Early Morning Conversation

Lina: Sometimes I talk to myself.

Mommy: Sometimes I talk to myself too.  I wonder if we talk about the same things, what do you talk about?

Lina: Lots of things.  When I take a nap, I talk a lot.

Mommy: When you take a nap and when you got to bed you talk a lot so you don’t fall asleep, don’t you?

Lina: Yep.

I Almost Knocked Him Out

I managed to snag a really great deal online with American Girl (3 outfits for $34!!!), and since an AG doll is the main thing on Lina’s Christmas list this year, it was an even better find.  It arrived at our house on Monday but I didn’t get a chance to show Mason until last night.  The pajama set was his favorite outfit because of the little pink slippers.  In fact the shoes were his favorite part of all the outfits.  But I’ve gotten off track…

Wednesday, after we put Lina to bed, I pulled out the shipping box with all the 3 outfits and handed it to Mason.  Once he had moved onto the second outfit (the pajamas) we hear a sweet little voice coming from the hallway.

Lina: Mommy, my heel hurts.

I know this tactic so I’m about to tell her to get back in bed when Mason decided to be nice.

Daddy: Come here Lina.

Lina rounds the corner, points to her ankle and starts telling me all about how it hurts.  As we start talking about the difference between her ankle and her heel, she looks up and see’s what’s in her daddy’s lap. 

Lina: What do you have, Daddy?

Having had my computer open and sitting on the arm rest, I couldn’t see him at all until I peered around the screen and saw what he was looking at.

Mommy: Daddy doesn’t have anything.  Daddy has nothing in his lap. 

Lina: What’s that Daddy?

Mommy: Daddy isn’t looking at anything.  Daddy doesn’t have anything!

Yes, it took four times for Mason to hear me and process what I was actually saying.  Meanwhile I had propped up my leg on the coffee table so she couldn’t get past and get a better view.

Daddy: (while finally closing the box) It’s RC parts.

Lina: Noooooo, it’s doll parts!

Mommy: Lina, it’s time to go hop back in bed.  Is your ankle all better or does it need a kiss?

Lina: It needs a kiss.

After Lina was safely tucked back in bed I turned to Mason…

Me: I can’t believe you just did that.  I mean, YOU called her in here while YOU had her Christmas present open and didn’t bother to try and hide it.

Mason: Um, that wasn’t supposed to be from Santa, was it?

Me: If it was, it sure isn’t anymore!

Mason: Don’t worry, she’ll forget.

Me: No she won’t.

Mason: Sure she will.

Me: Oh, you mean like she forgot about the little Red Mini Cooper you let her sit in at Toys R Us last spring that she keeps randomly telling me she wants?  Yeah, she’s not going to forget.

A Text From My Inlaws

I received the following text message from my Mother In Law today.

Lina said: "Today I'm going to do anything you want me to do! Do you want me to sit on the potty?" Ed and I laughed and laughed and a few minutes later, I went upstairs to find her in my bathroom sitting and waiting - for her toenails to be painted.

What can I say, the girl knows how to get what she wants!

Dinner Conversation

Lina: I talk. And Daddy talks to you.

Mommy: Yeah, Daddy talks to me.

Lina: Do you know why we talk?  To get answers.  Do you want to know my answer?

Mommy:  Yes, I do.  What is your answer?

Lina: My answer is unicorns.  And rainbows. Yellow rainbow unicorns.  That’s what I’m gonna have for my birthday.

Mommy to Daddy: This is the best conversation.

Lina: Let’s have a conversation.  A conversation about unicorns. A unicorn conversation.

A Conversation

As my sister was leaving for work Monday morning, she knelt down by Lina to get her good bye kiss and said “I love you Lina.”

Lina looked at her and replied, “I love Mimi.”

Fortunately it was too funny for my sisters feelings to truly be hurt.

Shopping With Lina, Again

Target had some really great high value coupons last week and I couldn’t resist the chance to stock up on some Birthday gifts for Lina. Saturday, after the egg hunt, the three of us went to Target and tried so very hard to stick to our list. There were three coupons that I felt I needed to use and a few others that I would consider using.

Coupon #1: 25% off a Disney movie. I’ve noticed that Disney is very proud of their movies, so anytime they are on sale, I try jump on it. But which movie should we pick? We finally decided on the original Toy Story since she loved Toy Story 3 when it was on Netflix. Except they didn’t have the Blu-Ray option. They only had a 3D, Blu-Ray, DVD bundle, which I wasn’t willing to spend the extra cash to get a 3D version which will never be used. I don’t have a 3D TV, nor to I see us getting one. Anyway, since Toy Story was out, we were back to square one. We finally narrowed it down to 3 movies, so I let Lina pick. I laid Tangled, Ratatouille and Up on the floor so she could pick one up. Instead she laid down on the floor, put her hands in her chin and looked at them more closely. Eventually she chose Tangled, which wasn’t a surprise, apparently while I was looking for Toy Story, Lina found Tangled and picked it up to give it a hug. We also grabbed Shrek since it was on sale for $8.

