I owe you one...

I know, I know.

I really did try to post last week and blogger locked up on me.

Your favorite photo subject has been keeping us plenty busy. Just keeping her CLEAN is a chore!

We do encourage her creativity, but sometimes it gets out of hand. :) 

We had a great Labor Day weekend at the beach with Cherry and Grahampa (who was called Pop-pop). Mara STILL asks about them, pretty much daily. She recognized Cherry's voice on the phone today when Zack called her and she yelled CHERRY from the back seat.

 Her hair blows in the wind!

Even though Mara had over a 104 fever, she still was able to enjoy herself.

 

 Here I am getting kisses.

 My two loves.

 At first she refused to put her feet in the water and did this instead:

 She did better later, though.

Mara enjoyed eating strawberry popsicles and getting tons of love from her grandparents.

Mara invited her little friend, Max, over to play 2 weekends ago and boooooy did he enjoy spending time with her. He got a little FRESH if we do say so!

But it's okay. He's so cute, you have to forgive him. FOR NOW. When you get older, Max... you'd better be careful!

Later in the week, we went shopping with Aunt Derica... and poor Aunt Derica had to deal with her name being screamed from all corners of Target if she dared to duck out of sight of Mara.

I got these cute overalls from H&M. Aren't they adorable?

Mara's 21 month pics didn't turn out so great... but better than last month's which I completely didn't take b/c she was sick (ugh).

But I did get some other cute shots of Daddy-Mara time.

 And since it's gotten a little cooler, we can stand to be outside without being eaten by mosquitos!

Someone is preparing for the STATE FAIR in a few weeks! Already bought our tickets so I'm definitely dragging the fam there.

Alright, that's all the pics for now. I'll upload a couple videos I wanted to share, and then call it a night. Whew!

It's your lucky week - another post

Mara had *another* picture day at daycare... and since I actually remembered, and we just purchased some fancy schmancy shoes for upcoming weddings, here's what you get!

She likes the shiny shoes, but I snapped these before school this morning... hence the "I'm hungry, why did you pull out the camera, what are you making me do this early in the morning" face. I actually did get her to laugh, and this was the tail end of it, believe it or not.

Here she is, sitting at her "new" table I bought from my work classifieds. She usually sits in it correctly, and has me sit in the other seat. I've eaten several meals scrunched at this table.

And here's a close up of my cutie patootie.

Getting so big

Mara's just getting so big and can repeat so many words. She had some visitors 2 Sundays ago and they came bearing gifts! She was still recovering from being sick, but she managed to give us a few smiles.

Mara is loving playing with Playmobil and frequently requests the "horseys!" She'll spend time setting them up and will trot them around saying "NEIGH!" I need to take some pictures so you can see.

The pink car is still a hit, even over the new (used) tricycle I picked up. I think the fact the car has buckles (her favorite accessory) gives it the edge.

I'm excited that Mara FINALLY fits into this 18 month skirt that Matt/Jess gave her on her year birthday. Woo hoo! The shirt is courtesy of Great Aunt Ann. It actually has a matching poofy purple skirt too, but Mara selected this ensemble and we're going with it. I was the requested chauffeur so here I am:

And here is my favorite pic from the quick session before another thunderstorm:

I like how the belly bear is stretched across the whole belly. Reminds me of my preggo-jack-o-lantern photo. (Which Zack hates). Too bad! Mara pulls it off much better, I admit. It's not... well... creepy.

I haven't lost my Marbles...

Or perhaps I have!!!

Mara, where are you? Oh there you are!

Yes, she climbs in there all by herself. And then gets out and offers for me to have a turn, patting where she just sat. I tell her Mommy's booty is too big to fit in there. She says "Daddy?" Daddy's booty is definitely too big to fit in there, although I chuckle at the though of us trying to squeeze into this cabinet.

Here's Mara's boo boo cover that she allowed to stay on for most of the day! She's a champ. (Skinned bloody knee). She's so awesome she needs to wear those sunglasses indoors.

And most of you have already witnessed the spots/bumps from last week, but I had a few more cute photos to share:

We sent her to daycare today and all seems well, although she may be getting her 2 year molars. She has been GRUMPPPYYYY!!! And gnawing on that finger or toy!

She does have some killer gorgeous eyes, though.

