the final installment

I promise this is the last you'll hear of her birthday! It's been birthday week around here, not just a day. Yesterday was her party--my parents, my husband's parents, and my brother and his family came. There was a change in plans a couple of weeks ago--I mentioned before that I was making a lady bug cake. Well, I realized that she really wasn't that excited about ladybugs anymore, so I was only making it because I wanted to, not because it was something she'd love. What does she love right now? Pooh. So we had a Pooh party instead. She loved it. She had a fabulous time--mostly following her cousins around and running from one grandparent to the next to be held for a minute before wanting down and finding out what the cousins were up to.

Before I forget, we finished our project I mentioned a few days ago. I can't take much credit--I helped paint it, but my husband did almost all of the work. I saw one of these bookshelves in the Pottery Barn Kids catalog when I was pregnant and talked about how cute it was, but of course it was so expensive. He decided to draw the plans himself and build it from scratch. I think it's beautiful. This was her main present from us, though she also got some more beads, play doh (she hasn't ever played with it, so just think of the fun....and mess....that we're in for!), books, a toy lawn mower to push around outside, and an outfit. Now we have to find room for it!

At the party we opened presents--with anxious helpers, cousins Emma and Alex--She got puzzles, books, clothes, and sand toys for the sand box, which is now filled with sand!), cake and ice cream, and then dinner a little later.

She loved having everyone sing happy birthday!

And eating cake was a highlight (this picture was taken right AFTER she tried putting her whole face in the piece of cake--we didn't have the camera ready for that, unfortunately!!!)

After cake and ice cream her cousins wanted to go out and play in the new sandbox. It was sprinkling and freezing, but we decided to let them for a little while. They had a ball.

The rest of the day was playtime. She and Emma had fun together, and Emma taught her how to have a tea party!

She went to sleep a tired but happy girl.

portrait problems

We went to get her two year portraits taken today. Oh my....making a two year old sit still and smile on cue isn't an easy task. Daddy took the day off work and went with me, which helped a lot, but she was not very interested at all in smiling for the camera. She would've much rather spent her time playing (which is what she did with every single prop the photographer tried to use to get her to smile). It was quite a challenge, and I'm sure the photographer wasn't very happy with us, since after all of the time and frustration spent to get our little one to smile, we only bought the special $9.95 package!

There were some cute ones and we had trouble deciding, but this one was the best picture overall...even though her hair is messed up. The smile was the most genuine and looked the most like our girl.

I don't think we'll do pictures again until she's three. Maybe she will have matured a bit by then.

just sharing more birthday pictures....

Kaden and Allecia came over to bring her a present.... sandbox toys and a Cleveland Indians hat (which goes perfectly with the Cleveland Indians outfit she has!).

I made cupcakes (froze most of them since we'll have cake again for her party but left some out for eating last night) and she devoured it. We sang to her and did candles, but we only have that on video.

She opened a couple of presents, but will get the majority of them on Saturday at her party. She opened Leap Frog Fridge Phonics, an animal puzzle book, and a Pooh doll.

in this picture she's making Pooh dance to the ABC song that is playing on the Leap Frog toy

After dinner we played outside (for about the fourth time that day--they got the weather totally wrong and it was a gorgeous day!) and then went back to my favorite ice cream place and she had her very own dish of ice cream (usually she just eats from ours, but Grandma was paying!). They still didn't have Strawberry Chip, but I enjoyed my Black Raspberry Chip almost as much.

Here she is in "the birthday chair." I took her picture in this chair every month on the 9th of her first year of life, and then on her first birthday, and now on her second birthday. She's filling up the chair more and more each time!

Today she had her two year check up at the doctor. She's up to the 8th percentile in weight! Woohoo!!!! The doctor was really excited and called her a "big girl!" She's always been a tiny girl, so that was quite a compliment from the doctor! She's 22 pounds 14 ounces and 33 1/2 inches long (that's the 50th percentile for height). I just read yesterday that if you double their height at 2 years old it predicts their adult height. That would make her 67 inches, or 5'7"--I guess time will tell about that one!

my birthday girl

Happy Birthday to my sweet TWO year old!

It's been a fun day so far....

