Two and a Half

It is becoming harder and harder for me to get away with calling Janie my baby girl any more. Not only is she actually getting farther away from being an infant, but she will actually call me out on it {if she's in the right kind of mood}. The truth is, though, that she is an actual full-on toddler and I have got  to come to terms with that!

My cute girl!

Some times I am reminded by her behavior. She is not past throwing a tantrum when she doesn't get what she wants. Or yelling "NO" or even on the rare occasion, hitting mommy or daddy. She picks and chooses when and what she wants to eat, even though we are very consistent about offering her one meal, one time. She is persistent about what she wants to wear. It is always a dress; a dress to school; a dress to play; a dress to sleep in! We get in more arguments over whether or not she can wear this or that dress than most other things. 

This was the day before picture day. We picked out her dress for the next day.

Then, I wouldn't let her wear it to bed. The crying followed!!

On the other hand, though, Janie is incredibly sweet. She loves to give hugs and hold hands and rock a bye. She has the perfect blend of sweet and sassy in her personality.

Her reaction to things she is scared of...

Planting a seed at school.

Sweet movie date!

Janie is also speaking in full sentences, all of the time. Besides her tongue thrust, her speech is extremely intelligible. Her stories do not always make sense, but the words can be understood! We have always been impressed with her ability to put words together.

We made a valiant effort to potty train Janie this summer, but I am not convinced that she is 100% ready. She shows signs at times and uses the potty often, but she does not recognize she needs to go and then turn that into action. At least at home. I think we will try again later, closer to her 3rd birthday to see how she does then. Unlike her sister, she did not seem to have any anxiety with using the potty, which I found to be awesome while at home, but also unlike her sister, she didn't flip over to undies only after 4 days... which was not so awesome.

Potty training!

We did make the big change to a big girl bed this summer, which Janie has loved and also done great with. She doesn't get out of her bed when she wakes up, which is fantastic, and the transition didn't affect her sleeping in the least.

Other updates since her 2nd birthday...

Uses sentences to speak As I mentioned above, Janie's speaking is still amazing. She is stringing sentences together to tell stories. And although they may not make any sense, they are still stories with lots of words! She will also repeat phrases she hears, which are super cute, like "That's a great choice!" and "That's so wonderful!" She is highly encouraging and so very darling!

Knows basic colors & shapes One of the biggest differences between Janie and her sister is the amount of academic knowledge they had retained at the same age. Janie is a smart girl and I am by no means concerned about her, but she is just more interested in feelings & social situations than she is with learning new math & literacy concepts. I know that Janie knows her colors & some shapes, but I'm not sure she has made vast improvements with new numbers, letters, etc.

Can count to 12-ish I can honestly say I have NO idea how high Janie can count these days! Second child excuse! I do know that she can count to 5 very well. And she can hold up 2 fingers to tell people how old she is.

Sings ABC's Janie loves to sing her ABC's and does so well, but still doesn't know very many letters, even J for her name. I think she may know A & B, but not consistently. We will work on it as we need to, but as I said before, we are not super concerned as we believe she is doing just fine for her age!

Enjoys playing with baby dolls & dressing up Janie's most favorite thing to do is dress up. She loves all things that have to do with dresses. I don't think I will buy her an actual shirt for a while, unless there is a skirt to match it to! She also loves wearing shoes, especially ones that are not hers. She also loves picking out her own clothes herself, which can be extremely difficult for me to relinquish control of!!

Dressing up at school...

...dressing up at home!

Playing at school... closer to two & you can tell!

Loves reading books to self & others We read every day. She loves books and remembers the parts of the books waaayyy too well. If you even for a second try to skip a sentence, she will call you out on it. She also loves to read books to herself and actually retells the stories pretty well. That's one thing that as a teacher I know kids pick up from listening to adults read: sentence structure, inflection, vocabulary, etc. But watching it happen so young is amazing. While we waited for her sister to finish her hour-long dance class, the only thing Janie did was read the same book over and over. And by herself. She refused to let me read it even once!

