First Day

Wednesday was back to school day for the big girl. Her first day of Kindergarten. I wasn't sad until I uploaded her pictures to Facebook. :( She has grown so much in the last year. So far she seems to enjoy school, just a little crabby when she gets home.

2013 versus 2014

Slow down little girl! 

Big Girl Got Her Ears Pierced

For what seems like ages Bella has been begging us to get her ears "peered." There was even an infamous video from a trip to Wal-Mart. {Note: When she asked Daddy his response was "Well, I have a nail gun at home." She sighed and walked away from him. LOL.}

So after much begging and whining and "needing" earrings and wanting to wear Mommy's earrings we finally pulled the trigger (pun intended).

I tried to take her to a studio with a professional piercer, unfortunately it was their policy that they cannot pierce anyone under 14 years old. :( So we move to the next best place and recommended store, Claire's. I'm glad we did. There were two associates there so they could pierce at the same time and lessen the chances she'd chicken out if they'd only pierced one ear at a time.

We checked out the laundry list of earrings available and she wanted these glitter "butterflies" and quite frankly we could have let her go with them, but they looked more like pink and blue blobs than butterflies. I was actually very surprised she didn't want the Hello Kitty earrings. So Daddy & I narrowed the choices down to a 3mm in her birthstone (blue topaz) or a 4mm pink crystal. She ended up going with the pink crystal.

She had a very nervous look on her face as the ladies approached from either side. She closed her eyes, they counted to three and pierced. She jumped and was so wide eyed. It was a little funny. She had no clue what she was in for no matter how much we explained it ahead of time. Again, very grateful they did both ears at the same time.

When we asked her if it hurt, she replied "The earrings didn't hurt, but the pokers did." Even more funny, the minute she hopped down Evan exclaimed "Okay, Bubba's turn!" It took everything we had to not roll on the floor laughing. He had everyone rolling and of course Daddy explained to him, it doesn't work that way. LOL.

She's done fabulous with them thus far. We clean and turn them three times a day and she doesn't play with them. I'm glad we waited until she was ready for them. I recall driving home that day, looking back to her in the back seat and she just looked so grown up. I don't what it is about a pair of earrings on a four year old, but man she looked like a mini-teenager. ;)

Goofing Off & An Update

Tonight we took a few minutes to see where the kids "stand." Our lovely 3 year old now stands at 37.25" and is a whopping 31.8 pounds. She keeps telling everyone she eats so she can get taller, and it appears that she's grown roughly 4 inches over the last year. I called today and made her three year check up so we'll get her "official" stats on January 17th.

She's not only turned into a parrot but a sharp little tack. Yesterday I caught her in her room "reading." She had pulled out one of her board books and was saying each letter of every word in order as they read on the page. She's constantly coming up with new phrases and I had no clue we were raising a teenager. Oh, the attitude and perky personality this little girl exudes. We are in for so much trouble when finally is a teenager.

Our handsome, almost 2 year old now stands at 35" and is a healthy 28.2 pounds. We'll see what his official stats are on February 3rd. He's still teething and nearly has all four 2 year molars. I will be every so glad when he's done with that for a while.

We're slowly getting the starting sounds of words out of his mouth. We still use sign for 95% of our communication, but we are really pushing for sounds. He's great at signing "bath" and saying "bah" while doing so. He can completely say "side" (outside), "star", "Dada", "sissy." We have another PAT evaluation at the end of this week, so we'll see what she says about his vocal improvements and see if she believes an intervention may be necessary.

I've also been trying and trying to get pictures of the two of them looking at me. For the life of me...it just.will.not.work. Evan is so full of energy he won't sit still for more than two seconds. The minute I get him to look at me Arabella is staring off into space. It can be so stinking frustrated. I took over 81 pictures tonight and above is all that I got out of it. I guess even getting one capture is a success with those two. Gotta love kids!

Evan the Escapee

Evan has recently (as in within the past two days) discovered how to jump out of the crib. It's a tad annoying as I now can no longer keep him out of harms way while cooking dinner or deal with various other household chores.

