Happy to You!

Whenever Makelle refers to some one's birthday lately she calls it their "Happy to You!" She seems to have modified the phrase "Happy Birthday to You" and it comes out sounding pretty cute!

Makelle's birthday is coming up on Wednesday and my brother's birthday was last week, so we decided to celebrate with one big family dinner yesterday.

It took her awhile to catch on that it was her special day, but by the end of opening presents and eating cake we caught her saying "Happy to Me!" a couple of times with a huge grin on her face, so I'd say she had fun.

We showed her an old children's cake book and despite my attempts to steer her towards the little cooking set or nursery rhyme themed cakes she got her heart set on a little make-up table she saw. So in the end we let Corbin pick out some pick fabric scraps and little girly make-up pieces and made her her favorite cake.




We also asked her what flavor of cake she wanted and she immediately told us "stawberries," so I made my first angel food cake and we celebrated Makelle's big 2 with strawberry shortcake. It was delicious, although she hardly even ate two bites of it before she wanted to get down and go play with her brother and cousins some more.



She got a lot of fun presents, but I am pretty sure her little baby doll got just as many presents as she did.




Corbin picked out some fabric and we made Makelle and her baby a couple of sets of matching pajama pants. And Grandma Lloyd made her baby a little doll blanket. Let's just say that baby has taken about 12 naps this morning :) and Makelle is still wearing her pajama pants (although we have changed sets of pajamas a couple of times).



Grandma Miller also sent her a cute little Princess dress up outfit, complete with her own pair of high heels. She loves it and immediately got all dolled up, prancing around the house.


We had her do her own little model walk down the hall... I think she may need a bit more practice before she'll be ready for the Paris runways.


So far today we've colored and read her new books, listened to stories on her new radio, put on lots of make-up and played happily for hours.


Corbin has been really nice about playing with her and her new girly toys, but he drew the line at allowing her to give him a make-over. It was pretty funny watching her try to chase him down and paint glittery make-up or apply some lip gloss to him, while he tried to follow the rules and nicely tell her "no thank you."

All in all I'd say she is pretty happy with her haul.

Precious Moment

Makelle is getting pretty good at keep her "unerwares" dry during the day, but as soon as you put her in a diaper, she just stops trying. I think that is normal, but Corbin was so easy to potty train because I just kept him in diapers until he was basically fully trained, which means I really didn't have to clean up too many accidents during the learning process.

I actually remember him holding himself with a diaper on screaming, "I gotta go potty!" and people with us thinking it was pretty funny. But I think I am just going to have to accept that that is not going to work with Makelle.

The other problem is at this age, we had switched Corbin to a toddler bed, so I could expect him to start to learn how to get up and go potty on his own in the morning or during nap time, when we introduced sleeping in underwear.

However, until we are able to get a new house with room for a twin bed for Corbin, he will be retaining ownership of the toddler bed and Makelle is staying in the crib. So I don't know how to teach her to go potty when she is caged in.

Then today I was changing the sheets on the kids' beds (which I usually remove the mattress from the crib to do, especially with a growing belly, it just seems easier) and decided to leave the mattress on the floor tonight to see how she even did going to sleep without being locked in.

I actually only had to go in their room once because they were both crying about being hungry (there is always something :) but then they settled down pretty quick, so I snuck in to go check on them and this is what I found:



Melts your heart a little bit--and makes you feel bad at the same time. Corbin hardly even fits on that little bed anymore, let alone letting his sister climb into bed with him. At least baby doll looks comfy! They are so precious. I love that they are still such good friends (most of the time :)

Free Day at the Zoo

The last Wednesday of each month during the Hogle Zoo's winter season they have a free admission day. We decided to take advantage of the opportunity and get out of the house yesterday.


We wandered around and took our time looking at everything. It gets funner and funner (is that real word?) each time I take them there. They ask more questions and seem to latch onto something new every time and especially Corbin now loves to learn about science and nature.

This time both of the kids spent quite awhile staring at the dead insect board, which I think we have always just sort of glanced at as we hurried by in the past, but this year Makelle loved the butterflies and Corbin seemed really interested in learning which insects--and snakes that were nearby--were poisonous. He also liked looking at their little color dots and finding where they live on a large map.


We watched the trainers feed the elephants and got them to do a few tricks for us, which Makelle loved. "Elephant sitting down!" "I hear it!" "Big ears!" It was fun.


We also spent a good amount of time sitting and watching the baby orangutan. He was by far the most active zoo animal I have ever seen. We sat there for at least 30 minutes and the entire time he kept running around, playing with a cup, swinging clear across the cage and back, dragging a blanket around, putting a burlap sack on his head, and the kids' favorite, poking at, jumping on, tugging on and laying on his mom and dad; clearly trying desperately to get someone to play with him. It was so funny, I could have sworn it was Corbin in there... he acted nearly identical to my child.

It is so great to do something fun with the kids, while being able to teach them at the same time. And at least for now, they actually like being taught and getting to learn as they play.


Side note I want to remember: Corbin has been working on learning his right and left lately.(I swear you would think he could at least get it correct 50% of the time, but somehow I would say his shoes end up on the wrong foot 75-80% of the time and so I am determined to teach him so I don't have to intervene all the time.) At first we tried to teach him to remember that he writes with his right hand. Then earlier in the week when he was holding a pencil and trying to trace a right path on a worksheet, I asked him to think about what hand his pencil was in, at which point I realized he was actually holding the pencil in his left hand--the opposite of what he was doing the last time we had this little lesson. So he tells me, "I don't know what hand I hold it in, sometimes this one (holds up right hand) and then when that one gets tired of writing I put it in my other hand. No wonder the boy has such horrible penmanship! So anyway we switched to learning that your left hand looks like an "L" but on the right hand the "L" is backward. That seems to be working better and he spent our zoo trip with map in hand learning how to navigate to find the next animal he wanted to see. It was pretty fun to watch him as he learned how directions work.

Getting Braver

After over 4 years of being a parent, I finally broke down and agreed to let the kids try their hand at finger painting.


Given their mom's "please don't ruin your clothes or stain our furniture" lecture that they receive almost daily, they both looked a little hesitant to smear paint on their fingers and go to town. But once they realized I really was encouraging this crazy idea, they started in and really liked it.


Corbin even started out his first painting by writing "I luv yu" which made it all worth it!

"I do it!"

Makelle's favorite line by far is, "I do it!" Not even two and she insists on doing everything her self. (Everyone says she gets this from me, but I just don't see it :)

The problem is her capabilities are no where near her self perceived abilities. But she'd rather hang on to her self pride and walk around like a penguin for half the day than admit that she needs help. (Again, I just don't see the similarity :)

We're having another...

BOY!

I had a birthday,

Shout hurray!

I didn't take any pictures so I neglected to ever blog about my birthday this year, but it was a great one nonetheless.

Caleb actually left work early (meaning 6:00 :) and got home in time to go to a show at the cheap movie theater in Kaysville. We took the kids to see Alpha and Omega. Being married to an accountant with a birthday in January I think that this was the first year we have hung out on my actual birthday, so it was fun to get to do something with the whole family.

Then on Saturday my parents watched the kiddos and we got to go on a fun date and hang together all afternoon.

Sunday we went to my parents' house for dinner and an ice cream cake. Yummy! We ate fruit, salad, rolls, chicken cordon bleu and roasted vegetables.

So I got to enjoy a full week of fun celebrations, it was super fun.