The Adventures of a 2 year old!

Living with a 2 year old can be fun, and it can be tough! We have temper tantrums, and we have giggles...sometimes within the same 5 minutes.

But, nevertheless, here are some things that baby girl has been up to!

 

 

This adorable rocking chair that she is sitting in, is so special to me. This chair was built by my Great, Great Grandpa for my Nana when she was Sophie's age. This chair has been used by Nana, My mom and her siblings, and all of my cousins at one point or another, and Nana chose to give it to me for Sophie. Sophie Loves this chair. She loves to sit in it and read her books, or to "Rock-a baby" with her teddy or Elmo. Sophie and I are blessed to be given such a precious gift.

For Christmas this last year, my parents made Sophie the most amazing kitchen set ever! It's still a little too big for her, so we bought her a stool that she can stand on, and she moves it from each little station so she can reach. Along with the kitchen set, she got probably just about every accessory and food item to go with it, plus this adorable chef's hat!

One of her new all time favorite activities is to color in her giant Christmas coloring book!

 

Her new kitchen set is also big enough to sit in apparently lol.

 

After 2 years, we decided it was probably time to cut Sophie's hair for the first time! I was really apprehensive about where to take her due to all her curls and her mixed textured hair, but we finally settled on Pigtails & Crew Cuts and I'm so glad we did! They did an amazing job! They took off about 2 inches worth of hair, and even gave us the name of a product to buy for her kind of hair! They put her in this little fire engine seat, and had movies going and gave her a sucker as well as blowing bubbles at her until she was comfortable enough with what the stylist was doing.

AND they put a cute bow in her hair too!!

We did a package deal for her first hair cut and received a nice picture frame with an AFTER shot of her hair and an envelope with her first locks in it.

 

Here is my before and after shot of her :)

 
 

We took Sophie to her first Hockey Game this Month! She did so great! She wasn't interested in the game at all of course, but she sat on our laps and our friend's laps during the whole time.

 

 

Sophie loves to play tea party! We sit downstairs on the sweet table set that Nana has passed down to us, and we have our tea and treats. Of course they aren't real treats right now or actual liquid for the tea, but we will do real parties very soon!

Back to the table and chair:

This table and chair set is made out of an orange crate and built for my Nana when she was Sophie's age. Her daddy, my great grandpa, built it for her, and she has had it hidden away for all these years. She had my aunt pull it out recently, and my aunt painted it white and made sure it was still sturdy, which it was despite it's 78 years-still sturdy as the day her dad built it! And then Nana asked me if I'd like to have it for Sophie and I was over joyed! Sophie Loves this little chair and table set and it's amazing to think of how old it is and that it's still just so sturdy and can be enjoyed 78 years later. My great Grandpa would be so happy to know it was still being used.

Oh my baby is not so much of a baby anymore :( :( :(

We decided it was time to turn her crib into a big girl bed since we are going to try to potty train soon.

It was so cute when I was dismantling the crib part: every time I took a piece off, she'd look at me and say, "Uh-oh...What'd ya do?" And I'd giggle and tell her, it's ok, mommy's making you a big girl bed. Then she'd say, "oh." and about 5 minutes later when the next piece came off, she'd start all over again lol. 

 

 

She has actually done really good with her bed. She doesn't get out and roam around during nap times, and at night she stays put b/c we don't have a night lite in there and she can't really see to roam, which is kind of nice. Then in the morning when she is awake, she yells for me, but stays put in her bed. Once I open the door, then she climbs out and follows me down the hall to get some breakfast. She's just growing so fast!

 

Sophie and I have had a bit of a rough week this week. She's refusing to eat anything for me, and is just being a challenge in general. So, after a few meltdowns, I decided we needed a fresh start. Something to do just the 2 of us to reconnect. So, we painted our toenails. She loved it! She laid back and gave me her feet and waited patiently for them to dry before toddling off to find daddy to show him her pretties.

I love being a mom. I truly do. Even with the challenges and trials. I'm learning to try to be more patient, and I'm still figuring out what battles to pick with her, but it's small moments like painting toe nails that just remind me what a neat child she is turning out to be and make me appreciate her sweet nature all the more.

I have a 2 year old??

How in the world did my time fly by so fast? I swear I just had this kid yesterday!

This year, Sophie is obsessed with anything Elmo and anything Sesame Street. She LOVES it! So, of course, I decided I would make her party as Sesame Street! I had a blast working on this party! I think secretly my calling is for party planning ;)

I bought all the stuffed animal characters and a small Oscar the Grouch trash can and fish bowl from a friend of mine and used those as the primary decorations, along with streamers and a few Elmo/Sesame Street posters. I also turned our basement play area into Elmo's World from the show, using plain white plastic table cloths and permanent markers!

