Summer: The 2009 recap

2009 was a great year for my baby-toddler, she has just exploded into so many new territories, I am still amazed at the things she can say and do so I thought I would use this time to sum up some of 2009, before it is gone.

I would have to say the biggest achievement in 09 was potty training. I really didn't think she was ready, I wasn't ready, and if it wasn't for my wonderful mother in law coming to visit I would not have even tried, but I am glad I did, after two long days she had it and continues to be fully potty trained. She is trained for naps and at night with only a rare bed wetting every month or so. 2 years, 2 months, and 2 weeks in age and I had a fully potty trained little girl. Just imagine all the money I have saved on diapers, wipes, it is very nice.

Her vocabulary has exploded as well, the things she says these days is just insane. Earlier tonight we went to Sonic and after I ordered something butterfinger she told Kris that she knew what a butterfinger was. You take your finger, dip it in butter and lick it. We certainly do not lick butter at our house so I have no clue where she thought that up but it was really cute and if you think about it, makes a lot of sense.

Hair, we have to mention her hair, so long and blonde and pretty. Too bad I have a child who has a lot of tangles and hates having her hair fixed. I would leave it down if it didn't somehow magically always end up in her face, it is kinda cute to watch her constantly push it away, but to keep her sanity and to make her just a little bit cuter I like to at least put a rubber band in it. I hope one day she starts to enjoy having her hair brushed and fixed, but somehow I doubt it, I remember hating having my hair fixed.



Trouble - If I tell Summer not to do something that she really wants to do she will tell me to go away, "go away mom". Of course I don't because this means she is about to do whatever it was I just told her not to do, but it is cute and I have to try not to smile. Stop Talking. When Kris and I are talking and she wants our attention she tells us to "stop talking". If Summer is really doing something I don't want her to do I tell her, in a very mean voice, that she is making me mad, very mad, and that usually gets her to stop doing, or start doing, something I want her to do. Luckily she hasn't had too many issues getting into trouble just yet, she did just learn how to scream at the top of her lungs but I am hoping she forgets. If you want to hear what it sounds like to scream at the top of your lungs, by all means, here is a video I took of her doing just that, enjoy!

First - We had a lot of first, we took a long trip to Pennsylvania and stayed a week with family. Summer went to see her first movie, The Princess and the Frog. Summer busted the bottom of her lip, we rushed to the ER only to find out it wasn't as bad as we thought.

Fun - What does Summer enjoy, babies and people, and drawing, and reading. She loves going up to her room and sometimes wants you to play with her, sometimes she is content to play on her own. I love to hear her pretend play with her people and her babies. Summer also loves all her little friends, so many of them, Ana, Chloe, Carissa, Christa, Sidney, Rory and her brothers, Noah, Alex, I know, we need some more boys around here, all girls!

The age 2 has really been fun for us, I always heard such bad horror stories but we have yet to see that side of Summer yet, well we see it occasionally but not enough to bother us much. We like the little independent personality and can't wait to see all the fun changes in 2010.

Later that night

Christmas day was like any other, except Summer had a bunch of new toys to keep her entertained. She napped early because we had plans with friends that evening. I got Summer a new dress for Christmas, one that had a matching baby doll dress. Of course she would not stay still enough for me to get a nice picture of her and her baby alone ...


You get the idea, they matched, it was super cute.

Luckily Summer was still enough to take a few cute Christmas day photos with Kris and I.


Look how cute my babies are, they are so happy and smiling.

So we headed to our friends house for Christmas dinner, a few hours into our visit Summer said, for the first time ever, her stomach hurt. She kept asking to go to the bathroom but nothing would happen. After the fourth failed attempt we assumed she had gas or was constipated - poor thing. She really didn't eat much food at all. After we all finished eating Summer felt warm and we thought she had a fever. When we got home and checked she did end up having a low grade fever and the next morning a runny nose to go with it but it went away by the end of the day. I don't even think the fever and tummy ache had anything to do with each other but how odd.

The fever and tummy ache reminded me how scary little things like that can be for a parent, there is nothing scarier, to me anyway, than thinking my child may be sick. I understand fever's are normal but because of the tummy ache and how she was acting, very tired and out of it, I was a little freaked out. It amazes me that I don't have panic attacks, the fear this little girl can cause me is insane.

