February Post

Oh February 2015, you were gross!! Stomach bugs, potty training, colds. You're gone, good riddance! But then I look back at pictures, and the beginning of the month was awesome. So, second part of February, good riddance!! 

Everett on a road trip says, "good riddance!"

--he gets carsick, so he can't look at books or play with anything.

Luckily he was on his way to this beautiful place: Hearst Castle! It was Superbowl Sunday, and we like to make alternative plans since we're not football fans. I threw it out to social media, and our friend Aja offered us tickets to her super cool workplace! Awesome idea! 

We'd done about half the tour (hadn't gotten in trouble too many times for touching ancient artifacts), when Aja stole us away and gave us our own private tour. So cool. We picnicked at San Simeon Beach across the highway and took a walk/run on the pier. It ended up being a really special day.

Zebra!! You couldn't have asked for nicer weather. P.S. It's February.

The kids both had dentist appointments, and they both did great. Healthy teeth too!

Lydia working on her "old lady driver" look.

We celebrated Grandma Gion's birthday! We had a lovely dinner at Guest House Grill. It was the night of the daddy daughter dance, so we got to see a lot of fancy families coming in for dinner beforehand. Nice music too! And yummy cake!

Family Lego time. The calm before the birthday storm.

We had a birthday party to celebrate Lydia turning TWO! It was animal themed. Every.single.kid (and almost every adult) we invited was able to make it! That's some sort of birthday miracle if you ask me. We have a great group of friends, and I think everyone had a blast.

The weather was so kind to us. We knew it was going to rain. But it waited until we got plenty of deck time. It started sprinkling as people were finishing up lunch. 

 A picture with the birthday girl and Mom.

We had been practicing the happy birthday song and when to blow out the candles. She still needed a bit of help, though. Or were brother and friends a little too willing to "help?" That's how it goes Little Sister, sorry.

Checking out her piñata loot and opening her presents. I'll post more pictures of the decor and baked goods on my Beyond Fine blog.

Our parents helped out so much, we were very grateful. I feel like I get better at parties with every one, but we still rely on our parents an awful lot.

Then it was time to celebrate Grandpa George's birthday! These kids got so much practice blowing out candles!! And eating cake.

We had a play date with friends after the kids' Valentine's party at school. They were very tired by this point but still the cutest!! My mom watched Lydia so I could take just Everett. It was very fun and relaxing.

I try to do my errands when I'm kid-free, but I had to take the kids to the lab with me to do another blood draw. I was a little over prepared with books and a word search. The kids were great.

Yep. 16 weeks! I'm actually 18 weeks as I type. Wow!! This pregnancy really is going fast. It didn't feel like it at Christmas, but it does now. We have our next big ultrasound in just a couple weeks!

Potty training girl in her cute little undies (I can't call them panties--sorry); Everett with Auntie Katie's tower, the police tower, and Everett's tower; Superman pirate (after we missed the kindergarten info meeting--he was very upset we came home early); and the work Brian's doing in our new closet.

We enrolled Everett in his future school this month! Very exciting.

Me: how should I describe you to your new teacher?

E: Well, I can count really high. I can count to 100. And I'm really sneaky with chocolate.

Very helpful information I'm sure. 

Brian brought me this yummy latte after an early morning Miner's trip and before an all-morning gardening day. I do feel like this a lot. At least they're sweet, adorable children who need me all day long.

She insisted on sitting on the toilet for a looooooong time (with no result). The light was good, so I grabbed my camera.

After two weeks of a stomach bug, we were so happy to see our friends! I made a side by side of Everett and Marshall. Buddies since babies.

My dad took these pictures when we were at their house for dinner the other day. Even with a napkin on her head, she looks so old!! 

Ok February, you weren't that bad. You're lucky my sinus headache is gone. Until next month!!

Lydia Post

Lydia turned two last month, and I wanted to write a blog post just about her!

She's such a sweet, silly girl.

She's a bit more strong-willed and stubborn than her brother was at this age.

She likes to do things by herself (dressing herself, climbing into her car seat).

She likes to help (do the laundry, put away toys, cook).

She loves Elmo, although she won't watch TV long. Even early in the morning, she'll walk around, play, and demand fruit. 

She also loves dolls, putting them in their bed, covering them with many blankets, and pushing them around in the stroller.

She makes dolls and toys "talk" to each other. I don't remember Everett doing that until much later. 

She is a great ball player (for a 2-year-old): throwing, kicking, catching.

She likes to surprise us: boo!

She loves giving hugs and kisses and blowing kisses.

She likes matching things and images. She'll bring two books together and point out the things that are the same.

I love the way she draws, dainty little scribbles. 

She does anything and everything her brother does. He is the coolest person in her world.

He thinks her favorite color is blue. 

She loves going outdoors and playing on the slide "bo vee!"

Her vocabulary is limited for her age. She only says a few coherent words (dada, mama, bye, hi, hello [bye-lo], me, my, uh oh, ow, boo, pee, eye). But most of her words are made up of simple sounds (boo, buh, bo, doo, duh, etc.). Other people might not understand her yet, but we totally understand what she means in context. She's also working on a few words, she's almost got them down (brother, water, love, cheese, shoes, socks, and box)

She can put words together like, "bye bye Dada" and "my shoe."

She'll say "I love Mama" or "Dada" or "Brother" if we prompt her with each word.

She uses animal sounds to name animals, so if you count that, she can name all the common animals. For many months now, she'll call any insect or creepy crawly a "bee." She clearly knows the difference between a butterfly and a spider but she refuses to call them anything other than "bee."

She loves animals. Dogs are probably her favorite.

She howls to say "moon." She talks about washing hands by saying "rub rub rub."

She tries to count things, pointing with her finger. It sounds kind of like, "bee, doo, dee." 

She'll often talk to us in full gibberish sentences or paragraphs. She's talking about something, but we just don't know what it is, yet!

She also has a few signs: please, thank you, more, milk, hat, mom, dad, shoes, socks, book, bird, and she's working on grandma, grandpa, balloon, popcorn, and diaper.

She loves to go to gymnastics with Phil and Gion.

She likes swinging on the bars there.

She often sings "Head Shoulders Knees and Toes" at home. We can tell by the melody and motions. It's a song she learned at gymnastics.

She loves singing all sorts of songs. She really enjoyed our music class in the fall.

Her favorite part about music class might have been the instruments. She loved the egg shakers.

She's great with instruments for her age! She can toot on the recorder, harmonica, and she was even making noise with the trumpet at the Asdel Grands' the other night.

She really doesn't like her hair messed with, but we can finally get it up in a high ponytail--if we're fast.

Her now long hair curls at the ends and sometimes turns into a few sausage curls in the back.

We've been working on potty training with her lately.  We decided it was the right time since she puts her hands in her diaper a lot, sometimes making a poop mess while she's at it.

The process hasn't been as quick as we'd hoped. We trained intensely for about a week. We've backed off now, and she's finally starting to tell us every time she pees or poops.

We're still rocking her to sleep. She's good at putting herself to sleep, but we're savoring the last of her babyhood before I'm too big to hold her.

She can climb out of her crib, so we pushed the crib against the bed like it was before. We thought, we may as well let her land on the bed rather than fall all the way to the floor.

This is one reason she comes into bed with us every night. We're hoping to discourage this habit by moving into our own room soon.

We love our Lydia so much. She's so funny and smart. She's such a character. We've enjoyed watching her grow and look forward to getting to know her even better as she communicates more with us.