She’s clapping for herself- I love when she does stuff that makes her proud of herself.

January- please note her lack of hair, compared to now

February- and Bailey is walking!

March

April- happy first birthday, Bailey!

May

June

July

August

September- Jonathon and I went to Disney World

October

November

December

Happy New Year!

They loved a section with giant foam blocks:

The boys were a little hesitant about the giant dinosaurs, but Bailey loved them. They are these huge, moving dinosaurs that roar. The triceratops is laying on its side with blood gushing out but I told Bailey he was sleeping.

I love taking pictures with natural lighting. My camera sucks and that is the only way I can get a really good halfway decent picture. I still had my mom’s camera when we were at the Science Center so I took these with hers- and now she made me give it back so I am waiting for Best Buy to return ours. Anyway I like these, but they are a little blurry, and her eyes are so much bluer than this in real life.

Since that day that we played with Gabe, Bailey asks about him almost every morning. If I mention anything about seeing her friends, she’s like, “Gape? Gape?” Already obsessing over cute boys.

I need to remember that my child can reach anything on the kitchen table, anything near the edge of the kitchen or bathroom countertops… this is why we need some sort of security systems installed to alert us when Bailey is going to get into something messy. Just last week she got one of my lipsticks and colored all over her eyes, face, and onesie with it before I found her. I should have taken a picture but I was freaking out about cleaning it off before it got everywhere.

We went over to my parents house for their little family birthday party. My mom set up the table so pretty. She is always good at stuff like that. I love her dining room table. She has these table pads that go on the top, and there are separate pads to fit on each leaf of the table. When I was little, she let me use all the spares to build legos on, and play Barbies on. The mismatched chairs are because the extra chairs went downstairs to make room for the Christmas tree so then she brought in other ones. My mom is kind of weird.

My mom’s shirt is from Avon. Isn’t it cute?

Posing in front of the tree, in the Elmo dress discussed previously.

Stopping for a sniff or a close-up look…

Jonathon got to do the honors of putting the angel on the top of the tree. It was always my job as a kid. well my dad can’t exactly lift me up to do it anymore and I was busy chasing Bailey, so I passed it off to Jonathon. I was kind of touched that my dad still saved that for me to do, since they had put up the tree a few days before that.

My mom made this cake for my grandma. In the past few years we have gotten into the habit of just getting store-bought cakes, but we decided to start making them again.

I made this cake for Jonathon. I know it’s not very pretty but it’s really hard to make a pretty mint chocolate chip ice cream cake!

- Loves to say hello to everything- animals, toys, tree ornaments, etc. She gets close and waves and says “Huhlo! Huhlo!”

- Saw Santa Claus for the first time at the mall a few weeks ago and told him no. Wouldn’t go near him. Saw him today at the Magic House and gave him five, and told him she wanted books and candy for Christmas (I prompted her to say kitchen but she didn’t care).

- Likes to color, all the time. Had a few incidents with coloring in the wrong places, and crayons are banned for a day. She also likes to have her stuffed animals sit at the table and she pretends they are coloring.

- Today we were leaving the Magic House. As her friends were walking away, she yelled “Bye bye hippos!” (Casey, I wish you could have heard. I just about died. She kept saying it!)

- IN the car she still tells us to go. She also tells us whether the lights are Elmo Red or Oscar Green. Oscar is “Ossot.”

- Knows red, blue, purple, green, black (“backs”), and orange (“ronj”)

- I think she can identify the letter A but not positive. Someone at Jonathon’s work gave her one of those Fisher Price chalkboards from the 80s and she loves it:

- She likes to get in the pantry and get out the “shakers” a.k.a. all my spices! I keep forgetting to close that door all the way while I’m cooking!

- I tried to get her to tell Jonathon Happy Birthday and she told him “Happy Bird.”

- Loves pizza (“pee-sot”) and ate two pieces on her own today

- She loves her Early Childhood classes and the church nursery. In the morning when we are getting ready she will ask me, “Clash?” She’s always excited when I tell her where we are going that day.

Some new words:

Play dough (pay dow)
fishies (shishies)
big bird bar (bar or barn) -breakfast bar with Big Bird on the wrapper
cracker (cacker)
play
pizza (peesot)
mouse (moushe)
Bailey (Bay-yee or By leee)
phone

You all know how I love the too-close-face pictures!

