Stickers

Look what I found after I was done cooking breakfast one morning. :)

Mary, Mary Quite Contrary

Last night Jenna helped us look at plants for our garden. We haven't bought any yet, but are excited to plant our first official garden this year!

Puddles

Today was a good day to put on the rain boots and take a walk. Jenna loved being able to jump in the puddles!

Yoga

I thought that it might be fun to start introducing Jenna to different types of workouts. Not that a two year old needs to work-out, but I think that it is a good influence for her to see me work out and up till now I've always tried to sneak in my work outs during her naps or after she's in bed.

So, yesterday I decided to put in a workout video and see if she wanted to join me. I knew I wouldn't get to work out long with Little Miss tagging along, so I decided to go with yoga since it would be easy to quit in the middle. She sat down right by me and put on her game face. It was so cute! Then, when the first pose started, she mimicked perfectly and started giggling...it turned into a bug huge belly laugh. It was awesome. Every time they changed poses she would start laughing again. She only made it about 5minutes, but it was by far the most fun yoga session I've ever had!

More Pictures from Easter Weekend

Coloring cousins (no the Pepsi was not Jenna's!):

 Waiting for the games to begin!

 Faith helped Jenna find eggs

 Easter dress

 Pit stop to ride the toy on Great Grandma and Papa's back porch

 Great Papa took Jenna to meet the neighbor's cows when we got to their house. So while we were hunting eggs, she wanted to show me. At first Jenna kept telling me that this was the mommy cow, but she later decided that perhaps it was the Daddy. :)

 DJ and Jenna sharing a toy. They did a great job working together, but wouldn't let me take their picture from the front. This shot is pretty cute though!

On Friday we had an egg hunt with Jalen. Jalen knew just what to do and found a bunch of eggs quickly while Jenna watched. Then he dumped his eggs out and ran to his slide. Then Jenna noticed that an egg had candy in it and she ran to find more!

 Enjoying the candy!

Happy Easter

The Easter Bunny was good to Jenna this year.  Here is a picture of her basket full of goodies!



Checking out the goodies:

Finding eggs:

The other goodie that the Easter Bunny left on Jenna's swing set! Excuse the crazy bangs. She was too excited to see what the Easter Bunny left to get her hair done and the hat quickly came off when she discovered the new toy!

Showing off her goodies:

Chatting with Jalen about what the Easter Bunny brought them:

I'm a Barbie Girl!

What a beautiful day today! Jenna asked me, 'Is it summertime, Mommy?' I had to tell her no, but that it felt warm enough that we could do anything that we would do in the summer. She was thrilled, but couldn't think of anything in particular that she wanted to do that we haven't already been doing for the past few weeks.

A few fun things from our week:

Jenna has started drawing family portraits. She paints, then points out Daddy, Mommy, Portia, and herself.

This week Jenna started telling me that, 'Nana wants me to have that', when I would tell her no. I used to call her The Negotiator, but might have to start calling her The Manipulator! Nana told me that she was probably right. Argh, grandparents! ;)

She also decided that she wants us to leave her door open during nap time. Never in a million years did I think she would go to sleep, but I was willing to give it a try. Success! So I guess as long as she keeps napping, we can leave it open if she wants.

We have also been trying to do a few projects each week. Fun for her and a teachable moment for me. First project was that I cut a three different shapes out of construction paper and let her glue them onto a paper that was divided into three sections (one for each shape). She did great sorting and gluing. Also fun was trying to pull off each shape after they were glued.

The next project was unentended. I bought a new dresser to put in our hallway and started putting it together during naptime. Unfortunately naptime only lasted about 30 minutes, so I had a little helper. It took about twice as long to put together than it probably would have taken without help, but we talked about all of the different pieces and she helped me find the parts I needed, so in the end it was worth the extra time

A not so fun thing from our week:

Our house got damaged in the hailstorm last weekend. I have never seen so much hail fall for so long! Our house shook and shook and shook. We even had pictures fall off the wall! We are waiting for the insurance adjsustor to visit, but so far we have been told that we will need to replace all of the windows on the back of our house and get a new roof and gutters. I have a feeling that the list will be much longer once the adjustor gets by, but the great news is that no one was hurt.