For her food, I made veggie cups (Grover's Super food), fruit kabobs (Abby's Magic Wands) with a star made of pineapple at the top, Monster Cookies, Oscar's Trash Can Treats (pudding with crushed oreos in gray cups to look like cans, and gummy worms on each one for Oscar's pet Slimey the worm), Mr. Noodle's Pasta salad, and goldfish crackers! I also made meatballs from scratch for meatball sliders and then we had some Rubber Ducky Punch! For her cake, I made just a small smash cake sized cake and then made an Elmo out of rice krispie cereal treats and used my grass tip to make "fur" out of buttercream. I also made cupcakes to look like more of the characters.

 

 Food Table!

 Cake!

 

 Cake and cupcakes!

 Birthday girl with most of her Sesame Street friends!

 Birthday girl on the day of her party!

 Closer look at the food table!

 I also put together cute little party favors for all of her little guests! I bought buckets and put a Sesame Street coloring book and set of crayons in each that I found in the Target Dollar Bins, and then added a packet of gold fish crackers and an apple juice. The little tag says, "Elmo Loves his Goldfish...his crayons too! Now here are some just for you! Thank you for coming! Love Sophie"

We had lots of her little friends come to play that day and she received a lot of fun new presents too!

The one thing we forgot to do at her party was sing happy birthday to her and eat her cake! So, after everyone had left, I saved the cake and the next night on her actual birthday, I brought it out and her daddy and I sang to her and she blew out her candle all by herself! Then we let her have at Elmo! 

This adorable Minnie outfit came from our daycare family, whose kids also happen to be Sophie's best buddies. Once I finally convinced her to put it on, I couldn't get her to take it off! haha!
Some facts about our 2 year old:
She is talking more and more each day, putting together more sentences and expressing her needs more and more.
We plan on starting to potty train soon since she is letting us know after she goes in her diaper.
She loves Elmo, her pink teddy bear (we can't go anywhere w/out at least one of these.)
She loves fish sticks.
She weighed in at 21 lbs so far (really small for her age, but she is healthy) and is 32.5 inches tall. Still a peanut, but we're working on it.
She is in love with the "what does the fox say?" song.
Knows her ABC's and can count to 10.
She loves to sing and dance.
She is sassy and mouthy in one breath, but sweet and loving and gentle in the next.
Living with her is exciting and interesting and can be somewhat of a roller coaster, but I wouldn't change it for the world. I'm so in love with my sweet 2 year old and feel blessed every day.

Christmas and other End of the Year Stuffs

Christmas is my favorite time of the year, and this year was even better than the last! Sophie was big enough this year to understand the whole opening of presents concept, so it was a blast to watch her tear into packages! And boy did she have packages! This was one little spoiled girl on our hands! I will say though that my favorite event with her this year, was taking her to see the live nativity scene at our neighbor's church. While we plan on raising our child in the Islamic faith, which is what Ibou practices, Ibou and I had already discussed even before she was born, that she would also know about her Mommy's faith. When she is older, she can choose what path she wants to follow. *stepping down from my soapbox*

Anyway, I took her to see this live nativity scene and it was amazing. Each hallway we walked down, they had people dressed up and sitting in different scenarios from Biblical days, and they had numerous activities in many of the classrooms for kids to make arts and crafts, with the general goal in mind that each craft you did, you would receive a felt piece of the nativity scene to make your own to play with.

We finally got to the actual live scene and it was beautiful. Mary and Joseph were sitting by the manger, and inside the manger was the sweetest newborn infant baby boy. Tears immediately sprang to my eyes. It felt as though I was actually there when the miracle occurred.  After staring in awe for a while, I asked Sophie if she was ready to leave and she looked at me with her big brown eyes and simply shook her head no. I praised Him right then and there and asked Him to continue to help me show her His love.

I could replay that in my mind forever.

 

Another fun activity we did this Christmas was a Christmas book Advent Calendar as our countdown to Christmas! I went out and bought 24 Christmas themed books and wrapped each one individually. Each night, we opened a new one and read it before bedtime. It was neat to watch her each night run to where the books were sitting and ask if we could open one. She loves so much to be read to!

I'm really hoping that her love of reading will continue into adulthood. I know sometimes it feels as though my books are my best companion, and the best escape from reality at times.

 

 

 

Lizzybeth took some awesome pictures for us around Thanksgiving to use as our Christmas cards this year!

 Here is what miss Spoiled girl woke up to on Christmas morning from Santa Claus! So many presents!