*woke up to Mommy and Daddy singing "Happy Birthday"

*ate a birthday muffin for breakfast (which she kept calling "cake")

*excitement over Grandma's arrival around 9:30

*first present--Pooh chair (she's obsessed with Pooh these days)

*shopping with Mommy and Grandma to a children's book store and Toys R Us

*second present--sandbox (to be filled with sand this weekend--right now it makes a good slide!)

and more fun to come....

*pizza for dinner--her favorite

*cupcakes and blowing out candles

*more presents

I can't believe my baby is two years old. This morning as I laid in bed I started thinking about two years ago today...the greatest day of my life. It makes me cry when I think about it-mostly happy tears, but also a bit of nostalgia as I realize that she's growing up so fast.

Here's a picture from yesterday...she got new rain boots and was SO excited to wear them. Once she got them on, though, she couldn't walk in them! In the last 24 hours I think she's had them on and off about 24 times! She puts them on, can't walk, then says "all done," and kicks them off. I think it's the heel--she has to get used to walking with them. She's better today than she was yesterday.

Her birthday party is Saturday. More pictures then.

it's really spring!

The last two days have been just beautiful-I just want to bottle it up and have some of it every day! It's almost 70 today (it may actually be 70..I haven't checked recently) and sunny and gorgeous. You'd better believe we spent almost the whole weekend outside. Saturday we did yard work. Okay, let me rephrase that.... Saturday I took our little one outside, got the rake out, and attempted to rake, but she saw her bike in the garage and wanted that, so I stopped raking and got that out. Started raking again....she wanted a ride. I stopped raking (oh, I probably should mention that we have a pin oak tree in our front yard, which apparently doesn't lose its leaves in the fall like every other tree in the world, but in the spring, which means we have to rake leaves not only in the fall but also in the spring....lucky us, huh? Remind me to never buy another house with a pin oak tree!). I pushed her on her bike for a bit and Daddy came out. He took the rake and started raking while I gave the bike ride. This officially passed the torch on to him to do the yard work--I spent the rest of the time playing with our little one and keeping her out of Daddy's way. "I thought you were doing the raking?" he asked once. I said, "But you're the one who took the rake from me, so now you're in charge!"

After he finished we went to Home Depot to get grass seed (last fall they redid our sidewalks and messed up our yard in the process, so we have lots of grass to replace) and paint for her birthday project, which is almost finished (more on that in a few days when it's actually finished and I can post a picture....until then you'll just have to wonder!). Came home in time for lunch and naptime, and during her nap he and I painted the project. We spent the afternoon outside and inaugurated our grill for the season by grilling steaks for dinner. After dinner we went to the best ice cream place in the whole world (I won't say the name because it's fairly local, and I don't like to give hints about where I live, but those of you who live around here will know where I'm talking about when I say it is "graet"). Online it said their Strawberry Chip ice cream was in season--that's my all time favorite ice cream and I was THRILLED to go get it. But when I got there, they didn't have it yet! I was very dissapointed....though having ice cream there is never a disappointment for me, so I got over it quickly and enjoyed my Peanut Butter Chip instead. The whole way there our little one was saying over and over again, "I Dee! I Dee! I Dee!" because we had told her we were going bye bye to get ice cream. She had a great time.

Then we went to a nearby park I'd only been to once before. It had a very tall tunnel slide that our little one decided she wanted to try. We were the only ones there, or I wouldn't have let her because it was very big and I'm generally not a fan of tunnely things for little kids because I'm afraid she'll get stuck and then I'd have to climb up in there to get her, but since we were alone, I decided to let her try. Daddy was with her at the top and I waited at the bottom and I could see up into the tunnel so she could see me and had a huge smile on her face. Daddy let go and down she came toward me VERY fast, but she was grinning from ear to ear with her hands up in the air. As soon as I got her she scrambled to the ground and ran to the steps to do it again. She loved it, and I've never seen her so excited about a slide. She did it over and over and over, running back up to the top each time. We finally had to tell her it was time to go, because it was almost her bedtime, but she would've stayed forever!

Yesterday after church, lunch, and naptime, we set off for another new park. We found out when we got there that there wasn't much to this park, but we went for a walk in the woods with our little one in the backpack on Daddy's back. She loved it, and I don't think she remembered it from last year, because she acted like it was a totally new experience, and said "pack pack" over and over again, so excited. She also got to play on the playground there and loved the big tall slide. It had really high sides so we let her go on it, with Daddy at the top and me at the bottom again. She kept running back for more. But there were a lot of big kids there playing and she came close to getting trampled a few times, so we didn't stay very long.