Tonight I put him to bed after rocking him a little while. He was sleepy but not completely asleep. I should have known better. Before bed I had taken a noisy croaking frog and plastic horse away from him. One I left on his dresser, the other on the t.v. stand. Not ten minutes after I left his room I hear a croaking coming from his room. I go down the hall, open the door only to find he had been sitting behind it, peering underneath to see if he could see anything.

I take the frog from him, leave him with the horse and place him back in the crib. I left his door cracked and put up a safety gate. About twenty minutes later I hear a thud noise. I go to investigate. I check Arabella's room first and discovered she had been out of bed, turned on the dresser night light and knocked some stuff off in the process.

I scold her and leave the room. Instinctually I checked on Evan. I had the hall light on so I could see as I climbed over the safety gate. I peer over the edge of his crib and he's no where to be found. I flip, I start scanning the room and NOTHING. Where the hell is my baby? I jump the fence, run into the master bedroom and tell Adam to get up. One, it was time for him to get up for work and two, I need help finding your son.

He jumps up and says "what?" I said he's not in his crib. I can't find him. Well, now I feel like a dumb ass. I go back into his room, move the pillow in his bed, his blanket and obviously he didn't magically re-appear. Adam shushed me and pointed...

The turkey had climbed up into the glider and rocked himself to sleep. And of course I needed documentation so I can tease him about it when he's older. So Evan, Mommy learned her lesson. I will check the glider from now on before scaring your Daddy wide awake. If you don't mind, could you please keep up your Spiderman antics during daytime hours only? It's so much easier to spot you in the daylight.

Tucked back in, safe and sound.

Utensils

For a few weeks we've been giving Evan the opportunity to use utensils during meal time, geez is he old enough for that already? He does great for the first couple of bites, but usually reverts back to his fingers as it is easier (read: faster and messier) to eat that way.

Tonight was no exception, but it appears that he's giving a more vigorous effort to use the fork consistently. We may make a gentleman out of him someday.

27 Months Old

27 pounds 11 ounces, 34 inches

I feel bad that I've not been keeping up with our daily funnies, but they'll forgive me. I'm totally proud of my baby girl. She's growing up so fast. I'm pretty sure she went from toddler to teenager overnight. We have some funny conversations, pretty much daily.

She has become a music fanatic. Anything and everything is some sort of instrument; from guitars to drums. This child LOVES to sing even when she doesn't know the words. I'm going to take her to a Music Movement class put on my Parents as Teachers. I cannot wait to see her face when she finds out what she gets to do. We are also planning on buying her a youth guitar for her birthday!

Developmentally, I'm pretty sure she's either advance or on target for most skills. She can sing her ABC's and count to 20 on her own. She's also to the point where she points out letters to us. I bought a 5 pack of educational posters so I've been quizzing her and she pretty much knows everything on each poster. They include the ABC's, Colors, Shapes, Opposites, and Counting.

I'm also certain she's going to be a bookworm, which is great because I hated reading growing up. I'm pretty sure she'd make me read every book in her room before bed if I didn't enforce a limit. On the upside, she's not afraid to zone at the t.v. when cartoons are on (see example below).

11 Months ~ For the Record

I promised measurements and here they are. Drum roll please....

For weight she came in at 27.8 pounds.

For length she came in at 31.5 inches.

Busted!

These pictures were taken September 29th. Luckily I took her 9 month pictures the day before, because you can see that in a fit of rage she scratched her nose and to this day it's still trying to heal.

Daddy decided to let Bella roam, and when in roam trouble ensues. She's tall enough to reach the drawers on the master vanity. And of course while working on her balance has managed to pull them out and into her face several times. Daddy needs to get on installing the drawer locks we purchased months ago.

In this one she was turned to me, blowing raspberries. Yes, another wonderful response from our little one when she knows she's doing something wrong.

My favorite picture that Adam captured was this one. She totally has the "Who? not me" look going on.

And sadly, she's tall enough to start peering out of our windows now. This means come spring we'll have to watch her more closely to make sure she doesn't fall out of them.