Shopping With Lina

I went shopping at Kohls the last week during my lunch break for a shirt or two. In my rush to get in and out quickly I may have purchased a shirt because it was such a good deal and not so much that it was a great top. After work Lina and I went to return the $6 top and when they gave me cash back I told her she could pick out a $6 toy or book. We debated a Barbie, a small stuffed animal and Mr. Potato Head. In the end, the Mr. Potato Head box was the most fun to carry.


As we headed to checkout I remembered that she had $30 from her birthday in my purse. So we headed back to the toy department to look at some of the bigger toys she had been admiring. She went straight to the Little People Fairy Tree House and handed Mr. Potato Head to me so that she could play with the Tree House. Since it was priced at $44, we headed to the scanner to see what the sale price would be. It ended up being $31. I had already offered to pay the tax, so I agreed to spot her the extra dollar as well.

She was so excited about it and ready to play with it that she insisted on carrying it. The only problem was that the box was about the same size as Lina. She finally let me carry it as long as the opening faced her and she could play with it while we walked, very slowly, to the registers. The poor girl had to wait until we got home and had dinner before she could actually play with it. And that is exactly what she did the rest of the evening.

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.

Halloween

While this is technically Lina’s second Halloween, it feels like her first in many ways. This year I got to see how much she enjoyed wearing her costume when she asked to put it on and then danced away once she was wearing it.



Thanks to my sister for this cute picture.



She also had enough hair this year for me to make a fun head piece to go with her costume.

Please ignore the flash glare, it was dark when I took this shot.

I made it from three zippers and some peacock feathers. I didn’t take any step by step pictures, but I got the idea from here.  I would also recommend being armed with some fray check once you cut the zippers.



This is also the first year she got to go trick or treating. She was very good about carrying her bag around and putting the treats inside. She thought running from house to house was so fun that she would erupt into giggles. And when she got tired, she was having too much fun to whine about it. She simply asked to be held, climbed in the stroller with her new cousin or went to the Monster Wagon. Lina and Miss O would giggle and squeal as Mason pulled them and the wagon along. At least until we got to the next house when they would climb down and run to the door.





Miss O was so good about waiting to ring the door bell until Lina caught up with her. She was also very clever when someone asked her for a trick. She simply replied “The trick is, you give me a piece of candy.”

Happy Halloween!

Finally an Update!

September was such a busy month that most of it is a blur. We had mandatory overtime and occasional weekends for the entire month. Which means after sitting in front of the computer for 10 hours a day, the last thing I wanted to do is go home and sit in front of the computer. As if that weren’t exhausting enough, Lina decided that sleeping through the night was highly overrated.

Anyway, we now have 3 more teeth, giving us a total of 8. 2 of them arrived on the same day and the 3rd showed up a few days later. You would think that would end the whole waking up in the middle of the night thing, but it didn’t. She has also had to adjust to being in a big girl bed. She climbed out about 30 seconds after we put her down for her afternoon nap one day, so her bed was converted to the toddler bed that evening.

Putting her down for sleep has been pretty easy. Keeping her in bed in the middle of the night proved to be the tricky part. The first night I’m pretty sure she walked out of bed. It took her a few nights to learn that she couldn’t walk around in her bed anymore. Now she has mastered safely getting out of bed and more importantly, getting back in.

Last week she received her very first hair cut and was not at all pleased about it. She cried and fought so hard that we got kicked out of the room. After we left, Lina sat in her chair and cried. But at least she sat still so Peggy could give her an adorable little bob.

But perhaps the biggest news of all is that Lina has a new cousin! Lina of course wants to hold her and love on her just like she does her baby dolls. Which means she is most definitely not allowed to hold her!

Pop and his girls.

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.

A Very Long Weekend

I think it’s safe to say that I need a break from the long weekend. It started off great with an incredibly HOT birthday party in the park on Saturday. The kids didn’t seem to notice the heat, but the adults sure did. It was a great party and we are so blessed to have so many of our friends and family able to brave the heat and celebrate with us. Eventually we made it home where we chatted with our out of town guests for as long as we could keep our eyes open.

The next morning we got up and got ready to head to the zoo. The long days from the week before had definitely taken its toll on my walking abilities. Which I proved by missing the last step and tweaking my ankle. I’m not gonna lie, it hurt. It hurt so bad I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to stand up or not. But I managed, and limped out the door. I was going to do everything in my power to make sure my ankle didn’t keep us cooped up inside on such a beautiful day. And I’m quite sure our friends didn’t travel all the way from KC to sit on the couch and watch Netflix all weekend either.

So I played tough. But I also knew it would be impossible for me to walk around the zoo all day. So I walked hobbled from the car to the entrance. Once the chair was secured, Mason pushed me around through the zoo. Go ahead, make fun. But I knew that was the only way we were going to get to do what we had planned on doing. I thought I was feeling better when we were done. But that was apparently only because I had been keeping the weight off of it. Once I took that first step and almost fell over from pain, I knew that my $7 rental fee had not gone to waste. The boys ran off to get the cars and Tami chased Lina around for me while we waited.

That night, I promised Mason that if my ankle wasn’t feeling better the next day, then I would go and get it checked out. I lost that bet. So after our guests left we made our way to the Urgent Care where they contorted my ankle in all different directions in order to take x-rays. The x-rays proved that I was right, it was just a sprain.