Winter Wonderland

It's been quite a cold winter here in Louisville this year, and we've had lots of snow. Edie has had lots of fun in it and discovered a love of sledding! She also frequently on snow days asks if we can do another gingerbread house, like we did on a snow/ice day before Christmas!

Helping carry in wood for the fire with her wheelbarrow from Santa

Sledding at the field!

We actually had about 6 inches or so of snow, this was taken the following day so the hills had been pretty used up by all the sledders at that point. She loved sledding and wanted to do it over and over, but I could only haul her and the sled up the hill so many times being 32 weeks pregnant! Sadie loved chasing her down the hill too!

Also for a winter surprise, we had a spur of the moment visit from Oma & Opa while they were up in Indiana to visit some friends! Edie was so excited to see them again!

And for a little winter activity, John has been taking Edie to swimming class. She LOVES it! Normally it is just some special daddy/daughter time, but I went last week to watch. She is so happy in the pool and her face just lights up! I'm not sure why they make them wear the little floaty - in her old swim class they didn't have to. She's been practicing her kick, kick, kicks and reach and pulls in the tub and loves to sing the songs they sing in class at home too!

Kick Kick Kick!

Jumping in class

Jumping after class - big girl style w/ no floaty!

Happy New Year!

We've welcomed in 2011, and I can't believe 2010 has already passed by. Edie is growing up way too quickly! I just wanted to get down a quick Edie update so I don't forget things!

She's almost 2-1/2 now. She pretty much runs everywhere she goes, and loud squealing is pretty common as well. She is a constant chatterbox and really amazes me about what she picks up on. She's pretty much got her colors and shapes down, and is working on counting. Out of nowhere, and I still don't know where she picked it up, she is completely fascinated with princesses. Everything is princess this or princess that.

She's started back to Parent's Day Out after the Christmas break and is now going 2 mornings a week instead of 1. She loves going to "school" and gets so excited to play with her friends, and to make all the crafts and projects. I am sad to give up more of my time with her since she's growing up so fast, but she really seems to love school and I think it will be good for her to be going 2 days once the baby comes. I do have to admit, having the extra morning to get my errands and to-do list done is also kind of nice! In other activities, we're doing another semester of music class which she also really enjoys. We might sign her up for swimming again as well if we can find a class. The program at the city pool behind our house is closed right now for renovations, which was a total bummer because it was so convenient! And we still try to hit storytime at the library when we can make it. So, Edie stays pretty busy with all these activities. However, if you ask her what she wants to do for the day, the answer is usually "Shopping". She loves to shop!

She's a true girly girl, which I still can't figure out where she gets that! She loves all things Princess, any type of clothing that has tutus, tutu like features, or glitz , and she gets really excited about her outfits and is often pretty opinionated about what to wear. She loves to "help" me put on make up in the morning. She stands on a stool next to the sink, and hands me my make up one by one as I am applying. This is something she came up with on her own!

She's gotten even more attached to her green blanket, and specifically the corner of her blanket that bears the tag, which is a picture of a giraffe since the brand is "Little Giraffe". She calls it "My corner" and is always asking me "Wheres my corner go?" and then we sit and find it. A new must-have at bedtime are her stars. Uncle Rob gave her a little lady bug nightlight toy for Christmas that portrays the moon and stars on the ceilings with choice of red, purple, or green light. She LOVES it, and has to sleep with it on. It has a timer, so it turns off after 45 minutes. The first night she slept with it, we heard "Mommy, where's my stars go?" in a frantic voice at about 2am. So the next night i taught her how to turn it back on herself and we haven't heard a peep since. By the way, purple are her stars color of choice!

She's completely fascinated with the fact that it gets dark outside and then light outside. Every morning when she wakes up, we hear "It's not dark outside anymore" from her. And in the evening as soon as it gets dark, she makes sure to comment. There are also many random comments about whether it is light or dark outside periodically throughout the day.

Her other current fascination is that Sadie has a tail. It's pretty common for her to blurt out randomly, "Sadie has a tail, I have a back" .

She's pretty into playing with her baby dolls. She likes to give them baths, which I discovered when she climbed up on her rocking horse to get lotion off her changing table to slather all over baby... and her, and her bed, and much of the rest of the room during her naptime. "Baby needed a bath" was the explanation. So all lotions, etc have been removed from her room although there was one other unfortunate afternoon she found a Desitin tube I somehow accidently left in there. I guess Baby needed another bath. She still has yet to name any of her babies.

She loves to read Goodnight Moon and to find the mouse on each page that shows the whole room. At every page turn, she blurts out before i can start reading "Wait a minute, I find the mouse!" She's also really into the Clifford the Big Red Dog books right now too.