Budding Artist...with bedhead

Jenna had fun painting on her easel this morning. She said that this particular piece of art is a butterfly.

The cupcake dance

Jenna's Grandma Janice (Sheramie's mom) gave Jenna a cupcake in an ice cream cone today when we had dinner with her (to celebrate Uncle BJ's 18th birthday!). She doesn't get sweets often and actually doesn't ask for them all that often either, but the one exception is cupcakes (she doesn't get them often, but does ask for them often). So she was in heaven when she got it. We had to go home after she'd only eaten a small bit, so I told her she could play in the backyard and eat it when we got home. When we made it home I teased her and told her that she had to do a cupcake dance to get it and I was able to catch it on camera...

A Little Late

Wasn't Jenna's St Patrick's Day outfit cute (it says Mom's Lucky Charm)? When Jenna woke up that morning we talked about wearing green. I started to tell her about how you pinch people that aren't wearing green, but then suddenly thought about what I was telling a TWO year old that has recently started pinching! Argh! So, I quickly showed her how we pinch without it hurting and that it is only ok that day. I let her practice "pinching" me and it didn't hurt, so hopefully all was good and she didn't go to school that Friday and pinch her classmates. 

P.S. I thought that this post was added a week after St Paddy's Day, but it never did. So, it is extra late! I thought everyone would still enjoy though.

Giddy Up!

Jenna had fun riding the pony today when we went to the store! Happy Thursday everyone!

A fun day

On Sunday we visited my grandparents for the day. First, we went to visit my dad's parents as it was my grandpa's birthday. Jenna was excited to tell him 'happy birthday' and she did as soon as she saw him. We had a yummy pizza lunch, during which one of Jenna's favorite people arrived...my cousin Faith. Well, really Faith is a favorite of all of us. She's 10...well, she'd probably tell you that she's 10 and 3/4 and full of life and a lot of energy. As you can imagine, a 10 year old 'big girl' is the bomb-diggity to a 2 year old girl. If Faith leaves Jenna's eyesight, she will start wandering through the house searching until she finds her. When we finished eating I asked Jenna if she needed to go potty. Of course she said no, so I told her that she could tell Faith when she needed to go and that Faith would help her. What happened then? Jenna full-out sprinted to Faith and whispered that she needed to go potty. She refused my help and would only let Faith help. Faith loved it...the first 3 times it happened. :)

After visiting my dad's side of the family, we headed to Grammie's - my mom's mom. Her birthday was on Saturday. Jenna made her a picture during the car ride and was very proud of herself. She was however also over wishing other people happy birthday and instead of telling Grammie happy birthday, she said 'happy birthday to me!' when we walked into Gram's house. We took Gram out for dinner and then headed home a little after Jenna's bedtime. After a day without a nap, she fell asleep and dozed the whole way home.

Oscars Anyone?

So, what did you think of the Oscars? I tend to enjoy watching the red carpet, the best supporting, best actor/actress, and best picture awards, but the rest usually bores me.

 

We were busy visiting (Jenna’s) great-grandparents yesterday for various birthday celebrations, so we didn’t get home until the show was about ½ over. So, my assessment might not be the best, but I thought that Anne Hathaway was charming. She has a humor about her that appeals to me. I’m not going to lie, I wasn’t as impressed with James Franco. It really seemed to me that she was carrying the load. I didn’t think he did terrible, but he just isn’t as likeable to me and also doesn’t seem to be quite as quick-witted as she is.

 

Best Supporting Actor

Christian Bale: I haven’t seen The Fighter, so I guess I can’t really judge this pick. Jeremy Renner and Mark Ruffalo were both great in their respective movies.  I would have been happy seeing either of them win.