We came home and broke out the bubbles. She spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in the yard "blowing" bubbles (this consisted of putting the wand in her mouth, mostly). This was the first time it had been dry enough to play in the backyard for any length of time, and it was so nice to just sit and watch her play and not have to worry about any "no nos." Anywhere else she plays it seems like there's so much I have to watch that she doesn't do, but in the backyard, since it's fenced in, she pretty much has the run of the yard, and it was really nice to not have to play policeman for the afternoon! She had a great time, and so did I, just watching her.

We grilled out again (hamburgers this time--we've gotten our red meat fix for awhile!!) and even ate outside on the deck, which was so nice.

This morning we ran errands and were going to come home and play outside, but I decided to take her to the park instead. We have a nice metropark very close to our house and we hadn't been yet this spring, so we went there. Before too long a friend of mine from church showed up unexpectedly with her little boy, who is just a couple of months younger than my little one, so we had an impromptu playdate, which was lots of fun. They really enjoyed chasing each other and swinging together and I enjoyed talking to my friend, who I hadn't seen in quite awhile. My little one fell in the mud toward the end of the morning, though, and her jacket and bottom were caked with mud. I hadn't brought the diaper bag so I didnt have a change for her....I just had to let the mud dry a little, take her jacket off, and let her ride home in muddy pants. It was dry by then, though, so it didn't dirty the car seat. Figures that I had just washed her clothes this morning, so I couldn't add these to the wash....doing a separate load now of random things of the same color.

I'm sure this afternoon we'll be back outside after she wakes up. We've got to soak in all of this springiness that we can because it's going to rain the rest of the week. Yuck. Wednesday is her birthday and I was hoping to go to the zoo, but it looks like that probably won't happen. We'll have to do an indoor activity instead that day to stay out of the rain.

It's going to be a busy week for the birthday girl.... Grandma's coming to visit, she has her two year check up, birthday portraits (that is, if the huge welt under her eye heals that she managed to get on Saturday due to a fall--if not I'll have to reschedule the pictures!), and her big party (well, not really so big....both sets of grandparents, my brother and his family, and maybe one of Daddy's sisters). So it's a busy week for me, too, with lots of cleaning and cooking and preparing to do. I'd better go get busy. I've been taking a break while the freshly mopped floor dries, but I think it's dry by now, so it's back to work.

Happy Spring!

random pictures

Last week we went to the local science museum with our friends Allecia and Kaden. We didn't realize it was spring break for most schools....HUGE mistake! It was a zoo, not a museum! We had to wait in line over a half hour just to get in. There's a special room for toddlers--it was mobbed with people, so I was so stressed trying to keep a close eye on her. She was constantly running from one place to the next and it's a lot easier for her to zip through a crowd of people than it is for me to weave my way in and out to keep after her! She and Kaden had a great time, though. I didn't get many good pictures, but this is one I like. She was playing in a little house with the kitchen sink.

Note to self....don't go to the science museum during any school break or holiday.

Last week on the day of the acorns I also got her tricycle out for awhile. She rode on it while I pushed for a little bit, but before too long she kept telling me "ah dah, ah dah," which is all done. She got off and decided she wanted to be the one pushing instead.

Lately she's begun staying in her crib to play for quite awhile after she wakes up from her nap. I go in there to get her and she's content just to talk and play for at least a half hour, sometimes more. I'll often put clothes away or some other job while she happily chats away. Once last week I went in to get her and found her socks off and one on her hand like a mitten. I happened to have the camera nearby and took a picture.

her latest news

Last night we went out to dinner (always exciting because it means I didn't have to cook!!) and our little one was playing with the crayons they gave her. She started scribbling little curly cues and saying "circle, circle, circle," quite clearly. We both looked at her in amazement, since we didn't even know she knew what a circle was, let alone know how to draw them!!! Of course then we tried to teach her "square" and "triangle." She liked saying the new words, but couldn't point them out when we asked her, "Which one is the square?" and so forth. So that didn't work as well...after that we stuck with circle.

