Happy 2nd Birthday, Part One

When he came home from work yesterday, Daddy brought me 2 roses...



Cookies n' cream ice cream cake... compliments of a generous neighbor

Mommy took me to the dollar store to get birthday balloons....

While Daddy went to exercise at the gym this morning, mommy let me smell the roses again.

not-so-wordless wednesday

Taco-Time Body Art

"Round and round..."

Cheese!

fall flower-picking fashion

raingirl

Our reprieve from the drought has continued, and the grass almost has a surreal brightness to it, as though you were looking at it through a special lens which enhances the color. Bear wanted to go outside, and since the rain was fairly gentle, I gave in. I love the fresh smell of a cleansing, soaking rain. She was still in her jammies, and we put on her crocs- shoes that can handle the water.

She played with her pie plate full of rocks, picking some of them up and rinsing them under the gutter spout. Then she stepped off the porch and stepped into the rain catcher tray thingy that is next to the garage. She drowned a mum blossom in the water, then decided to step into the stream, exclaiming, "pitter-patter, pitter-patter splash splash SPLASH!" This was a game we played in the pool down in Gulf Shores, and apparently it works as well for puddle jumping as it does for splashing in the swimming pool.

By the time we came inside, her hair was really curly, her jammies were soaked, and she was glad to change into a clean outfit and get warm. She also clutched a handful of mum flowers in her fist.

chatting

hannah: outside
me: it's raining, we can't go outside in the rain
hannah: raincoat! raincoat!
me: you don't have a raincoat

(she does have a hooded jacket, but that's not the point...)


a couple of minutes later....

hannah: okeeydokey... a raincoat, a raincoat


i think she really wants to go outside.

playtime

the concept of musical accompaniment is clicking.

hannah climbed onto great-gramma eileen's piano bench and started playing. she then proceeded to sing her medley of "twinkle, twinkle little star", "the alphabet song" and "jesus loves me."
*******************
hannah most definitely has an imagination. she was playing with her little people nativity set tonight, and apparently the camel wanted to ride in the donkey's cart. the angel and one of the wisemen got into an altercation... the wise man kept kicking the angel as hannah said, "wise man kick me!" (she confuses the pronouns for you and me.)

oh, dear.... apparently she has a violent streak, too. i asked her to make the wise man apologize, but "he" was not very repentant. 2 minutes later, he was tickling and kicking the angel all over again.

hyper-sensitive?

I tried to give Hannah canned pears at lunch. A couple of pieces had some rust-colored specs where some of the core did not get removed completely.

"Pears hurt!" she exclaimed, and refused to eat any more of them.

Of course, if I thought my pears had blood on them, I probably wouldn't want to eat them, either.

rock pie

bear carried some rocks from where the sidewalk ends all the way up to our front porch today. she wanted to bring them inside, but as always i told her ,"rocks stay outside." i asked her to put them with the rest of her rock collection on the porch. as she piled all the rocks into her disposable pie pan, she said, "bake. oven. make cookies." then she picked up the rock-filled pie pan and carried it toward the front door. apparently she wanted to bake the rocks in the oven and have them come out as cookies.

aunt becca's birthday party at grandaddy and granwendy's

the monarch butterflies were all over the zinnias, so i thought they would smell nice...

then i wanted to pick one

sitting on grandaddy's shoulders in his backyard... next to really tall grass

trying to lead "ju-ju-ana" to the butterfly garden

the butterflies were gone, but we decided to explore together

we also played ring-around-the-rosey

running through the path (leaving molly the dolly in the dust)

more running with cousin juliana

sitting with cousin j's grandma liz, who also came to celebrate aunt "bah-ca's" birthday

watching cousin j dance with the stars on her blog with cousin j's papa jim

tackling grandaddy

hugging aunt becca

hoarding the teaset

cousin juliana is ready to eat the cake her mommy made!

twirling with the tissue paper is a grand game!


Happy Belated birthday, Aunt Becca!

party girl and shop-a-holic

Hannah has been to 2 birthday parties in the past 2 days... Aunt Becca's was last night. She was so excited about seeing cousin Juliana. And she practiced singing "Happy birthday to YA!" on the way to GranWendy and Grandaddy's house. She loved the pumpkin-shaped chocolate cake and strawberry ice cream... and talked Grandaddy into giving her a 3rd helpingof ice cream. (They were small portions for her, but still....)

Tonight we went to her friend Isabella's 2nd birthday party. Isabella's Mom and I were pregnant with our first daughters at the same time. Several months had past since we last saw them, and once again, Hannah practiced singing "Happy Birthday to YA!" on the way there. She is also pronouncing Juliana and Isabella's names better and better.

Hannah seemed most interested in Isabella's toy fruits (lemon, watermelon, orange) from her toy grocery basket set. And Care Bears. And the Doctor Kit... which is a good thing because we bought one for her when I bought Isabella's. Oh, and we can't forget the mooing cow flashlight. Hannah has a flashlight obsession already, and to combine it with one of her favorite animals... well, she loved it. Oh, just before Isabella opened gifts, Hannah tugged at my leg and asked, "potty practice?" We had to wait for someone else to get out of the bathroom, but she tried to go. She also asked for a book to read while she was trying. I think that break in the routine threw her off a bit, because she did not actually do anything in the potty.

We drove the hour home and Hannah was still awake, so we stopped by the grocery store to pick up a few things. She sat in the little car compartment in front of the cart, almost at ground level. As we walked toward the milk, Joel asked if I had put "that" in the car next to Hannah. "That" was a big bottle of purex laundry soap. I hadn't. Apparently our little one had pulled it off the shelf, over her la, and set it in the seat next to her. I walked it back to the end-of-aisle display, and sure enough, there was an empty spot right at toddler level. I'm going to have to be extra careful to make sure she does not shoplift in the future!