 

Best Supporting Actress

Melissa Leo: As mentioned, I haven’t seen the fighter. She probably does great, but I was hoping that Haliee Steinfeld would win. I haven’t seen True Grit either (so there’s no real basis for my support), but I’ve seen her interviewed a few times and found her very refreshing. Not to mention that she looked amazing! She’s at such a difficult age for these award shows. She will get grief for dressing too child-like, but also for dressing too grown-up. I think her stylist found a perfect fit for her and they did a great job with accessories, hair and makeup.

 

Best Actress

Natalie Portman: I was happy to see that she won. Plus, kudos to her for being able to remember all of the people she thanked. She didn’t miss a beat and probably didn’t forget anyone. Aaron said that he bets that she names her baby Oscar.

 

I do have a bit of a bone to pick with the nominators though.  I really liked The Kids are Alright, but I thought that Julianne Moore’s performance was better than Annette Benning’s. Does anyone out there agree with me? Why did Annette get all of the nominations?

 

Best Actor

Colin Firth: The only movie I’ve seen that the nominees were in was the Social Network (Jesse Eisenberg). I thought it was a great movie and he was great in it, but I also don’t think that Mark Zuckerberg was a huge stretch for Jesse Eisenberg to play. So, I guess that it’s cool that Colin won. I’m sure he did great in The King’s Speech.

 

Best Picture

The King’s Speech: Haven’t seen it, but it sounds alright. Another bone that I have to pick with the nominating committee, I really thought that The Town deserved a nomination. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it. I liked The Town better than all of the nominated movies I’ve seen: The Social Network, Inception, The Kids are Alright, and Toy Story 3 (1000 times). Since it wasn’t an option, I’d say that I think The Kids are Alright was my favorite, but I’m not sure it was quite best picture winner worthy (it definitely deserved the nomination). I thought that Inception was neat, but it wasn’t my favorite movie ever – plus, I’ve heard that it is a rip-off of a Disney Scrooge McDuck Comic book? I’ve seen Toy Story 3 too many times to give an unbiased opinion (I’m over it).

 

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Back in Action

Hi all, sorry for the long absence. I tried to post a few times over the last few months, but just never quite felt up to it emotionally. I’m doing great now and ready to get back in the ring!

Jenna’s still amazing, smart, beautiful! But, now she’s also potty trained, learning a few letters and numbers, speaking in complex sentences, and so much more!

A few weeks after her birthday Jenna started telling me that she needed to use the potty and she would get upset when I put her in a diaper. Unfortunately, this was also right around Christmas, so we were in the car a lot and it just wasn’t the right time to put her in underwear. So, we took her to the bathroom when she needed to go, but kept her in diapers. In January, we moved her to underwear and started using the potty all the time. She got a small piece of candy (a Smartie or mini-M&M) for each time she told us that she needed to pee. It only took a couple of days and she was only rarely having accidents. She didn’t take to well to going #2, but I told her that she could have a mini-Reese’s if she went in the toilet. Imagine this, she started using the toilet that day and didn’t look back. She got a Reese’s the first day and then got three the second day (she did her business 6 times that day, so we had to cut her off! Yeah, I’m not sure how that’s even humanly possible!). Of course now, 6 weeks later, she still asks me for a Reese’s.

Last summer one of our neighbors put a Crayola easel on the side of the road, so I picked it up and cleaned it and put it in the playroom. Jenna likes to use the chalk to draw. A friend mentioned that she put alphabet letters on her son’s and he got really interested in learning the alphabet, so I decided to move Jenna’s to the living room and to put the letters on it. She loves to play a game where she brings me a letter and then has me hold it up and ask her what it is and then she has me draw it on the easel and then she “draws” it, too. She has known J for quite a while and also knew O, but now she’s started learning a few more letters. I keep thinking that she’s going to suddenly know all of them because we play this game so often! She also likes to point out letters in books, on signs, etc and will ask what they are one-by-one.

Jenna’s language is still amazing and advanced for her age. Sometimes she really surprises me. She loves pretend play. Just today she was pushing her stroller through the house and asked me to follow her because we were going shopping. She pretended to pick something up and then handed it to me. She said, ‘here’s an antique for you to buy’.  Antique? Really, at 2?