I-phone picture purge

My favorite handy man.

A sweet picture Miss Amanda sent me of Reese snuggling with Nick while they watched the birds one morning.

Gatorade mustache.

 

How Miss Reese eats a sucker.

 

My favorite part about when the kids pretend they are kitties or doggies.

 

Super Dono!

 

Beautiful butterfly.

 

Breakfast and girl talk with Grammie.

 

I love this face.

 

If you come over to our house, chances are, you will see Reese like this. She is OBSESSED with going "pee pee". Really what that means, is she wants to run around the basement naked, and every so often sit down on the little potty for approximately 3 seconds before streaking off.  Don't you dare deny her this pleasure. She will scream and cry until you take her clothes and diaper off and let her "pee".

Reese, "aka Alfalfa" and her buddy Nick.

 

The text I got from Miss Amanda on this one was, "Letting me know she got a booger..."

 

And on this one, "Very proud of her booger!"

 

Pictures from "Fun Friday" with Grammie Q today. Breakfast and cartoons in the basement.

 

Silly times and Reese sneezing eggs.

 

And last but not least, FORT TIME!

18 month stats

Here are Reese's stats from her Dr.'s appt 2 Fridays ago:

Height: 33.25 inches
Weight: 23 lbs
Head circumference: 19.35 inches

I don't have exact percentages as someone (*cough cough Dad *cough cough) forgot to get those. But from baby center they say her height is 75-90%, weight is 25-50% and head circumference is 95%.

Tom said Reese did awesome at her appt. She laid there for her exam and smiled at the Dr. while he was poking around on her and listening to her chest. When the Dr. asked how her speech was she said, "Doctor!" so he said, "Well that answers that question." Donovan went to the appt to to get a flu mist dose, which is what we prepared him for. However once they got there the nurse told Tom that he had to get the shot as he had a cold. He got the shot and Tom said that he got a little upset, mostly a big frown and couple tears but no big crying.  Then they gave Reese her one shot, and Tom said she made no reaction at all, except for looking at her arm and back at the nurse. The nurse that gave Reese her shot asked Donovan if he was brave like Reese when he got his shot and he shook his head a said no. Points for honesty.

Happy 18 month birthday Reese!

Reese is 1 and a half. When did that happen? She is so big! This is what she is up to/all about Reese at 1.5:

Shoe size: 5 (starting to get into 6s)
Diaper: Size 3
Clothes: 18 month
Teeth: Just popped her 11th on Saturday

Sleeping: She has recently transitioned to 1 nap a day (mostly). She still hasn't figured out that the one nap should be a long one, and it is typically 1.5- 1hr 45 when it needs to be over two at least. She gets up for a sippy cup of "mout" (milk) between 5-6 about 50% of days now and the rest she is just sleeping straight through until she wakes up for good. Usually between 6:45 and 7:30.

Eating: She still eats the squeezie baby foods most days. I would say she averages 1 or less a day. Otherwise she eats what we eat. She is a little pickier than Donovan was (or that I remember he was) at this age. Her favorites right now are berries, green beans, and mostly, crackers, chicken nuggets and fruit snacks, or "nacks".  She drinks on average, 3 sippies full of warm milk a day. Yes, she still requires her milk to be warm. We are suckers.

Showing off her prized Owl bank which she has since broken into 1 million pieces.

Fun on the slide at the park.

Speech: Reese is talking, talking, talking. I have no idea how many words she knows. If I had to guess, I would guess in the 200s? She is starting to say sentences. She says, "I see you ______" as she is spying on you, as well as "I did it!" and "He hiding".  There is still a lot of stuff that she says that we have no idea what she is saying, but overall she can get her thoughts across pretty well.

Other business: Reese is back to her momma's girl ways. She is distraught when Donovan sits on my lap and makes her feelings well known on the subject. She and Donovan got in a fight last night over who got to sit in my lap and there was legit hair pulling and head pushing from Reese. She is a feisty one when she feels she needs to be.

Reese is getting in to playing pretend and I love it. She will pick up the phone and "Call" her grandma (my mom). Every time she calls someone, it's "Maw-Maw" (that's how she says "grandma". But my mom is not really a maw-maw. Maw-maws are 85 years old minimum and my mom is not that). She pretends to be a kitty and a doggy and will meow and bark appropriately. She held an Elmo doll in the bath tonight against her body like a baby and rocked it. So cute. She will make us "coffee" and will put her purse on her shoulder and tell us "bye".

