Sunday, July 25, 2010

Summer and 18 months

Hello! Summer has been too much fun (seriously) and there's been some kind of summer time warp where weeks are flying by and I haven't noticed or blogged it.

Anyway...here's a quick one...(whoops...now that I'm done writing, it wasn't so quick!)

We love driving by giant blow up animals/characters...we saw this one in the west end and Katie said "That bear's sitting on a potty!". It does look like that doesn't it?
Once in a while we tape paper on the floor and do some serious colouring. Sam gets involved too, though I find I get pretty impatient with her scrunching up the paper as she scoots over the floor. Gram and Grandpa got a new hammock...my goodness it's comfortable!
We did go camping...(though that's not why I haven't been blogging...we were only gone for one night!)...a test drive really for camping later in the summer. We went to Pembina River with Gram and Papa. Only an hour or so away from the city, in case it really wasn't working and we had to go home. Needn't have worried...aside from a tiny wake-up, things were great!
There was a playground within view of our site:
And we brought riding toys...the bobby car, the stroller (Sam must have walked 5km with that thing...we've gone and bought another one, so they stop fighting over it) and Katie's trike.
Gram and Papa.Katie had her first toasted marshmallow (I think it was her first...did I allow her last year?). She likes it!Sam and Ben at the playground.
Thank goodness for coffee and pancakes...thanks Gram and Papa!
I have 300 photos on the camera but that's all you're getting for now. =) I'll have to play catch up later. We've been busy...
- ripping out our front lawn (left the trees) as we are planning on redoing the grass and grading and sidewalk.
- lots of sewing for me...a dress! ...and a skirt! and a tiny dress that's a wee bit too small for Sam that I will make again but bigger.
- Lots of chalk...thank you Steph and Russ for 3-D chalk...it's awesome!
- Lots of playgrounds and strollercize, trips to the library and so much rain!

The girls are fun...things have been so great. That 123 thing works really well for Katie. We're still improving but it's made such a difference in my parenting. I caught Katie drawing the alphabet today. Yes, I'm absolutely not lying. And I didn't even coach her, she just did it. It wasn't perfect, naturally, but definitely recognizable...up to about m...and then I saw some s and t and maybe a q. She's loving her dot to dot workbook and that uses abc's and numbers, so she's really getting great at that...and enjoys it!

Sam...Wow...you turned 18 months old yesterday!! I cannot believe what a big girl you're getting to be. You've definitely getting it when it comes to language...feels like in the last couple of weeks you've started finding new words all over the place! And even starting to put endings on your words...like "Mil...K!", as you emphasize the K sound like we encourage you to do. And with this, I think things are getting easier just because you're understanding more of what we tell you...you're maybe not so in the dark anymore...it's like we've let you in on our big secret, and you're very happy about it.
You may also be happy because I think we're through most of your teething. You have all of your teeth broken through that you should (no 2 yr molars yet). We've had a nice period of sleep with some solid nights and some sleep ins...!! Until about 7am even. Though really, anything later than 6am gets me pretty excited.
You're climbing very well...managed to get up on the red couch just yesterday actually...it seemed pretty high but you've just figured out how to shift your body weight. You're very proud of yourself. And, not that I'm not careful anymore, but you're SO GOOD at getting down (you say "turn around") that I'm not as worried about you falling.
You're really enjoying cheese lately...another of your good words. Your hair is getting longer and it blows in the wind and is JUST starting to maybe get in your eyes a bit...time to find the tiny barrettes for fine hair...if you would just leave them in. =) Maybe we have to try pigtails?
At your 18 month checkup we found that you're 25 pounds and Hmm...forget the height but it's 90th percentile (weight is 75th...both up from last time) and the doctor prescribed that we use your excema cream on your "diaper rash"...it's been SO helpful...I wish we'd found out about that earlier...we've been struggling for a couple of months with this (again!). Otherwise, your skin's been looking really great...a bit of cream here and there and excema's seems under control.

Life is great. YOU are great...thank you for being you and keep it up!

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