Friday, January 20, 2012

My sometimes sweet, sometimes sassy 15 month old

I honestly have no idea how to begin this blog or how to sum up my 15 month old and all that emcompasses who she is.  In this last 3 months since Elle turned 1, a force has emerged that our entire household was not quite ready for!  Elle is incredibly sweet...when she wants to be, but I mean INCREDIBLY sweet.  She has an opinion about everything and is extremely stubborn.  There truly is no comparison between her and her big sister.  One of my concerns when Elle was a baby was that she would be a shadow because Clare has such a big personality...nope, that will never be a concern again.  These two little girls are very different, but Elle has made her place known in our family!

I took a few pictures this morning of Elle and caught her never ending energy in the fact that all of these pictures were taken in 10 minutes or less!  To give a little recap of Elle at 15 months, she is sleeping 12 hours at night like a champ, a short morning nap, and a 2 hour afternoon nap.  She is a decent eater, but when she doesn't feel like eating what you offer, she makes it known.  She has had tummy issues with milk, so we are sticking with almond milk, but she has a little dairy in her diet without a problem.  She is slowly starting to talk and says, bye bye, mommy, dada, bella, clare, and gone.  Gone is our favorite.  If any of us finish anything she shrugs her shoulders and flatly says "gone."  I dont know where it came from, but its cute!  We've been working desperately on please instead of the grunt we currently get, but so far...no luck!

Clare and Elle have already begun their constant loving, constant fighting relationship.  You would think Clare steals toys from Elle, but nope, its 95% the other way around.  If Clare is playing with anything that Elle desires she runs full speed at her squealing, which startles Clare who then joins in squealing while Elle falls on top of Clare.  There is a LOT of squealing in our house!

We have started the whole discipline thing with Elle.  I realized it was over due when on a nightly basis Elle would try to eat dog food and we would say no.  Poor LD said, so I'm guessing this is all we've done to fix this?  It was a subtle hint it was time to begin discipline!


I think compared to Clare, Elle is going to give me a run for my money, but I wouldn't have it any other way!!  She has so much spunk and is hilarious!  She mimicks everything Clare does, so she is always carrying a baby, playing tea party...and my personal favorite, singing into a pretend microphone while watching herself in the oven!


Oh sweet girl, I love you so very much!  I just wish you would slow down so we could all breathe!

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Best Christmas Present!!

LD's mom and dad got us a super great Christmas present this year....and today we finally got to use it!  They got us a year membership to Discovery Place and the Nature Museum!!  I have been so excited to take the girls now that Elle is walking and playing so much.  This was Elle's first adventure to the hands on children's museum, and she loved it as much as Clare does!

Everyone's favorite is always the huge water table.

I honestly wish I could build this thing in our backyard.  It keeps everyone busy forever!

And Elle looked so cute in her apron!!

Isn't she so big?!?!

Clare found lots of fun thing to play.  It's hard to tell but she is standing in front of a huge fan that blew her hair.

Then we were off to the aquarium.  This picture doesn't do justice to just how great the aquarium is!

And to our surprise there was a MLK Day parade uptown.  So we sat at the window and watched part of the parade since it was a chilly 40 degrees outside.

Side note: Can you tell this poor girl is really cutting her molars?

Clare went back and forth many times along this rope bridge...

And Elle practiced her stairs over, and over, and over!

 It was a perfect Saturday to spend as a family!
Thank you Grandma and Grandpa for such a great gift!
LD and I also purchased an extra visitor pass, so we can take a friend anytime!

Little sweet treats!

LD came home from work with a sweet surprise for the girls. Ms. Pat, a sweet co-worker of LD's had saved these cute little penguin cake pops just for them. She KNEW they would be a hit...and they were!!
Even Bella wanted a sniff....and you can see Clare was having a hard time even taking her eyes off the yummy chocolate treat!

They really were so cute!

And yummy!!  Thank you Ms. Pat!!!

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Just another night with the girls!

This is pretty much what every night at our house looks like...music, dress up and dancing - every little girls perfect day!

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

First trip to the Dentist

Today was a big day for Clare...her first trip to the dentist!!!  I am one for always over informing my girls about what is going to happen, what we are doing that day, etc so everyone is prepared...it may not have been the best route for this one.  Clare has been worked up about how things will work at the dentist office for a few days and it usually ended in some tears.  We tried to just stop talking about it, but the damage was already done and she did not want to go!!!

Before heading out the door I offered her 1 million (NO LIE) incentives: ice cream, play time at McDonalds, a cupcake, a movie....anything I could think of!  She was not into it at all, she just did not want to go.

I was feeling a little caught off guard by this response from my very "up for anything" 3 year old and was wishing I had planned better and gotten a sitter for Elle so I could focus on Clare.  But, it was too late, so off we went...with me a little nervous.
But to my great surprise as soon as we got out of the car, Clare changed her tune and was a little curious about what was in store!

It was a great pediatric dentist recommended by a friend, so there were lots of toys in the waiting room, which really broke the ice!

And then we met Tara (SIGH).  She seriously made our day wonderful.  She was so incredibly cute, sweet and patient with Clare.  I could not say enough great things about her!

Clare was not wanting to lay down, even though they had tvs with cartoons on the ceiling, so Tara had no problem cleaning her teeth with her sitting up (did I say she was great!??)

Her is Clare and her new friend Tara!!
The great news was that Clare has no cavities!!  YAY!!  The not so great news is that we have to help her break her bedtime thumb sucking habit, which I am fearfully dreading.  The dentist told us she has a slight over bite and its starting to affect her pallet, so he recommended painting her nails with some bitter tasting stuff called Mavala.  We ordered it today so very soon we will start the process.  (I AM SCARED!!!)  He said if she is crying and we get no sleep for 3-5 nights we are doing it right and are on our way to breaking the habit...sounds fun huh???

But...back to celebrating Clare and her success today!!  Before leaving home, in my attempt to ease her fears I showed her a blog of her friend Sophie from ballet class and her trip to the dentist.  After Sophie's trip, her mom took her to SAS cupcake, so Clare gave up her very favorite treat (ice cream) and opted for a cupcake, just like Sophie! Looks pretty good huh?

I am happy to have that first behind us!  So proud of Clare for being such a big girl today!