Reading books at dance class.

Sings songs & sometimes makes up her own We recently went to a birthday party for a friend and Janie seemed to love singing and dancing on the stage. She loves singing and dancing at home. And by dancing, I mean twirling. She sings in the car and in the bath and in her bed when she's all by herself but thinks no one can hear her. And her little voice carries... So what I'm saying is that these last few things have not changed much!!

Pretty picky eater Janie will actually try a lot of things, but sometimes she eats tons and sometimes she doesn't eat anything. So I think the picky part is not as terrible as it was a few months ago, but she is pretty inconsistent. She never asks for anything different, though! And for the record, she can still eat her body weight in eggs!

Sucks her thumb This. This is the thing I've been worried about for a looooong time. Now we are in the stretch to three years old and I'm not sure how we will break this habit!! I'm sure her tongue thrust is all intertwined in this problem. And her overbite... {sigh}

Janie loves her school & her friends! Her concentration face is amazing...

Obviously enjoyed this activity...

THAT FACE!

Uses utensils Janie is great with eating. I mean, she still spills and can be a messy eater, but uses utensils well! She even used her toddler knife once. 

Drinks from a cup (sometimes) We totally let daycare handle this, but Janie can drink from a regular old cup now. With no help from us!

Likes to brush her teeth Janie likes to brush her teeth all by herself now. Which means she likes to suck the toothpaste off the toothbrush. So, we let her try and then we intervene. We are not yet to the point where she can do the brushing independently, though she likes to think she is! 

Has 16 teeth Yes, I stopped counting teeth awhile ago. She has molars. She had her first visit to the dentist this summer and did awesome! Her teeth were great. 

On her half birthday. What a sweet little smile.

Falling asleep with daddy!

Summer Week Three

This week we could all start to relax a bit more. We didn't have anywhere specific to be for long periods of time and we could just sit back and enjoy the summer days. Of course, the heat had come in full swing last week, so we couldn't do quite as much outside unless it involved getting in the pool. We actually had our air conditioning unit looked at, just to make sure it was working alright as it has been getting hot upstairs.

We officially are "moved in" to our new house. Which really means that we are sleeping here. More on this later, but it has been getting warm upstairs in the afternoons. Not unbearable hot, but warmer than the thermostat. After having the best A/C company in town Gentry Air Conditioning {I am not biased nor am I being compensated for my plug right here} come out to look. We think we have the problem diagnosed but we are choosing to wait a bit since what work they did do seemed to have resolved it some, just not completely. We have a lot of expenses with the move which I will get to in another post...

Checking out the new pool!

Nora's favorite secret garden.

So, it's hot. Moving on to this week...

There was an incident at the pool that we are taking lessons at and so this week we didn't get to either of our classes. Nora was just getting more comfortable in the water so that is a bit of a bummer, but life goes on. We will resume next week and then make up our classes the week after. All before we head out of town!

We did go to the Southlake Public Library for checkout and story time. I was surprised {though I guess I shouldn't have been} at the lack of participation from the girls. They didn't want to do anything too far from me. I think for about two minutes tops I was able to get them to go together to listen to one of the books, but it didn't last the entire story by any means. They do like to go to the library to check out books, but I think they are both just a little apprehensive as they do not know the routine in the library. Maybe if we had kept up going on a regular basis, but as I am writing this retrospectively I can tell you... we did not. 

We went to our summer dentist appointments this week, too. Nora had her second cleaning ever and Janie had her first official cleaning. She did great and sat in the chair all by herself! Both girls got new toothbrushes, which they are beyond thrilled about.

We are buying into the Harkins summer movie deal again this year. I highly recommend this to parents with young kids! It is ridiculously cheap and you can even get the concessions fairly cheap if you get the loyalty cup and the loyalty t-shirt. I probably need to do a blog post on just the good summer deals for kids at some point in time. Long story short though, we pay about $3 every time we go to the movies for a large popcorn {refillable} and two drinks; one for me and one that I split into the girls cups from home. If Nora can talk Pops into buying her an Icee {and she usually does}, now that's another story! So we started going to our weekly movies this week since we were all free. Mom and dad usually go with us.

