Saturday, May 28, 2016

24 Months Old



And here we are. My baby is two.

At 24 months (ok, ok, almost 25 by now) Raye:

*has 23 teeth. Only one more to go!

*is paci-free when she sleeps. I took her paci away when Shannon left town for a couple of weeks (told her it went bye-bye with daddy). It was rough, rough going for a couple of weeks but by about a month in all was fine. She's sleeping normally (maybe even better!) now and I don't have to keep up with germ-catching pacifiers. Win-win.

*loves to dance. She's got the most moves of any of our kids, and every time she hears music she'll say, "Mama. Dance!" and start dancing or, "Mama. Song!" and start swaying to the music. She loves to dance.

*seems to have come out of the super-picky phase with regards to food. She still has her favorites, but overall she's eating much better than she has been. I think it's because she's gotten most of her teeth and her mouth doesn't hurt as much.


Sporting her birthday backpack and doing pretty well with do-a-dots.

*loves Mickey Mouse. She has finally decided that she'll watch a little bit of television, but mostly only if it's Mickey Mouse. Which I'm ok with. I've never been one to want my kids to love TV, but gosh it sure is nice when they'll be entertained for 22 minutes so I can do things like clean a chicken without being interrupted a million times. Wow, bunny trail. Anyways she loves Mickey and says stuff all the time now like, "Goofy si-yee, dance, hot dog."

*is all about doing it all herself. She wants to do everything: put the key in the door, go to the bathroom by herself, put on her own diaper, etc., etc., etc. Of course there's no way we let her do about 50% or more of what she wants to do, but we try to let her do what she can.


Still sleeps three or more hours each afternoon. I usually have to wake her up.

*loves bugs. She gets this from Lane. Lane loves bugs. Raye loves Lane. Therefore Raye loves bugs. She's held lizards, baby frogs, tadpoles, and beetles. She gets so mad when someone else is holding a bug and not letting her have a turn.

*actually likes books now. She'll sit still for whole board books and bring you more of them to read. She likes Goodnight Moon; Panda Bear, Panda Bear; Brown Bear, Brown Bear; and most all of the other standard favorites of toddlers.

*knows the names of colors but can't always get them right. Still working on this with her for sure, as well as counting correctly. My favorite is when she says, "eight, nine, ten, yellow, twelve..."


This girl is a mess when it comes to ice cream!

*is in 3T clothes for the most part. She still has a couple of 2T or 24 month things in her drawers but mostly...3T. So crazy.

*throws her hands up in the air and says, "Way!" (yay!) when she's happy or when she likes your idea.

*loves to go outside. Often the first thing she'll ask in the morning (after she asks for "puffs and O's" [cereal]) is "bye bye soon?" It might be quickly followed with, "Watch Mickey Mouse?"

*fun things she's saying, "Me too __________" Me too bwush teef. Me too co-wur. Me too new paste (toothpaste). Me too bye bye. And so on. "Ma-ma, come git me!" "See ya way-ter, abigador!"


Birthday scooters!

She's such a sweetie pie and I'm so grateful for her in our lives!

Tuesday, May 17, 2016

And Then She Was Two






Rainbow all-around!

Little Miss Raye turned two on May 1st. Shannon was scheduled to be out of town that weekend, so we had planned on having her party the weekend before, but then he ended up taking a last-minute trip to the States, so we had to postpone her party. So, we had it on...the 7th? Whatever that Saturday was. It was really low-key.








I made a rainbow cake and bought rainbow-colored balloons and streamers. Lane and Noel helped draw/color some rainbow pictures. Some single gals who live in town came over and did all the decorating for me...it was the best decorating job ever! We ordered in for dinner. Raye opened a few presents while people were eating, we sang to her and had cake and ice cream. It was just laid back, which was exactly what I needed after single-momming it for 18 days.


Opening a present from Papa Buck and Nona Lou.


Legos from my dad and stepmom.

Raye's actual birthday was really low-key, too. I flew to Moscow to spend a couple of days with Shannon and flew back on Raye's birthday. After I got home we had to go grocery shopping and I had to make dinner, and the weather was nasty. So the actual day was kind of a bust. No birthday pancakes or anything. But her party was fun, and we bought her a scooter (actually we got all the girls scooters since we didn't buy them birthday presents, hoping they wouldn't notice and we could buy them something with wheels once the weather turned nice), so I'm not going to call it a complete failure. We have done worse on our kids' second birthdays...poor-middle-child-Noel had to take an international flight on her second birthday...