Author: Amy

Two

Posted on by Amy
Today Miss turned two. It’s late, so this post is going to be a bit shorter than I would like. We had a big time today. Here are the highlights.
We started with open gym at the local gymnastics center where she takes classes. The we met up with some friends for lunch and playing at a local kid’s cafe. She was really loving the birthday thing. The balloons, the singing. The fancy head band.

Then we went home and Miss had a short nap while we waited for her Daddy to get home so we could open presents and have cake.
She really enjoyed all of her presents. She especially loved this Snow White gloves/necklace/purse set.

And had fun in her new Bilibo.
We weren’t really going to do the whole smash-cake thing like we did for her first birthday, but between the time I took the candle out of the cake and got a plate to put a slice on for her, she had decided to dig in.

She didn’t realize there was ice cream in the middle though until I cut her a piece. Then she was really digging it.

We’re leaving very early for Florida tomorrow, and my bed is calling me, so this post is shorter than a second birthday deserves. We did it up right today though. My big girl had a big time. And so did I.

Not So Wild Air

Posted on by Amy
We had a fun play date today at a place called Wild Air. It’s one of those indoor play places with the inflatable things for the kids to bounce and slide on. I was so excited that Miss would love it, since one of her favorite things about her gymnastics class is bouncing on the trampolines. Unfortunately, the noise of the fans constantly blowing air into the inflatables kind of freaked her out to start, and she refused to go into any of them. Instead she played with some of the other random toys they had around.

(Please excuse the poor quality of these photos. Though my husband bought me a great new camera bag so I can take my camera along with me more easily now, I have a bad habit of forgetting it, which I did today. So, all of these photos were taken on my phone. With it’s slow shutter speed, almost all photos of a toddler are necessarily blurry. But that’s life with a toddler, so I’m posting them anyway.)
This slide was actually her favorite thing of the day.


The first 300 times she went down it she insisted on holding my hand. Finally she started going down by herself, and the first 10 or so times she did it by herself she jumped up and down yelling, “Yay!! I did it!” So. Cute.
Lass hung out in my Ergo carrier most of the morning. Apparently I’m not very good at taking photos of her when she’s suspended on my torso.
But she’s still pretty stinkin’ adorable.
Finally, Miss did venture into one of the inflatables. She really liked jumping on this crab.
The alligator in the background kind of freaked her out though.
She kept climbing up the ramp to this bouncy inflatable but wouldn’t go in at first. She kept sitting at the entrance saying, “You do it!”
Eventually she did go inside and even jumped around a bit. She seemed to enjoy it, though she was still a bit timid about it and never stayed in there for any length of time.
And that was it. She would only go into two of the many inflatable play areas available to her. But I still think she had a blast. And I had a great time meeting up with my friend, whose little boy is only a few days older than Miss. We tried to get a photo of the two of them together.
How many tries do you think it took before I could get a photo of them both standing still and looking at the camera?


Who the heck knows?? I never did get one. I looked at the little preview of this photo on my phone and thought I’d gotten it, but of course Miss still wasn’t looking at me. Oh well, the pics are cute anyway.
My big girl will be two in two days!!

Celebrating Love

Posted on by Amy
In the past few weeks, we’ve been Valentine-ing a lot. It’s amazing how much I could get into the Valentine-Love because of having a (very-nearly) two-year-old to do it with. We have been crafting.
We made these heart-shaped sun catchers. I got this idea from Mama V at Six and Still Sane. We used wax paper heart cutouts, put crayon shavings between, and ironed to melt the layers together. I should have read Mama V’s directions more carefully though, because the way she described setting up the craft involves having the crayons already grated and ready to go. I had the hearts already cut, but some insane part of my mind thought that maybe it would be fun for Miss to watch me grate the crayons. Probably the same part that thought grating crayons would be just like grating cheese. This is the dumb part of my brain. Of course crayons are much harder than cheese, thus much harder to grate, especially when trying to do it quickly. NOTE: A two-year-old does not have the attention span to wait for something exciting to happen while Mommy struggles to get the wrappers off some crayons (seriously, this was the longest part, they were really stuck), then bites her lip to keep from cursing while grinding crayons and knuckles against a cheese grater. But, the sun catchers did turn out sort of pretty and Miss thought it was fun to see what happened when I ironed them.

We made a couple of Valentine’s Day cards. Here’s the one she did for Daddy.


We made a few batches of cookies. With red frosting of course.


We did lots and lots of snuggling. But we do that all the time anyway.

