Birthday Party Coming Up

I'm just now starting to plan my oldest munchkin's third birthday party. I can't believe I only have one more month with her as a two year old. Kylie and I decided that a costume party would be really fun. It's a good thing I have the tutu my grandma made me for Eve's party. My costume will be easy. I'm getting very excited. I haven't had a party to plan since Everz turned one last March!

Mini Pizzas: A quick and easy lunch

Sometimes, I'm the mom that makes homemade pizza dough. But other times, I'm the mom who needs to make a quick meal. I love the following recipe. The girls love it two because they get to use the rolling pin. They even have their own cute little toy rolling pin in their kitchen set. You can see Kylie using it in the first picture.

All you have to do for this easy lunch is roll out jumbo biscuit dough (from the cans) with some flour. Place them on a baking sheet, add pizza sauce, cheese and toppings and cook at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes, or so. That's it. Then I just take our kitchen scissors to cut them into tiny little slices.

I only took a before picture of the pizzas. I'm sure you can figure out what they would look like when they came out of the oven. The bottom three are pretty traditional: spaghetti sauce, pepperoni and mozzarella. Yes, I use spaghetti sauce instead of pizza sauce. Then I can use the leftover sauce for spaghetti in the next couple days. It's much cheaper than buying actual pizza sauce. The girls eat pepperoni like candy, so it's one of those things that can usually be found in our fridge, so I usually always have those ingredients on hand.

But the top three are taco pizzas because I had to use up our leftover taco meat and black beans from the night before. They are: taco sauce instead of spaghetti sauce, taco meat, black beans and mexican blend cheese. I wasn't sure how it would turn out, but I was very pleased with the results.

It's one of those meals that both girls actually finish everything on their plate:



Yes, Kylie is eating pizza with a fork. She doesn't like eating without some sort of silverware.



And here's Kylie helping with the dishes afterwards. She insisted that she wash her own rolling pin herself. I'll take whatever help I can get :).

By the way, those pictures were taken in August, hence the Summer clothes.

There was a boat in my living room

What? That doesn't look like a boat to you? You must not have much experience with two year olds. Watch out if you come visit, there are alligators on the floor, err I mean water. They like to bite and if they get you, you will turn into an alligator yourself.

Trick or Treat

Enjoy these pictures of the girls going trick or treating for the very first time EVER. I don't have a lot of trick or treating experience myself, so it was mostly new to me too. They had fun of course, but who wouldn't when you get to fill a bucket with candy?

Mom, how did Eve do that to that ball?

I love the dollar bins at Target. Today I found a package of glittery christmas ornaments and I couldn't resist them. This is actually going to be the first year we will have a tree. We waited until after Christmas last year to buy one so it would be on clearance. Sad, I know, but I finally feel like the girls are old enough anyways. Now that we don't have any toddling or cruising babies, it should be easier to have one (I hope!)





But back to the dollar bin Christmas ornaments. We got them home and I thought they were put away. I wasn't too worried about them anyways. Then Kylie came up to me and handed me the ball in the following picture:

Nope, it's definitely not supposed to look like that. I didn't realize the glitter would come off so easily. But I guess that's what I get for buying them out of the dollar bin, so no big deal. The funny part is what happened next. Kylie looked at me and said: "Mom, how did Eve do that to that ball?" It doesn't sound too far stretched; Eve loves putting things in her mouth, she's still only 1 year old. The problem though is that Kylie's face looked like this:And Eve's didn't.

And Kylie's hands looked like this:

And Eve's didn't.

Little stinkerpot.

I asked Kylie how she thought Eve would have done it and she said: "Her probably put it in her mouth."

Uh-huh.

I showed her the pictures and showed her the glitter on her face. She knows I figured it out. She's a pretty smart cookie. And usually very sweet, I hope this isn't the start of something. It's a good thing I love this little girl. Very much.

Dairy Farm Trip

This trip was so much fun! We got to taste delicious milk, visit the factory where the milk is bottled and milk a cow. I am not a milk drinker so when I heard we would be sampling milk, I wasn't very excited. But I was brave and tasted the samples and I was so surprised. It was delicious. Their milk flavors included banana, orange and root beer. They were all good. I bought some of their cheese as well. I love cheese.


Kylie and Eve were also happy because we went with some of their loved church friends. We have been blessed to make some good friends in our short time here in Kansas City; it's going to be sad when we leave.

Stink Eye

Eve has been giving me the stink eye lately. She glares and at me and then squints one eye. She does it when I tell her something she doesn't want to hear or just when she's feeling ornery for absolutely no other reason other than she IS ornery. This always makes me laugh, no matter how many times she does it, so I might be encouraging her but I seriously think it's so cute.

I even sometimes try to get her to give me the stink eye by giving it to her first. I hope that doesn't make me a bad mom!

Kylie-isms

UPDATE: see the end of post for some Kylie-ims I remembered after posting the first time.

Kylie is quite the little talker at 2 and a half. It's so much fun to have REAL conversations with her. She actually has a great handle on English grammar, but her vocabulary can be pretty silly. We choose not to correct her on a lot of the funny things she sometimes says, because it's just so adorable. Not to mention she doesn't always believe us when we correct her anyways.

