Christmas Earrings, The "Ride", and PICTURES!!!

This morning Summer and I put on some Christmas earrings. I almost forgot that I had them. Of course, I got them from Avon. It is 10 pairs of holiday earrings sure to match any outfit you choose. I choose the snowflakes (yeah, I'm dreaming...) and Summer chose Christmas trees. Not sure what we are going to do today, but I doubt it will entail any trips to the mall. We went twice yesterday. After visiting one of my friends who just had a baby at the hospital, we headed to Hamilton Place so Summer could do the bungee jump trampoline thing (???). We were hungry so we stopped to eat at Smokey Bones which is one of Clint's favorite places to go. Although we rarely go there because we prefer to shop and dine in Hixson. Anyway, after our wonderful meal, we headed back out in the cold rain towards the mall. We made a few stops on the way to the "ride" trying to find the perfect gift for a Chinese/Elephant Christmas party we are attending the day after Christmas. No luck. :( When we arrived at the "ride" Summer wasn't really up for it. She wanted to play on the little merry-go-round ride instead. Go figure. We never put money in them, but she still loves to play on them. After a few minutes of coaxing, she agreed and headed to the big trampoline. The guy put her harness on her and her face was covered in fear, lips slightly quivering. We played it up telling her it was fun, acting excited to see her trying it (we weren't acting though). The fear quickly faded and was replaced with a small smile at first. The guy pulled her legs and she flew up in the air. He gradually made it go higher and higher as she got used to it. She swung and bounced for a few minutes before it was over. Overall, I would say she enjoyed it. She was a little small to do flips and bounce herself, but at least she gave it a shot. We were so proud of her. Clint is hoping she will do it again the next time we go back. I think he wants to raise a little daredevil. Well, at least not a scaredy cat. LOL

Happy to go back to the merry-go-round

Summer is with me in the office right now. Drawing on paper. She just drew a candy cane. It is very curly. :) She has made both Clint and I look at it several times.

I think she liked it!

We have opened three Christmas presents all together now. Maybe she will get another one today. She has been a good girl so far today. Of course, it is only 9:30. The third gift was a pair of princess shoes, two tiaras and some dress-up clothes. She looked so cute dressing up, but the sleeves itch on one of the dresses, so she wouldn't pose for a picture. When she decided it was coming off, it came off quickly! Maybe I'll just cut those itchy sleeves off!

The look of joy on her face

some looks are silly, yet still precious

My Princess Summer

Time with Daddy

Summer has gone to spend the afternoon with Clint. But, only after a horrible, crying tantrum about how she wanted to stay with me. In the end, she left happy as a lark her bear in tow. Clint was carrying her golf set and the diaper bag full of goodies I packed for her, I mean them. :) It is loaded down with two Handi packs of pretzels and crackers, a bag of grapes, two bananas, a jar of Del Monte spaghetti (yes, she still eats this one particular baby food!), two sippy cups (watered down apple juice and chocolate milk), and a bag of chocolate protein. They were also headed to Smoothie King, so I am pretty sure they are not going to starve before I see them again. I am hoping they will meet me at the mall this evening after my appt. and dinner with Selena. Maybe I will finish up my Christmas shopping! I only have about three more gifts to buy.

Make that five! We are having a couples Chinese Christmas party the day after Christmas. I think it will be fun, especially if people get creative with their gifts!

Summer got her second Christmas present today. A Crayola Color Wonder Glitter Coloring Set. She loved it. Her old sets are all used up. I really love these things because I don't have to stand around and make sure she isn't coloring the walls. Not that I have to do that anyway because she is a pretty good girl. I even trust leaving regular markers (washable of course) in her access at all times!!! She loves to paint, draw, color, whatever. She is so artistic! Unlike me. I have to try really hard to do something decent. I can color in the lines though. Mostly. LOL

The other day she brought me a book to read and I think I recall her telling me she wants to learn to read. She only knows a few letters, when she wants to of course. Some times she tells me "I am not a big girl right now." :) Anyway, they were the very basic baby books. "Happy Baby Colors" and "Happy Baby Words." I think these will be very good books to start with, although the learning to recognize the alphabet is probably the very best place to start. I do try to sometimes get her to learn to recoginize the first letter of some of the words. I think she knows "b" and "g" for sure. We have a long ways to go. But, she is only two. How important is it for her to know all that stuff now anyway?

Kicked Out

I just got kicked out of my two year old's playroom. :) She was calling me for help and when I came she decided she didn't need me after all and I could leave. She was putting the puzzle together that she got yesterday and thought she needed my help for a moment. But when I arrived, she had figured it out and had two pieces to go. It didn't take her as long as I thought to master it after all.

Now she is in the office with me, playing in the trash can. Don't worry. She DID take out the trash first! She put it all up on the desk...LOL Wish I had the camera close by, but I am way behind on pics anyway. I need to get them on my computer and post some before Christmas comes and goes and they are all old news. Well, I guess they are old news now anyway.

