Wildflower Center

this was one of the fieldtrips we took about a month ago with some friends and their kiddos. we were looking for a good spot to take bluebonnet pictures but since we haven't had much rain this spring, there weren't many out there. at least it was a pretty day to enjoy the outdoors and plenty of other pretty flowers. the highlight for the kids was definitely the turtles in the pond at the entrance...and the pond in the back...and then the playground we went to afterwards - not the flowers. oh well, we all had fun and at least got to snap a "few" photos...

 i guess this is a true sign of a toddler - majority of my pictures are of the back of Sierra's head and she is walking away or just busy doing her own thing...absolutely NO interest/time to stop and pose for a picture!

 this was our best bluebonnet picture...hope next year is more successful!!!

 oops, she did pick a few flowers...pretty sure that's not allowed. but i chose the photo op over stopping her!

 sweet baby curls (i hope she doesn't lose those!) and the strap that just wouldn't stay on

 she was dropping pebbles into the pond and the big kids wanted to see what all the fun was about

 busy with her rocks

 gotcha!

 that smile melts my heart  :)

 bad shadows, but what a cutie!

 rocks seem to always provide such great entertainment...and at this point the hair clip was lost and the photo session had gone a bit too long....

i was playing around with the camera so the lighting is weird, but she was being silly while mommy made one last attempt at a face-on picture  :)

I just don't want to forget...

all the adorable and hilarious things that our silly girl says and does. so please excuse all these wordy posts. feel free to skip over them until i get more pictures up  :)

* we went to HEB two days in a row and the next day we got in the car to go to the park and sierra said from the backseat (in a very excited voice) "H-E-D! H-E-D!". haha, poor girl...at least i took her to the park instead that time! *I started this post 2 weeks ago and since then, she hasn't been so excited about H-E-D. We pulled up the other day and she started shaking her head saying "no H-E-D, no H-E-D". But today she was playing in her car in the backyard and I asked her where she was going..."H-E-D!" she said. I guess it's a love-hate relationship  :)

* sierra has loved hiding for quite awhile. now she covers her eyes and thinks you can't see her. whenever she's hiding and i ask "where's Sierra?" she always responds with "hiding!" *it has since turned in to her response for anything I ask about. ex: "where are your shoes?" "hiding!"; "where did the bird go?" "hiding!"

* she is really practicing her verbs and opposites. she loves to open and close doors, while saying "open! close!" over and over. she also does "up! down!" with her head nodding or with animals. she just started now doing "in! out!" getting inside her cozy coupe car or the laundry basket. and she always says it with such excitement in her voice  :)

* she talks so much and fast that she often says the wrong person/thing a couple times in a row and then stops, thinks and says it correctly. you can just see it on her face, how quickly her little mind is working! example: (to Kyle) "all done, mommy all done, mommy....(pause) daddy all done, daddy all done."

* this morning when i went to get her out of her crib (she had been awake for a little while reading in bed), she just talked my ear off. she didn't want me to get her out yet, so i sat in the rocker and listened as she told me all about lots of animals. it was a very long conversation (more like story but she needs me to repeat back what she's said to show that i was listening and understand)! it went something like this...
S: "bunny, bunny, eating, bunny eating"
me: "the bunny is eating?"
S: "yeah! bunny, eye, ear, feet, tail, nose, mouth, bunny" (pointing to those things on herself)
S: "goat, goat, eating, food, hungy, goat, agua, mouth"

*she has started putting 3 and 4 words together to make sentences with nouns and verbs - mostly correct! her first few "sentences" have been: "no hitting baby" (i need to do a seperate post on that subject!), "no hitting mommy" (do we see a pattern?), "i see you daddy", "i see you mommy", "i ee you too" (i love you too)

Agua! and Mother's Day :)

I had a wonderful Mother's Day! Kyle (& Sierra of course) gave me some beautiful pink tulips, a sweet card and a photo collage. Our day started with an 8am meeting at church so we stopped at SB on the way to get my coffee "treat". After church Kyle had reservations for us to have brunch downtown and it was amazing - great food, great atmosphere, warm muffins, and just because it was Mother's Day we got a free slice of cake and a 5x7 picture of the 3 of us from a photographer the restaurant hired! Sierra then took a nap while Kyle and I watched a movie. Once she was up, I went down for my nap while Kyle had some daddy/daughter time. I woke up to find this....

I'm sure you could hear that laugh for miles - she was LOVING it! ...especially when she turned towards mommy and discovered she could get me wet!!

 pure JOY

 then we tossed the clothes and put her in the pool, which she lovingly called the "boat"

 she was "tooting noodles", so of course she had to "eat" them!

 totally "nakie" now!

what a little ham  :)

We all had a blast! Once we got the little one bathed and in bed, our good friend came over to babysit so Kyle and I could slip away to meet some friends for yogurt. We sat outside, enjoying the breeze and good conversation.