John took her to the pet shop to pick out a new fish for our tank. It's a plecostomus fish (sucker fish). He kept asking her what she wanted to name him, and finally she came up with Piggy. She loves to help feed the fish, and will frequently go sit in the chair next to the fish tank so she can see Piggy.

She loves to paint and make things, and she loves to show off her projects. One of her favorite things to do this fall was tracing her hand to make hand turkeys. Since then, any art or craft project that involves tracing her hand is a huge hit.

If you ask her what she dreamed about, the answer is always "waterfalls, at the caves". She has been saying that since we went to Squire Boone Caverns on Labor Day Weekend!

And her opinion hasn't changed about her sibling, she still stands by her baby brother theory. Although one day before Christmas, she told me she wanted a baby Elf instead of a sister or brother.

Happy New Year to everyone! Here are a few pictures from late 2010...

Thanksgiving 2010
Christmas Card photo

Packing it up - sometimes she really packs down her stroller for baby with anything and everything baby might need, including her kitchen cabinets!

Merry Christmas!

It was a white Christmas this year, which made it all the more festive! Oma and Opa came up to celebrate with us and it was so nice to have them here with us.

This was the first Christmas that Edie got excited about all things Christmas. She loved to sing Christmas carols - Frosty the Snowman, Jingle Bells, and Santa Claus is Coming to Town being her favorites. Right after Thanksgiving, her Elf on the Shelf showed back up and came every day until Christmas. She loved waking up and finding where he was in the house every morning! He was also very helpful, as sometimes when she wasn't feeling a nap, the elf would magically move up to her room to keep an eye on things, and that usually remedied the problem. :) She still hasn't given her Elf a name yet though...maybe next year! She also got really excited to put the ornaments on her Christmas tree advent calendar every day, and liked to play with the Baby Jesus in her Little People nativity set and rearrange the animals in the manger. She loved decorating our Christmas tree and would always remind me to plug in the lights! She would constantly talk about how Frosty and/or Santa were coming to "my souse" (house). She also loved wearing all her Christmas themed outfits!

Her candy cane dress from Aunt Eleanor - the "Christmas Princess dress" I'm still not sure where she got the Princess connection to this dress, but never the less, she loved it! She also loved her red shoes!

She is still incredibly leery of Santa Claus though. She likes him, and would want to go to the mall to see him but then would completely clam up when we'd park the stroller outside the fence where he was. We watched a lot of Christmas movies to try to ease her fear of him (it's not just Santa, she was the same way about the Easter bunny!).

Watching Frosty the Snowman with Sadie before bedtime

She finally decided she wanted to see Santa Claus and tell him that she wanted a green princess dress, so we took her out to Bass Pro Shops to see him where it would be less crowded than the mall. She froze up when we got there, and didn't want to sit on his lap anymore so we didn't force it. She did manage to muster up the courage to walk up to him and get a candy cane though! So no pictures with Santa this year, but we did get one of her in Bass Pro sporting her Mountaineer look for Aunt Erin!


We had a big ice storm the week or so before Christmas, so we used the opportunity of being stuck in the house to make a gingerbread house. Edie loved decorating it, and was so proud of it. She would show it to everyone who would come over, and tell them "I made this!".



Oma and Opa came up on the 23rd, and we spent most of the time preparing for all the holiday meals. Edie was so excited to have Opa play with her in her playroom in the basement while Oma and I prepared the food. They also made Christmas cookies, and decorated them together. Making and decorating the cookies for Santa was always one of my favorite Christmas traditions!

Rolling the dough and cutting out cookies

Icing the cookies

Christmas Eve

We went to the Christmas Eve service at St. Boniface with Oma, Opa, Poppy & Tu. Everyone came over afterwards, and Todd & Breia joined us as well for a Christmas Eve feast. Christmas Day was so exciting for Edie. She came down the stairs and saw the Radio Flyer wheelbarrow that Santa left so she can help her dad move wood for the fire. It was filled with stuffed zoo animals and the green princess dress. She loved opening all her gifts, and loved handing out presents as well. Uncle David and Jane came over for Christmas dinner, and we enjoyed another feast!

Santa brought the green princess dress, Edie's one request!

Opening stockings

New Tutu and shoes, tiara and jewelry

She was so excited about the Princess dress, we had a hard time getting it off of her. She insisted on sleeping with it at nap time and that night, she slept with her Tutu. If her tutu is in her room when she goes to sleep, it's usually on when we go to get her up in the morning!

New art desk!

The Wheelbarrow
Princess Tent
In her princess tent, all princessed out in her new gear!

And on the 26th, we all celebrated Poppy's 70th birthday! Here is Edie in her party dress with Oma & Opa ready to go to Poppy's party. I thought I got a picture of Edie and the birthday boy as well, but unfortunately it didn't take.

Chicago!

