Big Girl Bed

She is no longer our baby, she is a big girl now. It makes me a little sad, but at the same time I love how independent Kate is and all the good changes that go along with this big girl territory.

Chris and I did not talk about when to transition Kate's crib to the toddler bed. All parents we knew told us to hold off as long as possible as the crib is a way to keep them contained. Chris came home yesterday and was looking in Kate's closet for something and he saw the toddler bed railing and just started disassembling the bed! As Chris put it...she is 2 1/2, it's time! I worried that Kate would not do well with the change, but she did great! She seemed excited about her new bed. Kate slept through the night and did not get out of her bed once. Even in the morning she yelled out, "MAAAAAAAMMMMMAAAAAAAAAAAA" and when we walked in she was sitting in her bed.



Kate testing out her new bed



"OH! I can still jump in my bed? Cool!"

Summer

Well our Summer is coming to an end as Chris is back to work and I return next week on the 11th. We have had a FANTASTIC summer break and truthfully are not ready to go back to the real world. Kate did a lot of swimming with mommy and daddy and pretty much hung out with her friends at the sitter's house.



No big news around here other than we are slowly introducing potty training into our house. We figure Kate will let us know when she is serious about it. I am actually not in a rush to potty train and we are not stressing about it. We are relying on Lori, Kate's sitter, to let us know when Kate is ready...because let's be honest...Lori will be doing the majority of the training!

A funny story about that...we came back from swimming one day and Kate had her swimsuit on (or "swinsut" as she calls it) with her swim diaper and she tells Chris and I, "I go PEE!". We run over to where she is and sure enough she went pee. We told her when she pees to tell us first then go to potty (we do a lot of "first" "then" around here). As I was taking her to her potty to show her, and getting her bath ready to rinse off the pee and pool water, she bolts towards Chris as he was cleaning up the pee with resolve and says, "that's where I went pee!". We thought this was too funny and pretty impressed how perfectly she said it!

That's the other news around here...Kate is talking up a storm. Sometimes she just says random things with words she knows and other times she is going on and on about something. Most of the time when we are in the car Kate loves to point out things like "that water!" or "that plane!". Chris told her that when the plane lands they are napping so when Kate sees the plane she shouts "hi plane" and then will say "bye plane, go night night." Other times Kate just loves to say our names over, and over, and over again. When we answer her she mostly says, "that mommy" while talking to Chris and vice versa. Or she says, "I got arm...I got other arm" or other random stuff to get our attention. I cannot believe how worried I was because she is counting to 10 and even trying in Spanish. She knows the colors blue and purple, she can identify the letter "A", she can sort her blocks and puzzles and match items, she knows and names her body parts, and of course mimics everything we say (so I really need to watch what I say!). For instance, yesterday she put on her play-toy heels and I told her she couldn't wear her hooker heels to the sitter's house and she said, "I hooker". Whoops! Kate is also starting to take an interest in books and pretend play. Her favorite book right now is "Goose and Duck find a pumpkin"...she mostly likes it because there is part where one asks the other questions and the response is "NO" and I make funny voices and faces to go with it. Chris and I caught her reading the book and she was saying "NO" in the funny voice that I do. So cute!



Not much else to say other than Kate is a bright, funny, and adorable toddler ~ with of course the tantrums and other fun things that go along with being 2.

Adventures in Babysitting

We have found a great babysitter named Audra. She has watched Kate for us about three times. The first time Kate could not wait to get rid of us so she could play with her new friend. The second and third time she was a bit clingy with us but babysitter to the rescue! Audra found things to take Kate's mind off of mommy and daddy leaving. Yo Gabba Gabba of course and the iPhoto Booth machine. Here are some cute pics of them.





In other news I thought my genius child could count to ten...well she does sort of, it goes a little something like this...

1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 10...but she says it with such enthusiasm! Love her!

Washing

Like I mentioned in the previous post, we are still house-stting for Mimi and Grandpa Mike. They have one of those fancy front loader washing and drying machines and Kate is fascinated with them! She will ask me, "washing?" implying that she wants me to do laundry to watch the clothes go round and round or put a load of laundry in to see the clothes go round and round...

In the picture you can see she has Olivia and she is pursing her lips, which means she is tired. Kate did not sleep very well last night ~ for the first time in months! I do have to admit I am spoiled by her sleep schedule...she has slept through the night since she was 6 months old. Kate went to bed between 5 and 6 in the evening and would not wake up until 6 or 7 the next morning. Her schedule has changed and she goes to bed between 7 and 8 at night but unfortunately wakes up as early as 6am; but this jives with our work schedule so we love it!



