Tuesday, April 19, 2011

One More Month of One


Yesterday Evie turned 23 months old. This is my last month of having a 1 year old :( And she already seems so grown up.

In the past month her verbal language has grown enormously! We went from only knowing 3 words to 3 word sentences! It's crazy how fast that little mind of her's works. The other day I told my husband I should stop taking my DHA supplements because I don't think I can handle having two kiddos smarter than me. He'll come home from work and find them eating Cadbury Eggs for dinner and I'll be tied up in the closet... I just know they're going to gang up on me. :)

But I digress. Evie's favorite sentence is, "No, Ma." or "Ma, No!" Either way. Usually both. We never hear, "No, Da." Although sometimes she does get on to the cat, "No, NAh!"

As I mentioned in a previous post, she knows most of her colors: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple, Pink and Brown. She also thinks Black is Brown. She will argue this point with you should you try to correct her.

We have a little girl who is ready for some nice weather. We play outside every single day we can, and one particularly warm weekend, we even broke out the kiddie pool...
...obviously she loved it.  But it hasn't been warm enough since that weekend so the pool has gone back into the garage. It HAS been warm enough for sidewalk chalk and bubbles and swinging and gardening though. She is a good little helper and helped me dig holes for the flowers we bought last weekend. She also enjoys covering the flowers back up...completely. She'll learn.

She continues to amaze me with her brilliance. Yes, I'm a biased proud mama. But I searched all through that What to Expect the Toddler Years book and could find nothing about this:
That's an Evie drawing. A masterpiece in my mind. She told me she was drawing a picture of "Da-da" and drew and arc. Then she told me it needed ears, eyes, hair, nose, and mouth and drew each squiggle respectively.  Obviously, her Dad is not a unicorn, but she did know to put the hair on top, the ears on the sides and the eyes in roughly the correct locations. The mouth and nose are the correct shapes, if not the correct placement. All I could find in the book was that by 24 months they might be able to draw a line in imitation.  You may now be impressed. :)

We had to go to the doctor this month. Evie contracted Pink Eye... Yuck. I do NOT recommend attempting to put drops in your toddler's eyes alone. Not. Fun. However, she did not attack the doctor and even let the nurse take her temperature and she let me put her on the scale. She weighed in at a wobbly, not standing still, 29 lbs. That's the 85th percentile on weight. I'm not 100% confident in that measurement, however, and I haven't measured her height.

Last weekend we took Evie to the city Easter Egg hunt. She'd walked past the Easter Bunny at the mall the day before and thought that was the best thing ever. That bunny even played peek-a-boo with her. I know, how amazing. She still talks about it. So, we went to the egg hunt thinking she was going to LURVE it.  We got there early to get a good spot. It was windy and cold. We had to stand there and look at all the eggs she wasn't allowed to go pick up yet. We practiced how she would pick them up and put them in her basket. All was going well. She seemed excited. Then they said "Go!" and 100 other kids ran for eggs.
Mine didn't. Mine stood there and cried until all the eggs were picked up and the other kids were leaving the field. Fortunately, her Daddy is awesome and scored her a few eggs on the sly. He casually dropped them at her feet and she slowly came around to putting them in her basket.  Once home she realized there was candy in the eggs and all the drama was forgotten. Hopefully our little family, Evie only, hunt will go much better this weekend.

I'm busy planning Evie's birthday party.  The theme is Monkey's on the Bed. I'm hoping to come up with something the kids can bounce in. My bounce house (aka, The Colosseum) has a hole or two that we have yet to find. I would rather rent a big one but that may be cost prohibitive. I've ordered a cake that looks like a bed with a monkey jumping on it. And am thinking "Pin the Monkey on the Bed" wouldn't be a hard game to create. A few decorations and some party favors and we have a party.
Yes, You've seen this photo before, it's on her invitation. I'm sharing it again because it's my favorite.