John was in Chicago the first week of November for work, so Edie and I flew up on Wednesday to meet him and spend a few days in the Windy City. Edie loved the airplane trip, and even more so was super excited to ride the train (the L) into the city. We had a great hotel right on Michigan Avenue! Edie loved getting to swim in their indoor pool, and be right in the middle of things for some shopping while Daddy was at work :) She loves to shop! It was a great trip and she is still talking about the airplane, the train, and the city! And of course in childlike fashion, one of the highlights of her city experience was simply seeing all the pigeons on the sidewalks.

First stop: American Girl store. My intention was to get an accessory for her baby, but we ended up with a new Bitty Baby doll plus a new doll toy! She LOVED it, and got so excited to see all the baby dolls. She played with this double stroller in the store for a LONG time!

Heading back to the hotel for a nap after a long morning shopping!

Bundled up and Riding the train!

Enjoying some deep dish pizza!

Chicago Children's Museum

Chicago Children's Museum treehouse exhibit

The Lego store!

Checking out navy pier!

Snack stop at the Ghiradelli store!

City girl with her Daddy

Her favorite stop - The Shedd Aquarium! We also did the Lincoln Park Zoo, but she was so incredibly excited to see the dolphin show, all the fish, turtles, penguins, etc at the aquarium! It was well worth the trip, even though kind of pricey.

Dressed up as a Penguin at the Aquarium play area!

Potty Training and the Big Girl Bed

October was a big month for Edie. She conquered Potty Training at the beginning of the month, and transitioned to a big girl bed at the end of the month - all this at age 26 months. I'm so proud of her and how well she did with both! That's the short story. Most of you might not be interested in the long story and all details so you can stop reading here, but i wanted to get it down so I can remember for the next baby when we get to that point. :)

Potty Training:
Edie has been sitting on the potty before naps and bathtime for a while, and reading lots of books about it - so we decided to go for the real deal. I really don't want to have 2 in diapers, and I wanted her to be well established with it before the baby comes so hopefully she won't regress. She definitely seemed ready, so we went with the "potty training boot camp" approach. We took an entire Friday to stay home, went straight to panties, and set the timer so she could go sit on the potty every 20 minutes and get the hang of not having a diaper on. A week or so before, we went and picked out some "Big Girl Panties" - Elmo, Abby, and Zoe (sesame Street) panties were her panty of choice and she was SO excited about them!

That first morning was rough, and i was starting to doubt if she was ready. I couldn't believe how often she had to go - even though it was small each time. I think she had something like 14 accidents to 3 successful go's before lunch. I was pretty discouraged, but decided to give it the entire day before giving up and waiting a few more months - and I'm so glad we kept at it.

After lunch, I stuck more closely to the timer, and she started to say "Potty Time" on her own every time the timer went off and she would run to the potty. She had been going on the big potty with an insert (she picked out a princess/flowered one for the upstairs potty, and a sesame street one for the downstairs potty), but I decided we needed to kick it up a notch for excitement purposes so I brought out her special small potty - which she LOVED, and that definitely helped. I also made a potty chart, and her reward each time she had a successful go on the potty was a sticker. It's amazing how something that simple can really motivate them. She was so excited to get another sticker on her chart each time she'd go potty! We did smiley face for #1, and a sesame street sticker for #2. When she got to the end of the row, she got to pick out a potty treat - I hit up the Target dollar section for some plastic zoo animals, sesame street coloring books, stamps, etc. I still diapered her for naptime and bedtime though, because she would always wake up with full diapers so i just didn't think she was ready to go that far yet. By that first evening, she was really starting to get it. Chip & Nora, and Lucy & Abigail came over for dinner and the girls made a huge deal of her going on the potty. And they went on the potty in front of her so she could see the big girls doing it too. That definitely helped!

The special potty, and the potty chart. Even though she doesn't get stickers anymore, she's still pretty proud of her chart, and brings it out every now and then to show off!

By Saturday(day #2), she only had 2 accidents. We even went to Davis' birthday party and she stayed dry the whole time. For the first week or so, we tried not to do too much outside of home so we could really focus on it, although day 2 was a birthday party, day 3 was church, and day 4 was the pumpkin patch! She really picked it up quickly after that first day though, I just had to remember to put her on the potty every so often. We put the little "special" potty away after a week or 2, and she's back to using a regular potty, sometimes with an insert, sometimes without. The timer only lasted for the first 2 days, and same with the stickers. After a couple days, she didn't need that for motivation anymore. I got a travel potty for outings, and that was extremely helpful especially in the first couple weeks and for events like tailgating at the UK game, the pumpkin patch, etc.

