2/25/10

Serenity loves to snuggle in Mama’s bed.  Whenever she wakes up she always asks for “Mama Bed!”  Recently she’s enjoying snuggling with her face mashed right up next to mine, which is really very cozy =)  She’s been very clingy with Mama this week, which may be a result of my working crazy hours for Valentine’s Day, or it could just be a new phase.  She runs to me when the doorbell rings and wants to be picked up, in case the newcomer might try to steal her =)  She still loves to lean her head against me and say hugs, and now she asks for both hugs and kisses when we’re snuggling and watching SuperWhy.

On Monday, Serenity woke up in a very fun mood. She went down to her window, and said, “shopping, shopping, shopping!”  I asked her what she wanted to go shopping for, and she said “clothes!”  Then I asked her if she wanted new pants, or a new dress, and she said, “new dress!”  It was soo cute.  Then she started asking for Aunt Jennifer, who she knows instinctively is her best shopping ally.  We called her up and went shopping!  We got her two dresses, a purple butterfly shirt, a pair of jeans, and a purple batman shirt!  And, I got two new pairs of jeans too!  It was exciting, and so much fun to enjoy the girlie time together.  She always asks to wear dresses when I ask her what she wants to wear, and usually has an opinion on which of her dresses she’d like to wear as well.

9/9

Serenity is 20 months old!  I can hardly believe it.  I have loved every minute of getting to know this amazing little girl.  She surprises and delights me every day.

Some of her current favorite phrases:

*oopsie-daisy  (she got this from her Daddy I believe =)

*crash! (She seems to like to fall down, and finds it extremely funny)

*yeah! I love that she is generally so agreeable.  She responds to nearly every question, and usually it’s with a yeah!  Did you have fun with Mama?  Yeah!  Do you want some pretzels? Yeah!  Did you get a good nap?  Yeah!

Serenity has so much fun with Daddy! This is one of the outfits we got on our shopping trip!

She is starting to throw minor fits occasionally when she doesn’t get her way.  Usually I have to hide my smile though, because she just kind of flops or collapses on her bottom.  She doesn’t really cry, scream, or yell, it’s more like a dainty little swoon.  Usually she’ll sit there for a minute and then get over it, but if I’m holding her when I say something she really doesn’t want to do (usually diaper time) she’ll try to slip out of my arms.

Eric took Serenity to his boss’s land for a wilderness hike while I was building raised garden beds with Dad last Saturday.  They had a blast, and Serenity walked for an hour and a half!  She loved throwing sticks and rocks in the mud.  After traveling on the path for a while, she happened upon a very cool stick, and she promptly turned back around and said “stick in water!” and walked back to a mud puddle she remembered passing earlier.  The only way to talk her into going home was to say they were going to see Mama.  Serenity was interested in the new beds on our RV pad, and promptly climbed in and said “Daddy too… Mama too… Papa too” until everyone was in the boxes with her.

She often speaks in short sentences now, four or five words long.  She’s still loving the letters, and can now regularly identify about twenty words.  I’m not sure if she quite understands sounding it out, but she’s getting there.  She really likes the Talking Words Factory dvd and they work on that a lot.

Serenity loves to have letters written on this board. She'll say "Mama do it" and then take the board and intently mark over what I wrote like she's tracing it =)

She loves music class, and loves music more all the time.  Her favorite song is clearly Honey, Honey, from Mamma Mia, and she can listen to that song on repeat for a whole 15 minute car ride.  Zippity doo da is in second place.  Lately we’ve been turning on her music class cd and singing and dancing to it, and playing our instruments.  She asks for “more!” after every song =)  Her favorite song from music class is probably the Carmen Cat, which is a song from the opera Carmen, where all the words are changed to “Meow Meow Meow” and then “Ruff Ruff Ruff” for the guys part.

I am so happy to note that we are finally really using our local library!  We go there at least once a week, and check out five or six books for Serenity at a time.  She loves to climb on all the chairs in the kid section, and she picks books for herself sometimes, although mostly I choose things I know she likes, like Biscuit books.  I’ve started getting her the I can read books, because even though they’re like 25 pages the text is simple enough she enjoys it, and I can point out words that repeat a lot.  I’ve been using the library for myself as well, although I usually request the books rather than browse so that it’s easier.

We’ve been spending lots of time with various cousins and friends lately!  One weekend we had playdates three days in a row!  Two with friends from Eric’s work, and one evening with Mike, Kelly, Rae and Carson.  Serenity had a blast!  And I keep Ethan and Kiley one day each week as well.  She likes to greet kids with big hugs now.  It’s so cute, as long as the kid is prepared for it and it doesn’t turn into a tackle.

Serenity playing her board game with Daddy

Serenity loves it when Eric gets in the playhouse with her =)

I made this felt board with shapes as a new game for Serenity. Eventually we'll use it to practice patterns. She already knows all the shapes, except the rectangle is new =)

An activity I saw on a blog, where you let them use straws to blow water around. Serenity loved it, although she had a little trouble controlling the straw. It was fun to make them float too!

2/14/10

Serenity’s Valentine!  I saw a fun Valentine activity online that Eric and I decided to do with Serenity.  We cut out hearts in red and pink paper, and wrote names of people that love Serenity on them.  (Just a few, we certainly couldn’t have done all of them =)  We made a little path so she could find them as she came downstairs in the morning, and they led her to her Valentine, a little red heart full of Skittles (they have an S for Serenity on them, which she loved!) She liked sorting her Skittles into the appropriately colored bowl.  We didn’t have purple so we gave them to her purple horse.    She enjoyed playing with the hearts, and later would run and find the one that said Mama, Daddy, Papa, and Tina when I asked for them.  She could recognize those names!  =)

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!

Whoops! I blame Valentine’s Day. =)  Here are pictures of Serenity from 19 months, and a brief update since I did a bunch of stories last week.  Here she is wearing her new green corduroy dress, with the bear I dressed in matching overalls.  I made the dress and bear because she just loves her Corduroy books =) 

2/6

Today we went to Toys R Us to spend some of the gift card Papa got us for Christmas.  Serenity loved running up and down the aisles looking at all the stuff!  She played for a long time with the big display of personalized cups.  I am afraid, even with both Mama and Daddy trying to prevent it, the cups were in extreme disarray by the time we left.  We got big Legos, a t-ball set, a new Tag Jr. book, and Serenity’s first board game!!!!  So exciting!!  Thanks Papa!  Serenity loves all the toys, and has spent a lot of time playing with them.  We tried to actually play the board game, and while Serenity can answer the Pig questions about matching lowercase and uppercase letters, and the Princess Presto questions about spelling, she doesn’t really get the concept of leaving the figurines where they are to mark your place =)  Daddy tried to explain but eventually realized she wanted to match the characters with their spots on the board, putting Wonder Red on the matching Wonder Red spot.  She made up her own game =)  It’s really cute to watch Eric try to teach Serenity the right way to use her toys… he insists that she have two hands on the bat for example, and to take care of her game and keep the pieces together.  I think it’s so great!

2/11

It’s been a crazy work week for me with the holiday, so Serenity has spent time with Aunt Jennifer, Grandma, and Papa.  She’s had fun every day!  She wowed Jennifer and Casey with her ability to read a few words.  Barrett tried to teach her a little Chinese.  “Say Neehao Serenity!  Nee hao!”  Serenity: “Meow”  At Grandma’s house they were watching Super Why together, and Mom told Serenity she had pigs when she saw Alpha Pig.  So Serenity got all the barnyard animals lined up to watch Super Why with her, and eventually the dolls too!