2.5 Years Old, I can't believe it

Well my sweet girl, you are officially 2.5 years old!!! I can't even believe it. I missed doing your update by a few days but still wanted to capture what you are doing at 2.5 years old!

You are getting more and more independant every day and we are hearing more and more "I do it myself" Like getting in your high chair or car seat to name a few.

You are very demanding in mommy's car about what you would like to listen too. We have a few cd's and then mommy's ipod that have all sorts of toddler tunes. From just about when we get in the car you are telling me what you want to listen to. You often want to listen to the same songs over and over. When we get to one you don't like that day you are very quick to say "no like this one, or skip!"

You love to jump! You have mastered jumping with two feet and do it all the time. Sometimes just for fun or like yesterday when you said you were being a bunny.

You are still peeing on the potty when you want to which is great, but mommy really hopes to see an improvement in your potty using in the next couple weeks.

Your speech patterns have changed a lot in the last few weeks. You are using more and more complete sentences and saying multiple sentences together.

You love your blankies and they will always fix whatever ails you. As you say "blankies make it all better" You must have your blankies to sleep with and with you a good part of the time. You are not a fan when they need to be washed. But when I do wash them, you tell me for days that Blankies are all fresh and clean.

You are so affectionate lately. If i had been gone the night before or whatever the next day you will give me big hugs and say "you came back!" You are also telling me you love me more and more which melts mommy and daddy's hearts. You will say it unprompted or if I say I love you, you say "I love you too mommy" SOOOO sweet

I love seeing you grow and change everyday and love your happy spirit. You are almost always in a great mood! I love you big girl!!!

Random Ramblings Tuesday Edition

well I have missed my last few friday random ramblings and I am in a blogging mood so why not tuesday?

I succesfully did my second 5K on Saturday. Considering I really hadn't been training or doing much running at all since my foot injury (i fell off the workout wagon and was having trouble getting back on) I think I did ok. The course was quite hilly, so that was a bit tough but I still beat my previous time by 2 minutes! I was happy with that. Totally different experience than the first race, many more runners and there were tons of supports and even bands along the route! I am thinking about doing one more in Early August with a friend who has never done one before. Although I think she runs more than me so I am sure she will beat me! I still have yet do complete one without having to walk...ultimately that is my goal...to be able to do the whole 3 miles without walking...

This weekend we are heading to Wisconsin to visit some of my friends from my previous job. I have not been there in almost a year, and Izzy adn Chris haven't seen any of these people in 2 years! I am kinda nervous actually because I hope we still have stuff in common even though I don't work there anymore. This has been the longest I have been not working there. I honestly don't really miss it. I miss the people but do not really miss the job. Maybe I miss the "prestige or importance" of hte job a little and I miss the travel I got to do to other countries, but Izzy is my priority right now and I wouldn't have it any other way

Speaking of work, I am trying to get more motivated and out of my comfort zone a little by doing more marketing for my company. It is my dad's business, a sales trainign business and we are in desperate need of more marketing and I am spear heading the e-marketing part of it. I am excited but a little overwhelmed too...but I am kinda enjoying figuring things out as I go. I just have to keep pushing myself because no one is pushing me really. I also have to gear up for the boring data entry part of getting our database going..it will suck to set up but once I have it set up it should be easy to maintain

My period was about 4 days late this cycle and of course i could not stop my thoughts of possibly beign pg. I obviously wasn't but couldn't help but daydream a little about what would have been if I was...I wonder if these feelings will ever go away?

I need to start looking at daycare/preschool options for Izzy in the fall adn I am totally dreading it!! While the situation we have now is fine, i feel like she needs more stimulation hence looking at other options. because she doesn't turn 3 until end of January she really doesn't qualify for preschool yet so i will probably look into a daycare setting 2x a week and then let my mom still have one day. I know I shoudl do this for her development but I am not looking forward to the process.

I feel like the summer is flying by so fast I really wish I could slow it down! The next couple weeks will be busy so that isn't going to help slow things down at all.

I could keep goign but need to get back to work. Stay tuned for hopefully some awesome pictures in the next couple days, we are having family pictures taken tomorrow night by a friend who is an AWESOME photographer. I can't wait!!