She is repeating EVERYTHING we're saying now. It's taken a verrrrrrrrrrrrrrry long time to get to this point, it seems, but she's now talking up a storm and saying lots of new words. This has us both very happy. Her biggest thing to say now is "yeah." If you ask her a question she'll answer, "YEAH!" with much enthusiasm. I'd rather have her say "yes," but I realized the other day that I say "yeah" and that's where she got it. Hmmm...maybe I'd better rethink the things I say.

Yesterday when we picked her up from the nursery at church they said that she was talking non stop, saying everything she had in her hand or that someone was playing with. And they understood her! Hooray!

I stumbled upon a couple of preschool games online last night and was trying to see what she could do. There was this game where they put the shadows of different people on the screen and you have to pick out which one is Santa Claus. They're kind of tricky, in that several have on hats similar to Santa's, several are "round and jolly" like Santa, so it's not always clear which one he is. She got them right every time! I was impressed. Later she kept saying "ho ho ho," and pointing to the computer, wanting me to find that site again.

I'd be remiss if I didn't share the less successful games....like the one where they have to point to the correct shape. She got the circle right, but not the other shapes. Oh well! At least she knows one!

She redeemed herself with the color game, and knew all of her colors!

Oh, and I had another shopping "high" yesterday. I did my weekly CVS trip where I get the free stuff using ECBs. It's become a bit of an obsession. Anyway, yesterday I got three bags of stuff (body wash, ibuprofen, face soap....TONS of stuff) for $1.01, and earned back $25 in ECBs for next time.

So that's the news around here.

a belated and before birthday bash

Yesterday was my friend Amanda's little girl's birthday--Jada turned two. Last weekend was my friend Allecia's son, Kaden's, second birthday, and in a week and a half is my little one's birthday. So obviously, Amanda, Allecia, and I were all pregnant at the same time and gave birth just within weeks of each other. Amanda had the idea to go out to celebrate all of their birthdays. Since Jada's is in the middle it made sense to go on her birthday--a birthday celebration for her, belated celebration for Kaden, and a before celebration for our daughter. So last night our three families met at Red Robin. However, trying to fit 10 people (three of them toddlers, plus one older sister, who is a preschooler) into a busy restaurant on Friday night at 6:00 pm is no easy task. We waited an hour. An hour waiting with hungry toddlers in a crowded restaurant lobby feels like an eternity. When we went in to put our name in we saw a couple go sit down. We were still waiting when we saw them leave!

But we all survived, and after lots of running around the lobby, playing with balloons, looking at the tiger they have on display, keeping them away from the revolving door, and on and on and on, they finally called us back. And they all were pretty well behaved for having waited so long and being up way past their bedtimes. The highlight was having the waiters and waitresses come out clapping with three hot fudge sundaes singing to all three of them. They all weren't really sure they liked the loud singing, but there was lots of clapping at the end, which at least made my little one quite excited. She loves singing and clapping of any sort.

So here are some pictures. Enjoy.

Amanda and Jada

Weed and R

Allecia and Kaden (sorry it's not a great picture, Allecia....but it's the only one I got of both of you!!!)

Here's a better picture of cutie-pie Kaden!

The birthday boy and girls

Getting ready for the singing and clapping....Amanda was preparing them for the celebration!

"I Dee" is one of her favorite foods (translation: Ice Cream). She fed herself almost the whole thing.

Here's the result:

a picture of modesty

This is from New Year's Eve, but I just saw it for the first time last night when my friend who took it showed it to me. Yep, that's my daughter, folks. The poster child for femininity.

I've had it with video clips. I've tried and tried to post several, and spent well over and hour on it today when I should've been cleaning, but I was determined to get it to work. It didn't, as you can see, since there are no new video clips. Oh well. You've gone this long without seeing her on video, I guess you can continue to just see the pictures. So don't be surprised if you don't see anymore. I think I've given up, unless someone has some helpful advice for me.

learning the ABCs

In the last several days she's started singing her version of the alphabet song. It goes something like this:

"e-k-e-k-e-k-G" (she says that one really loudly and holds it for the appropriate length (longer than the other letters, just like it's supposed to be). Then it continues with other various letters, and sometimes just little grunts. "K" always seems to make many appearances throughout the song.

I think it's hilarious. At the end she squeals and claps. And then signs "More!!"