Here are some "Kylie-isms"

• Polka-nuts = polka-dots
• Rainbrella = umbrella
• Uh-oh, the radios = uh-oh spaghettios (My grandma uses this expression a lot, so other than in our own family, I don't know how common it is.)
• Hunguee = hungry (She's said it like this since age 1 and Jason thought it was so adorable he started saying it too. It's became a part of our family vocabulary in no time.)
• Choo choo clock = coo coo clock, or sometimes just a plain old regular clock
• Too much cheese = grated parmesan (Jason once poured a lot of parmesan cheese on his spaghetti, then said: "Oh no, I have too much cheese." Kylie said she wanted "too much cheese too." and the name has stuck.)
  

And here are some expressions that aren't incorrect, but we thought they were so cute coming out of her mouth, that we've adopted into our family vocabulary as well:

• "I just love you." (She also uses the term "I just..." in lots of other sentences.)
• "It sure is [...]" (Examples: It sure is hot today. It sure is dark today. It sure is cloudy. I don't know where she learned to talk like a farmer.)
• "Is that a good idea?" (It always crack me up when she has to get her "ideas" approved by me.)
  

Also in her head, the word "yesterday" refers to the past as a whole. Likewise, "tomorrow" refers to some time in the future. So if she tells you that something happened "yesterday", that just means it happened sometime previously. It could have happened months ago. She has a great memory and can recall things that happened to her from last Christmas or even some things that happened a year ago. So if she uses the word "yesterday" it usually is a true story that happened to her.

On the other hand, she also talks a lot about pretend stories. Her imagination completely blossomed about 2 months ago. She woke up one morning with absolutely no interest in any of her toys, the TV or her books. All she wanted to do was act out these stories that popped up in her head using toys in her imagination. She would pretend to hand me something, even though her hand was empty and say for example: "Here is a walking stick Mom. Come climb this mountain with me." And she would walk across the living room floor, pretending to climb an imaginary mountain. Since then, she has regained interest in her toys, books and some TV shows, but she still has lots of stories in her head that she loves to act out.

There are so many other silly phrases/Kylie-isms that she says on a daily basis, but I'm having a hard time remembering them. I will update this post if I think of any more.

UPDATE:

• Wonderbar: granola bar
• Barbie sauce: barbecue sauce
• Where is Thumbkin? Where is Thumbkin? Here I am! Here I am! How a day to meet you. How a day to meet you. I'm good. I'm good: Her version of the "Where is Thumpkin" song.
• If "X", then you better "Y": my favorite so far was when we had been out playing at a park and she didn't want to come home so on the drive home she said: "If you are driving home, then you better tell me!" Haha, I told her and she wasn't happy. Another example: "If I see a jawhawk in my town, I better say boo!"

Eve is 18 months old!

It's hard to believe that my Eve just turned 1 and a half! She's my baby. I'm a little sad because I miss the baby cuddles, little toddling steps, sweet coos and toothless grins. But it's also been so much fun watching her personality develop. She's funny. Here are some words that have been used to describe her: ornery, sassy pants, stinker-pot, mischievous, proud and fearless. With the exception of the last two, those all sound similar don't they? That's because she's quite the little handful. She figures out which buttons to push on people she loves and then pushes them for her own amusement. She figured out at about 12 months old that if she spit food at my mom, then my mom would act disgusted. So Eve has had a blast spitting at my mom, with or without food. She knows I hate it when she takes her pretties out and that her aunt Bo can't stand it when she tells her "no" when Bo reaches for her. She also loves to tickle people and give raspberries. She can get aggressive and hit but I've found that the best way to deal with that is to ignore it and walk away from her when she does that. She only does things to get a rise out of people because that's what ticks in her little one year old sense of humor. She's still a sweetheart, just an ornery one.

Now you might ask how a one year old can be proud. Just tell Eve that she's cute and watch her face light up, in a smug little way at that. Talk about her and watch her prance around with her little nose in the air. She puts on quite the show when she knows people are praising her. She's also proud when she accomplishes something challenging to her. For instance, when she puts the right shape in her shape shorter, she will clap for herself and say "yah!" Then she'll look around to make sure everyone saw her great feat.

The last term I mentioned, "fearless", might not be a word that some people would choose for Eve. There are lots of people who have seen her shy, momma's girl, side who might not agree. Yes, she is a momma's girls and can be shy around new people. This is especially true at church, when she knows I'm going to "abandon" her in the nursery for a couple hours. She's never apart from me, except when we are at church, so she gets very nervous when we are there. However, anyone who has seen her at a park would agree that "fearless" is a good term.Other parents at the park are always shocked to see this tiny little girl climb all the big equipment, refusing any help from her nervous momma, and do just fine with all the stairs, slides, wobbly bridges... In fact, strangers at the park always seem to have the same thing to tell me: "She's fearless." And I always agree. She's completely wild at playgrounds. She's funny: she's a momma's girl when I want her to be independent and fearless when I want her to be more cautious.

Her growing up has been bittersweet. When she was born, I felt as though Kylie was my big girl and Eve was my baby. And that's the way it would stay, right? I didn't expect her to leave the baby stage quite so fast. She's now starting to hit her language explosion and learns new words every day. She's keeping up with her older sister as they play chase and wrestle through the house. She eats all of our foods. She finally has some teeth. She calls me "mommy" instead of "momma." Really the only baby things about her is her attachment to her "ya-ee" (her word for her beloved paci) and the fact that she still wears diapers. But she's also so much fun at this age. She's a ball full of lovable energy and turning into the prettiest little girl. I love my "baby" so much!