4.29.2012

our two year old


weight: 23.2 lbs (10%)
height: 31.5inches (12%)


We have a two-year-old. geez. That's weird to say. What a little punkin she is though! She is just about the greatest two-year-old there ever was. She is still so passionate about pretty much everything - except for eating, of course. She is FULL of life and love and laughter from the moment her eyes open in the morning to the last few songs she mumbles in her crib to her DD and teddy at night. Truly I will say that her excitement for life is contagious. She makes a mundane and even slightly boring thing into a game or into something fun and a memory we can make together. Whether we make our pile of clean laundry into a fort or sit in the grass outside and watch the ladybugs (she calls every bug a ladybug) reese says, "oh fun mommy!" and her eyes light up and she jumps up and down and says 'ooooohhhhh yay!" I pray I will have that sort of excitement in my eyes all day long too. It's just such a fun thing to watch her experience new things. she really is just a little sponge and soaking in anything and everything we throw at her. 

I think I'd say pretty much all of her favorite things involve being outside. She loves to trace each other or just our shoes or toys with chalk. She loves with all thats in her to blow and catch and pop bubbles. gah lee. I need to take a picture of how many bubble bottles we now have in our garage. I think I counted eight the other day. and this can be a small glimpse into her almost ocd personality.... She knows and remembers EXACTLY which bottles we use and EXACTLY which bubble wands she likes and EXACTLY which order they should go in when we get them out and put them in the driveway. and if Mommy would be so silly as to try to leave any of them out our Reeser would NEVER start playing with anything until it was all set up EXACTLY right. but once we have it all together. {big blue bottle, small blue one, colorful one, the one that isn't opened, the empty one. and then the wands. and then comes the new pink wagon Anna gave her for her birthday that some of them are in} and now the fun can begin :) haha its hilarious! and no we did NOT teach her to do any of that. 

She is still a very picky eater but is getting better at eating a variety of things as long as 'dip' is involved in some way (aka ketchup or mustard). 

Usually she speaks in sentences now. Phrases I hear A LOT throughout the day include: 
"mommy yoook! (look)"
"Yets go see it."
"Common mommy. yets go!"
"Weese put shoes on too."
"Weese do it"
"Nack please mommy" (snack)
"Where dd go? oh dd? wheres are you?" (dd is her blanket that goes EVERYWHERE with her. I need to do a whole post on dd. theres another story about her stubborness.... another time though.)
"hmmmm how bout....." and then she'll name something we should do.
"dis is weeeeally fun!"
"mommyholdyou"(all in one word, said in a really fast whiny voice)

Pretty much my favorite thing that she does right now is when she tell us a story! It just about melts my heart. She'll start gabbering about something and we can only catch a few words we can understand that can sort of tell us what she's talking about but she just keeps going as if shes speaking perfectly clear english. She'll say, "remember mommy. sam....window laughing...bagadogalablah....firetruck... sam fall down... juice. one two juice...." {she told me this one in the car the other day and i think she was trying to tell me about the time she and sam were playing and ran to the window to see the firetruck and sam fell down. and they have matching cups so maybe thats what she meant by juice.} and then she just laughs and laughs about what ever story she told and then she always ends with "remember mommy? memember?" She actually has a CRAZY good memory. All the time during the day she'll ask if I remember something we did or saw even weeks ago and we'll talk about it and always have to laugh together about it :) too cute.

She also LOVES to sing songs! She can sing tons of songs on her own and remembers most of the words. favorites are: itsy bitsy spider, im a little tea pot, abcs, jesus loves me, 'cars song' aka life is a highway, 'lion song' aka oh i just cant wait to be king, veggie tales theme song, honey song from winnie the pooh, winnie the pooh 'hundred acre woods song' (this one is my favorite to hear her sing! i've got to record it!) - and most of all the songs we have on her little kiddo cds. 

She is still very cuddly and so sweet. I praise the Lord daily for her precious demeanor. She is usually very sweet and kind.... however, there is a pretty fiery side to her too. She likes to get her way and is Stubborn with a capital S. I'm glad she has a little spunk but I pray we are able to channel that into good things and that God will use that in her for His glory. I might jinx myself here... but we haven't had very many spankings or time-outs in the last month or so at all!! but we've been praying and talking about what our discipline plan will be when those times come... gosh, parenting is hard. but I think now, more than ever, I just feel so incredibly blessed to have a daughter. to have a child that is ours. to have my reeseieboo to keep me company while daddy is working so hard for us. to have a buddy who wants to curl up in my lap and watch doc mcstuffins as long as i will let her. to have a little family of three. and just us. and to know that no matter where we move, where we live, who we meet, whether we have friends or not, we have the three of us. 

love you to the moon and back my little reesieboo.