Last minute, I decided to take Nora to see Beauty and the Beast at the AT&T Performing Art Center. We got pretty terrible seats, but they were also fairly cheap. I do know now not to buy the cheap ones along the side! That morning, I took the girls to get their hair cuts at Sweet & Sassy. They both loved the experience & it was Janie's first haircut ever! She did great sitting in the chair. 

When it was time to head to Dallas, Nora got ready in her Belle outfit and we went to grab lunch before the show. She was super cute all dressed up and her hair braided from the morning's hair appointment! She enjoyed the show, but was tired. She fell asleep on the way there AND on the way back, which is about as much of a nap as I can get out of her anyways. It was a fun mommy daughter date!

Pretty girl!

Before the show with the yellow flowers. 

Playing in the water feature out front.

Asleep... again!

Other highlights from this week...

Nora helping me water the hydrangea plants. I wish I could say they still looked this pretty! 

The plants are alive, the flowers are just not that... pink. I need practice!

Enjoying the new playroom. We are not doing a great job keeping it clean.

We tried out an orange from our tree in the backyard!

It was very juicy & very tasty!

I tried out our new bathtub.

Justin left town for a long week, so I found myself one wine glass and enjoyed our new bathroom! It is quite the oasis. I'll share more someday!

I'm a little in shock that next week is the end of June & beginning of July. Where is the time going??

Coming Home

The time has finally come! If you remember, back in March we moved out of our house in Grapevine and into my mom & dad's so that we could make sure it stayed clean while we were trying to sell it. We did move back for a few weeks after it sold, but it sure feels like we've been displaced a bit since that time. We closed on the old house and moved completely out without even having a new house under contract.

Time kept ticking as we kept looking and when we did find our new house, we agreed with the homeowners to wait until June to move in to it. Which meant that we were spending more time with mom & dad. Living with mom & dad was fine, and helpful really, but we were without our own home for months. That is a long time, especially with four of us.

But... we are moving in! We are making the officially move over to the new house. We had a few things we wanted to do to the house before we moved everything in, but it's looking more and more like that won't happen anytime soon. The girls are very excited to live in the new white house and we are happy to have a place to call home again!

Our new house!

Checking out the new pool.

The "secret" side-garden. Eventually, maybe vegetables??

New adventures await!

Summer Week Two

VBS week is finally here! Mom and I have been planning & shopping & collaborating for months now and it is time to get the whole thing started. Nora is going to participate this year in a class for three year olds and Janie will hang out in the nursery.

Before the VBS fun started though, we celebrated Krista's 27th birthday!

We love you, Krista!

We also were able to get into our house a little bit early, but we haven't been able to settle in or move all the way in quite yet.

Eating dinner at the house after swim lessons.

Also, there are toys here! The girls are happy.

Nora continued swim lessons and we started getting in our pool at home pretty often to help her get used to being in the water. Daddy also was home and took her to classes, which helped with the drop off situation. One of Nora's favorite things to play in the pool at home, ironically, is swimming lessons. She likes to tell Justin how to swim.

Janie also loves the pool!

VBS went smoothly and both girls had fun in their own classrooms. Nora learned a lot, which made me happy as both a mama & a teacher!

Here we go! Ready for a fun week.

Probably "singing" the B-I-B-L-E song!

Janie had a great week, too!

Her shenanigans in the nursery... lots of baby dolls!

We finished the week by celebrating Father's Day with a little shopping for gifts and dinner with Grandpa. My parents were out of town for my cousin's wedding, so we didn't see them for Father's Day this year.

Found a pile of rock treasures!

Playing with cousin Hunter after dinner.

It was a fun week, but I am ready for things to slow down just a bit!