Major Accomplishment

After MONTHS of training, bribing, pleading, praying, praising, hoping, wishing, and cajoling......Little R is going to the potty on her own. Potty training R has been difficult beyond belief. My husband and I have tried all kinds of rewards, tactics, and strategies to no avail.We tried stickers, little prizes, witholding favorite TV shows, extra movie time, songs, dances, special snacks, etc-all in an attempt to get her to use the potty. Then one day it just happened. She seriously just decided she would start going to the potty. R has had a few accident free days, one with MANY accidents, and most have been 1 or 2 accident days. She has even made it through nap time dry. I can hardly contain my excitement :)
Happy Fall!

Normalcy

I am trying to maintain at least some sense of normalcy in the household throughout these trying times. This week R and I (and Dad too) have worked with hearts-coloring, counting and identifying smallest and largest. We will use some of these as Valentines for the grandparents.
Last night all of us made a devil's food cake to take with us to Alabama-with a few slices sampled of course. R did most of the adding of ingredients, turned on the mixer, and helped pour the batter into the pans. She was so proud! She kept saying "my first cake". Precious.
I have to include how the cake baking came to be.... R and the hubby went to the grocery store on Wednesday. When hubby went to check out, there was a cake mix in the cart he didn't put in there. Our little chocaholic snagged it and added it in. Hubby says she insisted on holder her chocolate the entire way home and he spent quite a while explaining to her she couldn't eat it right then.

Homemade playdough

R and I had a fun time making playdough this past week. We used a recipe from a craft book we have but there are TONS of recipes out there.

We used:

2 cups flour
2 cups warm water
1 cup salt
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
1 Tablespoon cream of tartar

The recipe recommends slowly adding the water to just the flour and salt mixture-I just dumped everything in and stirred alot over medium low heat. I stopped cooking when the mixture was hard to stir, then let it cool for awhile in the pot. I then scooped the dough out and put it on waxed paper to finish cooling. The dough still felt sticky to me so I sprinkled some corn starch on it and kneaded it in.
From there I added a little orange essential oil for fragrance and hopefully preserving. I separated the dough into 4 parts and added food coloring. R chose which colors except for orange-that was my idea.
The results were great!! Well, except for the orange which looks kinda like pureed pumpkin- not what I was shooting for.
This could be a great lesson for ratios, measuring, color blending, and the science behind how heating a mixture of liquid and powder makes a solid mass.
Playing with our creation was even more FUN.

2, two. dos, twee, deux, do'

I am now officially the mother of a 2 year old. I think she has been in the "trying 2's" for at least a couple of months already. Almost anything is worthy of a meltdown depending on her mood, lack of sleep, etc. However, she makes up for it in kisses, hugs, "love me's" and general cuteness.
I took off from work on her birthday so we could spend it together. We went shopping for books and practical life supplies, ate lunch, played on an inside playground, cooked dinner together and went to Krispy Kreme. The hubby and I had doughnuts, R decided she didn't want hers or ours and of course thought the floor was a better place than her napkin for the food to reside.
It is so true that the years fly by and you should enjoy them. It is hard to believe I first held her in my arms over 2 years ago..it seems like only a few days ago and at other times-a lifetime ago. I have learned so much in these 2 years. I now understand why you should nap when baby naps; I no longer pick up toys constantly-as long as there is a path, it's okay; sometimes, it's okay to let her watch cartoons for an hour-I need the break; kids really do repeat what they hear; some days are exasperating but the other days far outweigh those kind; parenting is not easy but it is rewarding; and so much more!!

Fun filled days of summer

R and I have done a lot the past few days-painting with watercolors, talking about weather, lots of coloring, blowing bubbles, and checking out
the yard- especially the caterpillars.
Watercolors- R likes to paint but scrubs the brush on the paper, likes washing the brush off but not drying, and enjoys painting the sidewalk, her body parts and mine. I got the paints on sale for 1.99 at the local teacher supply store and they have more paint than most sets I have seen.
Weather-We have window clings up and talk about weather when we remember. R doesn't really get it yet but she can identify sun and rainbow.
Coloring-R breaks crayons, peels the paper off and colors on anything she can. I'm thinking chunky crayons are better for toddlers. However, I have a plethora of crayons new and old. BTW-Target had the 24 pack for 24 cents, can't pass that up. I can always used them for shaped crayons later.
Bubbles- R and I blew bubbles-well, mostly me and she chased them. The bubbles were huge...one of our neighbor's kids commented-those things are as big as balloons. I used regular bubble liquid but added dish detergent and glycerin. No measuring just poured it together and stirred. I made improvised wands from pipe cleaners and used a pie pan for the container. I didn't like the pipe cleaners, too flimsy. Next time we will try metal clothes hangers bent into different shapes.
Our yard-WOW!!!! We have caterpillars. There were some on the parsley and some on the fennel-today I only saw them on the parsley. None so far on the purple passion fruit. I plan on buying a butterfly habitat for next year so we can observe the life cycle of a butterfly.

Too busy

I am so behind on the stuff I am making for gifts!!!!!!! I have no time for crafts between, work, cooking, cleaning, and taking care of baby. I was hoping she would be in bed by 9:00 pm and then I could work on gifts until 11:00 pm a few nights a week. That has NOT been happening. If little one is asleep by 10:00 pm, I am lucky. On a side note- R was on TV :) We went to Calypso's to watch the Alabama vs. Florida game on Saturday. She looked especially adorable in her Bama cheerleading outfit. Channel 7/WJHG was filming and got her on camera. TOO SWEET.