New Swing and New Phases!

I am very proud of myself as a mommy! I bought this swing at a garage sale for $1 (super thrifty as well!) and assembled it myself! Well, almost. My neighbor helped with the drill. So we had a surprise for daddy when he got back from his golf tournament! Isla loves the swing and I also put her slide in the backyard so we have a mini playground!

I am also SO proud of my big girl! We are only doing the pacifier for nap-time and nighttime! And she is doing GREAT! She surprises me all the time! I can already tell that she is self-soothing in other ways and talking more. Today she said "heavy" and "four"! She also said a sentence while I was skyping with my sister. "Emmit is puppy!" Not grammatically correct but it's a start!

Other new things are playing with her new "bike" and doing all sorts of big kid things at the playground. It freaks me out but she can climb pretty much with me just spotting her on the ladders to get to the top!

Along with these proud moments are the bad girl moments. She likes to hit us on the face when she is upset so we are doing time-outs now. Just for 2-3 minutes. So now we can say "stop hitting or a time-out" and she will usually stop. Otherwise, "time out!"

I read Parenting with love and logic. A wonderful book. So we try to offer choices as much as possible. And also say things like, "Mommy knows how it feels to do something she doesn't want to do like the dishes..." and other things like that.

Last for this update....my baby will be 2 in just a couple of weeks. How the time flies! I look at pictures of her from last year this time and she had almost no hair! Now she has a bunch! Enough to braid along the side and put in pig-tails! And she is counting to three! My little baby is officially a toddler!!!

Easter egg hunt

We did a very simplified version of the easter egg hunt this year. She loved it all the same and got very excited when she discovered a new egg. We let her eat some of the chocolate. She seemed to like it and didn't get sick!

pushups like daddy

You can hear her counting the push-ups. Sometimes she even gives a little grunt...just like daddy!

sunglasses with mommy

The other cute thing from this last week was that Mark learned how to put her hair in a ponytail! So sweet! I never thought I would see the day....

hair and make-up

We have a girlie girl on our hands. She loves her hair and make-up!

Nurse Maid's Elbow

I remember this vaguely from medical school but unfortunately I am very aware of what it is today. That is because I pulled Isla up to standing from the floor and dislocated a ligament in her elbow. I felt like the worst mother EVER!!!!!! The pediatrician on call told me how to reduce it over the phone and so after she woke from her nap....that's right i let her sleep for 2 1/2 hours with her arm in this condition (I guess it couldn't have hurt too much then!)....I reduced it. It didn't seem to hurt her too badly. She was immediately better! I couldn't believe how fast it worked. She went right back to playing and smiling! THANK GOODNESS! Of course I was thinking the worst...that I had broken her wrist and she would never be a superstar pianist/surgeon/dentist when she grew up!
So the household is back to normal and she spent the rest of the day splashing in puddles!

happy valentines day!

My mom gave Isla these leg warmers a long time ago so we pulled them out for Valentine's day.
This is her "cheese" smile!

hat

Isla was running around with Mark's stocking cap on tonight. So cute! Until she started hitting Mark. We are trying to teach her to be gentle. All part of being a toddler!!

bath tub time!

ISla loves the bath. Especially drinking the bath water! "Icky!!" we are trying to teach her. She also loves the sing the alphabet song with her own words. She loves the alphabet letters that Grandma K gave her.

cooking with grandma and grandpa K