After about 10 minutes we came back in, unbundled ourselves, and she resumed her usual day-in-the-life-of-R activities....in this case, going for a drive in her car.

on the curve again

We went to the pediatrician today for a weight check. I'm proud to announce that she's back on the growth curve. Of course, she's at the absolute bottom of the curve--3rd %ile, but hey, it's better than not even being on it at all! She now weighs 20 pounds, 12 ounces, which means we can now officially turn her car seat around (nevermind that we actually did that months ago. Shhhh.......don't tell the car seat police, please!).

You'd think I'd have all kinds of news since I haven't written in a few days, and I got so used to posting every day during November, but I really don't! Right now her newest favorite toy is her first Christmas present of the year--her best friend, Kaden, gave her the Fisher Price Little People Nativity Set a few days ago. She LOOOOOOOOOOOVES the animals....there's a sheep, cow, donkey, and camel. She has subsequently learned how to make the donkey sound, which is quite funny to hear (she already knew a sheep and cow), and always waits for me to tell her what the camel sound is, but I keep telling her, "Sorry, sweetie, but Mommy doesn't really know what a camel sounds like!" I told my husband maybe it should be a spitting sound!? Don't camels spit a lot?? She likes the rest of it, too--she can point out Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus when you ask her to. She likes to take the angel off the top of the stable. She's a bit confused by the final three characters, though, since Daddy calls them Magi and I call them wise men, but I'm sure she'll figure it out.

Today she was listening to her favorite Laurie Berkner music--this was a song about fish swimming. I started singing the song and making swimming motions with my arms. As soon as I said the word "swimming," she went in the guest room and found her blow up floaty toy from the summer when we used to go swimming, which she hasn't used in months and months! I was amazed. A few days ago we were looking at a book and there was a picture of a spoon. She ran in to her toybox and I knew she was going to find one of her play spoons. But she decided to do a few other things first, like go down her slide, play with the ball popper, and a few other diversions, but sure enough, about five minutes later she came back with the spoon. I had put the book away, but she got the book back out and proceeded to flip through the pages until she found the spoon picture and brought them both to me. Again, I was amazed. Her memory is a steel trap! (except, of course, when it comes to following the rules and not touching things she knows she's not supposed to!)

yeah, yeah...

...I know NaBloPoMo is over, and I don't have to post today but it's December 1st, and in my family my mom always sang this song to us on December 1st (because her mother had always sung it to her on December 1st). When I was older and out of the house she would still email the words to me or even sing it to me on the phone sometimes. So in keeping with family tradition, I'm posting them here. Our little one will hear it every December 1st, too. (except the difference is that my mom knows the words, while I had to copy them from an email I've saved from her from December 2004!!!)

Oh, December how I love you,
And the joyous sounds you bring.
Winter snow and winter sleighrides,
Hear the merry sleighbells ring,

Jingle, jingle, jingle on the frosty air
Tis a jolly sleighride I declare.
Jingle, jingle, jingle all the world is fair,
Jingle, jingle, jingle everywhere.

Hear the voices of the sleighbells
Ringing out so loud and clear
Telling with their merry voices,
"Santa Claus will soon be here.

Jingle, jingle, jingle on the frosty air
Tis a jolly sleighride I declare.
Jingle, jingle, jingle all the world is fair,
Jingle, jingle, jingle everywhere.

Oh, and I had to post this, too. Last year my mom found this and sent it to us with her picture. It was hilarious. This year I ran across it and decided to do it with our little dancer's picture. Somehow it's not quite as funny as my mom, because we could easily see our daughter doing these moves....since she's quite the dancer. My mom on the other hand wasn't quite as likely to be found dancing like this! Anyway, click on the link and enjoy.

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1114179235

so this is what it's like...

...to have a daughter who takes a long nap!? I wouldn't know! I'm lucky to get an hour and a half out of her. Well, I told you about how sleepy she was....and she ended up sleeping for three hours! That's unheard of from this girl! I was in scrapbooking heaven! (I never get to scrapbook during a nap. I barely get a load of laundry in and she wakes up. Today I got about four pages done...and a load of laundry!)

So she woke up bouncing off the walls. She was SO happy! She wanted to play in her crib awhile after she woke up, so she did, and I took some pictures along the way.