It was the perfect day! I am sooo blessed to be a Mommy to this sweet little girl (and boy on the way)...and wife to my amazing husband. Thank you, Lord!

Mom

just this week Sierra has sometimes started calling me "mom"...not "mama" or "mommy".

what?! where did this come from?! it sounds sooo grown up! i'm not ready to be "mom" yet!

i looooooooooove the way she calls me "mommy"!!!

i hope this doesn't stick! so far it's only been when she repeats "mommy, mommy..." over and over and then turns it into "mom, mom...". but she laughs and just thinks it's the funniest thing. i'm trying to tell her that's not my name. hopefully that works.

oh little girl, please don't grow up too fast!!!

strawberry picking!

we went out on a saturday morning to a nearby strawberry farm and had a blast! it was very hot and very windy, but so nice to spend the day outside as a family, doing something different and fun! a few friends met us up there later with their kiddos too.

 wait for me daddy! look, i have my own box!

 she was great at spotting the strawberries and grabbing them...but couldn't quite master the art of picking, without squishing. oops! she left quite a few squished berries before we could save them!

 and of course she wanted to eat them right away...they looked so juicy and delicious!

 "dittledittle. hand. clean it."

 we quickly assigned her the job of holding the box while daddy and mommy picked...although all the bending and squatting involved in picking didn't allow this pregnant mommy to last very long either. daddy did most of our collecting!

 i tried and tried to get a good shot here because i loved the background and the way the winde was blowing, but my model was too distracted and not wanting to cooperate. can you tell?!

 "hiii goat. hiii. hiiii". she still talks about goats and food because people there were feeding them. she was fascinated.

 the choo choo ride! first daddy tried to get in, but his long legs didn't leave any room for sierra to fit, so mommy and her big belly squeezed in instead! you can't tell by this face, but she LOVED it. she loves trains and this was her very first choo choo ride!

"daddyyyyy! hiiiiii! hiiiiii!"

what a fun morning! we also enjoyed some fresh strawberry lemonade and ice cream and then ate our PBJ sandwiches at the picnic tables in the shade before heading home. sierra crashed in the car and then continued napping for another hour and a half once we got back. we were all spent, but it was well worth it!

new phrases and funnies

i'm sure these will keep coming by the week, or even day and then they won't seem so amazing once she's speaking in full sentences...but it's just so cute!

in the last few days, i've said these phrases one time and sierra repeats me and then keeps saying them...in context! it's so cute! her memory is amazing - she truly is a little sponge!

* "bye bye daddy. have a good day" (ok, so it's not perfect, but pretty darn close!!)
* "night night mommy. sleep tight mommy"
* "oh boy"
* "ah maaan"

* when i ask her a question, she often replies with "ummmmmm. hmmmm..."
   - examples:
         me: "choose one more book. which one do you want?"
           S: walking up to the bookshelf, "ummmmmmm, ummmmmm..." until she chooses one. then she brings it to me saying "read it. read it"
   - me: "ok, now it's time to go home"
       S: "no. no."
      me: "well, where do you want to go?"
       S: "ummmmm, ummmmm..." (there hasn't been a response to that one yet!)

* a conversation with herself today in the car, on the way home:
    - "daddy home. bye bye. daddy wort (work). waawaa (her fake cry). ouwie. daddy ouwie. sad daddy. happy daddy. heeheehee. funny daddy. heeheehee. tittletittletittle (her sound for tickling). heeheehee."

Sierra funnies

* she says "whoa" when the toaster pops

* anytime she sees a bug (alive, dead, a picture in a book, or anything on the floor that looks like a bug), she says "bug, bug, pider, ewww, clean it"

* i love the way she says "hand", in a very British accent...it's more like "haund"

* if she sees a picture of a snake, she says "ssss, sank, mouth" and points to her mouth. it's all because the first time we played with play-doh together i made a snake and she put it in her mouth and bit the head off! now she always associates snakes with her mouth, hehe!

* the way she says expressions is adorable: "aw man", "oh nooo", "o-tay", "alwiiight"

* she still hasn't figured out how to jump in place - she doesn't ever lift her feet off the ground, but instead if you ask her to jump, she gets up on her tiptoes, then back down, up on her toes, back down. precious. she thinks she's jumping off the ground  :)

* she is really into "happy" and "sad". anytime she hears a baby crying she does this little fake cry and then with a very sad face says "sad, baby sad". or if she knows the baby she'll say their name, "sad, anya sad". she also likes to pretend that her animals fall (a.k.a. she throws them on the ground or down the stairs) and she does a fake cry and says "aww, Gu, sad Gu" and wants me to hug and kiss Gu. or she will hit Gu's head under the table (which she did once) and do the whole crying, sad Gu thing. it's pretty funny, but can get a little old when she does it over and over and over! so that's why we're working on making everyone happy now and we laugh instead of cry  :)

this girl is F-U-N, full of energy, nonstop talking and just plain hilarious