Happy Friday!!

Here are the three girls. We used to be inseparable. Time and life and location has changed that, but I still love both of these girls! (Sarah is the one in the black dress and pearls. Unfortunately I didn’t get a picture of her new husband).

Jonathon and Bailey, I think this was in the hallway outside the reception

Family picture- Bailey was actually almost cooperating! Ha. Sarah gave Bailey her bride teddy bear that was on the head table. She was too busy to pay attention to it that night, but since then she has decided she loves it!

Oh and here’s the part where Jonathon decided it was a good idea to keep Bailey quiet by letting her eat Hershey’s Kisses off the table where they were scattered for decoration. She was bouncing off the walls even more than usual after that.

Once Sarah was done with her required mingling, we started getting goofy. She got the idea to start eating the center of the wedding cake because it was just a little underbaked. It was SOOOO good. So here we are shoving our fingers into the cake and eating bites of it out of our hands. I’m sure we looked so classy.

I love this baby.

Also, I have a really cute kid. Need proof?

Isn’t that just the sweetest little profile you’ve ever seen?

Now I’m off to spend another day and a half with the inlaws. It’s mostly going better than expected. Wish me luck and patience!

Your very favorite things to do now are coloring and watching tv. You always ask for either Ernie or Barney videos. I don’t know how you picked those two guys out of all the things you have seen. You don’t like to talk to strangers. Once you warm up to someone you are very chatty, though. We took you to a wedding reception last weekend and you decided the prayer was too long. You started saying Amen quite loudly, and repeatedly, during the prayer. You got a few laughs from people around us but Mommy was a little embarrassed. You also know that you are cute. If someone says the word cute or calls you cute, you give the biggest hammiest smile ever. You enjoy demonstrating your jumping skills. You can hop across a room pretty fast. When you run, you remind me of Phoebe from Friends. I will have to show you that episode sometime. She flails her arms and legs out all crazy to the sides.

Lately, we have been going to the Magic House and the early childhood center and the mall play area, and we have had some playdates and friends houses. You are happiest when you’re out and about. You don’t want to sit still unless it is to color. You don’t even want to sit on my lap to read at bedtime lately. You pretend to sit and read next to your nightlight and then suddenly, you throw your book back in the basket and make a run for the living room. You’re tried that trick several times now. Your language skills are taking off like crazy now. People can understand you even without me translating a lot of the time now. You have a happy, cheerful disposition and endless energy. You never cease to amaze me, frazzle me, surprise me, and you make me the happiest mommy in the world. I love you, Muffie Muff.

Mommy

**I also wanted to update the vocab list- the words in italics were things she was saying before (only now with updated pronunciation),and the new words are in bold. This is really just for my own reference. Also she is combining two words at a time but not very often.

mama
dada
up
more
yes
no
please (pease)
go
moo
nay nay -horse
book (book)
home (home)
bird (birrrd)
ssss -what does a snake say?
roarrrrr -what does a lion say?
owl (owwullll)
hi
fish (shish)
cheese (cheese)
animal (me mi mo)
poop
rock rock -in rocking chair
slide (zide)
Dora (Dor-rahrah)
ah ah ah -what does a monkey say?
ball (ball)
toe
head
arm (ahm)
quack quack (duck duck)
tweet tweet (deet deet)
juice (joosh)
red
blue (bloo00) she can pretty consistently identify blue things
green (geen) at lights she now yells “Geen go! Go! Geen!”
dog
hello (howwo)
Elmo (Emmo)
meow
mom, mommy -instead of mama sometimes, so sad
papa -her great grandpa
help (hep)
OH NO
bad bad bad
Addie
Tiny (Tineh) great grandparents dog
sock
shoes (shoosh)
be bo -our word for belly button, from a Sandra Boynton book
knee
eye
nose (no)
mouth (muh)
ear
frog (fe ra guh) said in three whole syllables
Amen (ahmee)
love you (uvoooo)
bear
milk
more please
milk please
all done (ah done)
all gone (ah gone)
pee
pat -to pat someone on the back
hug
get down (geeeda)
get Dora (geeDorahrah)
tree (tee)
pillow
drink (dit)
penguin (peng)
turtle (turt uh)
cat
bunny
hop
jump (dump)
pumpkin (kump kump)
cup
chicky -for chicken, she loves chicken nuggets
fries (fwies)
baby
Donald (donnow) -McDonalds or Ronald McDonald tub toy
car
mail (meeeul)
man (meeeun) -snowman
flowers (flovversh)
color
paper
pen -pen or pencil
Kohl’s
play (pay)
Avon (A-not)
money
night-night (ny ny)
people
purple
black (blacksh)
yellow (lellow)
Zoe (zsjooo-eh) -from Sesame Street
cookie (cook cook or kee kee) -Cookie Monster
Telly (Tehleh) -from Sesame Street
Ella
Barney
Ernie
Bert
steps (deps)
class (clash)
ring
hair
bow
neck
cheek (keech)
hot
bye bye
scarecrow (geh go)
spoon (poon)
Grammy (Geeny)
Grandpa (Puh Paw)