And since it's 12:03 AM (I tried going to sleep and couldn't), and is technically November 30th, this brings us to the triumphant end of NaBloPoMo. I'm not sorry to see it go. I hope you have enjoyed it, though. Don't be surprised if you don't see a post for a few days. I'm taking a break....we're all out of news here.

sleepy girl

We were out doing more Christmas errands this morning and were on our way home from the last stop. She had been good the whole time, but suddenly got very, very fussy in the car. After a couple of minutes of crying she was quiet. A new Christmas song had come on the radio and I figured she liked it (it often calms her down). After a couple of minutes I looked back to see what she was doing, and she had fallen asleep! It was well before her nap time, but she was sound asleep. We got home a little bit later and usually she wakes up when the car stops, or at least when I start taking her out of her car seat. She stayed asleep! I lifted her out of her seat and she stayed asleep on my shoulder. One or two times this has happened and she wakes up when I take her in and start taking her coat off. Nope. Not this time. I got her hat off but couldn't get to the zipper to take her coat off without putting her down. So I carried her upstairs, took her shoes off on the way, laid her down in her crib with her coat on....still asleep....unzipped her coat, pulled her arms out, lifted her head and shoulders up so I could pull the coat out from under her....still asleep. I covered her with her blanket and left....wow. Is this my daughter???

see 'n say

I've been on a search for the perfect Christmas ornament for our little one. My plan is to get her one every year and when she gets married to give them all to her. Last year it was a 'baby's first Christmas' ornament. This year I wanted it to be something that represents who she is this year...like something she's interested in or something like that. I thought about Elmo, because she adores him, but I thought would she really want to put Elmo on her tree when she's 25? The other day I bought an ornament, but was kind of settling for something less than ideal--it was three snowmen, clearly a Daddy, Mommy, and little girl snowman. Cute, but not really what I was looking for. I'll be taking that one back. So today I went to Hallmark to look at their keepsake ornaments that are always so cute (but also more than I wanted to spend since we've already spent way more on her than we had planned). Well, they had a "daughter's second Christmas" ornament, which was cute, but also not quite what I was looking for. I was going to settle for that, but then I saw the perfect one. It's a tiny "see 'n say" toy....almost just like the real see 'n say that she has, and it really plays the animal sounds. You spin the middle and pull the string (it's more like the old fashioned ones in that respect, since the new ones like she has now have a lever instead) and it makes all of the sounds. It's perfect because 1) she'll love to pull the string and hear the sounds, 2) she loves animals and 3) making animal sounds is currently what she loves to do! I pulled the dog sound in the store to see how it worked and she started barking and barking. She was so excited about it. I'm excited about it too, just because it's perfect.

over and over and over

I'm realizing how much toddlers love repetition lately... everything I do with her, she then expects me to do it all the time, over and over.

Case in point... she's recently located a picture of a skunk in one of her animal books (yeah, they're officially on the "hot" list again). One time when we looked at it I said, "Oh, that's a stinky skunk!" and I plugged my nose. She thought that was funny. The next time we looked at it she looked at me, waiting for me to say "stinky skunk!" again. So I did. At one point I then plugged her nose and said it. She thought that was hilarious. So yesterday we were looking at it and I said, "stinky skunk!" but didn't plug her nose. She then took my hand and placed it up on her nose so I would pinch it! Such a funny girl!

dreary Monday

It's a rainy, cold, yucky day. The kind of day I just want to crawl into bed and take a nap. Or lay on the couch under a big blanket and watch a movie. Why don't toddlers enjoy those pasttimes, too? So instead, I've run some errands and played "chase me all over the house to tickle me, Mommy" most of the morning. She's in bed now (so I could actually be napping, too, but decided against it in favor of doing her laundry).

Thought I'd post these pictures from Thanksgiving. We didn't take many pictures because our camera is acting up. We got some video instead, but I'm not so technologically savvy as to post any of that on here. I know it's probably not hard, but I'd rather stay ignorant in that area.

Enjoy the pictures of my sweet girl. In the first one she's playing with the snow globe--her favorite toy at Grandma's house. She's only allowed to play with it if she's sitting on the floor, so she'll go in there and sit down on the floor and wait for someone to give her the snow globe and wind it up for her. It's so funny to see her just sitting and pointing to it and waiting. She's wearing a new dress, which came with the hat....it didn't stay on for long, but it looked cute while it lasted!