Luckily it was a very quick bug and she seems to be doing fine now (the next day). Mostly fine today, little stinker didn't nap today and we are paying for it with whining, screaming and major attitude. I thought maybe we could give it a try but it is apparent she needs her naps. We are in bed early watching Annie again. I am trying to teach Summer the words to "The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow" and she seems to be getting it. She really likes the movie, all the singing of course. She did tell Kris to Shut Up last night and both of us looked at each other wondering where in the world she heard that, well I know, I just heard Carol Burnett tell the girls to Shut Up to which Summer mocked. Great!

So this is Christmas

Christmas Day, 1:24 PM. The house is still, no one is stirring, not even my pappy napping daughter. We don't have any mice that I am aware of, ants however are another story and I am sure there are a few sneaking around in here somewhere. Decorations are still up but the urge to put everything away is there, but I am trying to resist, at least until tomorrow. All the gifts were opened yesterday morning, why yesterday, because I am an adult and I can make the rules! Ok we thought papa had to work this morning and only found out he didn't on Wednesday so since we had already planned on opening gifts Thursday and because we were too excited to wait, we opened the gifts on Christmas eve.

Here is a summary of our day yesterday:

Summer is a lucky child, she opened 26 wrapped gifts. Summer loved her new underwear from mi mi. Daddy & Mommy were fascinated with the coloring book mi maw sent. I always look forward to the new ornaments mi maw makes and sends. I have no clue if I am spelling mi mi and mi maw correctly. Summer opened her gifts calmly and delicately, not like I would have. It took Summer 30 minutes to unwrap everything (and we have it all recorded in high def and have watched it once). Summer loves candy canes, even the peppermint kind. Summer really doesn't get the whole Santa Claus thing yet. Yesterday we spent playing with all of the new gifts.

In general this December:

We didn't get to watch Rudolph because we missed it but we did watch the Polar Express, Frosty, and the Grinch, Summer watched them all. We listened to a LOT of holiday music, Summer loves to sing jingle bells. We did not have a white Christmas nor did we expect it but Summer did get to see snow, papa took her up in the mountains. She loved the snow, we are planning a trip back soon.

Christmas Day:

I almost burnt the sweet potatoes, oops. We are having dinner over the Ross house at 4:00, the Springston's are coming too which reminds me I need to bring 3 gifts, wrapped, and I only have 2 so I need to find one more. Summer will wear her new Christmas dress that has a matching baby doll dress, of course I will take pictures!

Pictures - Yes I took a lot yesterday, but way too many to post on here so check them out on my flickr, first couple pages.

sings, dances, maybe a little acting?

I asked Summer if she would let me make a video of her singing jingle bells today and she said yes. We went into the room and changed into the princess dress and fixed her hair. Then I decided she should make a grand entrance, running out onto her stage stool. She gave a great performance and added the twirling in herself. She is such a fun little girl, I may have to make more video's - I never really thought about making videos before!

You can check out the video of Summer singing you jingle bells, wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and letting you know she loves you on my facebook, enjoy.

Cold freezing weather

The weather in Las Vegas is strange, but I think most places have strange weather. Today the high was in the 60s but just two weeks ago the weather dipped down into the 30s and it was really cold! Me and one of my mommy friends braved this cold freezing weather to try to take some pictures of our kids. It was cold and overcast, which made the light amazing. After dressing Summer in two pairs of pants, two or three shirts, a jacket, gloves, a hat and a scarf, she was ready to brave the cold with me. She never complained she was cold so I guess I did a good enough job bundling her up. I didn't complain either because I also had on several pairs of clothing. The best part about pictures in the cold is the hats, winter hats are just plain cute and make little two year olds look darn cuddly.


The scarf helps with the whole winter look and since it matches the hat - just precious!

When I got home and went through my pictures I saw this one and well, just look at that awesome wall! I didn't really notice it until I was home but what a rich brown, so neat looking, we are going back to take more pictures with that wall as a background as soon as it warms up!


This picture is really cute, Summer looks all grumpy but she really wasn't - I don't think anyway, I think I just caught her making a grumpy looking (but oh so cute) expression.


One last picture, the favorite from my trip, a nice face shot of my beautiful baby bundled in a winter coat, hat, and scarf. Look at those beautiful eyes!


(and yes this blog cuts off the right side of my photos and I haven't figured out how to fix it just yet ...)

It isn't always fun and games

ya know, it isn't always fun and games, sometimes, for no apparent reason, feelings get hurt - or people get mad, or angry, or just plain sad. I try to keep these feelings from getting out but sometimes they escape and when they do, watch out, or get a camera! Luckily I had my camera. We were playing on the chair taking some cute pictures, then we did some upside down bending over pictures, but for some reason being upside down was the straw breaker, or the hair that broke the camel's back, or whatever whitty comment you can think of - because, for no apparent reason, well none obvious to myself, Summer became very upset with me, or something, and started to cry. She was kinda angry I think - now that I look back over the photos, probably a bit sad, maybe mad, but oh so adorable even with the tears. Look at that face, how is she ever going to make someone mad when she makes that little face? She is going to be so spoiled and get every single little thing she wants ...