Tinkle, tinkle!

During Hannah's bath, I saw bubbles coming out from her bottom. I asked if she needed to go potty, and she stood up. She sat on the big toilet seat for like 10 minutes, with no luck. But she said she still needed to go. She was content to read her books with her towel wrapped around herself. So she tried the little potty seat. Within 5 minutes she had tinkled in the potty!!!! She helped me pour the pee into the toilet, tried to wipe herself, and washed her hands. Oh and it was so cute. As she peed, some splattered on her legs. She said, "uh oh". I told her it is ok, sometimes pee splashes, and wiped her off. Could this be the beginning of potty training? She got 2 stickers for actually having success on the potty. One says "ay ay ay!" and one says "muy bien!" I told her what they said, so she was walking around practicing her Spanish, too. :)

expanding speech

Our little one is using more and more 2, 3 and 4 word phrases and sentences. Some of this morning's examples:

I love balls.
Grandpa take a nap. (copying a video)
I'm sliding.
Chase the cat.
Open the book. (also copying the video)
Uh, oh, chair!
Watch this.
Tickle, tickle, tickle, tickle.
I want orange juice.
Daddy's cereal.
Batteries downstairs (when she couldn't turn on a toy because the batteries are dead, and I told her it needs batteries.)

Now presenting Hannah Bear

every pumpkin needs a pet rock on top(or every pet rock needs a pumpkin)

the impish grin comes from her daddy

The costume is called "Oatmeal Bear". I got it for $10 from the BabyCenter store. It came with a free lift-the-flap book, too. The other part of the order wasn't in stock, but we still got free shipping since their system didn't catch it. And Tech Mom and I found the thing that was going to come with this, or something similar, at the outlet mall on Saturday.. for $10 less!
It's a tad big, but that means more play time. And she didn't rip the hood off in under 5 minutes!!!!

But I do think she looks as much like an Ewok as a teddy bear. She called it a mouse when she saw the package. Once she had it on she petted herself and said, "furry soft." Or something like that.

I do believe we may join the neighbors for trick-or-treating this year.
To show off my cute bear, or Ewok, of course.

A Great pumpkin- retouched

Thanks, Sara, for taking the purple lady out of the background!
(I know lots of "Saras", by the way. It sure was a popular name in the late 70's and early 80's.)

phrase of the day

"Uh, oh, I broke it!" she said upon tearing off a small piece of bagel at breakfast.

I almost forgot....

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YA, MADDIE!"

Fall Fun Photos

1st taste of hummus

great-gramma would be shocked at the price of corn stalks around here!

finding a great pumpkin with daddy

i think i can, i think i can...

can someone photo shop that strange woman out of this pic?

papa's lil' punkin'

farm-style shopping cart

i'll pick that one!

welcome home, gourds!

"lollipop!"


try this, it's yummy...

lifting "weights"

Mommy's hoping that Grandaddy will give her some photos from the Country Ham Festival.

"Fall's Almost Here!" Weekend

Papa had a meeting in our area on Saturday morning, so Gramma and he drove to our house on Friday night. Saturday, Mommy, Gramma & I went down to the Country Ham Festival, where Grandaddy and GranWendy had a table set up in the Art Guild Tent with Grandaddy's paintings and photography. Aunt Becca and Cousin "Jujana" were also there. I rode the little train with Mommy, got a free coloring book and had a heart painted on my hand and cheek at the Walgreen's booth, got a balloon, and pet the sheep, goats and llama in the petting zoo. Oh, I also got my first pair of squeaky shoes... Mommy and Gramma thought they would drive Daddy nuts, but he thought they were fun. After deciding it was too hot outside to stay at the festival, we went shopping at the mall.

Before they left to go home this afternoon, Gramma and Papa went to the Pumpkin Patch with us. I tried to pick a really big pumpkin from the field, chased the little dog, and was so preoccupied with gourds that I didn't care to pick out pumpkins. So Mommy and Daddy picked out a couple, we paid for them, and Mommy put them on the front porch.

Macaroni Grill

Visit Lilly Kate's blog to see pictures of our dinner with some friends we know through Daddy's work.

Recent pictures

booger sucker

swinging in the big kid swing!

picasso in progress

bows!

helping mommy make sweet tea

ding-dong

last lily of the summer?

sidewalk artist

practicing her pommel"horse"

To see more pics, click here.

hannah-bear costume on order

I found this costume for $10 at BabyCenter. I'm hoping she'll keep the hat on, but after today's painting episode, which resulted in a bath to get the paint of her face and body, I am willing to take the gamble that she will let me paint her nose and still look bearish. And of course, there is the princess dress which she still refuses to keep on for more than 5 minutes, even though she will carry it around and say "pretty".


Wednesday- I just got an e-mail that it shipped today. I think I really like this tax-free/shipping-free online shopping.

lesson learned... and mommy's pride fed

This afternoon, we crossed paths with a sort-of famous person. Hannah and I met the individual, who was super nice and called my baby beautiful. Of course, I know she is, but it made me especially proud to hear it from the person who said it.

After we came inside, I noticed all of her shoes and my shoes all over the living area. "Let's pick our shoes up and put them by the door," I said, picking up one of my sets.

"No fits!" She exclaimed as she picked up her shoes and dropped them in their place. I gave her a big hug and thanked her for obeying right away.