She also has started "reading" some of her books. Her favorite one to read is "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" It goes "moun dare moun dare, uh uh uh," or something close to that. "Moun" is brown in her language, and "dare" is bear, so there you go! Moun Dare, Moun Dare.... She sometimes does the other animals by saying their sounds instead of their names. She likes me to jump in and read with her, but I just like listening to her do it....especially when she thinks no one is paying attention and she's just reading away. Sometime I need to catch her in the act on video.

At the moment she's playing Mommy to her babies--she went and got one of her own diapers and is trying to put it on her baby doll. Of course the baby is small and would take a preemie size diaper and her diapers are size 4....so you can imagine how it looks--up to the baby's chin. Now I'm laughing because she just picked up her leap frog green plastic caterpillar and is trying to put a diaper on it!!! What an imagination.

a girl after Daddy's heart

It's a gorgeous day here today and after we got home from the grocery store (more on that later) we stayed outside to play for almost an hour. For the entire time we were outside, my nature loving daughter (Daddy's girl through and through--shown here picking up a leaf) ran back and forth from her favorite rock in the side yard to the oak tree in the front yard collecting acorn tops (she calls them "coe-ah," which is her word for "corn"). She'd pick up one at a time, run back to the side yard, squealing and holding her precious acorn top with such delight, drop it into the pile she had accumulated, run back to the front, and pick up another one. Here she is holding her acorn top....can't you just see the excitement written all over her face?

She'd pick up only one at a time. Never mind that she has two hands....or that acorn tops are small and she could hold several in her hand at once. No, that hasn't occurred to her. So it was back and forth and back and forth. And loving every minute of it.Here she is running back from her rock (her rock is the big one behind her to the left). She likes to sit on it, and this is the first place she runs whenever we go outside to play.

Once she had a pile over by her rock, she decided that wasn't the place for the pile. So she proceeded to pick them up again one by one and move them to a different pile under the dead lilac bush, which is about a yard away from her rock. I caught a little of that process on video. I tried to upload it and had trouble. I'll try to add it on here later.

This went on and on, and would've continued unless I hadn't intervened and told her it was time to go in to have lunch. She didn't want to go in, but was happy to eat lunch and practically fell asleep feeding herself her yogurt. Daddy came home and sat and had lunch with her, but she didn't say a word. Very unlike her usual chatty self. "She's very quiet today," he commented. I told him I thought she had worn herself out running back and forth for so long. Here's hoping for a long nap this afternoon!

We'll go back out this afternoon and probably this evening, too. She would stay out all day if she had her way. I just wish this beautiful weather would stay with us, but it's supposed to rain the rest of the week, and then be colder on Saturday, which is our next nice day. Oh well. At least we've had this glimpse of spring for today.

Okay, so I said I'd tell you more about the grocery store. I went because we needed milk, but I decided that I'd check the ads to see what was on sale, even though I didn't need too many groceries. Well, I found out that Lysol products were half price, and there were a ton of Lysol coupons in the paper recently, so I was able to buy about six different bottles of different cleaners (which I desperately needed, too!) for 28 cents each! And a bottle of toilet bowl cleaner for 4 cents! Plus I had a prescription transferred there using a coupon and got a coupon for $10 off my groceries in return. I was very excited about my deals. Not only that, but earlier in the week I saw this post about signing up for Kohl's email mailing list and getting a $5 coupon, so I did that and received my coupon a couple of days later. Today I went, looking for a white short sleeved shirt with a collar for my little one to go with a skirt I have for her for the summer. I had no luck in that department, but I decided to look through the clearance racks. I found two dresses for her for next winter both marked down to $3.40. I bought them both, used my $5 coupon, and ended up paying $1.92 for two dresses that originally would've cost me $68!! I get a little too much of a thrill from my bargains, so most of you are probably reading this paragraph thinking, "So what? Who cares what you paid for toilet bowl cleaner!" but it's quite exciting to me.

So there's a glimpse into my day....bargains and acorns!

happy easter

I realized today that this was her third Easter.....strange when you consider the fact that she's not even two years old!

She was a week old her first Easter (she's wearing my first Easter dress!),

last year Easter was the day before her first birthday,

and this year Easter falls two and a half weeks before her birthday.

It's strange the way it falls at different times.

