Trick or Treat!

Kate dressed up as Olivia the Pig for this Halloween 2011. We practiced early on with trying on the outfit, which she LOVED. We also practiced saying, "trick or treat" and of course "thank you" after she gets her candy and "Happy Halloween!" We went to my mom's house and she was so excited...I kept going over the routine so she wouldn't freak out such as telling her first bath, then costume, then candy. This settled her for a while until she had the costume on and we hadn't eaten dinner yet, damnit...so then I had to throw in "dinner then candy". Life with a 2-year old...I'm telling you! So then after dinner we told Kate she had to wait until it was dark to go trick or treating. She was pretty patient and kept saying, "wait dark..." So then we were off to trick or treat...I think the build up must have been a let down because as you can see from the pictures she was pretty somber. I think, Nana, Mimi and I were more excited. Well, she looked so cute how could we not be! Things pretty much went downhill as we walked out the door. Kate did not want to get out of her wagon or say "trick or treat" like we had been practicing. When she did get out of the wagon she wanted to pull it, in the street of course. Then when we finally got her to walk hand in hand with one of us, she still would not say trick or treat and she wanted me to hold her most of the time. Oh well, we have many more years to practice and get it right!



Happy Halloween!

Halloween Pictures

For those of you who really know Kate, know that she does not like taking pictures. I have tried to train her to sit (sorry it sounds like I am talking about a dog) by telling her to look at the camera and say "cheese". However, Kate is very curious about herself...she always says, "I see Kate" or "I want more Kate". So by the time the camera is clicking she is running towards the camera to see herself...so vain. But with a cute face and LONG lashes such as hers who can blame the girl?

Anyhow, I talked myself into taking her to JC Penney's to take pictures. I had a coupon that waived the sitting fee and thought I could get one or two good pictures to send off for Halloween. I bought her a cute tutu and really wanted some festive pictures of her. So on the big day I prepped her. We practiced taking pictures at home. I got her excited about her outfit. We get to the studio and the girl taking the pictures is really nice and good with kids. Kate seemed to warm up to her. We lasted about 5 minutes and these are the pictures we got.




The photographer told Kate to hold the apple and look at the camera; she also told her not to eat the apple because it is not real. When we showed Kate the pictures she said, "don't eat apple, not real...".




This one, well...Kate was told to stand on the red dot and look at the camera. She did, literally. Relax Kate!



The photographer told Kate to put her hands on her hips and shake her booty. She kind of did and then ended with a "tah-dah".



This is the end result!

I go see pumpkins!

Chris, Kate and I went to visit family in Prescott this weekend. For those of you following along I mentioned that I had connected with my biological father. He has a sister in Prescott, which means Kate and I have an aunt. Aunt Raquel along with her husband Steve and two kids, Maria and Daniel, live in Prescott. We were lucky enough to escape the Yuma heat this past Columbus Day weekend. Can you believe I still have to say get away from the heat when it is October in Yuma? Anyhow, we made a little getaway and enjoyed cool weather and visit with our new members of the family! I should mention that poor Kate got carsick ten minutes before we got to Aunt Raquel's. We took the back way and the road was a bit too winding for Kate's poor stomach. So we opted to take the way through Phoenix on the way home.

We took Kate to Freeman Farms where they have a pumpkin patch. They also had "kid shit" to do as one of our friends put it. Kate seemed to enjoy the day with her cousins, which she loved saying over and over again...I go see cousins? I play with cousins? They rode the merry-go-round, rode a mini-train, went on a hay ride, sat on a tractor, visited the petting zoo and walked through a corn maze. And of course sat in a pumpkin patch to take pictures! It was great fun and hope to do it again next year!








Kate did so well traveling in the car for a long period of time, each way. Chris would argue otherwise, but she only had one fit! It was so bad we had to pull over while in Phoenix to settle her down. What happened? Who knows? All I know is that we gave her the donut that fell on the floor and some juice and put on Dora on the iPad and she was good to go.



She also got along so well with her cousins. Kate was so cute always asking for her cousins and looking for them all over the house. I am glad we made the trip and hope Kate grows up close to her cousins just as I did with mine.

Kate-isms

Kate is just our little chatterbox now so I thought I would share some things she says or does that are pretty darn cute.

Kate was singing the other day with a pretend microphone and it went a little something like this: "Twinkle Twinkle little star, why you up in the sky?"

When Kate is naughty she has to go to her "time out" corner for 2 minutes. Lately, she has been putting items in time out. For instance, last night she put her cookie in time out. Then she put the paper towels in time out and told it, "time out, 2 minutes."

Of course she is a mommy's girl and wanders around the house looking for me saying, "Mommy where are you?" or "Mommy where'd you go?"

Kate is very curious and is always asking "What's that?" But it sounds more like, "whash shat"

She is also very nosy and when we are on the phone she asks, "Who's that?"

Sometimes when we are driving in the car and she sees men working on something she yells, "Hi guys!"

Kate does not like lotion and after her bath she always tells us, "No lotion."

Kate loves counting but often forgets to begin at one and gets so excited for "ten" because we say it in a sing-song way so she begins at 7 then 8, 9 and ten!

Everything is chicken. If she wants meat or poultry, it doesn't matter. Turkey is chicken. Meat is chicken. Steak is "snake" but really it is chicken.

M & M's are "m"..."mom I want m's".

Chris and I bought an iPad and Kate knows how to turn on her Yo Gabba Gabba and Dora the Explorer. So now she says, "my iPad!"

For some reason she is fascinated with our vehicles. When she sees our cars she points out whose is whose. "That is mommy's car". "That is daddy's car."

We have a hard time taking pictures of Kate because she cannot sit still or as soon as she sees the camera or my cell phone she yells, "I see more Kate!". Meaning, she is ready to see the picture before we have even taken it!

Love our girl!

Tata Tony B

I did not know how to title this blog, Tata Tony B seemed most appropriate. Since this is Kate's baby book to chronicle her life I think it is important to include this story...

In May I met my biological father for the first time. When I was three years old my mom married the man who raised me, or who I call dad. I always knew that dad was not my biological father and I never really felt a need to ask too many questions or search for my biological father. Well fast forward to the birth of Kate and suddenly I have questions and want answers and have a strong yearning to know who my biological dad is. Maybe it was Kate's crazy curly hair that made people ask, 'where did that come from'? Well, whatever it was I am so glad I did! Kate now has another grandfather to add to the mix and he has been nothing but generous and loving to Kate, myself and Chris. I don't have the right words to express how happy I am that I met my biological father. It is one of the best decisions I have made and seeing Kate with her Tata confirms that I made the right choice for our family. Well Kate just adores her Tata! And the answer to where her curly hair came from?...Tata! I hope she also gets his awesome soccer skills...he was quite the player back in the day and still has some fancy footwork.

I apologize if there are many holes in this story, but when Kate gets older and reads this I can hopefully answer all of her questions. For now what is important is that my biological dad and her biological grandfather is in our lives. We are very happy. We know we are loved and supported by the entire family. Yes, my dad - the other Tony - was very supportive with my decision. Yes, I realize my life seems like a made for tv movie!

Another reason to add this story is that there will more stories and pictures with our newfound family members...here is a sneak preview!

We were invited by Tata Tony B and his wife, Elsa, to hang out with them in California this Labor Day weekend. We enjoyed the very cool 71 degrees by hanging outside, visiting a winery, and feeding the ducks. I tried taking pictures of Kate with her Tata but they both seemed to turn their head when the camera is on them...so for now he remains the mystery man.




In Temecula feeding the ducks






At a winery in Temecula ~ So scenic!


Kate and Tata the mystery man ~ more pics to come!

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.