Summer is already looking forward to playgym on Thursday. They had the week off last week due to the holidays, and she must be having withdrawal. She has asked about it for the past two days.

She has decided that she wants to be a dancer when she grows up. She saw some little dancers performing on stage at the Grand Illumination last Friday night. She loved watching them and told me that she wanted to be a dancer too. She was talking about it at lunch today too. She sure had a lot to say which is not really unusual for her. On our way into the hospital this morning to visit Josh, she asked me why it was cold. I told her because it was winter now. She said that it wouldn't be cold in the hospital. It would be warm. She told me that the hospital probably had the heat on. Is that crazy or what?

Right now she is playing with a calculator. I wonder how long it will take for her to figure that out. I guess she needs to learn all her numbers first. We have been working on that a little with some books and flashcards, but she doesn't seem that interested in the actual number. She is learning to count though. Sometimes she loses her place in counting, but that is just a natural part of the learning process.

Okay, enough about Summer. I better get back to her anyway. Apparently she just "winned" on the calculator.

The first day of Christmas

I'm not sure if I had mentioned this before, but I am doing the 12 days of Christmas with Summer again this year. Of course, I've already messed up. It wasn't supposed to start until December 13, and I started today! Summer opened her first official Christmas present this morning. It was a puzzle (which she loved). She has been doing her puzzles a lot lately and I am glad I had gotten some puzzles for her because I really think it is time for some new ones. The one she got today is actually her first puzzle that has "real" puzzle pieces. You know, the cardboard kind. Not the thick or wooden ones or the plastic kind either, but the grown-up kind. She did a pretty good job of putting the puzzle together without much help from me. I did help her to look at the pieces a little bit when she was just trying to fit them into each other. Anyway, I would say the first present was a success. It will take her a few days to master, but I am sure she will do it. She is so smart!

Now I've got to figure out how to spread out the rest of these gifts....I thought about a system where we keep track of whining and if she does it too much, no gift???? Not sure we could keep up with that though. LOL. I'd be carrying around that chart everywhere! She might not get any more gifts. :) She really isn't that bad, but at times it does grate at my nerves slightly. I'm so thankful she still takes naps everyday! Without them, the whining might last all day!!! Yikes!

Our holiday getaway begins tomorrow

We are taking Summer to the Opryland Hotel tomorrow for what I hope will be a magical experience for us all. The hotel is all decorated up for Christmas and there is a lot of stuff to do and see while we are there. I am sure we will all be dead tired by the time we retire to our hotel room tomorrow night. I can't wait! Neither can Summer. She has been talking about it all day because we get to go swimming and ride a train!!!

I gotta go finish packing and get ready for bed. I hope I can sleep tonight. :)

The following morning...

she woke up and came to my bed and said, "Mommy, you are so beautiful!"

Man, am I lucky or what? :)

Picking names

We had the little bundle of joy, Lexie, with us again tonight. I still can't decide on a grandparent name so I decided to run them by Summer and see what she thought would be best. I asked her if she liked Lolly, Grandmama, or Nana better. Her reply, "Mommy." She likes Mommy best. LOL So, I guess I am no better off than before I asked her.

I just tucked her into bed after reading a few books, including two "Chica chica" books. She likes the number one better because it has a part which she can remember. She was actually reading them to me while I was crocheting. The only part she would say is "Chica chica 1, 2, 3...will there be a place for me?" It isn't even in one of the books, but she remembered it being part of the book from when we read it the other day. She remembers so much. I just hope that along the way she is starting to recognize some numbers and letters. I know she knows a few numbers, but the only letter she probably knows is G because it is a button on our elevator. :) She also definitely knows 1, 0 and 5. She can almost count to twenty, but sometimes she skips some of the teens. She can pretty much count to ten in Spanish....when she wants to....which is not usually when I want her to.

She is getting so independent, but at the same time she is dependent. I never know what to expect. She wants me to feed her more now. She also wants me to help her potty more than she did a month ago. Maybe it is because she sees me helping Lexie. Maybe it is just because she is two and it is her perogative to change her mind when she feels like it. Either way, I love her to death. Well, not to death, but forever.

She asked me today when she was going to go to Memaw's house again. I guess she is lucky I had already made plans for her to go there tomorrow afternoon. Not sure what we will do with the night off, but I am sure dinner at a restaurant will be involved. I just love my time away from her. It makes me appreciate her even more when I get her back. Although I enjoy my "free time," I love her hugs and kisses even more. She gives me lots of them and at random moments too. Its like she knows how much they brighten my day and every so often she just comes up and gives me a big bear hug...out of no where. Those are some of the most precious moments of my life, receiving love from my little girl. I guess I am reaping what I sow. At least I hope I am sowing seeds of love with her. It is sad all the people that grow up and never learn how love. I don't want her to be one of them so I shower her with hugs, kisses and kind words as often as I can. I see her doing it too so I think we are headed down a good path. Now I've just got to make sure to stay on it.