This one is when she took the whole pile of mashed potatoes and tried to put it in her mouth....unsuccessfully!

over the river and through the woods

We did go over some rivers...but not really through any woods...but it was a L-O-N-G drive back yesterday. We left around 1:00, heading from Grandma's to Granny's (about a half hour drive). Our little one fell asleep as soon as she got in the car--her cousins wore her out yesterday morning, I guess. She slept until we got to Granny's, and woke up as soon as Daddy stopped the car. A half hour nap....not ideal. We were going to stay in the car while Daddy picked up something from his dad, but she saw Granny and Papa outside and wanted to get out, so we did. We ended up staying awhile. She rubbed her eyes the whole time so we figured she'd fall asleep again once we got started in the car. No such luck. Instead she cried her really tired, "there's no satisfying me" cry pretty much the entire two hours back. We stopped along the way to try and break up the trip, which was fine while it lasted, but as soon as we got in the car she started up again. We couldn't do anything to make her happy....except get home. She was so happy to get in the house and ran for her toys! Mommy and Daddy couldn't have been happier to see home, either. It was almost 7:00 when we got back--that's a very long afternoon of driving (and fussing).

Grandma got a name this trip home....up until now she wasn't called anything, but while we were home our little one started calling her "Dee Dah." It was so cute--she was Dee Dah's shadow, and whenever she couldn't find her she'd yell, "Deeeeeee Dah?!"

And last night in the tub she came up with another new word. She likes it when I blow bubbles for her with the soap and was trying to get me to do it last night while she was in the bathtub. I told her, "Say 'bubbles.'" So she finally said, "ubbs!!" So now bubbles are "ubbs."

home sweet home

We're home.....we're tired.....we're sick of being in a car with a fussy toddler....

More tomorrow.

a brief recap

So this was our Thanksgiving day:

-Woke up early (6:45) to take my little one down to get her milk...but as soon as she saw all of the new and different toys in Grandma's living room, she was down on the floor playing and had absolutely no interest in her milk. And as soon as Grandma heard us and came in the room, she had no use for Mommy either....Grandma was much more exciting!

-Spent the morning playing/chasing after her, trying to keep her out of Grandma's way in the kitchen, and also got the table ready for dinner.

-Late morning my brother, Ted, and his family (her three cousins) came and the four of them ransacked Grandma's living room and toy chest while preparations continued in the kitchen.

-1:00 dinner....where she proceeded to pick up the entire pile of mashed potatoes on her plate with her fork and attempt to put them in her mouth. They fell off the fork, she picked them up, and tried again. During dinner we discussed the fact that my younger brother, Jack, wasn't there to liven things up, so we thought about things to put in a video to send him and his wife (they're in NYC). Someone suggested that Ted plant his face in his plate of food, in remembrance of the time Jack once did that at a family dinner when Ted brought his girlfriend over to meet the family (yeah, that's my brother, for you). Ted was against that idea, especially with his kids at the table, so they decided on singing....you've got to know my family to know that singing is usually involved. (These are my brothers and dad who once put on an impromptu "musical" during the holidays, making up the music and lyrics as they went along!) So after dinner Ted started playing "Over the River and Through the Woods" on the piano while everyone sang along (except only my mom knew all of the words!). The kids were jumping and dancing all around to the music and loving every minute of it. Then Ted broke into "We Gather Together," very slowly, and my dad pulled his ancient pipe out of his pocket and put together some sort of sappy, sarcastic greeting for Jack and Megan. The whole thing was very funny, and my husband thinks I should put the video on here for all to see, but it has our names in it, and you really don't need to see my family making fools of themselves, so you can just imagine it all and think we're the weirdest family in the world.

-4:00 leave for Granny's house. Our little one fell asleep for the last 15 minutes or so of the trip (she had also taken a nap in the morning, so she would be up for dinner). There she got to play with another set of cousins (five, to be exact!) and aunts and Papa and Granny. We ate another meal and were sufficiently stuffed!

-8:00 left to come back to Grandma's house--way past our little one's bedtime, but she did great! She came home and played a bit with my aunt and uncle who had come while we were gone, and then went to bed without a sound. What a sleepy girl!

Today was a bit more relaxed, though still crazy with all of the kids, but they all had a fantastic time playing together and with their aunts, uncles, and grandparents. Grandma babysat a little while and my husband and I went out a did a little bit of shopping (I didn't want to fight the crowds so we didn't go too far). Can't have the day after Thanksgiving without shopping, after all! Even if it is only for an hour or so.

just a quick note...