 Playing with some of her new toys. We decided before Santa came this year that we needed to pack away some of our toys that we don't play with to make room for the new ones, and boy did we have a lot of toys packed away!

Our trip to see Santa this year was a bit more difficult than last year! Last year, she could have cared less about him...this year, we were terrified!!! Poor kiddo. Hopefully next year will be better! At least Santa took it in stride! He's laughing!

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!

October updates

The months are getting away from me and we are getting closer and closer to having a 2 year old sweet baby girl! Makes me sad and happy at the same time. My baby is no longer doing baby things it seems :( She refuses to eat in a high chair anymore, so we have bought her a little table she can sit at, and if we eat out, she sits in a booster in the seat next to me.

She is such a funny and crazy child, so full of compassion already and love, and fire and spirit!

If you say ow! after stubbing your toe, or bumping into something, or even if you just look sad, she comes over to you and asks, "you kay?" She gives kisses willingly most of the time and when she hugs you, she pats your back. She loves to giggle and wrestle with daddy (daddy is her best friend), and she loves to sing and dance!

Getting her to eat food is still a struggle for us...she is very particular about what she eats, but she is getting better. She's a little more willing to try something new if it's on our plate instead of hers.

 

 

 Sitting at her own table, eating her dinner like such a big girl!

 Giggling in her booster seat at Daddy's birthday Dinner

 I found this awesome little cozy coupe through a mommy swap board for $20 and couldn't pass it up! She LOVES it!

 We do not currently have cable, we just kept our internet when we moved, so we no longer have access to a lot of the Disney shows Sophie was used to watching. However, we do have Netflix, and Netflix has SESAME STREET! Which in my opinion is better than the Disney shows because it's a little bit more educational. Anyways, since we've been letting her watch Sesame Street, she has become obsessed with Elmo and Cookie Monster! So, I asked my mom if she would bring up my old Elmo stuffed animal from their house to see if she would play with him and she was so excited! He is bigger than she is, but she will still drag him places around the living room and try to feed him some of her snacks lol. I'm so glad my mom kept him, even when I told her she could get rid of him!

 We took Sophie to Vala's Pumpkin Patch towards the middle/end of the month. Vala's has always been a tradition for me, and I think there has only been one year that I didn't go, since I've been born. We took her last year, but of course it wasn't as much fun since she couldn't even run around and play. So this year was a blast! We brought Great-Grandma with us b/c "Gramma" loves Halloween and Vala's as much as we do, if not more! Sophie ran all over the place in one of the kids areas, and played in the corn bin. She went through Story Book Town and even through both haunted houses!

 She was a little afraid of Little Bo Peep, which I thought was funny since she had just gone through one of the haunted houses!

 My little princess on her pumpkin coach! Ibou is hiding in there holding her up to the window lol.

 Grandpa told us before we left the house that since he couldn't go with us, someone needed to have a turkey leg. So Ibou and Sophie did that honor for him lol. She thought it was very yummy!

 Playing with Daddy in the corn bin.

 She is 2 1/2 feet tall! Little peanut. Everyone we meet cannot believe that she is almost 2 since she is so tiny! I say she's not tiny, she's fun-sized ;)

 PUMPKINS!!

Showing off her goofy side lol. 

 

Here is part of her costume. Once I finsh getting it all put together, I will post a new picture. She is going to be Bat Girl with daddy as Batman and mommy as Robin. I'm making all of our costumes for the most part. I bought the cape and mask for her at party city, found the tutu through a friend, and then she has sparkly tights to go with it and I am on the hunt for a purple long sleeved onesie that I can attach a logo to. For Ibou, he's going to wear all black and I'm going to put a logo on his shirt and make him a cape out of a sheet, dyed black. He has his mask from Party City also. For me, I'm on the hunt for green tights, and a red shirt and yellow material for cape. I already have black shorts and a green shirt to wear under the red one, and then I'll get a plain black mask from Party City as well.

We're only going to trick or treat for about a 1/2 hour around our neighborhood with our neighbors that have a little girl the same age as Sophie, and then we'll go back home where she can help me hand out candy to the other kids.
Stay tuned for more pictures!!

19 months and counting!

 

An update is long overdue, I know. This sweet child of mine keeps me seriously busy and exhausted at all times. LOL. She is truely a handful, but not in a bad way. She really is a good kid. I'm seeing more and more each day, just how big her heart is and how sweet she can be. She does have a bit of an evil streak in her from time to time, but I think it's all just a part of the learning curve.

We've gotten all moved into our new house! So nice to be in a home instead of sharing walls and floors with other people. Sophe is LOVING all the extra space! If you didn't know, we are renting Ibou's sister's house. She has gotten a job and moved to San Diego, CA, and knew that we were looking for somewhere else to live and offered us her house at a very reasonable rent price. It's a beautiful 4 bed/2 full bath/ 2 car garage home with a big kitchen and lots of storage space!