Coupon #2: 50% off a Disney Princess item. I had been debating between the Tiana doll and dress-up dress (she got the Rapunzel combo from Santa) and the princess dress up trunk. Lina walked into the aisle, looked up and saw the Tiana doll and dress, threw her hands out and gasped. The look on her face said “Oh my God! I can’t believe they have this! I love her!” Obviously that went into the cart. I really wish I had been recording that moment. I can only hope that she does it again when she unwraps it in August.

Coupon #3: 50% off a Fisher Price item. Do you know how hard it is to get a good deal on Little People? Last time I had to wait for it to be on sale and use 2 coupons to get half off. Anyway, I knew what I wanted, I just had to grab it. I wanted to get her the Little People Wheelies Stand ‘n Play Rampway. Something a little different than the rest of her Little People stuff but still just as awesome. Except for one little issue… they were all out. We debated the barn for a second and then I decided I would just buy it online. At half off, I could afford to pay a little for shipping. When we got home, I talked to my sister and she was pretty sure she saw one at the store that she went to. So I went back out on my own and got the very last Wheelie track.

In the end, we only added a few things to the list.  Shrek, Easter candy and Mason got a new lunch bag.  While my bank account does not think I was a successful shopper, I think I rocked it!

Take 2,465

Hello again. I know it’s been a long time since I have stopped by. Things have been a bit busy around here lately. We all managed to be sick for every single holiday, first with the never ending cold and then with a nice round of bronchitis. I tried to blog everything that was going on, but nothing I wrote went anywhere. There was a beginning and a middle, but no end in sight. The highlight of these last few months has been watching Lina’s talents multiply.


She has never had a shortage of words, but she has refused to use them to communicate. One day I can ask her if she wants chicken or apple for her next bite, and she will respond “chikn” or “appa.” The very next day she will refuse to use those same words and instead point and whine until I figure out what she wants. “No” and “thank you” were the only words she used consistently and in context. In the last couple of days she has really amped up her communication. “More” while holding her cup or standing at the fridge has replaced throwing herself at the fridge in the middle of a temper tantrum. Holding her plate and saying “All done?” has replaced picking up her food and dropping it on the floor. The puppies are sad about this one. She even has a 3 word sentence that she uses when she talks to her new cousin, “Hi sweet baby.” It sounds more like “Hi swee bebe” but it totally counts.

I think it helps that she spends so much time with Miss O, who is now 3. She has learned so much from her. Miss O always says “Hi sweet baby” to her little sister and Lina did not hesitate to repeat her. Miss O has also taught her about the great world of gymnastics. Most of the time gymnastics consists of jumping on the tiny trampoline, climbing over the arm rest of the chair, and landing face first into the chair cushions. Sometimes they walk along the balance beam (which is really a strip of masking tape on the floor), do handstands and forward rolls. Lina’s handstands tend to look more like the downward dog yoga position. Recently she has started putting her head on the floor as well. Two weekends ago she lifted her hands off the floor, so only her head and feet were touching. After I cheered for her efforts she decided that while her hands were lifted from the floor, she would go ahead and clap for herself.

This handstand quickly evolved into an attempted forward roll after watching Miss O. Her first couple attempts went towards the side and became diagonal rolls. After just a few diagonal rolls she rolled forward. She actually did a real forward roll without anyone coaching her. Needless to say I was quite impressed and couldn’t wait to get home to tell her Daddy.

Lina’s jumps on the trampoline have gotten higher and more like a jump instead of a gallop. But her newest trick, she is quite proud of. She places her arms over the safety bar and lifts up her feet straight out in front of her so she is dangling by her arm pits. Sometimes she swings, sometimes she just hangs there. When she gets tired or when she feels like it, she allows herself to fall and plop down on the trampoline. Then she’ll hop up and do it all over again.

She is definitely ready for Gymnastics class.

Best Friends

Lina loves Miss O so much that she will drop everything when Miss O arrives. Since my sister is still on her maternity leave, Miss O wasn’t at Mimi’s house Monday morning. Lina still had fun trying to steal my work computer if I got up and playing with whatever toy she wanted. But in the afternoon during a impromptu wrestling match, one which I was losing, Miss O walked in the front door. Lina climbed off of me as quick as she possibly could and ran towards Miss O. Miss O ran in as well with her arms open wide and they both stopped just short of giving each other giant hugs.


It was clear that she missed spending the day with Miss O. It was clear that no matter how much fun she was having with me, nothing can compare to playing with her best friend.