...to say Happy Thanksgiving!

I don't have time to write today--setting the table, cooking, playing, and eating await.

Have a great day...I'll try to write a better post tomorrow.

what did I tell you?

What was the first thing she brought to me this morning after drinking her milk? The aforementioned "not hot" animal books! It's all she wanted to look at this morning.

We're headed out of town in a couple of hours for Grandma's house. We have Thanksgiving dinners tomorrow at 1:00 and 5:00 at my parents' and then at my husband's parents'. I hope our little one is ready for lots of food! Maybe she'll actually eat a little if we're sitting down to two big meals.

She's busy looking at her little photo album of family members--dutifully reminding herself of who we're going to be seeing in the next few days. I know she'll be excited to play with all of her cousins. She loves looking at their pictures.

hot and not

So here's what's in and what's out for our little one at the moment....she definitely is opinionated and those opinions change frequently! I guess that's what life with a toddler is all about.

hot...
Laurie Berkner CDs and DVD

not...
Baby Einstein (used to be her absolute favorite)

hot...
crackers

not...
fruit

hot...
Dr. Seuss board books (esp. "Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?" and "The Foot Book")

not...
animal books

hot...
making animal sounds

not...
saying "mommy" (she has yet to call me anything resembling Mommy....sniff, sniff)

hot...
going upstairs to dance

not...
getting in the high chair to eat

hot...
going upstairs to take a bath

not...
actually getting undressed to get in the bathtub (for some reason she's very excited when we say, "Let's go take a bath" but when we actually get up there and start getting ready for it, she cries)

hot...
playing with hats and gloves in the house

not...
actually wearing the hats and gloves because it's cold outside

There you go....now you know her about as well as I do at the moment! I'm sure in the next 24 hours at least one of those will change!

blast from the past

Well, not that far past....just last year at this time. I was comparing pictures from a year ago. I can't believe how much she's changed.

because it's been awhile...

...since I posted a picture of her (well, a week or so, right?), I thought I'd show some today.

These are from the unsuccessful Christmas card photo shoot which I previously mentioned (we have since had a successful photo shoot, just in case you were wondering. The results should be landing in your mailboxes in a few weeks....). In these pictures she's dancing to the music of the snow globe (It's playing "Santa Claus is Coming to Town"--quite a danceable tune, don't you think?).

She loves music and loves to dance. Often in the middle of doing something else she'll come up to me and just start dancing, which means, "Mommy, can we please go upstairs and turn on the music in the guest room so I can dance?" Sometimes I comply and other times I try to appease her by turning music on downstairs, which is good, but that isn't what she really wants. But if I follow up her dancing with asking, "Do you want to go upstairs and dance?" she bolts for the stairs. Downstairs dancing just doesn't cut it, I guess. The real dancing happens upstairs.

Anyway, without further ado, here's my dancing queen (please ignore the sheet covered couch in the background. It was to be the background in the photos, which would be cropped to camouflage the couch, but I didn't bother cropping since these weren't being used on the card).

OH--IO!!

Go Bucks!

We're all wearing our scarlet and grey (sans the grey....just scarlet!) in support of the big game.

Last night we went out to dinner at The Olive Garden. Daddy had pasta with shrimp and scallops (scallops are his favorite). We were trying to get our little one to eat something (she wouldn't even eat the breadsticks, and usually she inhales bread!) so he actually sacrificed one of his scallops for her. She had her plastic fork and was trying to put everything (goldfish, cheerios, everything...) on her fork to eat it. So we put the scallops on the fork and she ate it! So he gave her another one (keep in mind he loves scallops!). This one she played with on her fork and then dropped it on the floor!! Daddy was so, so sad. One of his precious scallops was ruined. Oh well. At least she got a little protein in her.

This morning we've been raking leaves and stuffing them in lawn bags. She was out there with us. We tried to teach her to run and jump in the leaves (so yes, Mommy and Daddy were jumping in the leaves, too). Well, she'd run up to the pile and then stop as she got up to it and just start laughing. I guess the running was enough for her. I wish we'd had the video camera out there with us. It was so funny. Daddy picked her up and very gently tossed her into the huge pile. She sunk down into the leaves so we couldn't even see her face! She was a little startled by that one--being buried in leaves isn't her idea of a good time, I guess. But as soon as Daddy got her up and started tossing leaves up in the air, she decided leaves were fun again and she had a great time. After about a half hour or so, though, she'd had enough, and she and I came in to warm up. Good ol' Daddy is still out there stuffing bags. He's almost done, though.