Last night she woke up around 3am yelling "Moooooooooooooooooooooommmmmmmmmm!!!!!!!!!!!" She loves to do this...ever since she was a baby she screamed and cried for Chris and I, and now she LOVES to yell and scream "mom" or "mamma"...no need for an alarm clock with Kate! Anyhow, I tried to get Kate to sleep with me in the guest bedroom so we would not wake up daddy (since he is working this summer). This did not quite work so after about an hour of her getting up and down from the bed I decided to put her back in her play-pen/bed. I should add that she randomly started asking me for "more Yo Yo" and started "singing" the "Yo Gabba Gabba" theme song saying, "Toodee" and "Pex" over and over. Like I said, this sleeping arrangement was not working so back to her bed she went. Kate then proceeded to scream my name for about 10 minutes before she went back to sleep...what is really cute is when she woke up in the morning (usual time, I guess the lack of sleep did not get to her) she was giving me a play-by-play of the night's events and went a little something like this...

"Mamma...I get get get down bed, Mamma I get get get banket, Mamma I get get get down bed, Mamma I go crib..."

Then of course she gives me the play-by-play of the morning events, "I go schoooool, I get choclate nilk, and nonut..." Kate likes to visit daddy at his school and get breakfast. Hopefully she is this excited to go to school when it is time for kindergarten!

Peanut Butter!

Kate discovered something new and fun to do; eating peanut butter out of the jar with a big spoon! I think every girl enjoys this every once in a while. I guess I should add we are still at Mimi and Grandpa Mike's house so they are going to need a new jar of peanut butter...




I think Kate looks cute with her sumo wrestler hair-do...I am trying to let her bangs grow out since she now lets me comb her hair and I love how pigtails look on her. However, she will not keep clips in her hair so that is why the bangs need to grow out; so they can be pulled back with the rest of her hair. I want to do fun things with her hair but she will not let me! Hopefully one day she will or I am just going to have to get over it.

Colors!

"I'm thinking of a color, it's the color of"...for those of you who keep up with Kate's favorite show, "Yo Gabba Gabba", one of the characters, "Brobee", sings this song. I have been avoiding coloring for as long as I can for fear of having scribbles on my walls, furniture, me, etc. Well...I finally caved and figured Kate needed to engage in this favorite pastime...and she did exactly as I thought ~ colors on everything but paper, SHOCKER!

When it is my house I could care less because the crayons are washable and this is expected of a toddler. However, I need to teach Kate that she cannot color on furniture or pets because my job as a parent is to teach her right from wrong, etc...blah blah blah. We are housesitting for Mimi and Grandpa Mike right now and though I wanted to hide the evidence I am sure they are going to find something colored on that I missed before they get home. So I might as well make this public and show them what there "darling and perfect" granddaughter was doing to their home.

Grandpa MIke sorry to say but Kate went crazy with the outside chalk...it may have stained the concrete, it's on the posts and maybe some furniture legs. Nothing some water and a good scrub can't take care of!

Mimi, your gorgeous wood floor and coffee table had (have) beautiful art work by your granddaughter...Zoey (the golden doodle) may have some markings hidden under that fur too!

Mommy to the rescue!!! I am such a genius...I found wrapping paper ~ which for those of you who know Mimi (Linda) there is plenty of note pads, sticky notes, cards, and wrapping paper in her home! Anyhow, I laid wrapping paper on the coffee table and wahlah it is Kate's new place to color.




Daddy keeps telling her, "NO table, color on paper". So when Kate gets a crayon and sees her daddy she says, "No table...". Somehow I think she thinks if she says it but still does it it's ok? Toddler thinking I guess...It is quite cute though! What is not cute...when she yells at us, "I WANNNNNNTTTTTT Cuuuuuleeeeeerrrrrrrrrrsssssssss!"

Happy Independence Day ~ 2011

Kate participated in the 50th Annual Independence Day Parade located in Mimi and Grandpa Mike's neighborhood. It was fun to see all the neighborhood people join in and all the kids getting into the spirit and decorating their bikes. It was NOT fun walking in the heat and humidity though! Kate was pretty cranky when we arrived and did not want to socialize with her buddy Molly, but once we got going she was very excited to be pulled in her wagon by daddy. We probably were half-way done when Molly decided she wanted out and that was our cue to excuse ourselves as Kate then wanted out too ~ plus, it was so HOT and we did our fair share and took our photos!


It may not seem that hot, but is sure was humid this day!


Kate and Molly getting ready to take off...


It's hard to tell in this picture, but Kate is LAUGHING loudly! She got SO excited as soon as Chris started pulling her and Molly in the wagon.