Officially Entering the "Two-Year-Old" Stage

Another one of Lena's favorite phrases is "my do it!"  That's right... Lena is officially big enough to do EVERYTHING by herself. ;)  (or so she thinks)  She insists on doing it all... and also refuses to use things that are different from what us big folks use... such as a high chair, bib, little dishes, etc.  While at times this is hard... mostly because she gets frustrated with things easily if she can't do it perfectly the first time... it has been so much fun!  I love helping her learn new things (when she lets me help... which is another issue) and watching her have so much fun with simple tasks.  I knew being a mom was fun, but I didn't know it would be THIS fun.  :)

First Skinned Knee :(

I LOVE shorts... on me (not saying I think I LOOK good in them.. just saying I love how they feel... to clear things up), on Lena, on everyone (I'm talking the ones that are long enough people ;) ).  They just add to the awesomeness of Summer.  In fact, when I was little that is the ONLY thing I would wear.  I hated wearing long pants... they just weren't as comfortable as shorts!  My poor mother could not even get me to wear them in the winter... that's right... I wore shorts in the snow!  I preferred cold legs over the discomfort of long pants.  I was SO excited for shorts season for Lena... I love seeing her in shorts... it's adorable and just comes with that awesome feeling of Summer... sunshine and fun and being outside and ... I could go on... I love the sun!

Well, the other day I discovered one downside of shorts... their inability to protect little knees when clumsy Lena's run faster than they can handle and find themselves crashing down on the pavement.  :(  Of course this happened the same day she got her "nurse's elbow"... I guess it was just not a good day for this little one.  I suppose this means I can plan for a lot more skinned knees this summer... good thing our bodies are so amazing and can fix these things by themselves... with a little bit of love and sanitizing of course! ;)

Nurse's Elbow

So we took a trip to the doctor's on Wednesday...

I was watching Jimmy that day and he was climbing on me while Sam played with Lena... of course he's the zio (uncle) and therefore has to teas and toss them around right?  Well, it was bound to happen...  I mean, my dad was supposed to be able to say "I told you so" after constantly getting on Sam's back about being too rough with the kids.  Surprisingly enough, he wasn't even swinging her around when it happened, he was simply picking her up by her hands and lifting her high enough so that he could kiss her tummy... then came the unbearable sad face followed by screams and cries.  After about a minute of crying and me asking Lena what the matter was I realized that every time I even thought about touching her arm, she would flinch and scream louder... we took her to the doctor and found out that this particular occurrence of the head of radius slipping out from the anular ligament of radius is known as the "nurse's elbow" (I totally used wikipedia for that... as much as I'd like to say I remembered it from anatomy...).   This is because back in the "olden" days when nurses would watch the kids they would tug on their arm to get them to cross the street or something like that and would yank it just enough to cause this dislocation.  The nice thing about this "nurse's elbow" is that it's a REALLY easy fix.  The doctor simply took hold of her elbow, positioned her arm and bent it toward her face until he heard it "pop" back into place... in no time she was using it to grab things and point at the fish in the water tank... happy as a clam. :)  Apparently this sort of thing is fairly common and the doctor was sure to let Sam know this so that he wasn't feeling guilty.  He said "yeah, usually by the third or fourth time the parents are popping it back into place by themselves"  (in the rare case that it happens more than once or twice).  We're going to try and not let it happen again. :)  Oh how awesome would it be to be a doctor and know how to fix all these things?   One day... maybe...

Bye Bye Binky

(One of the last pictures taken with her binky)

Until recently (Friday, April 13th to be exact... don't ask me why we chose to do it on Friday the 13th), Lena had a HUGE addiction to her binky. I thought it was bad when she would reach down to grab her binky (when she was frustrated) only to realize that her binky was already in her mouth! Really? After seeing this I thought, "okay, weaning her off of this is really going to be a nightmare"... I thought I would start gradual, the first step I took was getting rid of the binky leash so it wasn't attached to her all of the time. She used it a little bit less but mostly it just ended in us having to wash it a billion times more and having to search the house when she realized she didn't have it. About two weeks ago I decided to take the "gradual weaning" to the next step: Binky only for nap time and bed time... I did it for two whole days but failed miserably when Lena spotted her binky during the day and threw a fit. of course I gave in... I'm a push-over!!! "Okay" I thought, "The only way to make this happen is to go cold turkey"... We waited until Friday so that there would be the longest amount of time possible before the day my mom watches her... I didn't want to chance her having to deal with an extra grumpy Lena. I work Fridays so Randy followed my instructions and cut the tip of her binky off Friday morning (something my neighbor and sister suggested). Lena asked for her binky, Randy showed it to her and told her it was "broken"... she then repeated "binky broken". Every time she asked for it we would remind her that it was broken and then I had her throw it in the garbage by herself and she would say "binky broken garbage". I braced myself for a rough night and it never came. Weaning her off of the binky was....

brace yourselves...


 a PIECE OF CAKE!!!

