How is My Baby Already TWO?!?!

I can't believe it's been two years since Reese came into our lives. She's such a sweet little girl that I can't imagine what my life would be like if without her. I took her to the dr. on Thursday and she got an overall rating of "perfect", I love when the doctor uses that word to describe my baby. She says and does so many new things that I can't even think of all of them. She has started moving the kitchen chairs around and climbing up on them to get what she wants, she's an immense hoarder and generally sleeps with roughly 10 stuffed animals in her bed. She's got a great vocabulary and is learning more words everyday. Yesterday I asked her how old she was and she told me to guess, I started laughing so hard. She's started to play with other kids without caring where I am. When we were at the park the other day she ran off and didn't even check on me likely she usually would. She's a very caring and thoughtful little girl, when she's with her friends she always wants to make sure that they are treated fairly for example, we were watching her friend Max last weekend and I was getting them fruit snacks, I handed her hers and she said "and max?" because she wanted to make sure he was getting some as well. She's hilarious, but she's also capable of driving me insane. I love the little person she's becoming and while I wish I could stop time and keep her this age forever, I'm also eager to see her continue to learn and grow.
Her birthday was Saturday and that was the same day Nate came home from Spain. I woke up really early and made her homemade strawberry banana waffles and topped them with strawberries, bananas, hot fudge and whipped cream. I even put a candle in them and attempted to sing happy birthday, but every time I started singing she would yell at me or clamp her hands over my mouth so I couldn't.
Birthday breakfast complete with a candle

The after effects of hot fudge for breakfast. Needless to say we went straight up to the tub after this. After all that we played outside for awhile and then got the phone call from Nate telling us what time he would be arriving in Frankfurt. Reese and I decided to go to the park for a picnic and then we headed for the airport. Nate got in right after we arrived and Reese was happy to see Daddy and the presents that he had brought for her. Since Nate wasn't arriving until her actual birthday we had decided to postpone her party for a week and figured we'd just pick him up and take Reese to the zoo for her birthday instead of having to wait for him to ride the shuttle home to us. The Frankfurt zoo was really cool, and Reese had a blast seeing all the animals.

The goats were the first thing we saw and she didn't want to leave.

You could go inside the goat pen and pet them which Reese proceeded to do to that particular goat for a long time.

At the sea lion exhibit one of them swam right in front of Reese for a long time, it kept looking at her and going back up, it was really fun for her.

The baboons are always a hit, probably because they have so much in common with a two year old human.

This thing was crazy, I don't remember it's name but I've never seen one before and it kind of looked like it should've been around with the dinosaurs. The little girl however is 100% adorable.

Reese loved getting to spend time with Daddy after his month away.
This picture makes me laugh, she was a little freaked about sitting that close to that lion. For a little girl that always wants to pet and hug every animal she sees, at least she has common sense enough to know that lions are dangerous.
This is just proof that tigers ARE bigger than two year olds.....and pink puppies too.
When we got home from the zoo we opened all her presents from family. She was so spoiled with all the things that were sent by grandparents and great grandparents and aunts and so on and so forth. When she had got up that morning she had made a beeline for the presents but was told she had to wait for Daddy to get home, she did end up opening one but other than that she patiently waited.
She's an expert present opener.
That's the tiara she wore randomly throughout the day since she was the birthday princess

I'm so glad that Nate was able to get home for at least half of her birthday this year, last year he left for Iraq 3 days before her birthday. We had a great time and now we have to get ready for her party with all her friends this Saturday.

Mother's Day 2010

This Mother's Day had the all makings to be an extremely terrible day and despite all of that it some how turned out amazing. Nate has been in Spain for the past two weeks and despite our desire to go see him it just would've been too hard. He's 2 1/2 hours outside of Madrid so Reese and I would have to fly in and then rent a car to get down to him plus he's staying in dorms on a spanish base so Reese and I would have to get a hotel as well plus when you figure in the fact that there isn't much to do where he's at it just would've been a waste. So anyways, it was just going to be Reese and I for Mother's Day. I decided last year that every year for Mother's Day I want Nate to take some nice pictures of Reese and I, not just your run of the mill everyone with mom on the front porch pictures, but actually going somewhere and making an effort to get cute pictures. With Nate being gone this year I was afraid I would just have to settle for a quick front porch picture but instead I was able to enlist my friend Eric, who is a wonderful amateur photographer by the way, to go out with Reese and I to take some pictures. They turned out great as you'll see at the end of this post.

Nate's not being here wasn't the only thing standing in the way of Mother's Day perfection, last week Eric asked if I would watch his 14 month old son from Saturday night through Thursday morning so he and his wife could go to Rome (maybe that's why he was so willing to take pictures for us). So now instead of just being Reese and I, I also had a spare kid for Mother's Day, to say I wasn't expecting much of the day was an understatement but boy did those two kids surprise me. I woke up Sunday morning by myself, meaning there were no children yelling for me, I ended up having to wake both of them up to get ready for church. At church they were both well behaved and then Reese went to nursery without crying for the first time in weeks which made me VERY happy. On our way home from church they both fell asleep in the car and despite the fact that they both woke up when I was getting them out of the car, they both fell right back to sleep when I put them in bed meaning that I was able to take a wonderful Sunday nap. When I woke up from my nap they were both barely waking up so I got them out of bed and then we had a snack of fresh baked bread with honey butter that a sweet woman at church had given us that morning. For dinner we'd been invited over to our home teacher's house and we had an amazing looking and tasting meal with his family plus Reese got to run around and have a blast with their kids. When we left to go home she was actually crying because she couldn't stay and play. We got home just before bedtime and I put the kids to bed and those ended a very low key but extremely enjoyable day. Is it selfish to dream of more days like yesterday?

 

The Finger

Yesterday Reese was playing outside at our friends' house when she fell and cut the tip of her finger. She came inside and got it all washed out and it bled for just a tiny bit and then was fine, but the way she had cut it she had scraped some skin off so it was hanging there and finally I had to pull it off because she couldn't handle it being there. This tiny little incident resulted in the meltdown of all meltdowns. There was absolutely nothing that would make her happy, no amount of kisses and hugs could heal this vicious injury which she had sustained. She would finally stop crying and then something would set her off and she'd be back crying about her finger. I did feel bad for her, but she wouldn't let me do anything so I just had to sit back and wach her deal with it. When we got home we had begun to calm down but she was still behaving the way someone who had just had open heart surgery might behave so I layed her on the couch and let her watch a movie to take her mind off of her woes. This is how she sat throughout the entire movie, finger raised because afterall you have to keep it elevated so you don't bleed to death. Luckily the movie seemed to take her mind off the finger because she didn't seem to have any issues with it for the rest of the night.