The day started with her first ever Easter egg hunt. Daddy grew up having them in his house, so he wanted to continue the tradition, so last night he filled a huge bag of plastic eggs with candy and "hid" them in the living room. Hiding them from a not quite two year old means laying them out in broad daylight across the floor, on the couch and chairs, on the windowsill, and so forth. The trickiest ones were in the back of her car--we had to help her find those. She loved it, though. We gave her her bucket and showed her how to put the eggs in, and she went back and forth across the room, picking up an egg, then trotting back and putting it in the bucket, then going back for another one, and back to the bucket. We laughed at her lack of multi-tasking....she could've put an egg in each hand, but she didn't. It was one at a time practically every time. Here's a rare exception! It took her several eggs to realize that there was something in the eggs. When she figured that out she'd then shake the eggs as she carried them back to the bucket, but didn't bother sampling anything inside. It wasn't until after they were all collected that she found the chocolate eggs and tried biting into the foil to get to the chocolate. Gross. She wasn't interested in the jelly beans--took her a long time to even agree to put one in her mouth. When she finally did she spit it out, tried a different color, spit it out, tried one more color, and gave up. Jelly beans don't make the cut, I guess. Chocolate was another story. She asked for it all day.

Then she got her easter basket. This was my basket growing up, so it has special meaning to me. She wasn't very interested in anything in it, except more foil covered chocolate eggs. I had to show everything to her later for her to understand what it all was. (Note: most of the candy in the basket is for Daddy (and a Resee's egg for me....) and not for her! She only likes the chocolate eggs anyway, plus there's a chocolate bunny Daddy wanted me to buy because he always got one of those in his basket. I'm sure she'll devour that, too, in time.

We went to church and she cried when Daddy left her in the nursery (he leaves her because she does better separating from him than from me) but was full of smiles when we came back for her. This is usually the case, so I'm glad she enjoys it after the initial tears. She hadn't been in several weeks, due to her sickness and then mine, so we were apprehensive about leaving her again with her recent shyness episodes. I'm glad it didn't affect her this week.

This afternoon we went outside into the sunny but chilly day and used her new sidewalk chalk from her easter basket, though she was much more interested in the bubbles I took out, too. We went for a walk and she enjoyed carrying her bubble bucket and pointing to the plethora of airplanes we saw flying above.

The highlight of the day was the "Turbo Tigger" toy--an Easter gift from Grandma. She has been very excited about her Pooh doll in the last couple of weeks and now Tigger has joined the family. This Tigger bounces on his tail and sings "The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers." She loves it and starts bouncing and squealing herself everytime he does. I have some cute video of her with Tigger, but it takes forever to load, so I'll have to do that another time.

All day long, in addition to watching Tigger bounce, she carried her "eggies," as she calls them, around, trying to open and close them. Plastic eggs are not meant for two year olds to open and close--she gets so frustrated. But she loved carrying them all around the house, back and forth from person to person and room to room, naming the colors each time.

She had a fun day.

elmos and tigers and hair cuts, oh my!

Busy day around here....Daddy's off for Good Friday, so we decided to go to the zoo. It was a little cold, so there was hardly anyone there, which was nice, and a nice thing about having a membership is that you don't feel like you're wasting your money if you leave after an hour or two (we left after about two). She loved seeing the tiger up close. He just paced back and forth behind the glass watching her. It was kind of frightening, actually, as her parent, but she loved it!!

And she touched a snake. Gross. I hate snakes. I made Daddy take her to do that.

Yesterday she got her hair cut. It needed it badly. She looks a little more well kept now!

After we got home from the zoo I set to work decorating an Elmo birthday cake for Kaden, my little one's best friend, who turns two tomorrow (he's two and a half weeks older than she is, so that means it's only two and a half weeks until her birthday! I can't believe it.). If you'll recall I took a cake decorating class a little over a year ago (you can click back to March 2007 blogs to find some pictures if you're really bored!) and learned how. I made Kaden's little smash cake last year for his first birthday and the cakes for our little one's birthday last year, too. I'm looking forward to making her a ladybug cake in a few weeks--I'm sure you'll see the results on here if you come back. Elmo's eyes are a little on the yellow-y side because of the butter in the frosting and because I used regular vanilla and not "Wilton Clear Vanilla," like they recommend, but other than that, I'm fairly happy with the result.

