Storytime at the Library

Today I took Lauren to the Tumwater Library for Storytime. It was their "Halloween Special" for Toddlers....so everyone was in costume. Lauren was Minnie Mouse and pretty proud of herself! She walked in like she owned the place. She sat very still for the first 50% and participated. The first book they read was "The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything". I started giggling. This book was written by my preschool teacher of which she read to us before she got the copyright in 1986. So I have an autographed copy! Pretty fancy huh! It's a great participation book for the little ghosts and goblins. Lauren has her own copy as well!

During book #2 (there were 4 plus songs and other stuff), there was a little girl dressed as Cinderella that Lauren decided to be friends with (the little girl didn't have a chance to disagree). They started looking at other books that Lauren would go get off the table. Lauren is VERY outgoing....but other kids are a little unsure of her forward nature! At one point, the storytime leader had the kids acting ghostly and swooping around the room. Lauren thought this was time to gallop and dance....of which she didn't understand that when they stop singing and start reading books again, it means you stop too! So yes, our kid is that kid! Granted, she was the youngest besides a couple of tiny siblings.

Then at the end they had a person in a dog costume come in. I guess that's their mascot for the library. All of the other kids walked up and shook a paw or gave him a hug and took a piece of candy. Lauren walks up and high fives the dude, then tries to take the entire bucket! The bucket had a plush Clifford the Big Red Dog attached to it of which she was more interested in than a Hershey Kiss. (Grandma reads her a Clifford book multiple times when we visit, so you can see her infatuation with the plush basket!)

I don't have any pictures....I don't think it was that type of event. So costume pictures will come later! Have a safe weekend!

Pumpkin Patch

On Monday, Lauren had her flu shot. Poor thing was so upset....she was napping and she woke up as we went into a room. She lost it when the nurse put the infamous blue gloves on. And then when the pants came down.....Oh boy! So to make up for it, we headed out to the pumpkin patch, Hunter Farms, which is just north of Shelton and I think it's considered part of the little town of Union, WA.

When we got there the tractor has just taken a group out...the place was crawling with school aged kids! One of the workers said that the weekend had been hectic and this was quiet. They'd made over $5000 on Sunday alone. They only charge $2 a person for the tractor ride and kids 3 and under are free.....so that's a LOT of people! The weather has been nice, cold but clear blue sky, so who could blame people!

Here Lauren is with the friendly chicken. Her name was Judge Judy.


Then she found a large pumpkin!


The girl caught Judge Judy for Lauren to pet. The problem was that she wanted to get eye level...and since her incident with the duck I wasn't very trusting of the chicken!


She found a bunch of little pumpkin that were just right for her to pack around.

Here we are on the tractor ride. It was just the 2 of us which was great!

The tractor started and this is Lauren saying "Whoa!"

Then she realized there were better seats.....she really liked the edge but don't worry mom had a hand around the ankle while snapping the pic. Multitasking!

Once we got off the wagon, she just started running. We went all the way to the back near the trees. The pumpkins were pretty worked over from the large weekend crowd.

Here Lauren is with her pumpkin.

Realizing it's a little to heavy! She sat it down shortly after and mom had to carry it back to the tractor!

Once home, Lauren had passed out with her granola bar in hand in her car seat. With the flu shot and and exciting adventure, she napped for 2 hours! What a day!

Sunday Surprise!

I stole these pics off of the Hollidays' Blog. On Sunday we were part of a surprise birthday celebration for "Uncle" Mike. He was given a birthday Cabela's shopping trip by his AWESOME wife. So to help him enjoy it, Mindy sent Jake shopping with Mike.....and us girls did some errands for the Birthday dinner.

Here Lauren is enjoying herself. She was pretty good, taking into consideration we sat at the restaurant for almost 2.5 hours! After a picture, she says "look" so that she can see the picture!

Here's the birthday boy with his wife. We ate at the Ram. It was really good!

And here Mike is with his cake. It was camo, specially picked out by his wife. It was suppose to be a surprise, but the dingy waiter BLEW it!! Bummer.

It was so good to see them. We always have such a good time getting together. And us girls can chat for HOURS! When we left, Lauren kept giving them goodbye hugs and kisses. Then cried when we got in the car. And then started including Mike and Mindy in her little "hiccup" routine from the Mickey Mouse club....you'd have to see it to fully understand it so I'm not even going to try to explain!

Our big 2 year old!