For sure if she makes the face above - that is just so precious, and the face below, it just melts my heart.


Maybe not as much with the next few faces, those are just plain pitiful :o)


When her two minute episode was over and I told her I was taking pictures of her crying, she of course wanted to see the pictures and was as happy as ever. I asked her if I could take a picture of her tear and she agreed, but only if I showed her, which I did of course, I had what I needed, no reason to get her upset again!

Almost that time

I am finally caught up with my Christmas pictures - I have been trying to post more so I could show them off, well show her off, because she is after all super cute! Isn't that dress adorable, and with the hat she is so darling. She was in the photo mood that morning and the light was decent. Most of the photos came out a tad blurry, ah to work with a moving ancy little model - what do you expect?



I might try to take a few more pictures, maybe this weekend. We don't have long now! I think we are ready, well mostly, not completely. I still have to wrap everything and I am out of tape so I need to get some, and I need a few more stocking stuffer items, like the toothbrush and some bubble bath. I have to bake cookies for Santa, oh and I have to get the item Santa is bringing, I think some sort of candy cane thing, not exactly sure yet. I also got a gingerbread house today as punishment, I mean to put together with Summer - that should be fun. I really love the holidays, I can't wait to see her little face Christmas morning when she wakes up to all those wrapped gifts and realizes they are all for her and she gets to open them all - how exciting, I can barely wait. Luckily it won't be much longer now.

Third year in a row

For the third year in a row we visited the Opportunity Village, a nice little place with major holiday decorations, lights, and rides. The first year we went with Charlene and Becca, last year was Kris and Cliff and this year we went with Casey and Ana. The night we went happened to be one of the coldest, so we had to keep warm. I piled Summer into a few pairs of clothes, three pairs of pants, three shirts, a hat, scarf, and gloves. She had so many pairs of clothes on I didn't bother putting on her jacket. As cold as it was - she was warm and cozy, and if she were to have fallen, she would have been nice and padded and probably would not have gotten hurt, not that I wanted or expected her to fall, which she did not.

This year was the best year so far, mainly because Summer and Ana are old enough to really enjoyed everything. They liked looking at the lights and walking through the enchanted forest and they even ventured onto a few of the exhibits (mostly because we asked them to very nicely).


They were both so good all night long. When the saw the carousel hey wanted to ride on the horses, which we did, twice, and they loved riding on the train. We also stopped and got some hot chocolate to warm up inside one of the building, after all it was very cold outside.

All in all it was a fun fill night full of lights, sounds, rides, hot chocolate and cold air. No doubt we will do it again next year, to continue the tradition.

Let it snow!

South Las Vegas has this shopping center called Town Square that has snow, or has an area where it snows. Not real snow, that would be silly, just fake snow. We decided to check it out to get into the holiday spirit. When we were looking up the details about the place on the internet we saw that the same shopping area has an awesome park so we left earlier than we planned so Summer could check it out. The park was amazing, it had a lot of fun little shops and a huge maze. Summer LOVED the maze, she loves being chased and loves to run. The only decent picture I got of her in the maze was blurry because she wouldn't stop running, but you get the idea.


Besides the maze and cool little kid size buildings, the park also had a merry-go-round, a real one that would go really fast. Summer loved it too, and so did I at first, but it was tough holding onto with one hand while trying to focus and take a picture with the other!


Ah you do what you got to do when you are a mom who is addicted to photographing her little daughter.

Besides having a cool park with buildings built for little kids, a really awesome maze, and a fast merry-go-round, the place also has a really big Christmas tree and holiday music playing. Summer was equally impressed with both.


And, besides all of the cool stuff I mentioned above, it also has a little house and inside was Santa Claus waiting with suckers. Summer has no issues going up to Santa, giving him a hug, sitting on his lap, posing for pictures, and more pictures, again more pictures, because she knows in just a few minutes we will be done with pictures and she is going to get a yummy treat. I should just call him Candy Cane Man, because this guy does not give gifts in her mind, he gives candy canes, and any man that gives candy canes is all right in Summer's book.