I hope Kaden is, too! Happy Birthday, Kaden!!

it worked!!!!

Okay, so now since I think I'm so smart, I'll try another one! In this one she was playing with the clock on the toy and started dancing to the music. But as soon as she noticed that I had the camera on her, she had to run over. She figured out that she could see herself when I played it back for her, so everytime she'd see me with it pointed toward her, she'd come running, saying, "see, see!" So much for candid shots! But enjoy the brief little dance....

Okay, enough of that for today. I can't exert myself too much all in one day. I've been sick, after all! Today I finally feel pretty much like myself. Still can't eat very much--nothing much sounds good, but I did eat both breakfast (a tiny bit of cereal) and lunch (half a peanut butter sandwich) so far. That's more than I've eaten in the last three days combined (a couple of saltines, a few bites of toast, and several bottles of gatorade to replensish my fluids were about it). Last night I finally felt hungry and wanted to eat and I couldn't find a single thing in the house that sounded good to me except for popcorn! My husband was afraid it would rip up my poor stomach, but I insisted, since it was growling like crazy and I had to put something in it, and I couldn't stand the thought of another saltine or bite of toast. So I ate just a little and ate it really slowly, and it tasted so good. Hopefully I'll be back to normal tomorrow if I can keep eating some real food today and get some more energy.

Last night for some reason I couldn't go to sleep. I think it was because I took a two hour nap yesterday afternoon while my little one napped, since I was so wiped out from the days before. So last night I was laying in bed tossing and turning and finally turned on the TV (my poor husband has been banished to the guest room since all of this started so I wouldn't bother him with all of my comings and goings from the bathroom!) which means I could turn the TV on in bed, which I ordinarily couldn't do. I flipped around and found the show, "Top Chef" on Bravo. It brought back memories of my last month or so of pregnancy two years ago--I was always so uncomfortable and couldn't sleep and would end up on the couch almost every night flipping around at midnight looking for something to watch. I discovered Top Chef then and became hooked. I never see it anymore because it seems like it's always on after I go to bed, but I really like it, and I got to see the first episode of a brand new season last night! I'm tempted to keep watching...but that would mean staying up past my bedtime (it's normally on at 10:00 on Wednesdays, I found out, and I usually go to bed at 10). Too bad I don't have TiVo.... just the old fashioned VCR, and I guess I could tape it.... I don't know if I'm that committed to it or not! That's a lot of work to remember to set that every week. We'll see.

first ever video clip

Okay, here goes nothin'....I must be feeling better if I'm willing to attempt this! I was playing around with my new camera today and figured out how to take a few short videos with it. Then I actually figured out how to get them onto my computer. Now I want to see if I can get them to play on here--the final hurdle. Here's the first one (I hope!). I know it's not very exciting, but give me a break...it's my first one!

I brought that toy up from the basement this morning--I took her down there while I was putting in a load of laundry and she fell in love with it all over again, so I brought it up. She spent at least a half hour playing with it--you would've thought it was a brand new toy!

Now if this one works, I'll try to post one showing off her dancing skills a bit....stay tuned.

so sick

The last day and a half have been one of the longest ever. Yesterday afternoon I put my daughter down for a nap and then laid down myself because I hadn't slept well the night before and I was tired. As I laid there my stomach was bothering me. I did fall asleep but when I woke up I felt really nauseous. Well, it only went downhill from there.... Except for once in grad school when I had food poisioning, I've never been this sick. My husband had to stay home from work today to take care of our little one because I can barely move, except to make it back and forth between the bed and the bathroom. This is a rare time that I'm actually sitting on the couch downstairs. I couldn't take my bed anymore. And to make matters worse my mom now has it too. I feel so bad that I gave it to her. Unless it's something we both ate this weekend or something. Ugh.

a day fit for a queen

So today is my birthday, and in my family we've always made a big deal over birthdays. Today was no different. My parents came down last night and we all went out to dinner at Buca di Beppo. It's a restaurant we hardly ever go to because it's more fun to go with lots of people. Our little one had a great time playing with the crayons (for the first five minutes until she threw them on the floor and we couldn't find them), dipping her fingers in olive oil (yeah, I know...gross!) and drinking from Grandma's straw.