I'm so grateful I didn't have to go through the nights of endless crying but it only leaves me to think that there has got to be something really hard in store for me...  I'm due for a trial with this girl... OR... maybe this is to make up for the constant crying during her first three months of life?

"I need"

Is Lena's favorite thing to say as of late... here are just some of the things she "needs" lately:

- sucker
- grapes
- apple
- orange (she likes fruit)
- chocolate
- chocolate milk
- treat
- to hold it
- to have it
- to open it
- to wash it

Easter Weekend

Decorating Eggs

Decorating eggs during Easter time was always one of my favorite things to do! I was so excited to show Lena how exciting and fun it is. I was, however, surprised to find out that it wasn't TOO big of a hit this year. I'm thinking she'll enjoy it more when she's older. She had fun sitting up at the counter with the boys and decorated a couple of eggs before deciding she was ready to get down and play. Here are some cute pictures of Lena with the boys and with one of her eggs.

Egg Hunt

Another Easter thing I always enjoyed was the Easter egg hunt. This one WAS a big hit for Lena. :) She enjoyed it immensely. Again, the boys were SO good to help her find the eggs on the ground (the ones she could reach). When the hunt started, Lena was more concerned with the fake grass in her basket and insisted on taking it out. When her basket was empty, Chris and Andy were so nice to bring her an egg and they placed it in her basket. Lena quickly picked it out of her basket and threw it on the ground (apparently she was determined to keep her basket empty) and of course this was one of the few REAL eggs... oh well... she soon caught on to the whole idea and ended up with a basket full of eggs and lots of fun finding them.

Easter Weekend (Dogs and Mini Four Wheeler)

First off, one of the highlights of this weekend for Lena was the dogs on the other side of the fence from Grandma and Grandpa's house. Grandma gave Lena some corn dogs that had been in her freezer for far too long... NO! not to eat... for the dogs to eat of course. :) She had so much fun giving them a treat and watching them enjoy it. I helped her throw them over the fence and the dogs would just bark and bark for the hot dogs... so before throwing them over I would yell "quiet!" and then throw them... another time I yelled "sit down!" and when they did I would throw it over. Lena thought this was pretty awesome and proceeded to find rocks on the ground and run up to the fence yelling "qu-ay-et!!!" and then she would say "here!" and throw the rock to them... I was sure the let her know that they don't like rocks and that she needs to stop throwing rocks to them. :) Another time (with a hot dog this time) she yelled "Sit dooowwwn!" and then yelled "here" as she threw the treat to them. :) It was so cute to see her mimic me. :)

The next big attraction of the weekend was the mini four wheeler that Grandma and Grandpa have. I was so impressed, the entire weekend, with how nice Chris and Andy were with Lena. They were always sure to share with her and make sure she was happy. They loved playing with her outside. Chris even took Lena for a ride on the four wheeler. :)

Here's a cute picture of the three of them.

Andy made sure to help push them along since the little didn't have a TON of power :)

Andy got a little sad when Chris wouldn't give him a turn... :(

But that changed soon enough and Andy was also so nice to let Lena ride with him.

Easter Weekend (Part I)

Easter weekend was so much fun! We decided to spend the weekend in Monroe since Jessie and her family were going to be down there as well and we hardly ever get to see them. It's always so relaxing in Monroe. There aren't any worries in the world, always good food and definitely good company. Lena and I road down with Becky and Mary (Randy's Grandma) on Friday night and Randy joined us later on Saturday after his merit badge pow wow was over. Friday night was so much fun! Lena was a little weary of all of the "new" people who she doesn't see as often, but by the time Saturday rolled around, she was ready to get down and play. Here a some pictures of what took place:

Jessie is a teacher and her school had a dance day, where all of the classes had their own dance. Chris was so cute with his and made sure to practice a lot with his mom, so she knew it too. :) They performed it together for us. :) (Andy was being too shy to do his dance for us, but we saw a video of his and he did great!)