Potty Training

I don't know if I am the only one or not, but I find potty training so overwhelming!!! I haven't pushed Izzy really at all because most people I had talked to said when they are ready you will know and it will make it soooo much easier if they are ready. And for the longest time she really had no interest.

So the last couple of weeks Izzy has been peeing on the potty when she wants too! I had bought a potty seat that fits on teh regular potty a while ago but she never really used it. Well my mom had a stand alone potty chair at her house and shockingly she used it when she was at my mom's....so my mom had an extra in her basement from when my neices potty trained so I took it home and put it in the half bath on our main floor. Sure enough she will use it. Sometimes when I ask if she wants to go, she says no thank you! Othertimes she will do it. And a couple of times she has actually told me she had to go. She will not poop on the potty though, she is very adament about that!

So do I take a long weekend, buy some underwear and push the issue or do I just leave it casual for now? Part of me for selfish reasons wants to leave it casual for a while because lets be honest...diapers are pretty convientent for the parents! We have a trip coming up next weekend, going to Wisconsin by car so I don't want to do it before then b/c then it will take us forever to get to wisconsin we will have to stop all teh time to see if she has to go potty! See selfish...is this bad of me. I am thinking that I will buy the underwear and let her try them out in the next couple of weeks and go from there...i would be really nice to have her potty trained by the end of the summer.....

Any great tips or words of advice from the mom's out there that come across my blog?

2 years + 5 months

Well my beautiful girl, i cannot believe that you are one month away from being 2 1/2! Where did the time go. You are continuing to grow and change each and every day..

You are a non stop chatter box these days and you like to mimic or repeat lots of things you hear us say. My favorite one recently is we were outside and teh cat was whining in the sunroom because she wanted to join us out side and you say with the most perfect inflection in your voice "Oh STOP it Kiki" I know daddy and I have both said this and I about fell out of my chair when I heard you say it. The other funny phrase you have said recently is you almost fall or whatever and you will wipe your hand across your forehead and day "phew, that was close!"

You have very good manners and you use them all the time, even when you may not have a choice in teh matter. When you don't want to do something or don't want something you always say "No thank you". When you toot or burp you will say "excuse me, good manners" so adorable!!

You love to play with water, the water table, or a bucket of it you don't care. You love to pour it out of the watering can and into a cup and love to serve mommy and daddy. You will say "what do you want guys?"

You often sing to yourself or hum when you are doing something or riding in the car. You sing the whole twinkle twinkle song as well as your abc's. You know both songs perfectly and it is so sweet to hear it in your voice. Lately you have been singing a lot of eyi eyi oh, super cute.

The biggest development in the last month is you have started using teh potty!!!!!! Who knew i just had to get a stand alone potty seat instead of the one that fit on the toilet. You call it "drippins" when you pee just a little on the potty. You get so proud of yourself you have to stand up quick and look at hte pee pee and then you say "I did it!" You aren't going everytime I ask you , sometimes you say no thank you but you are going more and more. Just 2 nights ago before your bath you say "mommy potty, potty mommy" so i went running took off your diaper and you went!! First time you ever asked to go without me asking. You still won't poop on teh potty you prefer your diaper and a quiet corner or space to do your business but we are making huge progress!!!! I think mommy will be shopping soon for some big girl underwear!!!!

I love watching all the fun things you do everyday, and love that we can start having more and more "conversations" I love you big girl!!!

Friday's random thoughts

It is Friday again so you know what that means! Probably a short list because I just blogged yesterday.

I am super excited to go see Keith Urban/Taylor Swift tomorrow night!!!! Should be a great concert, I have seen Keith twice before and he is an incredible preformer and an amazing guitar player!!! I am so excited for girls night out with my bff from college. Concert starts 7:30 we are heading to a bar to do a little pre-concert celebration and i am so excited! Although my sil now ex boyfriend the DJ will be there broadcasting live, I will have to be sure to avoid him although I am sure he will be donig the same to me, seeing that he knows I am the one that told my SIL that he was cheating. Hopefully it doesn't get ugly when my SIL and the other woman show up also together!!! Should be interesting!!!!

