My day of birth #2

Yeah! What a great day. Mama and I went out for my favorite breakfast - fresh blueberry bagels. We met Godmother Jill and PJ for breakfast! We even got to see my friend Sydney at the coffee shop!

After that we met dada at the Children's Discovery Museum! Daddy took the rest of the day off to play with me!

I played in the new Clifford play area. Oops . . . I fell into the dog bowl! I mailed some mail at the Clifford post office.
Here I am show off my expect gardening skills

Mama and I took a pretend drive to the the art section! Here I am playing in the wonder cabinet!




Dada showed me this wobbly bridge. I got scared on it because it moved so much.

I had such a fun day. We went to lunch at the CDM, then went home for nap.

We went out for my birthday dinner at Chevy's - - I love Mexican food! Encha - lada! Yum!

Did I tell you how much I love sour cream?

My 2nd birthday party

My birthday was at Shadow Brook Swim Club, my local summer hang out! It was Tinkerbell themed. We had all the cousins and a few friends join in on the fun!

We did a little swimming . . .

had a tinkerbell jumpy house!

I didn't want to wear my birthday hat, but Grampy did!

Grammy too me for a ride in Aunite Suzannie's wagon.

I like to play with my friend Kaitlyn and cousins Tiki, Nene & Kiki!

Noni, mama and I got a quick picture in before the party started.

I had fun hitting my 1st pinata.

Mama helped me blow out my candles :) Auntie Shelly helped supervise my cake eating!

September milestones

Milestones:

34.6" tall; 28 pounds

--almost can say the entire alphabet

--put 3 - 5 word sentences together

--loves fresh blueberry bagels

-- can count to 10

--knows all of her colors

--knows all primary shapes and loves to say "oct-ta-gon-gon-gon-gon"

--can finish parts of songs I sing

--very attached to her little babies

--can shoot on her ride on toys

--can say her name when you ask her

--likes to tell me she is crying, while she is crying

--really into cuddling with me . . . all day long

--loves to finger paint, play play doh and put stickers on things

--likes to dance, jump like a frog and tell me what sounds animal makes

--color on her chalk board and make circles on it

--stand on 1 foot

--likes to brush and floss teeth

--likes to put her little babies forward facing on her tummy when we drive

Struggles:

--afraid of crickets and the sound of a barking dog

--doesn't always come when i call her

--have rolled back to bad sharing habits since starting her twos class. Sometimes she says mine! when it's just us at home and I'm not even trying to take something from her. I think she is just remember class and thinking about what the teacher/other kids said

--has a higher anxiety level since starting the twos class - cries at least 1 time a night saying "see mama"

--hates getting her hair brushed

--still refluxing

Adventure day - Hakone Gardens

I like to call our new outtings adventure days because that is truly what they are - I never know how it will go!

We met cousins Jimmy, Johnny & Kristen and Aleli, Isabelle and baby Sabrina.

The kids loved the gardens. They cruised everywhere. We ditched the strollers early on because it was easier to put the baby in a backpack and let the kids cut loose.

The kids especially liked the koi pond and walking over the bridges to look at the fish.

It was special to Sammie because she had other kids to experience it with!

Afterwards, we went to Blue Rock Shoot cafe and had lunch. Our friend Gabby met up with us there too for lunch.

Overall a fun outing! Yeah!

Look what dada taught me!

Shoooo fly . . . don't bother me! I take my play spatula and BAM!

Mama I likkkkkke this toy!

So Sammie and I were in this toy store and she kept going back to this toy over and over again. I just coukdn't get myself to buy it tho - i kept imagining myself stepping on little critters all over the house!

First day of "Two's class"

9/10/07
Today was Sammie’s first day of school. Two’s class technically. All summer I have been agonizing whether or not to drop her from the class. I was worried about the timing of the class (11.30 – 1.30) because it is lunch time and nap time during the class time.

The teacher had to distract her for me to be able to leave. As I was standing outside, I could hear a little girl crying (there are only 2 girls in the class – Sammie & Sydney). I was in agony. I was seconds from walking back in and grabbing her when Felica said “that is Sydney crying, not Sammie”. She was right and I was amazed. As awful as this sounds, I am guessing Sammie was so wrapped up in her friend Sydney being upset that she didn’t cry.

Felicia assured me that this will be good for Sammie and even though I mentally know this, it was still hard to walk away from her. I constantly looked at the clock. Waiting . . . waiting . . . waiting . . .to pick her up.

When class was done, she was sort of a drone. Not real emotion coming from her. (I think she was just tired) When I asked her if she liked her class, she just replied with a very casual “yeah”.

She survived the class, but boy was she hungry and tired. We ate lunch on the porch of the school before we went home. She crashed in the car in about 5 seconds. She actually napped for 2.5 hours! That has never happened in the history of this little girls’ life!

I’m not sure what I was expecting – I guess of gush of emotion over how much she would miss me. I missed her like crazy! Oh well. I’m glad she liked it. I guess this class will be good for both of us!

As the day progressed, I got bits and pieces of what she learned to day in class:

(1) the words: crayon, fussy, and the saying “you’re welcome”. The only bad part is I don’t think she understands the difference between you’re welcome and thank you
(2) apparently Sammie and Sydney (her friend) we both fussy in class (this is first hand from Sammie, so who knows if it is accurate)
(3) she has been singing a song that I have no idea what it is

Lesson for today: Ask the teacher what she taught your kid (including songs) before you leave class so you know what they are talking about all day :)

Tahoe!

Since we had such a horrific flight to SD earlier this summer, we decided to try a somewhat local trip for vacation this year.

Lake Tahoe here we come for Labor Day weekend! The drive up went really really well. We arrived at Auntie Shelly’s sister house and it was beautiful!
Here comes the bad part, when we arrived at the cabin, we got a call that there was a big fire across the street from our house. My family kicked in and made sure our house didn’t burn to the ground (Thank you Mom, Dad & Chris!)

I should have known it was a sign of things to come.

After about ½ hour at the house, Sammie started saying “home now”. Ut oh! Good thing Kiki and NeNe show up tomorrow to play with Sammie!

The days were great! We had lots of fun hanging at the beach, playing in the wilderness around the house and playing at the various playgrounds around town.

The nights were long! Sammie never slept well. To give you an idea . . . on the 2nd night there Sammie woke up at 2.30 am. At 3.30am she was still awake, so I thought I’d take her for ride. That will put her to sleep for sure, right? Wrong. She got car sick and threw up all over herself, her pjs and the car seat. Nothing like cleaning vomit off of your daughter in the dead of night in the middle of the wilderness in your pjs! It’s 5.30am and Sammie is watching cartoons, chatting loudly and keeping the entire house up and I am delirious for not sleeping in 3 nights. Ugh!

We made it home, but every night was brutal. We were all so happy to be home and back to sleeping through the night!

No more trips this year!

"Tah-Toe" picking

We took a little family trip out to a farm in Gilroy to go tomato picking. It was pretty cool. They had peppers, basil, zucchini and lots and lots of different types of tomatoes.

Sammie had a great time hanging with Daddy. She loves loves loves being with Peter. Its really special.

It was a far drive and I didn't really think it through . . . it doesn't take that long to pick tomatoes. So we went to lunch at the only place around, which ended up being really good. Sammie loved this little dog pottery thing. She had the entire outdoor patio laughing because she was jumping up and down saying "piggyback ride".