And if you're eating something and she wants it, here's the sign (note: not official American Sign Language - this is Mara sign)

Looks like she's screaming. She's not. She pulls the baby bird face until something tasty is inserted in the pie hole. Zack carried her down from a nap the other day and she immediately zoned in on my lunch (pasta noodles) sitting on the side table. Before Z walked across the room, Mara swiveled her head to keep sight on the bowl and said "BITE!" She finished my lunch for me.

She's 20 months old now! Such a big girl, and very excited to go back to school. She asked to go to school almost every day she was sick. Poor kid. I did all I could to keep her entertained.

Time for bed! Thanks for reading.

Because I'm lazy

All you get are some videos.

She and I had a great time together this weekend. We went to the Butlers on Friday (hence the video of her getting high five's from Max), Saturday, she and I enjoyed mexican food... although she wasn't eating my burrito but instead opted for eating the salsa with a spoon, we stopped by the auto parts store to get replacement bulbs for the truck lights and she discovered several treasures! FOG! (a green frog figure sitting on a register), and a rubberband from the floor which became a bracelet. We then hit up a local petstore to see the cat, dogs, birds, hamsters, ferrets, bunnies, guinea pigs, rats, fish, etc. She enjoyed that very much! We also got ice cream at a place called Skinny Dip, although she refused to eat the frozen yogurt and was only interested in my STUH-BERRIES. I played with her outside and let her walk holding my hands on a concrete wall and got her saying AHHSUHH (Awesome), SEEET (Sweet), and DUDE. She was making passerby's laugh. Sunday, we went shopping at Target and she surprised me by knowing the Wolfpack sign when I said GO WOLFPACK as we passed some bright red State shirts. She made a mouthy hand sign (without the ears, but we'll work on that). I think one of her daycare teachers is a State fan. I'm not complaining!

She's just been so much fun. I want to cuddle her to bits, she gives great wet sloppy kisses, and I'm trying to expand her movie horizons so we don't continue to memorize Shrek (SHEK!) 1, 2, or 3. She likes Spirit, Stallion of the Cimarron, and will scream NO NO, OH NO when the mountain lion jumps on Spirit's back. We tried Ratatouille (she calls TOOIE) and we got a semi-positive response. She can put her shapes in her shapeball pretty much completely by herself and I caught her saying "STAW" (star) as she held the star and searched for the right hole. She also yells out a color sometimes (not always correct, but she'd good with blue).  As you saw in the video, she figured out how to pump the bike pump. Today, when we were calling the dogs in the house, she made kissing noises and slapped her hand deliberately over and over on her thigh, bending over to do so. I cracked up.

She likes to make things right, fix them - Zack broke a kitchen cabinet door off while he was mouse-proofing the kitchen and she discovered it this evening. I hear in the kitchen "NO!" and Zack comes back saying she pushed him out of the kitchen while she was attempting to carry the door over to the gaping hole in the cabinet.

We also went to Target on Sunday and I treated her to a cinnamon pretzel in the snack area. I've been wanting to do that for awhile! But as you can see, she got more of a kick out of the chair that I helped twirl.

That's about it for now!

Dirty Dirty Mara

Since it's getting late, this is going to be a quick post... but I had some great pictures I wanted to share from the weekend. Mara got a present in the mail and enjoyed opening her new Teddy! Thank you, Great Grahampa and Great-grandmother Shirley!

Mara also helped us weed outside during and after a rain... which was quite entertaining. And MESSY!

 Mara still loves this pink car, and climbs over all the CRAP in our garage to get to it. She tries to delay our departure to school/work in the morning by loading up in it... but since this was a Saturday, she got to do some cruising.

She does know the song "The Wheels on the Bus" and will make the hand motions for the mommies that say SHH SHH SHH, the horn BEEP BEEP BEEP, and the babies WAH WAH WAH. I'll try to get it on video.

Right now, she's obsessed with buckles. She will buckle her booster seat over and over again, as long as you're willing to unbuckle it for her to start over. Her booster seat has buckles on 2 sides that attach to the middle crotch strap, and she's really good at it.

She doesn't really have any qualms about getting dirty. :) That's my girl.

 Before I ran in to get my camera, she had a giant chunk of dirt on her forehead. You can see the remains here, but it was enormous. Sorry I missed it!

She loves to push her own car around and you can see how tall she's getting. She can reach our door knobs... she just can't turn them (thank goodness).

And phase 1 of clean up was this:

 

 

Phase 2: strip her down to her diaper.

Phase 3: shower!

Hope you all had a great weekend.