We've done a lot of rennovating to it since we've moved in (she doesn't mind thankfully) as far as painting and other handy things that needed attention and we still have a bit more to do, but it's been an awesome experience so far!

I, of course have added a bunch of new pictures of Sophie to my post today. She is growing so much each day and I just can't believe that she will be 2 soon. :(

 4th of July, the Weak family gathers out in Springfield for a huge feast and fireworks. Last year, Sophie couldn't stand the fireworks and we had to stay inside with her. This year was more fun, as she actually ooo-d and ahhh-d over the bright bursts in the sky! It was so neat to see the look on her face each time one exploded!

It's each family's responsibility to contribute to the picnic, whether they bring a dish or a dessert. This picnic is how I got my start with my cake pop business 5 years ago! I made them for the first time and brought them and no one wanted to eat them b/c they didn't know what they were at the time! So, I have now taken to trying to out-do myself with treats each year and bring something new. This year, I did blueberry pie pops and apple pie pops! Sophie approved of the blueberry ones so much, she ate 2. LOL.

 Now, this picture is a rare picture. Sophie for whatever reason is afraid of Grampa. Everytime the poor guy tries to hold her, she freaks out and cries. No idea why! He's the cuddliest grampa ever! But, thankfully here lately, she's been warming up to him and allowing him to snuggle her back, which makes my heart melt. I know he won't be around forever, so I'm glad she can experience him and his love now while she can.

 Speaking of Grampas....This Grampa she absolutely adores and is totally facinated with. She cannot stop looking at him and following him around. I wish my parents lived closer, b/c  I could see her being a Grampa's girl. He could take her fishing, and bike riding and show her how to fix things when they break, etc. He's an amazing man, even if he is a creeper lol. I call him the creeper b/c when we skype with them, he is always slowing creeping into the background behind my mom lol.

My parents recently came up after we moved into the house and helped us (well dad did the most) fix alot of things around the house. Dad and I took out the tree in the front yard, and he fixed the garage door as well as the dishwasher and a cabinet door in the bathroom. He also got my car fixed while he was here. The man is a superdad. Seriously. Mom was great with distracting Sophie and playing with her the whole time too!

 It was nice that they were able to stay longer this last trip. They were up here a few weeks before that, but for a sad reason instead of happy. My Uncle Mitch (dad's oldest brother) passed away, so they came back for the funeral. We did take Sophie to the service, and she did really well. (She slept thru most of it thankfully).

 Of course, to celebrate my baby turning 18 months, I had to do another session with Rachael! The following pics of mostly of her session. I love each picture so much!!

 

 

 

 

 

 Sophie gets to interact with a lot of kids at the daycare she attends, but I also try to get her out and about to play with other kids as well. So my friend Shannon (who is her daycare), and I took Sophie and Shannon's little guy Ephraim who is 1, to an open gym play date. It was a blast. Sophie loved running around pushing a little grocery cart and kicking balls, but mostly loved the slide! So, I'm on the lookout for a slide for at home! Not quite as big as that one, but something she can manage!

Milestones we are hitting:  She is talking up a storm now...most of it we can understand. She says the same usual words, but now is also saying Mommy! She uses phrases such as Aw Man when she drops something and even asked me the other day if I was OK. I had a slight headache and put my hand to my eye and she cocked her little head to the side and said, "You O.K?" I reassured her that yes, I was OK and she gave me a hug and shook her head yes. She does that one a lot lol. It's so cute.
She is also trying to say her numbers. She gets 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9 out. The others are a bit of a challenge, but she'll get them. She also tries to say her ABC's. She can get up to K so far.
We have weaned her of the paci finally. It took us 3 days of cold turkey and she was done with it. She even found one the other day and handed it over to Ibou w/out an issue. She is however, starting to throw epic tantrums, so we are working on ignoring them and also timeouts when she gets too sassy or hits. She is very affectionate and gives kisses and hugs freely...she'll even rub your back or arm while you hold her. She is becoming an expert manipulator at times, even using the face in the pic above. Stinker. She's starting to eat better, there for a bit she was becoming a picky eater :( But is now trying new foods! We are working with a dermatologist on her eczema. It got really bad on her legs, and we are now doing a nightly ritual of a bath with a cap of bleach in the water, and then using a steroid ointment 2x a day as well as lotion daily w/out lanolin in it and vasoline at night before bed. It seems to be helping!
Well, that's all for now! One of these days I'll update with pictures of the house too. Thanks for reading!