4.22.2012

He is Risen!

"According to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." 1 Peter 1:3





This year we celebrated Easter in Columbia as our little family of three. We definitely missed our families but we had a great time as just us. We went to the Friday night service at our church and it was AWESOME.  Its so hard to even fathom our great God and the love he has for us. What joy it brings me that we are saved from our sins because of Jesus. Church on Easter Sunday was really amazing too. We just love our church here- The Crossing- and getting to be a part of it this year has truly changed my life!! All the eggs and candy were fun but it was even more special to celebrate the real reason of Easter. It was so sweet to hear little Reesers sweet voice say "Jesus is alive" over and over. It will be fun to really explain to her what Jesus did for us on the cross as she gets a little older. Here are some pics from our Easter day.


We had Easter lunch with our small group - here are R and Addy talking to each other on their "phones" (yes, Reese's is a calculator haha)

Then our dear friends, the Cranford family, invited us over for an incredible Easter dinner with their sweet family. Mrs. Dari made DUCK! yum. it was so good. Reesie boo absolutely LOVES Mrs. Dari and we always have fun being with their family.

 

They even made the most adorable bunny cake :) 

"Oh praise the One who paid my debt, who raised this life up from the dead. JESUS paid it all."

easter egg hunt lunch

{catch up time on the blog today... }


Sometime the week of Easter we had an easter egg hunt for lunch outside. I saw this on another friends blog and thought it would be fun. Especially since R loved to have egg hunts and could care less about eating anything I thought maybe if I combined them it would get her to eat lunch. It sort of worked but she cared more about organizing the food on her plate than eating it... it was still fun though. We'll have to continue doing this every year for sure! I filled the eggs with grapes, crackers, little hot dogs, and fruit snacks as a special treat. She loved opening the egg to find out what was inside!




4.09.2012

eggs & bike rides

dying easter eggs with sam last week...
(surprise faces)


my mom found this awesome bike carrier thing for R from a friend in Branson and we have been loving it this week!!! and R loves it too :) I was laughing sooo hard our first bike ride together bc Reesieboo kept saying "weeeeeeeee. here we go daddy! weeeeee. this is fun!!" so funny!

4.08.2012

weekend catch up

a few weekends ago my mom drove here to watch some of her little gymnasts compete in the missouri state meet so of course Reese and i had to go watch for a little bit. oh man did it bring back tons of memories of sparkly leotards, silk screened shirts (that I always wanted but never got :) nachos, little brothers playing under the bleachers, the awards stands, judges.... oh my. can't wait to see if reese decides to be a part of that world?! it sure is crazy. haha. R's eyes were soooo huge when we walked in the gym and watched those little level five girls doing their routines, the music blaring (about sixty billion times over and over) and she LOVED it.... for about 12 minutes. ha. then she realized the little girl next to us had an iPad. that quickly won her attention. it was still fun though. a lady there gave her a little bracelet that has a gymnast or something on it and she is still wearing it around and talking about na-nastics. we went to open gym again the other day too and she was BELLY LAUGHING so hard about playing in the big foam pit. it was hilarious. 
1st place winner for sure :)

the next day we went on a walk on the MKT trail and ended up at this really pretty spot and taught reeser how to skip rocks. it has become a new favorite pastime. she even has a rock "collection" for the next time we go by any sort of body of water. 





the next weekend Mark had to work the whole weekend so Reesie boo and I drove to Branson to help my mom throw a shower for cute Rebecca Cooper. I cannot believe she will be a little bride in a few weeks! It was so so so fun to catch up with my neighborhood friends. We hadn't been all together in a very long time. there's just something about being with people who have known you since you were born. so special. so real. so honest. forever friends. 

and reese and my dad found this in the closet and spent hours watching the marbles go down and down and down. so cute. most of the weekend Reese kept saying, "common pajoe. common gigi. lets go." then she would look at me and say, "no mommy. mommy stay downstairs. mommy no outside." haha. she just wanted her gigi and papajoe and that was fine with me :) 

and then 'pajoe' introduced her to her first real life turtle.