Ready for Christmas and Birthday?

I know, it's been a long time coming. Hopefully, after this birthday and Christmas are out of the way, I'll get back to my ~1x a week posting.

Here was her 23 month shot. Can you believe tomorrow she's going to be TWO? She's excited about her birthday... probably because WE'RE so excited. She's been having a pee pee in the potty about 5 out of the last 7 days. Pretty incredible.

We've been making some of our own wrapping paper (sadly, I didn't use any for the Northern families! I used this for big boxes down here!)

Mara got some sticky penguins to go on the door and she loves them. She makes us open the front door just so she can see them, and rip them up... so one penguin is now hatless and we have a few less snowflakes. Ooops.

 We went shopping for our Christmas tree with Claire and Travis. Mara enjoyed decorating it - she hung some ornaments low on the branches.

I'll have to take a picture of the decorated tree. But what was amusing to me was she found the sawdust pile in the driveway from Zack trimming the stem:

And every time she'd see it, she's stomp her foot really hard on it. No clue why.

Okay, time for more cleaning and house prep. Later!

Video Updates

Hi everyone,

We've had a busy few weeks, so I just have some quick updates. I finished Mara's hat yesterday! It fits and she likes it - hurray!

She's coming along so quickly with speaking! Yesterday, she said "Miss Nicole" to her teacher instead of "Cole!" We were so surprised! AND she got on all fours last night, moved around like a frog and was saying "Ribbit! Ribbit!" which they apparently do in gym class.

She knows when Zack gets out to put gasoline in the car and says "Gas!" and when we get in the car she says "phone", which I only recently connected to me whipping out my phone to calculate milage... something she observed I guess. Zack put wiper fluid in the car yesterday and she thought he was gassing up the car.

She's using some complete sentences now. "Maya do it." or "Read this book." She'll randomly tell us "I wutch you" (I love you) and brings up friends in conversation randomly. This morning, it was Ian and Derica and Maggie and then "I wutch you, Ian." She also thinks Daddy does everything better than Mommy. Either that, or she thinks he needs more practice at it. Whether it's loading her in the carseat and I'm there ready to do it... she stops and proclaims "Daddy do it." Or I go to wash her hands and she halts and says "Daddy do it. Daddy wash hands." Sigh.

She goes on the slide forward facing now. AND we're doing well with counting. See both here:

I think she had a bad dream last night because she woke up screaming my name and I went to pick her up and give her a lost binky and she threw it in the bed (saying "night time binky", which is what is has become) and just clung to me for a few minutes. I asked if she had a bad dream and she said "Bad deem." :(

Finally, here is something to warm your hearts.

My little lady

Mara is turning into such a distinguished little lady. See?

Okay, forget the fact that she doesn't have on any pants.

She asked to have her picture taken with "her" necklace.

Meaning she found Mommy's real pearls and wanted to put them on, so Mommy dug out some fake pearls strung on elastic for Mara to play with.

Didn't make a difference to her.

She could probably use a hair stylist at this point, though.

She kept saying "CHEESE" and giving me lots of smiles.

Such a cutie. And still saying lots of words.

She repeated me saying "I locked the doors."

She remembers words we haven't used in months, such as "temperature" to go along with the thermometer and her motioning to her armpit.

She has no problems telling you that you have gas. "GAS!" "Skuze me, Mommy." Whether it's her... or me.

She is getting really good at saying her abcs. I have been trying to capture it on video. I hope to post something soon. :)

I love you

 Someone told Daddy "I love you!" tonight without being prompted.

 Melt my heart.

And she says "thank you" for almost anything we give her without prompting.

And she takes her napkin and puts it in her lap.

More polite than some people I've met before!

The scar on her face is from a tube of butt paste - the corner caught her in the cheek when she was rolling on the ground.

Elmo

22 Months and Counting

Unfortunately, I never took out my camera for our chicken stew adventure this year in Tobaccoville, but Mara put some away! Good gosh, girl can eat. She also discovered that she likes to pull store-bought grapes off the vine, pop them in her mouth long enough to make them burst, then shove them into Mommy's mouth. YUM!