She has more lovies than any kid I know, even Donovan. She would not let me leave her room this morning with out Kitty 1, kitty 2, puppy, baby and nigh-nigh (her blanket). Her current favorites are her 2 kittys and her night-night. She has almost climbed out of her crib multiple times, but has been stopped by one of us before she gets all the way out because we don't want her to know that she can do this. She has climbed out of her pack and play at both her baby sitters and her grammie's house.

She gets in time out way more than Donovan at this age and does pretty well when she goes there. She cries and screams but doesn't get up. She LOVES her bath time. She loves to lay down in the bath. She is really into "peeing". She requests us to take her diaper and pants off so she can go pee, but then she never pees, but it isn't for lack of trying. She tries about 10 times and then we get tired of waiting for her to pee on the floor and we put her diaper back on. She is very into animals and her favorites are hippos and rhinos currently. She also loves to color and prefers to use markers to crayons.

Reese can do a somersault! She did it twice on film for the first time a couple weeks ago. I'll see if Tom will post it some other time. She constantly is making us laugh.  Tonight she earned herself a bonus bath because she was putting spaghetti noodles in her hair and saying "hair!" like the noodles were her hair. She also lays across things that are a little high off the ground and puts her feet up in the air and tells us she is "flying". She loves to wrestle with Tom and Donovan on our bed. She makes the funniest faces for when she thinks things are cold or heavy. It is the same, straining face and I laugh every time.

Her "heavy" and "cold" face.

First painting project at Ms. Amanda's.

Hanging at the park with Grammie Q.

Mid day bath fun with best bud Nicholas.

Enjoying her cupcake at Ms. Amanda's.

I think that rounds out the latest with our new 1.5 year old. She goes to the Dr. on Friday so we will have more measurements and her official 1.5 yr picture then, if not before. 

Thanks for making our life so fun Reese. Life if never dull with a firecracker like you around. We love you!

Our little scammer

Donovan is super into little cars right now, like Hot Wheels or Matchbox cars. Both sides of his grandparents have cars at their houses that he can play with when he goes to their house. Well recently, Donovan has been taking home cars from the grandparents houses to play with here.

The first time, was about a month ago, and he brought home a couple cars from Grammie Q's house to "borrow" for a little bit. And borrow he did. He returned them without a fight the next time he saw her. I think it was a pretty slippery slope from there as this past week Grammie asked us to send some cars over with Donovan on Friday when he came as she doesn't have any at her house anymore.

A couple weeks ago when Donovan was at my parents, he wanted to bring 5 cars home with him. My mom agreed, but only if he agreed to send her home with 5 of his cars so that she would still have some. My mom was pretty pleasantly surprised when he gladly put 5 cars in the bag and sent them home with her that night when they dropped Donovan off. I was feeling pretty proud of my little man too I must admit.

Well today, when Donovan was getting ready to go to my parents, he told me that there was a bus and a red truck of Grammie Q's that she was missing, and he needed to see if it was at Grandma's. Sounded like a good idea to me.  So as soon as we got there I mention it to my mom, and she has no idea what bus or truck we are talking about. As soon as we go downstairs to play, Donovan finds both...in the bag of 5 cars that he sent home with my mom. Then I look at the rest of the cars and NONE of them are actually ours! They were all Grammie Q's! No wonder that kid was so easy to convince to give 5 of his cars away. They weren't actually his cars. He traded cars that weren't ever supposed to stay at his house in the first place. He scammed us!  The bad news for him though, is that now we are on to his scheme. Gotta love a three year old mind though. He's a smart one.

Zoo day we'd like to forget

There are days and weekends where you are so happy to be with your children and every moment feels like an amazing memory being made. You never want the weekend to end and you don't want the kids to go to bed because they are being so good and you are having so much fun with them. This weekend, was not that kind of weekend. This was a "It is Saturday morning at 10:30 and I am already looking forward to going to work on Monday" kind of weekend.

Yesterday we planned to enjoy the unseasonable warm (70s) weather and enjoy the Zoo with our friends, the M family. We haven't seen them in a while and Dono and Ian love playing together so what could go wrong.

Well to start off, Reese was her normal, clingy, not wanting to stay in the stroller self. So instead, I had to hold her the whole time. Which means she bosses me around and I can't visit with people or feel my arms. So that was fun for me.

Donovan was a perfect little happy boy....until we asked him to go to the bathroom so he didn't have an accident while he was playing. And that boy did not want to go to the bathroom. And he told us that 1,000 times. While crying. And while peeing a healthy amount (see, he told us he didn't have to go). And that was where the day took a nose dive.

