Camping with a 2 year old!

Not as bad as it might sound. Much better than I expected.

Our parks & rec department put on "an itty bitty campout" for children under 7. We signed up and were joined by 2 other 2 year olds, a 3 year old and a 5 year old. We setup camp about 6:00'ish. Evvy thought the tent and air mattress were neat. She immediately knew that the fire was HOT and steared clear of it.

We roasted hot dogs, marshmellows and made s'mores. The kids did a small craft (scrapbook page to put a picture on) and then were visited by Sally the Turtle who talked about turtles. The little kids weren't so interested in that but the 5 year old had lots of questions and answers. Evvy really enjoyed picking up rocks and throwing them over a little bridge and hearing them clatter on the rocks below. Before bed, we took a short hike to the restrooms. Then it was bedtime. Evvy surprisingly went to sleep pretty easily. It was warm but not unbearable. She rolled all over the air mattress all night long. I didn't sleep very well due to the rolling and also my back was hurting me. I then woke up super early with a need to go potty. It was a bit of a hike to the bathrooms and Evvy woke up while I was putting my shoes on. She wouldn't go back to sleep so I got to carry her up a hill with me.

In the morning we had breakfast and then closed up camp. We were home by about 9:30 (we woke up around 5:30 I think--before the sun was fully up). Evvy and I went back to bed and slept for 2 hours and then got up feeling much better.

Here are a few pictures from our first camping trip. Oh yeah, we also got our pictures in the newspaper. We are famous!

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Co-Sleeping

Evvy has been home a little over a year and just turned 2 last month. She is starting to get into baby dolls. She was given a stroller for her baby this week and loves it. She told me today, "baby tired" so I went to her room and showed her the Moses basket that I bougt in Guate 15+ years ago. I took out all of her stuffed animals and extra blankies and told her that her baby could sleep in the baby basket. She carefully put a blanket in the basket and laid the dolly down and put a blanket over the baby and carressed it's face. She then proceeded to climb into the basket with the dolly and pull the blanket over the baby and herself. It was so sweet. I told her to snuggle the baby like mommy snuggles her and she did. Of course, I didn't have my camera so I told her to sleep with her baby while I went to get the camera. I fully expected her to be "done" when I got back but she was just laying there bonding with her dolly.Here are 2 pictures. One of her cuddling up to the baby and one of her "sleeping" with the baby--she is totally faking the sleep here but it looks real.We mostly do not co-sleep but we went through a few months where we did a lot of co-sleeping. She is finally back in her crib and sleeping all night! YEAH!

PS As a side note when we were getting ready for bed tonight, her baby got put to bed again. Bella (the cat, see a couple of posts ago) climbed into the basket with the baby. Evvy got very upset with Bella and told her "no Bella" "out" She then tried to pickup Bella to get her out. Luckily mommy was there to save Bella from Evvy's wrath :) Evvy then had to get her baby resituated.

Stroller Dancing!

Last night we had a really fun night with our friends. Our city is having Thursday night music and movies on our town square. The local movie theater has an outside "screen" painted on the side of the building. From 6-8 we listened to some great music (50's type music--Elvis, Stray Cats, etc). W ate our picnic (Subway sandwich) while we jammed to the tunes. Then the kids all played in the dirt for a while before the movie started. The movie was Shrek 3 which I hadn't seen. It was Evvy's first non-DVD movie on the big screen. She loved it and stayed awake the whole time. We didn't get home until almost 11pm. My sweet girl sang herself to sleep on the way home (less than 10 minutes) singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star along with our CD. She was doing the hand motions and everything and then all of a sudden she stopped as her eyes closed with her hands still in the air. Very cute.

Here is a video of my crazy stroller dancer. She LOVES music. A policeman on a bike came up to us after the music and before the movie and said, "who's little girl is that?" I thought, uh oh what is wrong, does he think she is kidnapped or something or that she wasn't being properly supervised (I did let her play in the dirt behind us with her friends). I said, "she's mine." He said, "well she is just the cutest and has the greatest dance moves." He said his little girl that is 2 also so I think he was just comparing their stages because he said that she loves to dance too.

We will probably go to the music again next week but not stay for the movie because it is Princess Bride and probably not as interesting for my 2 year old sweetie.

Susan

Here kitty kitty!.

OK. Don't fall over. Yes, another post. I must be getting caught up on life. Things have settled down now after getting a new roof, new fridge, car troubles, travels, etc.

Evvy LOVES her kitty Bella. Bella is an almost 4 year old black and white kitten. I think she will always be a kitten at heart. Bella is pretty playful. She "tolerates" Evvy but deep down really adores her too I think. She comes in for story time every night and sits on Evvy's or my lap. Evvy likes to sing rock-a-bye baby and rock Bella on the floor. Evvy likes to show her love for Bella by hugging her. I am really working on her to be a little more gentle. She puts her in a choke hold often. Bella likes to hang out on the back of the couch looking out the picture window. Evvy likes to pull Bella off the back of the couch into her lap and hug her and kiss her. Bella has been pretty tolerant so far. I think she has only nipped at Evvy a couple of times because Evvy has come to me and say Bella bite. But she never cries about it.

Here are a few of pictures of Evvy & Bella loving each other (OK Evvy loving Bella and Bella trying to escape).

Susan

Awesome!

Evvy's language continues to amaze me. Well she just amazes me in general. Last week after being a very good sport shopping for a new fridge, I rewarded her by taking her for a ride on the carousel at the mall. She had the biggest grin on her face and was just giggling going up and down on the horse. I was standing beside her and asked if she was having fun. She quietly answered "awesome!" Not fun but AWESOME! I did a double take and thought I had imagined it but then the next time we went swimming at the waterpark again she said "AWESOME." She really must like my reaction to it because now she is really experimenting with it. I say, "want to watch a movie?" She says, "Awesome" with a cute giggle.

I can't even begin to write down all of the words and phrases she says now but her vocabulary has exploded and she really gets the context. She is picking up some Spanish too although I have slacked off on the Spanish. I am trying to be better. We were looking at one of her picture books and she said a pretty hard Spanish word "espalda" which means "back" (body part). I was pretty impressed because I hadn't really pushed that one on her much. She knows most of her body parts and most impressively she counts almost to 20 in spanish spontaneously. She counts into the teens in English also. Love Sesame Street and Plaza Sesamo. She is just a big sponge.

Her physical development is pretty amazing also. She climbs, jumps and gallops. I went into her bedroom a couple of weekends again and she was sitting on her changing table petting her kitty cat (with a big grin on her face). She had climbed up the shelves of the table. She is also becoming a pretty good little swimmer. I have started putting her in a life jacket at the water park and we spend the first 30-60 minutes in the "big pool." She is off and swimming before me often. She jumps in from the edge and just takes off paddling and kicking. She flips from front to back and back to front and isn't afraid to get her face in the water. She really likes it when mommy goes under the water. She will push on my head and say "under!" and giggle when I go under and blow a bunch of bubbles. Maybe next year she will be old enough for real swimming lessons because she is way beyond the mommy & me classes. She wants to do the real thing.

Here are a few pictures from tonight at the water park. Unfortunately, there are none of her swimming but she is enjoying her treat after swimming. The girl LOVES ice so I bought her a snow cone. She ate it all and has the red mouth to prove it!

Susan