As for me and Gummi Bear (the new baby). We're doing well. See the doc tomorrow for the monthly weigh in.  2nd trimester rocks and I'm feeling much more like myself. Not showing much yet, and still wearing my regular clothes, although not the small ones. I lost 40lbs on Weight Watchers before this pregnancy and have gained about 5 lbs back. My skinny jeans won't button (Love that Bella Band!) But the next size up is too big and the size up from that still falls off! How I can be 4 months pregnant and still smaller than I was this time last year baffles me. It's especially astounding to note that I started wearing maternity clothes when I was 8 weeks pregnant with Evie and still haven't touched them this time (I'm 16 weeks now). I thought you were supposed to get bigger faster with Number 2. 

There's that number again. 2. I probably shouldn't have set my screen saver to the album of pictures titled "Evie 0 months".   Remember to hug your kiddos and give them a big kiss. Remind them that Mommy kisses don't come off, they just stick forever.

Saturday, April 16, 2011

The Rainbow According to Evie

Red=  Heh

Orange= Nah

Yellow= Yey-yey-yo

Green= Dee

Blue= Boo

Pink= Pik-a-pik-a-pik-a

Brown= Bow (as in take a, not what's in her hair)

According to "What to Expect" by the time she's 3 she might possibly be able to identify 4 colors... I'm sufficiently impressed... she's not even 2 yet. 

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Frog Prince/Princess Hat Pattern




You will want to cover your little prince or princess in kisses when they wear this adorable little froggy hat.  Pattern is now available for sale for $5 and includes written instructions for the knit hat, crown and detachable lips as well as crochet googly eyes. Numerous photos included.  It's a fun and quick project that is sure to get a lot of attention!




2nd party invite

I just created Evie's second birthday party invitations on Shutterfly. I do love their stuff.Of course, the best part was that it was almost completely free! I used my Pampers points to buy the cards and only had to pay shipping! AND it gets even better! By giving you this link, they'll give me a $10 credit on my next order, which you know I'll be using. You can do it too! Just make a card on shutterfly and when you're finished with your order, embed it on your blog. Shutterfly rocks. :) Also, Shutterfly did NOT ask me to write anything about this post, all that was required was the blow link/graphic.



Sweet Cupcake Birthday Invitation
Click here to browse Shutterfly birthday card designs.
View the entire collection of cards.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Cleaning out the Fridge

One of the perils of being pregnant... I make my menu early in the week, do the grocery shopping and then develop an inexplicable aversion to at least one meal on my list about once a week. The result is a fridge full of a hodge podge of fresh and frozen veggies that I have to figure out how to use and not gross myself out.  Tonight's dinner was pretty successful. Evie and Mike both ate a bunch. I am feeling rather meat averse today, so I picked out the chicken but I'm still calling it a win.  I think it would have been better with fresh herbs, but I just planted my seeds this weekend, so we had to go with dried. But if you have fresh basil, oregano and flat leaf Italian parsley use them instead. The parsley would really make a fresh tasting addition.

Cleaning out the Fridge Pasta:  8 Servings, 8 Weight Watchers Points Plus per serving

Ingredients:

1 lb Pasta (we had Penne in the pantry)
1 tbs olive oil + cooking spray
2 8oz boneless skinless chicken breasts, cubed
1 onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups mushrooms, sliced
1 cup grape tomatoes, halved
1 10oz pkg frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
1 Tbs dried basil
1 tsp dried oregano
Salt and Pepper to taste
2 oz fat free cream cheese (or more if you have it)
1/4 cup Parmesan, shredded + more for garnish

Directions:
Boil pasta according to package instructions

Spray a large skillet with cooking spray and add olive oil. Heat pan and add cubed chicken. Season with salt and pepper.  Add onions and garlic and cook until chicken is no longer pink and onions are translucent. Add mushrooms, tomatoes and spinach. Add Basil, Oregano, Salt and Pepper.  Cook until mushrooms break down, tomatoes pop and spinach is heated through.  Stir in cheeses until melted and well combined.

Add drained pasta to skillet and toss to combine. Serve hot topped with a little extra Parmesan.