On Sunday we stayed home from church since she couldn’t go to the nursery, and we all needed some rest! It was nice to have a morning at home all together, since we were so busy with the wedding on Saturday. You can especially tell in this first picture that Bailey wasn’t feeling well.

And I just had to share this one because I thought this was weird. Bailey really needed some new undershirts (a.k.a. onesies) to wear under her sweaters and shirts that don’t tuck in. I figured onesies are the best because they stay down and she isn’t really pottying anyway. It is SO stinking hard to find onesies in her size. Gerber makes them in 18 and 24 months but they look like they might fit a Cabbage Patch doll. I don’t know why their stuff has to run so small. I finally found some Carter’s ones that looked like they might fit all the way around her middle. I should also add that it was $24 for a 5-pack, so I WISH the Gerber ones fit!!! They are sooo much cheaper. Anyway, tonight after her bath, I put on one of the new shirts for under her jammies. Why is it so long? What 24 month old is an entire foot longer in the torso than Bailey?

By the way, the greasy look is Aquaphor lotion on her face. She gets completely covered in it at night so her cheeks don’t get chapped!

When we were passing the Walmart in Rolla by the way, we stopped to get Benadryl for B. There was a display of their alli diet pill thing. I have actually heard some decent reviews about that stuff but of course from companies or “sources” and not real people. Have you heard anything?

When we got home, she got a bath and for once didn’t scream when I rinsed her hair. She decided she was a rock star and needed to dance and jump up and down on her changing table while getting her pajamas on. I swear she is going to break her neck someday. Such a little busybody daredevil.

We put her to bed without Benadryl. I think she is getting a little better. I am hoping that today was the worst day of her cold or whatever she has, and that she is on the mend. Tomorrow we need to go grocery shopping and try to clean the house a little. We were supposed to have a playdate but I canceled since she is germy. Then Jonathon and I relaxed together and watched Amazing Race and Cold Case. I have been doing well with my diet still, with just a few “slip ups.” I am worried that might change with the holidays coming. By the time Christmas is over I will probably be seriously considering taking something like Fentraphen!

Anyway, I know I said I would post pictures, so here they are. They are from a few days ago. She sometimes gets a lollipop in the bathtub. One of us can hold it up at an angle and she tilts her head up to lick it while the other rinses her hair quickly. If she cooperates then she gets to hold it after that.

Thank you, Sarah! We love them

My kid, on the other hand, could color for hours. She hasn’t even gotten any toys out since Sunday. Our living room is actually really clean now. I’m not kidding. It’s all coloring, all the time. She doesn’t want to stop to eat. She wakes up and asks, “Color? More color?” On Tuesday morning she was throwing a fit- she didn’t want to go to her class in the church nursery because she wanted to stay home and color. I had to convince her that her teacher would let her color in class. (Thank you, Julie, for having patience with my girl!)

At first she was just using scrap paper that we had laying around.

She colors in her jammies…

And she colors at her new table! Thank you to our wonderful neighbors Will and Jeannette. They gave Bailey this table and we had it put away for a while until she could figure out how to sit on it and not break her neck. It is her favorite place to color. And doesn’t she look grown up? *it’s happening too fast*

We have also noticed her favorite pages to color are the ones that either Mommy or Daddy colored on. She will find those pages and color over and over on them.