I'm ready for November to be over....this posting every day thing is hard work. I've definitely run out of things to say.

are you smarter than a fifth grader?

I've never seen that show, but ran across this quiz. Since I once taught fifth grade, I'd like to think I'm smarter than a fifth grader (not to mention the fact that I spent however many thousands of dollars to earn a college degree and a master's degree!!).

I'm ashamed to say that after taking the quiz, I'm only 90% smarter than a fifth grader....I missed question #8 (my dad, my former government teacher, will be so sad...it's a government related question!).

Click on the link to see if you're smarter than me (and than a fifth grader!). I'd better stick to teaching first grade.

http://www.gotoquiz.com/are_you_smarter_than_a_fifth_grader

trial and error

I'm experiencing that phrase quite literally in the last 24 hours...

1) Yesterday's sweet potato fries: disaster
I followed the instructions, but in several of the reviews I read it said that they didn't get crispy, so leave them in longer. I did--about 4 or 5 minutes longer (I didn't look at them, though--there's my error). When I opened the oven they were almost all completely burnt! Crispy, indeed! Also inedible for the most part. The few that weren't charred were decent enough, but they were overshadowed by the fact that I did all that work for nothing! (I realized that cutting raw sweet potatoes is a difficult and time consuming task! They're rather dense and hard to get the knife through!)

2) Today's dinner prep: painful
Today I decided to make dinner in the crock pot. I got out the crockpot from the depths of my cupboard where I store things I don't use very often (I used to use the crockpot a lot more when I taught all day--I need to start utilizing it again--note to self!). I got the chicken out of the freezer. Put it and the required spices into the crockpot. Reached to get the lid and moved my head directly into the corner of the cabinet door, which I had inadvertently left open. (Another note to self--don't leave cabinet doors open--I'm too tall for that!). After some excedrin and 20 minutes of holding ice on my head, I'm feeling a little better, and dinner is safely cooking in the crockpot, but the lingering headache will be a reminder to close those doors!

I'm hoping the trial and error phase is over for awhile.... I'll keep you posted.

sweet potato fries

Anyone ever had them? I had them once at a restaurant and thought they were great, even though I don't really like sweet potatoes. Well, they were on sale for about 33 cents a pound the other day so I bought a few, thinking I could try some. So tonight's the night. I got online and found a few different recipes....not sure which one to try. I'll let you know tomorrow how it goes.

B-O-O-T-S is still a favorite around here....this morning she was looking at a word book she loves and she found a picture of boots. She grinned the cutest grin as she pointed to it and started stomping her feet, waiting until I would start singing it for her.

We did some secret Christmas errands this morning...I can't tell you what they were because a certain someone may read this blog and find out what he or she is getting for Christmas! But even though we were riding in the car all morning long, she was such a good girl (thanks to the same Laurie Berkner CD we played through 1 1/2 times!)

Sorry about the lame post yesterday, and today's is turning out almost as lame, but not every day can be bloggable, I suppose (is that a word? Maybe I just coined a new term--let's call Webster's!).

you knew it was coming....

...a day with nothing to say! When you write every day there's bound to be a day when there's nothing at all exciting to write! Today's one of those days.

We went to a friend's house this morning to play and chat (guess who did the playing and who did the chatting!?), she took a 1 1/2 hour nap after we got home and had lunch, then we ran some errands this afternoon. Just your average, unexciting Tuesday!

Sorry to bore you....back to your regularly scheduled web-surfing!

secret for success??

I'm on the quest for the perfect Christmas card picture, without much success. We tried on Saturday and she just wanted to run around in her dress, play with her halo and pull the background down. Here are a couple we caught, but they aren't Christmas card material, though they're funny!

I tried this morning with a different tactic. She did better because I gave her things to play with, but she was so enthralled with them that she didn't look up and smile!

These are the best I got, after cropping, but her hair is so messy that I don't want to use these. So we'll have to try another day.

It was lots easier last year! She was so happy with the ribbons and paper that she couldn't help but smile! I had a hard time choosing because there were so many good ones.

I guess the secret for success is to photograph a younger baby or older child! Since that's not the case, maybe success in this situation is to settle for imperfection!?