Today I made Miss french toast for lunch, with a heart-shaped cutout. It turned out not very nicely heart-shaped. This was my first-ever attempt at making french toast, and it was kind of ugly actually. But it tasted good! Though Miss preferred the strawberries.
Lass was snuggly. She’s always snuggly.
Miss loved her Valentine’s Day dress and shoes.

Really loved them!

Lass loved on her Daddy (and her monkey).


My hubby sent some beautiful flowers to me and the girls, and Miss and Lass both had a great time looking at, smelling, and feeling them. We celebrate love every day in our family, but we had a lot of fun with Valentine’s Day this year too.

Sisters

Posted on by Amy
With every day that goes by, I love to watch my girls together more and more. I love to see how Miss adores Lass. I love to hear her say, “You’re so cute!” I love seeing how Lass watches her big sister’s every move. I love this:



I know I am in danger of being repetitive in my writings. I know this is not the first post where I have gone on about how much I love to watch them together. I guess it’s kind of like how I mentioned at Christmas time that I would probably gush for the entire month of December about how amazing it was to watch Miss experience various aspects of Christmas and really be able to appreciate them for the first time. Consider this your fair warning in this case: for the next 20-30+ years I will probably blather on like a fool every few weeks or so about how much I love to see my girls grow with and love on each other. And I know there will be many less-than-loving moments, as there are in any sibling relationship.
Shirt-grabbing.
Maybe even some hair pulling.
Appeals to me as the Mom (“Make her play with me!!”)
But I also know that there will be lots of love. I hope that my girls will grow up to be best friends (Miss already calls Lass her best friend). I have visions of them doing each other’s hair, sharing clothes, talking for hours about all-things-that-sisters-talk-about. I don’t have a sister, so this is probably a bit unrealistic, at least during some of the growing-up years. But in between the fights and rivalries and “she-wore-my-brand-new-shirt-without-asking!!!” dramas, I hope there will be laughter and confidences and support for each other. I hope they will teach each other and stand up for each other. I hope they will have the kind of relationship that I have with some of my closest friends, only better, because they’re sisters.
Today there was some great sister time.


My Little is Getting Big

Posted on by Amy
Lass is growing like a little weed. An adorable, snuggly, kissable weed. She is changing so fast I swear I don’t want to blink and miss something. She is rolling all over the place now. If I put her down and turn my back for a minute, when I look back she’s halfway across the room every time!

She is doing so well at sitting up. Just today I had her sitting in front of me on the floor and she hardly bobbled at all.
She smiles all the time and laughs so easily. She’s super ticklish and will laugh like crazy when you tickle her belly or sides. And she snorts when she gets to laughing really hard. I can’t help but crack up myself when she giggles.
Somehow it seems like time is flying by even faster with Lass than it did with Miss at this age. She’s almost 6 months old!! Before I know it she’ll be starting solids and becoming mobile and getting into all sorts of mischief with her sister. So I take an absurd amount of photos (anyone else a second or later child and have hardly any photos of themselves as a baby?) and try to document everything like crazy so I can always remember and come back to this amazing stage later. I love it here.

A Photo Tribute

Posted on by Amy
My very favorite cloth diapers ever will soon no longer be produced. After today, new Nifty Nappy diapers can no longer be ordered. This makes me sad. My love of Nifty Nappies started out a little over a year ago with one Nifty Nappy, two Woolie Wraps (wool diaper covers made from upcycled sweaters) and two pairs of wool longies (wool pants made from upcycled sweaters). You can see that my stash has grown (the photo below shows most of my Nifty Nappy items, but there are a few not pictured because of being in the laundry).

These are truly the best cloth diapers out there (you might remember that I raved about them here). They can’t be beat for softness, absorbency, and of course cuteness. And not only are the diapers top quality, the owner of Nifty Nappy, Vilate, is a very kind and helpful WAHM who has run her business with integrity and style.
The following is my little tribute to the Nifty Nappy with photos of my girls in their NN fitteds, woolie wraps, and longies.


















New Look

Posted on by Amy

This s just a quick post to mention that the new look of my blog was done by Jessica of So Stylized designs. Check her out! Her blog designs are currently FREE (though clients need to tip her an amount of their choosing after the design is completed to their satisfaction). I think she did a great job and was very fun to work with. Thanks Jessica!

I’ve been absent a few days, dealing with a stomach bug (fortunately it was just me who got sick, after my husband, and not my girls) and then having a great time at one of my book club meetings last night. I’ll try to get in another post very soon.