Maybe I will keep it that way, toys and gifts come from me and candy canes come from Santa :o) Maybe I can get a special stocking full of a few different kinds of candy canes that Santa can leave when he comes to visit, that way she will know he was there - hey I like that idea, I will look like the hero and Santa will look like a Christmas candy giving red suited fat old man! (I mean fat in a good way).

After we did the park, the tree, Santa, we went and ate and afterward it was time for the snow. Summer enjoyed the snow I guess. She looked like she was in awe but she was a little tired, it was a busy afternoon playing and eating and all. It snowed on us for 10 minutes around that large Christmas tree, the one with the lights that kept changing colors. It was a neat experience and one I bet we take advantage of for years to come. I especially loved the cookies. Oh I didn't even mention the part where we got a bag of cookies from the Toll House store, silly me.

It is really cold out now

It is really cold out now but you wouldn't believe it if you were here not even two weeks ago when the weather was still nice and toasty warm, warm enough that we were playing outside in the backyard, in the sand box and on the slide. Summer had a baby doll that she happily let slide down the slide while she waited at the top.


She also spent over 30 minutes playing in the sand box, which is full of really fine sand instead of the nice wet sand that it should be. She doesn't mind - and we will wet it again in the spring.


After spending a good amount of time outside we headed inside and continued to play. I still had the camera handy and took this really darn cute picture of Summer's eyes, look how clear and greenish/blueish/brownish they are, she is so lucky to have such a cool eye color. Look at her hair too, it is getting SO long. She is such a fun happy little baby, or big girl. Yesterday I told her she was my happy baby and she told me she wasn't a baby anymore. She is right, she even put on her own pants yesterday, yup all by herself.

Did you know?

Did you know my child is a little clown, I mean not like her halloween costume, I mean how she acts? Especially when I pull out my camera to take a few pictures, her silliness can get the best of her and cause her outward funniness to shine.


Of course she has a serious, loving, happy, helpful, energetic, cute, sweet, etc side but on this day she was being my silly little bean (bean is a nickname she has thanks to Kris.)

I love her silly side and I wonder if she is going to be a class clown. I have seen how she can act around her friends but for the most part she is calm around them and not as silly as she can be - luckily for her friends.

Here are a few silly things she does off the top of my head.

She loves to sing songs but change the words to strange sounds. Or change the words completely using the wrong words. For example she recently learned "Take me out to the ballgame" but when I ask her to sing it now it comes out "take my out to my body" and then she laughs like she just said the most silliest thing. I usually roll my eyes and ask her "Is that how it goes?" and sometimes she says it is, sometimes she says it isn't.

She also can dance pretty silly but of course that is a matter of opinion, I think it is pretty silly and I don't know how she learned to dance like that. No I swear she didn't learn some of those moves from me!

When she finds something silly she has the cutest expression and makes a really neat face while talking in a much deeper voice. Here is a youtube video of her saying bye to the camera using her silly voice.

Pretty areas around Las Vegas

A few weekends ago (I know, where the heck have I been?) we all loaded up in the car and headed to the Smoke Ranch, an area near the mountains with some nice scenery. We were going to have our family pictures taken and take some of another family but that didn't work out so we ended up just snapping a few of ourselves. When we arrived at the ranch the sun was above the mountain but not 10 minutes later it went behind and things got much cooler. It was a good thing we had jackets, I mean it wasn't freezing but we are babies and it was darn cold!

We had fun walking around the ranch, the area has a lot of nice scenic spots and we had a lot of great photo opportunities. Summer was in a decent mood and Kris and I were happy, even happier when we got home and saw the pictures, the lighting was amazing and the backgrounds were nice and calm. Here are a few pictures from the late afternoon.

Aren't we just the cutest little family you have ever seen?

Stripes are cute

I can't resist buying cute clothes for Summer, I admit it, I have an addiction. Good thing clothes her size are cheaper than clothes my size. One day I might not be able to buy her clothes, she might form her own opinion about what she likes... Hopefully she loves my taste in clothes, like these cute striped colorful pants I got her recently.



I really like the clothes from Kohls. They have such cute outfits and they all match and they fit nicely. Even the shoes match all the outfits I bought her recently, and the price is so nice and cheap.

Remember how I mentioned pictures of Summer in different hats, I think I am going to do it but just for 30 days. I will take a new photo every day of Summer wearing a different hat. I plan on starting January 1st. I think we already have 30 different hats around the house too but I might buy a few more.

Right now Summer is sitting against me on the bed while she watches Sesame Street. We just finished her bath and she will be in bed in about 15 minutes, but before bed we watch Sesame Street together. She is so lovey and cute before bed, the cute pajamas make her irresistible!