favorites about our 2.5 yr old

a few of my favorite things about reeser right now:

things she says a lot:
"hold you"
"i need to tell you something"
"you're my best friend!"
"its so nice to meet you" and "im so glad you're here!"-to her animals
"two more minutes?" and if she is asking for a really really long time she'll hold up five fingers and say "this many minutes? a lot of minutes??" :)
"that's a good idea!"
"that be really fun!"
"I'm just 'tending" (pretending)
"daddy is soooo silly!" she says this about a thousand times a day when she talks about him!

she's sooooo into playing make believe and it is just about the cutest thing ever! i love to just watch her and listen to the things she makes up. her imagination is awesome. She loves to pretend to take her animals to gymnastics and she teaches them how to walk on the beam and do forward rolls :). and the latest thing is to pretend we're at the zoo and she'll pick one stuffed animal that gets to come with her and we walk around to every room to see a different animal. usually the real highlight is the baby rhinos :) and its usually their birthday too. (adapted from curious george book about the zoo) oh and she also likes to pretend we're at school. she'll put her stuffed animal on her back and say its her backpack (copying daniel tiger I'm pretty sure) and she calls me teacher mommy and she acts all quiet and shy and like a sweet little student. its hilarious. she waits for me to tell her what we're doing next and then will sweetly move to the next thing. haha. so curious what she will be like in actual school :) what a sweet girl.

today she pretended that we had a puppy named Kretchin :) and it has gone everywhere with us! and she laughs and talks to it and chases it. and we even took him on a walk outside already (and its 8:30am).

loves to tell stories to each other. usually she just wants me to tell her a story about princess reese but sometimes she will tell me one and it is just about the greatest thing in the world. she'll always start with "once upon a time" and usually continue with 'there was a daddy and a mommy and a little girl named reese' :) and most of the time they go to gymnastics and walk on the balance beam

she has just learned how to take her clothes off by herself and this has made getting dressed even more of a challenge in the morning! ugh.

she really seriously seems to love gymnastics and talks about it allllllll the time. probably the most excited she gets about anywhere we go ever. and last week she finally learned how to do a forward roll all by herself. she is so proud too!

Still loves to read books and go to the library. We do this at least once a week and she loves to check out new books and "reads" them by herself. its adorable. i LOVE this about her. it makes me kinda sad that its getting hard for her to sit in my lap and me read her a book with my huge belly ha! but it sure doesn't stop us!

still loves to play doctor! she'll randomly say, "mommy, you not feeling so good? you need a check up?" and then she'll give an entire checkup (including checking your heartbeat and your breathing on your back) she does this to all of her animals all the time too.

has just started getting excited about babies and being a big sister. She loves to feel the baby in my tummy and says "shes kicking!!!" so excitedly (even when she's not). She talks about all the things she will teach the baby all the time and loves to mention that the baby is doing things with her throughout the day. like if we're going to the store she'll say "baby come too?" and she hugs and kisses my tummy a lot now too :) its so sweet. I'm so excited for her to be a big sister! I think she'll be awesome. i'm a little afraid of how it will go when she has to share her old "dds" (blankets) but hopefully we can work this out!

she loves to color/draw/paint. she's getting so much better at sort of coloring in the lines and can trace things I draw really really well. she can draw a circle with a smiley (or sad) face all by herself. and she always always asks me to draw a "picture of our house and her outside riding her bike with curly hair"

shes obsessed with orange juice and cheese.

thats all i can think of right now but i'm sure i'll come back and update in the next few days as I think of more.

love you more than words little silly reesieboo!

happy halloween

Our little cupcake.

Halloween 2012

My amazing mother-in-law made Reese's cupcake costume from a picture I sent her off of pinterest :) She's so talented. Reeser saw a cupcake costume at Old Navy in September and decided she wanted it and Lisa offered to make one so I gladly took her up on it. It turned out soooo cute and I need to take a picture of it and post it on pinterest too! I think it's even cuter than the picture I saw! It was really big on R when we got it in the mail (probably due to my terrible measurements of a squirmy dancing 2 year old) so I did break out the sewing machine and make a few adjustments to get it to fit but I surely can't take any credit. and R LOVED the fact that "honey made it for me!?!" 

So our church, Valley, has a HUGE pumpkin party the weekend before Halloween where there were tons and tons of games and candy and games and crafts and ice cream and a show and I think they said 6,000 people over three nights. it was INSANE! but we had fun too. R was just concerned about getting the candy. and a little overwhelmed by all the people and costumes. and I was totally consumed with making sure nothing had peanuts. and Mark was actually sick and had just finished a very very long week of working. we were quite a crew. ha

our cute friend, Jacen. R wouldn't stand next to our other friend Judah to take a picture but she hasn't stopped talking about his costume, a rocket :) so cute!! 

 .......

 If you didn't see on facebook or twitter- apparently Des Moines is quite unique when it comes to trick-or-treating. no, they don't do it on actual Halloween. Instead, the entire city trick-or-treats the night before Halloween and calls it Beggars Night. I sort of thought this was just a made up thing that a couple of people at the hospital had told Mark, but come to find out this is just what they do. and always have. people laughed when i said i'd never heard of it. I tried my best not to say to their faces that it was super weird and why not just wait another day? It's like eating your turkey the day before thanksgiving. I just kept asking WHY in the world do they do this?? I'm sure I could find out if I just googled it. or maybe I should ask Siri. before next halloween, I'll get to the bottom of this. oh yeah, and the kids have to tell a joke before they can get candy, too.

anyway... we did conform to our city and went out on tuesday night up and down our little street. R was too cute! and she may or may not have had to use the potty at one of our neighbors houses haha - what are neighbors for?? and then that same sweet neighbor gave us some fresh pears from a pear tree. after hitting up all the houses and heading back to ours my silly reesieboo starting throwing a fit about wanting to eat.... no not the m&ms, not the suckers, but yes... she starting crying and stomping about wanting to eat the pear! ha. "I want to eat the whole thing mommy!!! not at home, right now!!!" I couldn't stop laughing. As soon as we got home she really did eat the whole thing! What a healthy, goofy little thing. Then she had a tiny sucker and that was about it. I think she's candied out after our week of potty training (which is still going great, btw). The evening was fun (and freezing). The next night, actual halloween, was super weird to me... but I think maybe churches had parties or something? maybe next year we'll have friends to invite over on the actual day and we can have our own party? here's to a fun Halloween 2012. now onto thanksgiving and christmas!! yay.