Super Victory and Some Randomness

Posted on by Amy
I must start out today by saying, “Yay Packers!” We aren’t die-hard Packers fans in our house. Neither my husband nor I are greatly into professional sports (except maybe golf on his part). I have always sort of liked the Packers though. They just seem to have more tradition and spunk than other pro teams. And since we live in Wisconsin now, well, it’s hard to resist the Packers fever around here. Packers fans are just fun. I mean, what kind of loyal, kooky fans would sit out in freezing cold weather week after week with big foam blocks of cheese on their heads but these hearty, happy Wisconsin folks?
I did dress my girls in green and gold yesterday and today though. And we watched the game. And cheered for the home team. And we’re happy they won. Here’s Miss in her green shirt (Her shirt that is a more appropriate shade of green is too small now). She was much more interested in getting her shopping cart as full as she could than in watching the game. She did say, “Go Packers!” though. Unfortunately she was also saying, “Yay Hawkeyes!” (my husband brainwashed her on the one football Saturday when I took some time away for myself to go to a book club meeting during football!!).

Oopsie-Doozy!! I think she actually said, “Oh noooo!!” when half her stuff fell out.
We just put it all back in (check out the doll’s head).
We do “Cheese Head” a little differently at our house. Go Pack!
Lass wore Packer gold yesterday.
She is getting much more interested in and capable of playing with various toys. I love watching her curiosity.

Now some randomness:
Miss got a new bathing suit for our upcoming trip to Florida. I bought a size bigger than her usual size to make sure it will still fit her this summer, and wanted to try it on her when we got home from the store. Naturally, she would not let me take it off and wore it over her onesie for the rest of the day.
I posted a little while ago about how Lass’s hair stands straight up so adorably. Well, it’s getting longer, and this outfit has a hood that she was wearing up in her carseat, so it was flat for a while the other day. I’m so used to the hair standing up, I think she looks like a different baby!!
Finally, right now my house smells deliciously like banana bread. I tried again to make some this morning. I remembered to grease the pan. I adjusted the oven temp (my oven does not get to the true temp it says it does, so I have to adjust it a bit to try to compensate; last time I had it too hot). And I managed to produce this perfect, yummy goodness.
It came out perfectly, all in one piece even. Slightly crispy on the outside, soft and moist on the inside. Very banana-y. And not too vanilla-y, even though Miss dumped a bit too much vanilla in the batter. I am so proud. I may become a baker after all.

Fun in the Snow

Posted on by Amy
Today it wasn’t windy and it finally warmed up enough that Miss could go outside and play in the snow with her Daddy. Based on her other experiences with playing in the snow, I was expecting her to want to come back in pretty quickly, but she had a blast!

She got a little taste of the snow.

She had a bit of a hard time moving around in it as it was over her knees.

But she did not want to come in, so Daddy got dressed more warmly and gave her a ride.

And then they just rolled around in it for a while.


One last ride before coming in.

Miss was not happy about having to come in. But she soon forgot to be upset and got good and warmed up by, what else? Dancing!! Lass had a lot of fun dancing too.

Then we made some cookies for the big game tomorrow. Miss didn’t eat dinner well enough to get to have one tonight, but she’ll get one tomorrow. Go Packers!

To Cut or Not to Cut?

Posted on by Amy
Miss’s hair is beginning to get a bit unruly.

It can be a bit hard to handle at times.
I have been debating for a while now whether or not to get it cut. Or to cut it myself. Several months ago I gave her a tiny fringe bang trim when her wispy bangs first started to grow into her eyes. Now her bangs are seriously getting into her eyes again, but I don’t want to cut them because I want to let them grow out.
For now I’m trying to keep her hair in pigtails a lot with the bangs combed over to the side.
Or I use a barrette to pull the bangs away from her face.
Both of these options work quite well and look pretty darn cute. A problem only comes in when she decides to repeatedly pull out her barrette or when her winter hat smooshes and makes a mess of her pigtails. I typically redo her hair several times a day. And sometimes Her Toddlerness just refuses pigtails or barrette. Period. This usually isn’t too much of a big deal as it generally only lasts a little while. I do still wonder sometimes if I should just go ahead and cut it. But I know the temptation to cut while growing out a hairdo can be overcome.
And I don’t want to cut it yet. Even when we aren’t sporting a barrette or pigtails, these locks are still precious I think.

For now, we’ll stay the course.