My foot is finally feeling 100x better and today at my follow up appt with my uncle, once I am 3 days pain free I can start walking/jogging again as long as I start slow..so hopefully by Monday I will be good to go! I have to start getting ready for my upcoming 5k!

I love the town we live in. It is so family friendly, small town feel! Love it. They have also recently started a farmers market which started last week but we went to for the first time yesterday...although there isn't much other than flowers in season, it was nice to see so many people walking around and to run into people we knew..that is the best part about living in a "small town" Izzy loved the paper plate tamborine craft. She was shaking it all the way home!

The picture is Izzy enjoying the flower selection!

Mommy Day!

This is the face i get when i try to get a good closeup of her smiling

Mouthful of blueberries

Saying Cheese as I try to take her picture eating lunch outside

I am loving my "mommy days" more and more as Iz gets older and the weather gets nicer. I am really loving the age Izzy is at. She is fun to talk to, and is my little buddy!!!! Since I don't work Mon and Thurs we call these Mommy days adn Izzy and I both look forward to them. Today we are having such a great Mommy day i had to blog about it while she is hopefully napping :)

First agenda item of the day is to have some mommy bed time. Izzy LOVES sitting in my bed watching a little tv (Special Agent Oso and Frankin this morning) while I drink a cup of coffee and she has a bar or come dry cereal. After that I decided we would get dressed and head to the local coffee shop that I LOVE!!! 100x better than starbucks. It is a little cafe with homemade bake goods and awesome breakfast and lunch. They make a morning muffin with whole grains, carrot, pinapple and raisins that Izzy loves! So we headed there today to hang out on the couch enjoy another cup of coffee (chocolate rasberry today) and breakfast while izzy plays with their toys and reads their books. SO relaxing. It amazes me how content she is to hang out there for 45 mins...she is never that content in our living room! Then we walked around downtown and looked in the windows, went to the bakery to get a go wings octopus cookie for later and then to the butcher to pick up an extra chx breast since I invited my mom over for dinner spur of the moment. Then it was off to get Izzy a hair cut. She was in need of a bit of a trim, it was getting pretty long in the back.

She was ADORABLE sitting there all still (well as still as a 2 yr old is capable of) with the smock on while the lady trimmed up her hair. Of course i didn't bring the camera, i took a few cell phone shots but they are not great. It was so cute!!! When I put her in teh carseat she said, thank you lady!" Then we headed home to play outside and eat a little lunch before nap.

There is nothing better!!! And later after we run a couple errands after she wakes up, Daddy is coming home early so we cna go check out the milford farmers market which just started last week and this week they are having a wine tasting!! How great does that sound!!!

Do you ever have days where you think "Man, I love my life!"? I am definately having one of those today!!!

Bike Fun

We had a great weekend. No huge plans and spent lots of time with family and friends. One of our exciting new hobbies is bike riding! I hadn't riden a bike in about 4 years but was suprised at how much I like it! The last time i did it, i did the 8 miles around Kensington, and thought I was going to die! Not sure if that route it just that much harder (it is very hilly) or if it is because I weight a lot less and am in slightly better shape. Whichever I really do like it. They have built an AWESOME new paved bike trail right in our town. So after borrowing our neighbors bike trailor last weekend we decided to get one ourselves since we had seen one in the Target flyer that seem pretty nice and not super expensive.

So on saturday we headed to Target to pick it up. Then we headed to my mom's to get her "old" bike (which is a very nice bike and has probalby been riden 3 times, it has just been hanging out in her basement) I had a crappy bike i have had since college so i figured hey, why not trade up a little..since it was free. So DH put the trailer together and fixed up my "new" bike. We went for our first ride on Sunday. It was great, we took hte new trail dowtown, ate lunch and then road home. So fun and Izzy did great. She reads her books and eats a sucker (this is the key to a whine free ride it think). She even keeps on the helmet pretty good even though it is still a little big...we got it from our neighbors but I may look and see if i can find one that fits her a little better, her head is pretty small though so not sure if i will have any luck.

Here is the picture of iz in her new trailer right before we took off. I am looking forward to a summer filled with bike rides :)