my baby is definitely a toddler

15 months old.

unbelievable.  she is such a little girl now... the "baby" in her disappears more each day.  i will be sad when one day, it is all gone.  yet, the new things she does are so exciting.  like yesterday, while ethan napped we snuggled on the couch and watched cinderella.  she sat there through most of the entire movie.  she has a long attention span for sure!

the "bullets" for right now:

::  one nap a day!!

::  nurses in the morning, after nap, and after dinner {sometimes}  and doesn't nurse for very long at all! 

::  all teeth except canines and 2 year molars!!  wow!

::  loves having her teeth brushed - says "ahhhh"

::  still loves the paci... and still sleeps with 3!

::  eats and eats... likes almost everything.

::  hates having her diaper changed/face wiped/clothing changed.  i think it has something to do with being still

::  loves carrying stuffed animals/babies/blankies around.  will sit on lap and snuggle a little

::  brings me books 8,000 times a day.  loves to sit and read.  wash, rinse, repeat.

::  talks in gibberish, and says words like hi, bye-bye, night-night, mommy, dada, eyes, b-button, nose, shoes, duck, cat, baby and more that i can't even think of right now... and a handful of others that i fully understand but i won't call "words" yet.  she makes animal sounds as well.  "moo" is pretty cute.

::  fearless.  heights, water, jumping, running.  you name it.  will fall, scrape knees, and bleed but keep going.  i love it.

::  laid back - mostly - and easy to redirect.  faustino raised his voice with her a week ago and she completely got her feelings hurt.  it was the cutest thing to see him feel so bad for making her sad.  SO different from ethan {sometimes nothing gets through to him}.  you can tell her once, and she gets it.  most of the time.  or just redirect her.

::  we go to the dr. on wednesday for official stats, but she is still in an 18 month size... though she could wear 24 months if push came to shove.  some of her little dresses are getting shorter, so i know she is growing!

::  still in medium cloth diapers and size 4 disposables.  size 5 shoes. 

::  loves animals and is gentle with them. 

she just dropped the nap courtesy of the little summer school program she went to in july.  i now feel less house bound!  hallelujah!  i think she will really enjoy going to school two mornings a week in the fall because she really likes the social interaction.  you could tell it really wiped her out though... she wouldn't make it 5 minutes into the drive home before passing out.  

life is great right now and i am having a fun time watching her transform into a toddler.  she is a delightful little addition to our family, and i couldn't be more blessed to be her mommy.  i could totally get all sappy right here... start tearing up... but let's move on ;)

these pictures are from the zoo today {because i had a moment of insanity, and thought it would be okay to go for an hour.  it was an enjoyable but ridiculously hot hour.  and thankfully not very crowded.} because i knew savannah would like looking at all the animals we read about.  i think the white tiger stole the show today, by the way.  second place where the birds... she didn't quite understand the whole process of feeding them with the seed sticks.  perhaps next time.

and by the way, these aren't really very special pictures.  at least they weren't with my iphone, right??

check out the hair!!  it has grown SO MUCH.

and you see how excited she is?  she is looking at and saying BEAR

have a good weekend... we will try not to melt, here.
xoxo, s

Numbers and my Preschool Boy

we've been working on our numbers here.







so hard.

this little guy has a little streak of lazy-mindedness.  he knows the answer.  he DOES.  I KNOW HE KNOWS.

but he doesn't want to take the time to think of the right answer. 

i mean, we all do that sometimes right??  like, let auto correct get a word we always misspell.  or use a calculator to do basic math.

or ask where the ____ is, even though it would be very easy to look for it. {i think that might totally be a man thing, though}  :)

or in ethan's case, recognize numbers that he KNOWS.  he can certainly count.  but if you show him the number 10 or 7 or 5 or sometimes even 3... it is a toss up if he will get it right.  some worse than others.  it certainly isn't limited to those four numbers.  all of them.  ALL OF THEM.  he chooses to not recall all of them at one point or another.

i am thinking this might be a boy thing.  opinions??

we are trying the number of the day.  that has yet to be proven successful.

so... i bought some workbooks.



i will keep you posted.  and pray for patience.

and if you have tips for me -- share them, PLEASE.

another era

can you tell what this is?



its my apron.  with just picked peppers in it from the garden...  taken with my phone and therefore low quality.

sorry for the terrible pause in blogging.  the lack of structure in the summer really throws me for a loop.  but, i feel somewhat comforted when i see that many of my favorite blogs have fewer posts, too.

it's hard to DO and to BLOG.  you know?

anyway, i must share about a very funny moment from my evening:

i went out to change the soaker hose for the garden this evening {we have two that we use to water.  and yes, the garden is still alive through these wretched temps.  we are hoping we have good results when the temps drop in the fall.  if not, i think cactus is a more appropriate choice to grow next year} and gather up the cloth diapers i had sitting out to dry.

my neighbor was on his back porch and we exchanged the "isn't is hot" conversation...

i asked him if he wanted some pickles i had just made.  yes.

he asked me if i liked chow-chow and if i wanted some that he had made.  yes.

and there we were.  in the middle of the city.  me with my cloth diapers in hand, exchanging home canned items with the neighbor man.

funny, no?

Bye Bye Baby-Rail

look who climbed into her brother's stokke while he was napping.  no it wasn't the first time... but it was the first time i decided to feed her in his chair.  looks like the baby rail on her chair will go into storage.



oh how quickly time passes!  surely she is doing this much earlier than ethan did.  i will have to search the blog to figure out just how quickly... but gosh.  no baby rail on the tripp trapp.  sad day.

reflections on the holiday weekend

whew!  what a weekend!  faustino was "on call" all weekend... his first official home call.  it means you can make plans and maybe get to follow through :)

i had dinner with a friend to kick off friday evening and i got to catch up with her latest adventures... it gave me a glimpse into my former working life...  bittersweet.  on saturday we went to the pool with friends.  friends without kids.  they were very helpful and we played through naptime turning us into little lobsters.  well.  not savannah.  partially because she was under the sun shade on her floatie and partially because i think she's gonna be a "tanner."  for real.  me with tan offspring.  hilarious! 

i think it took all day for me to recover on sunday.  i did manage to go to the grocery store... only to get through the checkout lane and remember that my debit card was in my shorts pocket from the day before.  nice. 

an additional trip in 100+ degree weather.  oh my lordy, we live in an oven these days.

and then we celebrated the fourth with a family cookout at sue's.  i overate.  is this surprising to anyone?  {we are talking about the girl who was so excited about going swimming on saturday because the boat club has the best cheeseburgers.  and i promptly ate one.  in my bikini.  no shame here.}  and i was to bring the potato salad.  did i make this from scratch... no.  it was so good already made from central market. 

i had some for breakfast this morning too.  and lunch.  and a midmorning snack.  geez... this is like a food confessional blog post.

anyway, on the fourth i wanted to get some photos of my rascals in their red, white, and blue. 

we don't have many windows in this little nest, but the best natural light is from the back of the house.  and bed is typically the best photo place.  mmm.... not so much now.  ethan was acting like a dinosaur.  fearless savannah was about to jump off the bed.  i could hardly look through the camera -- forget adjusting any settings.

but then again, this is pretty representative of our everyday...  i think i really need to set up an appointment with sabrina if i am going to get any decent photos of my kids these days.













so, happy july 5th everyone.  looking back on last year i would say that so far, today is way better.  i mean, 4 wheels and i have running hot water in the kitchen. 

bliss.

xoxo, stephanie