*postre

There's a new pinkberry inspired yogurt place near our house!  We got semi-addicted while in California over Christmas and just tried this one out tonight.  Mmmm I just love the plain tart with a couple blueberries on top.  I have a feeling we'll be going there quite a bit, especially as the weather warms up - which it hasn't.

*cantando

It's hard to get her to sing in front of the camera, but I got it tonight. It's crazy how much her speaking improves every day. Just here she says "Lord Jesus" instead of "more Jesus" for the first time and she's remembering more of the words every time. I wish I would have got videos of her singing earlier!

*amiguito

Vera's new imaginary friend is "little mousie" - and sometimes his whole family too. It started one day when we noticed a little house formed out of blocks and I put my finger in and said "hi Vera" in a little voice. It is so funny and bizarre - we don't even have to use a different voice, just give her our attention. It's definitely odd and hopefully short-lived :) Sometimes you just have to tell her mousie went to sleep or is outside or something.

*eggy soup

[they "improved" the exterior which I find a pity - I loved this old kitschy one]

I can imagine how much we'll miss this place when we move.  We've been regulars since our first months here and they know us - such a good feeling in a place that we have struggled to really love.  It's always been one of Vera's favorites too - eggy soup [egg drop soup] was at one time her primary topic of conversation.

  

*la visita

It was a wonderful, special, great, fun, comforting,

exciting and much-needed visit from an old friend!

(Make new friends, but keep the o-old: one is silver and the other gold :)

*♥

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We had a little pink tea party yesterday afternoon - curled our hair, put on pink lipstick and everything. I had thought she'd be a little more into it, but she was a little grumpy all weekend with a bad cold or something. On a normal day she'd love to pretend to be Fancy Nancy and practice her manners. Instead....

here she is stuffing her face with cookie while eyeing the rest of mine:

and here she is drinking her tea straight from the pot:

She also belched and slouched in her chair and hardly said a word.

Anyway, Sarah and I had a lovely time.

♥♥♥

*el pan

I was looking at the recipe for last night's dinner and it called for 3 slices of bread which we didn't have and I'd already gone to the store.  Isn't that the worst?  One ingredient.  I finally decided to just make some.  It seems like I always make such a big deal about it, like it's going to take up my whole day or something, but I really need/want to make it part of our daily lives.  Not like, ok next Tuesday I am going to need to set aside the whole afternoon and have Ben take Vera to the park and bake some bread.  Seriously it was so easy!  I mixed the ingredients in 10 minutes before our friends arrived, it rose while we played and I put it in the oven when they left.  I need to take some lessons from my mom and just do it.  This recipe is the Light Wheat Bread from Smitten Kitchen - it's not the most amazingly tasty bread, but it's good, decent sandwich or toast bread.  There you go.

*

We had a mini snow day today [nowhere near DC's 3' but enough so we weren't up for playing outside like we'd planned] so Jenny, Sam and Amelia came over to play.  Oh my goodness they had so much fun!!   As much as Vera loves princesses and dancing and dressing up, she also loves to run and jump and be crazy.   It was so cute to see how she and Sam get along so well in this way - which they always have.  Cutie pie Amelia joins in on the running or jumping for a minute or so, but is usually content to do her own thing :)

*el lunes

I got this idea for "Muffin Tin Monday" from this blog. It's a fun little diversion and gets them to a variety of things - Stella even thought her dried apricot was candy :)

I can't resist the temptation to sarcastically remark on how exciting my life is :)

*el sábado

We kind of like the regular days around here, getting things done and just hanging out. Yesterday was one of those:

:ready for a trip to the grocery store with mom:

:washing the big car:

:and the little car too:

:and then a fun dinner with our neighbors! we got her to eat her whole plate of spinach lasagne by having Tia pretend like she was going to eat it:

*el baño!

We are so excited this project is over!!! Ben did an amazing job and we are so happy to have a clean, pretty, new bathroom. In case you're wondering, it cost about $3,000 for everything - new tub, tile, toilet, sink, walls, fixtures, etc. Thank you Mom and Dad for the loan! and thank you Ben for working so hard :) and thank you Bryan (and Jen!) for helping a lot.

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I love my towels and made sure the paint would match :)

my favorite: the doorknob, a Christmas present from Ben

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It's been really fun to see Vera interacting more with her friends, initiating and participating in little games, conversations, holding hands, sharing, etc. on her own.

Little princesses making their little horsies talk to each other:

Mimi's pony: Hi. What's your name?

Vera's pony: Ummm Vera.

The conversation here was something like, this is nice... yeah real nice... look, mud!

walking back from watching the trains. then Thomas went away! yeah, he went away!

*

These pictures were on my phone from about a month ago.  Vera was supposed to be taking a nap and instead she was hollering, Mooooommmmmm! Ha-prise [surprise] for youuu!!!!!  I walked into her room and she opened up her hands like so:

Me: wow, Vera what is it?  

Vera: a bunnny!  little one!

You always have to ask what imaginary surprise she has for you. Once Ben thought it was a chocolate and pretended to eat it - she yelped in shock because it was supposed to be a bunny.

Roughly 2 seconds later.  I must have tried to make her change her pants or wouldn't let her hold the picture on the wall. Who knows.

*la camita!

[little down pillow was made for my oldest brother when he was little!]