I DID, however, tote the camera to the STATE FAIR! Yes, that's right, I convinced Zack to go! More like, I said I was going and he came along as our escort. That, and we got to enjoy Ian and Derica's company. Not the best picture of us, but this is BEFORE fair food.

 AHH! Funnel cake. My main reason for going! Mara just licked the powdered sugar off the top.

 Someone had given Ian/Derica some leftover ride tickets, and they graciously gave them to Mara. We hunted around to find the perfect ride, and this was it! A choo choo train! Now, we had to wait in line for a few minutes, and when we got to the front, Mommy didn't have enough tickets (since they charge to have an adult ride, too). Boo. Poor Mara was devastated that we didn't get on. I hopped to the back of the line and Zack, the hero Daddy that he is, purchased the required amount of tickets. Mara was so antsy waiting in line, pointing at the train, afraid I was going to duck out again. But when we FINALLY boarded, the kid was in heaven.

 Yes, for this go-round, I was the only adult on the train. And here's the train, in all its glory.

 She had her booty propped against the seat, and gripped that steering wheel super tight.

 Even though it seemed like a long ride to me... when the train stopped and we had to disembark... this happened.

 I had to pry her hands off the steering wheel. :( At least she loved her first fair ride!

We checked out the animals and got to see pigs and piglets, ducklings, chicks, all kinds of goats, cows, a Percheron, and a cow show, shown below. You can't see the cows, but Mara enjoyed watching them.

 Mara loved seeing all the lights and hearing all the sounds of the fair. I got a hot dog for myself with ketchup and cheese... and had to get another one because someone hoovered my first. AHEM! It was a good thing Uncle Ian had placed a "Proud to be a Republican" sticker on Mara's stroller tray so that she had a "place mat" of sorts. It was covered in ketchup and cheese. Yum! She also enjoyed the petting zoo, and Derica let her feed the animals carrot slices that she'd purchased. I stayed on stroller watch, but Mara was apparently very dutiful in her carrot distribution (mostly to goats, although she saw camels and a zebra and some other animals, too.). 

One of the last events of the evening was a ping pong toss into fish bowls, again, a treat from the Justices (we really need to take them with us more!! - j/k, we totally appreciate everything they did for Mo-bean.) I think Derica knew DEEP DOWN how opposed Zack was to having a fish. And what happened when Zack tossed some ping pong balls?

 That's right. We won 2 fish. YAY!

Those fish got lots of oooo's and ahhhh's from Mara, like she could hardly believe they came home with us. She hasn't noticed, I don't think, that we are down to one. And I give Zack credit, he went out of his way one evening to go to the store and purchase fish food, and only fish food. (After our homemade fish food attempt didn't work (pieces of beef, according to the internet!)). I also dumped a swatted fly in the fish bowl... but I think Fish turned his nose up at it. Oh well. We're at day 4 and it's still alive! I'll report back next post on Fish's status... but I have a pretty good guess at what it will be.

The next day, we stopped by daycare for their fall festival. Ignore the fact Mara is wearing the same outfit. Let's just say getting her dressed is quite a challenge and I pick my battles. ANYWAY! Here she is, with some teacher I don't know, but who told us how incredibly smart Mara is. This is a cookie decorating station... but Mara neither decorated or ate the cookie. Point lost.

 She did love running into this herd of wild, plastic, rocking animals. She can rock so hard that I'm convinced she's going over.

 There were other games and wagon rides and you can see she did have a nice time! Goofball.

 Cornhole boards? No, jumping practice!

 And check out this giant mountain she scaled!

And last, but not least, I knew I was behind in taking her month photoshoot... so here was my quick attempt. I hand her the card. She does this.

 I take some shots. She hands me the card and says "All done, Mommy. All done pictures."

I convince her to let me put the card next to her for a few more shots. I get this face.

 Show me your smile face, Mara!

And then she really was all done.