It's Not Easy Being One

The weekend after Lina turned one, she bonked her head on the coffee table. It was actually quite comical if you ignore the fact that there was pain involved. She bent down to pick up a toy and hit her head on the table, cried for a second and tried again with the exact same outcome. She did this three times in a row. After the third time I decided it was most definitely nap time. Two hours later, she woke up with a black eye. It wasn’t a bad one, it just looked like she was really tired. Fortunately it was the day after we celebrated her birthday with her Grandparents and Great Grandparents.

The very next weekend, we were planning on heading over to the park to snap some pictures for the invitations for her big party in the park. I wanted the sun to be a little lower in the sky for better lighting, so I planned on going after her afternoon nap. Guess who woke up from her nap with a fresh shiner. Bright and purple. I don’t know how that one happened, I can only guess that she banged her head on the crib while trying to resist taking a nap.

Since I was the one taking the pictures I decided to postpone the shoot until the next day when her eye would be a little less puffy. I thought we should do something a little more whimsy since I would be shooting her profile mostly. As much as I didn’t mind her having pictures with a black eye, I didn’t exactly want to send out twenty something black eye invitations. Dressed in her purple tutu dress with her matching purple eye, we headed to the park and found a nice, shaded, slightly overgrown grassy patch. We were on our way to meet up with some family members so we had to keep the shoot short. I may not have gotten the perfect shot that I was looking for in that short amount of time, but I was able to get a few good ones that would work for our needs.

Later when I was playing with the images in Photoshop and looking for the perfect invitation that I could get quickly and cheaply I was pleased with how everything came together. The purple dress that she got from her Ginga (Mason’s mom) and the purple carnation that she got from Great Grandma Ev (my grandma) ended up going perfectly with the Tinker Bell invite from Wal-mart, thus changing our theme from Rubber Ducks to Fairies. I was so nervous when I decided to use Wal-mart, being a photo snob, I questioned their quality. But I couldn’t find a better price or a better turn-around time. I could have both my invites and my thank you cards in an hour. When I went to pick them up, I was shocked at how much I loved them. The colors were spot on and there wasn’t a pixel in sight. I love when my low expectations are proven oh-so-wrong.

This wasn't one of the pictures we used, but it does show off her eye quite nicely.

Celebrate!

I think I may have mentioned this before, but I’ll say it again just in case you forgot.  The 4^th of July is one of my favorite holidays.  Unfortunately for me, it is not anywhere close to being one of Lina’s favorites.

It wasn't all bad though.  She did have fun at the party at least.

Her First Sentance

If Elina were one of the Little Miss characters, her name would be "Little Miss Sassy."  In fact I think she is going to need some of those books for her birthday.

On Friday I asked Miss O to come get a piece of paper from me and give it to Mimi.  Normally Miss O would jump at this opportunity.  But this day, the blocks were more important, so she said "no."  I of course had no choice but to try again.  When she ignored me, my sister told Miss O to tell me what she always told her.  Miss O continued to play with her blocks and yelled (as if we were in separate rooms), "Just a minute!"

Lina adores Miss O and wants to do everything that Miss O does.  Without skipping a beat, Lina shouted "Yus-a-yenet!" 

The words might not have been perfectly formed, but the tone was dead on.  I knew I was going to have my hands full while I was still pregnant, but how do you prepare yourself for your 11 month old daughter telling you just a minute?

Peek-a-Boo!

Lina just LOVES her cousin!  Listen closely, she says her version of Olivia.

Someday, I'm Going To Win The Lottery

I know what you are thinking. Where did Kayla go? And why did she take her wonderfully witty stories with her? Well it just so happens that I was working on a post that was all about my first trip to the eye doctor in a decade. I was off to a great start, but just couldn’t get to an ending. So, let’s just say… I can see clearly now, my eyes are fixed. And if you didn’t at least sing that last sentence in your head, then you can go ahead and stop reading now.

Now, on to more fun things. Mason has started drinking coffee, which is totally my fault since he hated it when we got married. Anyway, I came across a travel mug on Snapfish. While I have had mixed results with their products, I still thought I had to give this a chance. After all, it is the perfect gift for him. He keeps saying that he needs pictures to show off, yet he has nowhere to put them. With the mug, he can carry around his sweet baby's face and drink his favorite morning beverage at the same time. Anyway I wanted a recent picture of Miss Elina for this project so we had a quick impromptu photo shoot in the front yard while Mason was at the bank. And since Mason doesn’t read this blog, I’m not afraid to share some of my favorite outtakes with you.

It took her a moment to be okay with the weeds on her feet.

"Ahhhh!"  Cute, but it needs to be horizontal and not quite the look we are going for.

That's better, but still not much of a smile.

Close, but not quite there yet...