So then we went to go see the elephants, hippos and rhinos, Reese's favorites. But Donovan wouldn't stop crying. So he and I stayed back until he calmed down so as to not ruin Ian and his family's good time. So 10 minutes later, we went to go find everyone. I texted Tom, who had gone ahead with Reese, and he brought her back to me because she had been crying ever since she was forced away from me by her horrible father.

Dono was happy when we met up with Tom and Reese, and then Reese was happy. Then Dono started whining he wanted to go home. Then more Dono crying, then both kids crying because they both want me to hold them and I can't.

So we leave after almost 2 hours at the zoo and having seen not much at all. I was bummed. I considered putting them in a taxi and sending them home so Tom and I could enjoy the day, but I didn't want to go to jail so I didn't.

We did manage to get some pictures of the day.

The fun continued after we got home too. Lots of whining and crying, a short nap for Reese, Reese knocking over the humidifier in Donovan's room, driving to Target and hearing a weird noise, only to look in the review mirror and see her snack trap bouncing in the street (the snack trap Tom put on top of my car when we got home from the Zoo so he could take Reese out of her car seat, but then forgot about). Then there was the Target trip with Reese where she screamed and cried 75% of the time and also wanted me to hold her instead of riding in the cart. Then there was bath time. Dono wouldn't share, so he got taken out early. Then he kept trying to come back in and sit on my lap and anytime he walked in the bathroom door Reese would practically dive out of the tub onto my lap, soaking wet, so that he couldn't sit on my lap. She did this several times. At this point I am soaked, and laughing at the ridiculousness of the day, and also, drinking wine, so things at least a little more tolerable. Then Reese spilled my glass of wine. I mean, we could not catch a break.

But alas, today is a new day, and we talked my parents in to taking the rug rats for a little while so Tom and I could have a break and realize that we really do love our children, even when they have rotten days. That and tomorrow is a work day so things are looking up!

Magic House last weekend

Last weekend we spent some time playing at the Magic House. Reese has never been before, or at least when she was old enough to really enjoy it so it was a fun experience for her.  So much so that when we had to leave she cried all the way home. Dono was sort-of trying to comfort her. He said, "What's wrong Reese, why are you crying? (met by only crying from Reese) Are you sad because you want to go back and play with the kitties and doggies? (she quites down to listen to him now, he has piqued her interest with the kitty doggie talk). Well we left so you can't. Just go back to crying. (followed by more Reese crying)"  Man I love these kids. They are so funny.

Here are some pictures from the day.

 

This was by far Reese's favorite part, the Veterinarian part. They had lots of kennels, and each dog and cat had a name tag and the picture of itself on the outside of the kennel so you knew which one it belonged in. You can pretend wash them, dry them and check them out. But all Reese wanted to do was hug them and take them all home. She was pretty, pretty, pretty upset when I wouldn't let her. Hence the crying all the way home.

We bought a year membership and we got a free gift with it. Know what it was? This awesome cape! Best free gift ever!

Halloween 2012

This year's Halloween was a crazy one. First off, it was on a Wednesday. That in itself, was hectic enough. It should be a work holiday or held on a Saturday or Sunday as far as I am concerned. Second, our little friend Ian, who we were going to go trick-or-treating with, got sick so we had to find alternate plans. Third, the alternate plans we did join was in a subdivision with the most kids I have ever seen. So while we had a great time, we are committing to staying home, and trick or treating in our own subdivision next year, complete with fire pit in the driveway. Anyone who wants to come over can, but we will not be going anywhere.

Without further ado...the pictures.

Dono and his best bud Trevor. They were both Spiderman. (In fact, Trevor is the reason Donovan wanted to be spiderman.)

Just a portion of the large pack of kids that we went around with.

Aunt Anna and Uncle Nick came over to spend some time with the kids and they dressed up! I was not expecting that! Unfortunately our camera was acting up when we tried to take some pictures of them with the kids, so this was the best one I got. Reese was not in this one as she was doing her one year old thing and pitching a fit since I wasn't holding her. Nick and Anna were definitely the highlight of the night!

Reese really liked trick-or-treating overall. She mostly wanted to be on my hip and have me do all the work. She thought she had to eat every piece of candy as she got it but eventually she couldn't keep up, so we actually got to go home with some. She especially liked the sucker! She would tell people "thank you" after she got the candy, as we were walking away, and right out of ear shot. At least she was trying.

And last but not least, here are some pictures of our little pumpkin, posing by our carved pumpkin. She was having naked time and could not be bothered to put on clothes. And when you see her that happy, you don't really want to make her either.

Happy Halloween 2012! Love the Qs!