A few noteworthy things: She'll occasionally say "thank you" without being prompted. For instance, I'll hand her a cup of milk and she says "Thank you Mommy." Tonight, before dinner, I was putting food on the table and she helped me put the napkins down. She knows that there is one for each of us and calls hers "Mayas." She then said "Pairs. Pairs." And I realized she was asking or telling us to say our prayers!! So we said grace, and she's great at saying AMEN!

She also likes drawing with sidewalk chalk ("Cuhyer" is the best way I can spell color so you know what it sounds like). She also giggles when we pass school buses for some reason. (ScooBus). She's making some of her own decisions... such as wanting to stay at the front desk at daycare this morning with Miss Nicole. (A huge change to our normal drop off schedule). She can also hear Zack talking about leaving to me (such as for golf), and she'll say "Bye bye, Daddy," understanding what's happening. She also has to see him first thing in the morning, and then tells him "Shower!" If he doesn't get up right away, I can get her to say "Up, Daddy! Up!" She will say "Cuh muh, Mommy, Cuh muh!" when she wants me to go somewhere.

We can't believe she's going to be TWO in a few months. She's growing by leaps and bounds, physically and mentally. We love her more than you could ever possibly describe, and we are thankful she still loves hugs and kisses. She gives the greatest, clingiest hugs.

Mara's First Zoo Trip

The day after our trip to the pumpkin farm, we took a relatively impromptu trip to the zoo! A trip I'd been wanting to make since we got married, and having Mara at a stage where she understands and recognizes the animals and sounds... there was no way we were procrastinating any longer! We were lucky that Cherry was able to accompany us. The great thing about being there when the zoo opened was no crowd, and front row viewing!

Watching Mara see these animals for the first time, and to see the joy on her face, it made my year.

The first animal she saw was a zebra - and we think that since it was the first one she saw (and the last), that it was her favorite. She'd say "Zeebas!" Look at this:

 I had to say her names like 20 times before she'd turn around. Those zeebas were way too interesting to give her attention to the camera lady.

 This was my usual shot - Mara watching the animals. Not that I blame her.

 It melts my heart to see my little family, and all the love surrounding it.

  We thought the gorillas would be a big hit, but they weren't doing anything interesting.

 The lemurs were jumping around, though, and Mara decided she wanted to walk and run around. She probably walked a third of the time we were there (3 hours total!)

 There was a lot of carrying, though. We didn't mind.

 This eagle was very interested in my family. Probably didn't hurt that Zack was making noises at it, and it hopped and flew closer and closer until it was this close. Mara looks slightly worried.

 Cherry was amazing, as usual, with Mara. Mara has talked about Cherry and Grahampa all week since we've been reminding her of tomorrow night's trek to Lewisville.

I didn't post any pictures of us in the aviary or the nocturnal houses, but she liked seeing the birds running around on the floor, and the ocelots were very feisty! We also checked out the rainbows of colors of the poisonous frogs. I did snap this shot of them and a flamingo.

 We made a special trip to see this bear. We had to walk from the "Africa" side of the zoo to the "North America" side, but I think he was worth it.

 Mara was very tired at this point and she'd eaten about a Zack-handful of goldfish crackers.

 We were so happy we got to see the giraffes. "JAF!" as Mara says.

 

One of our last stops was to see the elephants, and look how close one of them was!

 Daddy pointed out another one over a pile of boulders and Mara all but climbed on his shoulders to see.

 Mara even got to ride one!

 At the end of the day, she had collected some acorns and handed them to me while she got in her stroller. Thinking nothing of it, I tossed one away, and she reached out for me to hand them back. I handed her some of them, but she realized it wasn't all and asked for the other one. When I said I didn't have it anymore, she said "pockets!" The girl asked me to turn out my pockets! Or assumed I'd stowed them in there. How do they learn to think like this?

She slept the whole ride back home (1.5 hours) but we've been talking about the zoo ever since. What am amazing time, and such a beautiful first-time experience to witness.

One more thing - Mara told me "thank you" for handing her a paper towel to clean up milk spilled on her arm... unprompted! I smothered her in hugs and kisses, to which she promptly told me "trash!" and handed me the paper towel.