This morning I got presents--a new digital camera from my parents, because we have a huge monster camera--takes awesome pictures but it's way too big and cumbersome to take everywhere, and I wanted one I could put in my purse or the diaper bag and have it with me everywhere. And my husband surprised me with a long weekend for the two of us in Chicago! He didn't plan the details--he wanted me to do that so I could get to do what I want to do, so I get to get started planning a fun trip--awesome! I was floored. I never would've expected that from him because he's a mountain-climing, clean air, national park lover who really hates cities and would never choose to vacation there, so the fact that he gave this trip to me means he really loves me if he's willing to go just because it's something I enjoy! How sweet! I can't wait. I don't know when we'll go, but sometime this spring or early summer.



Then we had a girls' outing--my mom, my little one, and me. We went shopping and I bought some birthday presents for our little one's upcoming big day. My mom took the two of us out to lunch. I chose California Pizza Kitchen because I love it and my husband hates it and I only ever get to go there if I go with someone else (so not very often at all!). It was delicious and they surprised me with a hot fudge sundae with a candle on top at the end--and didn't even sing to embarrass me, for which I'm thankful!



Next we came home for naptime. After she was safely asleep (with Daddy home to supervise), my mom and I left again for another shopping excursion. It's always a treat to go shopping without a toddler in tow. We went to the mall to several shoe stores I never get to go to with my little one, because I'm looking for a new pair of sandals. I didn't find anything, but we had fun looking and we did some more birthday shopping for a certain almost-two-year-old, as well, which is always lots of fun.



The plan was that my husband and I were supposed to go out to dinner tonight and my parents would babysit, but on the way home from the mall I realized that I really wasn't hungry because of my huge lunch, I was tired from shopping all day, and my husband's basketball team is in the final game of their conference tournament tonight and he really would rather stay home to watch his game, so I decided to save our date for another night when I was hungrier, less tired, and there was no basketball game fighting with me for my husband's attention (I'm plagued--March Madness is ALWAYS starting the week of my birthday. Ugh!). But it's okay...it lengthens my birthday this way!



We ordered pizza instead and had the cake my mom made me (from scratch carrot cake--yum!). And despite my dateless evening, I was a queen today and had a great day full of my favorite people and my favorite pasttimes (spending time with them and shopping!). I'm a lucky girl.

fresh look

I decided to change the look of the blog for spring. Green makes me feel springier.

Enjoy!

prying my eyes open

Yes, the extra hour of daylight in the evening is good. Especially when it's a sunny extra hour, like it is today.

But what else is there to like about this daylight savings time???? I'm so tired I can't do much of anything. In the morning I can barely get out of bed. I drag for most of the day, and then at night I'm not ready to go to sleep and have trouble. Which only perpetuates the getting out of bed problem in the morning. Ugh.

Last week I gradually pushed our little one's bedtime forward a few minutes each night to get her ready for the time change. She's done great with it--and her bedtime is even a half hour later now than it used to be (7:30 instead of 7:00--my husband thought 7:00 was too early, so we decided to try it out). I guess I've learned the lesson that I need to adjust my own bedtime the week before, too! I'll try to remember that next spring (in the fall it doesn't seem to matter, since there's an extra hour involved!).

Not much else going on here. She's still getting over her cold, but she's in a good mood now again most of the time. She's starting to put words together a little more. In this book I sometimes read her before bed there are a few words that are colored in different colors. She points to one and says "O....blue." Yes, it's a blue O. Then she does the same for other various colors (always an O though--it seems to be her new favorite letter). Today she pulled my jacket down from the back of the chair where I left it and was dragging it around saying "jacket....mama" over and over. Well, she doesn't exactly say the word jacket, but her version of the word is too strange to even try to type phonetically! My favorite word to hear her say is "yellow." It sounds more like "yewewwow" or something....but it's so funny to hear.

Today I let out the hems in several of her dresses from last spring. Yes, folks, my almost 24 month old daughter will be wearing her 12 month dresses again this spring and summer. They still fit! They were too short, though, so I let out the hems, which were really deep. She's still so tiny. I wonder what she weighs now. She goes to the doctor the day after her birthday (which is now less than a month away--unbeliveable!!), so we'll soon see.

Alright, I'm going to bed early tonight, so I can hopefully get out of bed a little more gracefully in the morning tomorrow.