I've been waiting to take her crib down until I'd finished this duvet cover. I'd seen the adorable pink flannel at our quilt shop and then got the idea to make a duvet from it here. It got a little complicated and a little pricey as I thought it would be better to make a twin-sized even though Vera was getting her cousin's old toddler bed. So I had to buy like 6 yards of expensive fabric to piece together and thankfully figured out to just buy a flat sheet [from Garnet Hill] for the other side. In short, it would have been waaaayyyy cheaper to just buy a duvet from IKEA!

Anyway she's been telling anyone she sees that she's getting a new pink bed and so I had to finish it. Yesterday as I was nearing the end I had her move pins from the box to the pincushion - I remember reading that on Soulemama :) Then she threw the box across the bed so I kicked her out and let her watch a movie so I could just get it done. Sewing is fun, especially seeing the final product. I still have a hard time being precise and patient though! I make a ton of mistakes and if you saw it up close you could easily see them - I guess I'm in the learning stage still?

She said many many times today: "I'm so happy! So 'cited!!!" She also stayed on it for her whole 30 minute quiet time and thankfully went to bed just fine too. I am foreseeing a 'honeymoon' period where she thinks it's fun and exciting and then we're going to have a bit of a struggle keeping her from getting up in the middle of the night... for now though it's so fun to see our baby take one more step to being a big girl!

*dos y medio

Some things about our official 2 and a half-year old:

Her favorite books at the moment are Manners by Aliki, Green Eggs and Ham [I do like them, Mama!], The Little Engine that Could, My Forever Dress, The Best Nest, and very recently Fancy Nancy. She loves Super Why and Dinosaur Train on PBS plus of course Signing Time, Bug's Life and Cinderella. Today at a mom's group she was wearing a princess outfit and wanted her friend Sam to put on the king's cape and dance with her - just like Cinderella I imagine :)

She is finally going poopoo on the potty!!! Starting this last week a number of things finally got her to do it. I was always perplexed that she wouldn't because she is so obsessed with everything "big girl." First, we started "practicing" because she wanted to go to big kid Sunday School and they have to [I told her] be 100% trained. So she'd sit on the little potty for like an hour reading stories and I would finally be like ok do you want me to just put on a diaper? I think that started some reverse psychology and that together with knowing she'd get the Cinderella DVD worked. Whew! I write this down so I can remember how it all went. I googled the problem and lots of parents said their child took like a year!! I'm so glad it's over.

Her favorite foods are carrots, pinenuts, pistachios, eggy soup, eggy rice [egg drop soup and fried rice], yogurt, candy, chocolate, etc. She still LOVES milk and would drink it all day if she could.

Her favorite things to do are get herself dressed and try on everything [just like Olivia the pig], dress up in princess and dancing outfits, dance, sing with dramatic arm movements, color/paint/draw, jump on her bed, the couch etc., talk to puppets, hide from mom+dad and play doctor.

Lots of her baby ways of saying things have disappeared, tho' she still says "poos" for spoon. I love how she says "I unno know" and shrugs her hands for I don't know and I love when she calls me sweetheart. Ben's favorite is how she says bewnding for building. I've been trying to incorporate a little more Spanish into our days and she can identify a few body parts when I ask dónde está...? and she can count to cinco and identify verde, rosado and azul.  She also knows to ask for una fresa at our favorite burrito place :)

She hasn't napped in her bed since Christmas Day. I've been trying to consistenly make her have "quiet time" where she sits in her bed and reads until the timer goes off. I set it to about 25 minutes and am slowing making it longer. She's really happy and proud of herself when she can wait until the ding I hope hope hope she'll be able to sit for an hour at some point because I NEED the time to myself. However we finally just set up her big girl bed and she's doing quiet time right now for the first time in it ... we'll see how it goes!

It's been a rough month with all the tantrums and her contrariness. Example: Me: You're just a little person! Vera: NO I'm NOT a person! Me: You're so pretty! Vera: NO I'm NOT pretty. Me: Do you want to read Fancy Nancy? Vera: I DONT LIKE Fancy Nancy (she does). Despite the incredibly difficult-I-want-to-rip-my-hair-out-times, I/we love her so much it literally makes my heart ache.

*extenciones

*el baño

Ben took a month off for Christmas and to finish some deadlines and is now back at work in the bathroom.  Vera was so proud to help him hammer in some nails and was sure to let us know she'd like a pink hammer of her own someday.

...little plumber...

*el museo

Another difficult and frustrating day around here, so I'm going to post some pictures of our visit to the Children's Museum last week!  It is really an amazing museum [if you visit I promise we'll go!!] but it's pretty expensive [I'll pay!] so this was just our 3rd time.  She has been having such a hard time having not napped since Christmas and generally being 2 that I decided to just fork over the $$ to let her have some VERA time.  She loved it of course - her favorite being the store and the little ironing board which she hoarded and protected from all other kids attempting to play.  My favorite moment was seeing her interact with a little boy a few years older at the checkout line.  Soooo cute and polite :)

*chiots

*nieve

With our trip to California and then pretty much staying inside since we've been back [did you know we have the nastiest air in the whole country???], I kind of somehow forgot it's winter. Until this last Sunday we hadn't even played in the snow! We went up one of the canyons with our neighbor and a big group of their friends - about a mile and a half hike up the road and then we sledded the whole way down. It was SO MUCH FUN! Vera got to ride with Graham and Bryan in their tricked out sled and she loved it. Apparently she said AGAIN! about 400 times. We really need to motivate and do this kind of thing more often. Thank you neighbor!