Grandpa hanging out on the couch with his grandchildren. :)

Andy and Grandpa!

Chris had a little purple bunny that he had gotten with a kids meal and was SO nice to share it with Lena. Lena was sure to let Chris' bunny experience lots of fun things. Like riding on Mater for example. :)

Here's Lena in her Easter shirt on Saturday. I was so excited to finally put shorts on her, but of course, it wasn't QUITE warm enough for shorts so we ended up changing her back into pants before she went outside.

Lena is ready to go outside! Yay for sun!

This is her sick of me asking to smile for me. :) "Come on mom, just let me go play outside"

"Throw"

So one thing that Lena always does that I just have to get in writing is she gets frustrated very easily when something doesn't work right away. (I will admit she got this from me). So if she is trying to get a lid on something and it gets cross threaded and doesn't go on just right she will freak out and yell "THROW!" as she chucks it across the room. She also chucks things across the room while saying "THROW!" if someone is trying to take it from her or if I tell her not to touch it. :) Oh the joys of a frustrated little child. :) I do have to admit... makes me smile every time.

Officially a Recorder

It happened... I said something the other day that Lena decided to repeat, making me realize that it probably wasn't the best thing for me to say... and I got wondering what else I do that I don't really want her to learn:

So Randy had done something to make me frustrated so to try and make things lighter I said "You drive me nuts!"

Next thing I know, Lena is walking around the kitchen saying "Dy-me NUTS!" with a big emphasis on the word "nuts". It was pretty funny but maybe I shouldn't get so frustrated with Randy in front of her. ;)

Some Stories From Nonna's

So I went to pick up Lena after work yesterday and my mom had a couple of stories to tell about what the kids have been up to.

First story, my mom was letting them have some chocolate eggs from Easter. She cut up the eggs in small pieces and put them on a plate and would hand them the pieces one at a time. Well, Lena really wanted to hold the plate with all of the pieces and kept trying to grab it but my mom would say "When you finish that one I'll give you another one"... Lena started to get frustrated and finally said "I need to have it!" just like that... I didn't even know she knew the meaning of the word "need", let alone put it in a 5 word sentence!

The next story is that Jimmy was pushing a "gino" (short for passagino which means stroller in Italian) around and accidentally tipped it over and fell... knowing that he wasn't hurt my mom said "You're okay, jump up" so he did and kept on going... well, Lena thought that was pretty funny and she decided to tip hers over too (yes, we got two of them so they would stop fighting over the one) and fall down and looked at my mom, waiting for her to tell her to "jump up" and she did... Lena thought this was the funnest thing and did it over and over again... Jimmy caught on too, so she had two kids falling down with their strollers on purpose for quite a while. :)

Getting Crafty Again

Last night was another one of those sleepless nights where all I can do is think about things and NOT sleep. So instead of wasting time just laying there, I decided to get up and get to work on an idea I had been thinking about. A hair accessory organizer for Lena. Until this point, I had all of her stuff in a box and every time I wanted to put a bow in her hair I would have to dump the whole box out to find the one I wanted. I had a friend who made a bow organizer out of a canvas board and rick-rack (I think that's what it's called) and thought it was so cute. I didn't have either of these things, so decided to see what I could make with what I had. I had some fun customizing it:

Expressions!

When I was outside with Lena AND my camera I decided to do a photo shoot, as usual and tried to see if I could get any cute pictures of Lena... well, of course that wasn't hard. :) My favorite part about this particular photo shoot was having a model who actually responded to me! I asked Lena to give me a BIG smile... and as you can see in the pictures... she did :) Then I asked her to give me a little smile and she looked confused for a minute and then gave a smile slightly smaller than the previous. I was so impressed that she actually did what I asked. She is so smart. :) After that I wanted to have a little more fun and asked her to give me a mad/sad face. :) She totally did! Oh it was so much fun!

Lady Bug

So the day we celebrated Randy's birthday was super nice so of course we had an adventure outside with Alex and Jimmy while Rosie went hard to work on the yummy apple pies. :) On our adventure, Alex happened to spot a lady bug and was so excited to show Jimmy and Lena. He was so cute to let them see it and to let them hold it. Lena accidentally poked it and we were afraid that the poke was too much for the little fellow, but alas, the little bug rolled back onto its feet and started walking again... thankfully! I was sure to let Lena know that we need to be "soft" with little bugs after that. :)