Earlier this week (before it started pouring), mommy took some pictures of Lauren playing in the yard. I thought I'd share them with all of you and give you an update on everything Lauren. She had her 2 year check on Friday. She is 35 inches tall and weighs 29 pounds. The doctor said that she looks great and we are doing everything right. She's in the 90th percentile in height and weight for her age. And if you believe the doubling their height at 2, she'll be 5 ft 10 in tall. She had 2 shots in her leg, so when daddy came home she was running around in her undies, rubber boots and shirt with 2 bandaids on her leg telling daddy "Ouchy....Ouchy...."

She's cutting her upper 2 canines right now and all without a binky! We had a dentist appointment in the middle of September and was told that the binky should have disappeared at the age of 1. So we went cold turkey and haven't been back. It was really rough the first week and has gotten better since. Lauren is also sleeping in her toddler bed. It's been tiring, but we are in a routine of bedtime stories until she falls asleep and she'll stay there until 5 a.m. when she comes into our room. The doctor said that we are farther ahead than most parents and we should feel proud of our accomplishments.

Potty training is going well. She has an accident occasionally....I just think she forgets. We wear a diaper at night still just in case but have been dry in the morning for awhile now. She obviously needs to tell someone she needs to go since she's using the big potty. We reverted back and had a couple of "acting out" accidents when we took the binky away. But I think we have recovered from that finally!

She is starting to put words together and definitely understands what we are saying. I'll tell her to go get something out of her room and she'll go get what is asked and bring it to us. She says "Please" when she really wants something and "Thank you Mama (or Dada)" when she gets it. She loves bananas and I think she'd eat them for every snack and meal! She also loves milkshakes! It's hard to believe that only a year has past for all of these new changes to occur!

E-card silliness....

On Birthday's Nana Julie sends e-cards. Lauren loves the animation and music. Here she is watching her 2nd Birthday e-card in her jammies on Birthday morning. She was very excited. At the end of the video she says "more" which comes out "morp" but we know what she means. She probably watched it 20 times. It was a dog that barked Happy Birthday. Of course she loved it!

Birthday girl!

On Wednesday mommy and daddy celebrated Lauren's Birthday. We took her to lunch at none other than Chuck E Cheese's.

She found Chuck E. before mom could even get back with the tokens!


He danced and sang.....the place was packed.....just kidding. It was completely empty and we had it to ourselves. It was great!


Waving to Chuck after he finished his song and dance. She only ate about 2 bites of her pizza and a couple sips of her drink....too much going on!

I think she had a good time. She didn't want to leave. She got an over sized stuffed hammer to bop us with as her toy from her tickets (plus some extra $$....the house always wins, right?). It was a great way to burn some energy and mom is going to have to remember that place for when it's raining all winter long! Especially if it's really that empty all the time during lunch and the school year!

It was such a nice day that when we got home, daddy mowed the lawn and we played outside. But trying to get pictures of the Birthday was less than easy. She's on the go 100% of the time and won't even stop to say "cheese" any more!

Stopping to smell the flowers...lovely dandelions! She's funny because she blows out when you ask her to smell the flower!




Running....a non stop activity all day, especially when outside!




I absolutely love this. She pouts whenever told no. It's instantaneous. She was headed into the tall grass with the snakes and field mice.....probably not a good idea since she is the child that tried to catch a bee with her hand the day before.

I think she had a fun birthday. In a few weeks her and mommy are going to Nick Jr's Storytime Live in Portland at the Keller Auditorium. Should be fun....at least for Lauren!

Yeah! Visitors!

Last Thursday evening, Evelyn and her mommy Libby stopped on their way to Seattle to see Libby's sister. It was so nice to have some company! Evelyn napped on the way to our house so the girls were up fairly late that night.

Friday morning we got ready to head to Little Rock. There was a Country Fall Festival Art and Craft Show. It was cute. Reminded me of a couple of shows down home. I bought a couple of cute Americana themed things for the guest bedroom.

Here's the girls on a super cute picnic table at the show.


There was a bug on the pumpkin. And of course Lauren spotted it.


The girls decided to help take some old pears out of a crate a lady had for sale. Thankfully she thought it was cute and the girls (and mommies) made sure things were put back before we left!


Trying to get both girls to look at the camera and smile was virtually impossible. I love Evie's look in this picture, she was chowing down on what was left of a carmel apple. And check out Lauren's sleeves.....looks like that shirt is a little big!


It was so good to see them and visit. We went to lunch at a little diner on the freeway. It was a pretty good burger, but still not as good as the Brownsville Saloon. The girls fed off each other the entire time they were together. It was almost like, I can be louder than you! And every time we got in separate cars, Lauren would cry. But then when we'd get out at the next stop and she'd see Evelyn it was "Evie!" or "Baby!" in utter excitement. Thanks guys for stopping by. You are welcome any time!