Princesses

"Here's your beautiful princess girl! Happy Fodder's Day. Here's your card, Daddy. One for you and one for me. We will wait for sister's day." These were the words that Matt woke up to on Father's Day. So precious. That morning Laura also knew that there was chocolate in the house and began pleading for it as soon as we got downstairs. I told her she could have some maybe in the afternoon after lunch. So every few minutes she would ask me, " Is it dinner yet?" I said, "no Laura, we haven't even had breakfast." She responded, " Well, is dinner in the oven?" Geez, Mom, get on it! Toddlers have no patience.

I have been missing several of Hannah's pacifiers. This morning, Hannah was playing over where we keep all of the toys, and she comes back with a "paci" in each hand. Apparently, she is keeping a stash of them, just in case I decide to cut her off from pacifiers.

Matt drops off at daycare in the morning, and Hannah has been giving him the whole gamut of facial expressions each day before he leaves. He puts her in her chair at the table, and she starts with the scowl. She furrows her eyebrows and narrows her mouth. Then she tilts her and smiles at him. Next she does her wide-eyed, scared look. Then she will wave goodbye. Sweet.

We have struggled this week with Hannah's sleep habits. From the time Hannah was born, she has been a champion sleeper. Well about a month ago, the wheels fell off the bus. The situation has progressively gotten worse each week, and now we are at the point of her sleeping with us the whole night. Well, we are spoiled, and want her to sleep in her bed. So we attempted this week to get her back in her own bed. I will not go into minute detail. Suffice it to say, we failed.

Laura has continued to be obsessed with the little boy at daycare, Julian. It is hilarious to hear her talk about him. She will say that Julian is her husband but that sometimes he marries Brooklyn. I knew he was no good! Poor Matt. He is not ready for this. Little Hannah kissed a boy in her class on the lips this week too. I think it about sent Matt over the edge. He's ready to send them to an all girls daycare! (I constantly poke the bear too!)

We went to Peyton's first birthday party yesterday and had a blast. Peyton's sister, Avery, is one of Laura's best friends. So she played till her heart's content. There was another little neighbor girl there too, and they all three ran through the sprinkler. Then they decided they wanted to dress up as princesses. So they put their princess dresses on over their swimwear. Nice! Hannah stuck pretty close to me, except during cake. The three little girls were in the yard at a small table eating cake, and Hannah was right there with them. They were all feeding her! She loved it.

We ended this weekend with Laura getting her very first haircut. I have trimmed her bangs periodically, but never anything else. It looks much better; it was getting a little stringy.

I wrote this post last weekend, but I never got it posted.

Summer Developments

I haven't blogged for about three weeks, and I could probably write about two months worth of stories. Both kids have hit some big developmental milestones in the past two weeks.

I will start with Hannah. She has come full board into toddlerhood. On the upside, she walks everywhere, like she's been doing it for years. On the downside of toddlerhood, she now is in the temper tantrum phase. She has become increasingly independent and impatient. So if she doesn't get what she wants, when she wants it, watch out. She will throw herself on the floor and scream like someone just told her Santa isn't real. All that said, she is still my adorable little baby girl. She toddles around and looks at me and gives me her scrunchy smile, that just melts my heart. Whenever she sees Matt, she yells, "Daaa! Daaa!" And then she will tilt her head to the side and grin. She is just so sweet. She is quite the cuddle bug. She loves to nestle into the crook of my or Matt's neck and cuddle when she's tired. Which brings me to yet another development. She is NOT sleeping in her own bed anymore. We have tried just nearly everything to get her back in there. Hannah has been a champion sleeper until now. It was an overnight change. She had a dr appointment this week, and the dr said that she is teething pretty good. But we have even given her ibuprofen, so I'm not sure what else we can do other than just tough it out. Her dr appointment went pretty well. She is much smaller than Laura was at this age. She is only in the 32% in weight and the 45% in height. Laura was in the 90's% in both. So it looks as though Hannha takes after Matt's dad and my mom.

Laura has also made some major strides. She is now finally sleeping her in own room consistently. She did it before, but not very regularly, just once in a while. Well now she has done it two full weeks in a row, by herself. She has a little routine she follows. It has been so AWESOME!!! And I am so proud of her. (Yes, I know we traded one kid for the other, but I will take it!) She is so grown up, which makes me a little sad. Time just moves so quickly. She has been getting bored in daycare. She is ready for the next room, which is the preschool room. She was really ready for it last fall, but that's another story for another time. Anyway, we are trying to get her involved in some additional activities at school this summer. They have two programs called Tap and Tumble and Stretch and Grow. I think we are going to enroll her in one or both of them for the summer, just to change things up a bit. I feel bad that she has to go to school five days a week, all year long. I have such fond memories of my summers as a child, and I wish that she could have that too. But life is what it is. She loves being a big sister to Hannah. She is always trying to carry Hannah around the house, which ends up being dragging Hannah around the house. She has also started feeding the cat for me. Bonus!

She has had a some fun summer "times" this month. She got to play with her friend, Maddie and her friend, Avery. We had ice cream with Maddie, and she got to swim in Avery's blow up pool. She LOVES both of them. They are her two favorite friends. Last week we also went to our parish festival, and she made fast friends with two little girls there. She jumped in the bounce house a few dozen times and had a great time. Little Hannah so wants to be with her sister, but she's just too little for some of those activities yet. She watched outside the bounce house longingly. Hannah did walk up to a little boy about her size and "talked" to him. So sweet. She is not a shy one. And then this week, I had Friday off, so we picked the kids up early and went to the zoo. They love the zoo. We spent a couple of hours there, and then we had pizza with Ellen and Tyler. Laura loves Aunt Ellen's house too! We were supposed to be in Iowa this weekend for a family reunion, but we decided not to go since my parents couldn't go. That was a little disappointing, but otherwise summer is starting off fun!!

Laura has a little boy at school that is infatuated with her. His name is Julian, and Daddy is struggling with this one! Laura says in the morning, "I want to dress pretty for Julian." "Julian is my prince." Well, Matt finally met Julian and his dad last week at daycare. Apparently, Julian talks non-stop at home about Laura. He even has a bear that he named Laura. Kinda weird. I don't know what we are going to do when she's a teenager!!

Sydney is at our house right now, and Laura and she are watching a movie from the movie pile (Netflix). They are watching a thumbelina movie. Hannah is playing quietly; hence, I have a few minutes to write this posting!