It's been about a month now, and her accidents are few and far between. On our trip to Chicago last week, she only had one accident the entire trip and thankfully it was not on the airplane! I am definitely not a fan of pull ups. She has to wear a pull up to school, and every thursday afternoon, or friday morning following school is when she will usually have an accident. I think pull ups just confuse them. So we are all panties, all the time - other than school. She's gotten so when she wakes up from naps, or in the morning she takes off her diaper herself and wants to go straight to the potty. Usually nap time diapers are dry now, so starting today we are eliminating that diaper now too. We might hang on to the nighttime diaper for a little while longer. She drinks so much water at night, and although some mornings now her diapers are dry, there are still a few mornings that she wakes up pretty wet. She's also gotten much better about telling us when she needs to go - so it's not quite perfect yet, but all in all I'd definitely say she's potty trained and our efforts were a huge success :)

Big Girl Bed:
Edie has always been a great sleeper, and has loved her bed. She would wake up and play quietly for up to an hour sometimes so i was hesitant to break that cycle. Selfishly, it was kind of nice having an extended morning or naptime, with her happily confined. I was putting away her laundry while she was playing in her crib after her nap one day though, and she tried to climb out (this after i tried to get her out when i first went in there and she wanted to stay and play). So we decided it was time for a new bed since she was climbing out. This is another thing I wanted to do anyway well before baby #2 comes so Edie didn't feel like she was kicked out of her beloved crib for the baby.

If we are still in our current house when baby #2 comes, they will share a room - so I didn't want to get a true big girl bed like a twin or my old sleigh bed which is what I'd like to use for Edie eventually. There's just not space if they are going to share a room. Rob and Sara loaned us their toddler bed. Edie, who absolutely adores Clayton & Davis, thought it was so exciting to have "Davis' bed" so that helped with the transition. We set up the bed, and that first naptime didn't go so well. She went down easily in it, but i heard her up and jumping around for the entire naptime. She was so tired from that though, she went down early at 7pm that night and slept until 8am - all night in the big girl bed!

First night in the big girl bed

From there on out it's been pretty easy, she's never even thought about her crib since then. She is back to her usual 2-3 hour nap, and will sleep all night in her bed waking up between 7-8am most days. Since the sticker chart was such a success for potty training, I did make her a new sticker chart for staying in her bed at naptime or in the morning so she doesn't come out of her room. For the most part, she's been pretty great about that. She will get up and get books or toys and take them back to bed with her if she wakes up before we come to get her. Another plus to the bed transition timing was it made our trip to Chicago easy. The hotel supplied some bedrails, and she slept in the full size bed all night with no problem- so no hauling a pack and play on the trip or having to rent a crib!

UK's good luck charm

Poppy & Tu ended up with extra tickets to the UK- South Carolina football game, so we decided to take Edie down for her first UK football game. She LOVED it, especially once we moved down to Poppy's seats right behind the UK bench and she could really watch the players and cheerleaders.
And what a game it was! South Carolina was coming off a victory over #1 Alabama the week prior and was ranked #10 - and to top it off UK had never beat Steve Spurrier before. In a huge upset, UK won and the fans, including John and Edie stormed the field! We had planned to leave around halftime, but the game was so exciting and Edie was so into it we ended up staying for the entire game!
Edie now loves to watch football on TV, and gets excited when we see footballs or UK logos when we are out and about. And she loves to say "Go Cats!". I think she is going to be a big fan! :)

Tailgaiting in her new dress that Oma & I made when she was here!

C-A-T-S! Cats! Cats! Cats!

Loving Poppy & Tu's seats behind the UK bench!

Scoreboard - UK takes down a top 10 team South Carolina and finally beats Steve Spurrier!
Edie & John - postgame celebration

Wildcat family picture - minus me!

John and Edie storm the field!

Oma's visit

Oma came up for a visit in October! She came to help me with some sewing projects, babysit Edie while John & I went to Lexington for the UK vs Auburn game, and to help me organize my basement! Whew! It was a busy few days, but we loved having her here with us!

A few pictures of our visit to the Louisville Zoo w/ Oma. Edie can't get enough of the zoo, and it was fun to have Oma take her this time!

While John & I were at the UK game, Oma took Edie to the festival at Foxhollow farms. Here she is getting her face painted.
On the hay castle at Foxhollow Festival
Again, at Foxhollow. We got home after she had already gone to bed. When she got up in the morning, the first thing out of her mouth was "Fun with Oma!"

And finally the basement...Oma and I worked pretty tirelessly to clean out the clutter. Oma is a great organizer so she went through all my sewing and embroidery things and organized them, and helped me clean out all the other junk that was piled up down there. We didn't quite finish, but John took a Friday afternoon off the next week and we finished it up and got rid of the big items. The result is an organized sewing space for me, a more organized laundry, john's work room, and a new play area for Edie. It's not perfect, but for an unfinished basement I am quite pleased with the result, and Edie loves her new "playroom"!