I am ready for fall... WHEN IS IT COMING TO TEXAS???

I am ready for fall! October is almost here, and it is still pretty warm here in Texas.

Today, I went to a steering committee meeting and we talking about the Halloween party that we are going to have with the brigade next month. It should be fun. Hopefully it will be a low-stress event to put together.

Tomorrow, I have a BUNCH of things to do. Someone is supposed to come by the house sometime tomorrow morning between 7am-12pm to fix our oven (that has been broken since last Sunday). I also am going over to have lunch with some friends. Then, Heidi will probably need a nap. She needs 2 - 2 and a half hours every day or she just gets too grumpy. I will also need to drive to the other side of town to pick up some paperwork that needs to be filled out for an upcoming food fundraiser. I also need to figure out what kind of pie I am going to bring to a church activity the day after tomorrow.... go to the store and buy whatever I need for it. I am just ready for December/January to get here. I am going to have a lot going on in the next couple/few months with our family readiness group, as we try to scramble together a few last minute fundraisers to earn enough money for the welcome home parties, welcome home baskets, certificates/awards, welcome home banners, etc. It will also be nice to have Brian home again too. We will wait to have Christmas with him.

Joie's Look-a-like Meter

This is odd because growing up, everyone always told Joie that she looked just like her dad!

Blair's Look-a-like Meter

Dana's Look-a-like Meter

Wow! I'm exactly down the middle! I guess that's why I can't tell who I looke like in the family. Or maybe I was just switched at birth, like my parents told me I was (just jokingly)... and maybe I just don't look like either, so they put me in the middle. What do you think?

Look-a-like Meter

Heidi Washing Dishes

While I was emptying and getting ready to put some dishes into the dishwasher today, Heidi decided she wanted to help clean up the kithen...

Today after we got back home from our banner signing, Heidi wanted to wash her hands in the kitchen sink, which wasn't a bad idea. We had our banner signing at Burger King on post and she had just been playing in the play area (which was probably full of germs). So, I pulled a chair up to the sink and helped her wash her hands.

Then, She saw a couple of bowls and a cup and wanted to wash them in the sink while she had the water running. She has seen me wash dishes before. I just let her play in the water and pretend to wash the dishes. She did a good job of rinsing them off and putting them on the strainer, just like a big person would do. She had a lot of fun "washing the dishes" today.

BEWARE: In the pictures above, you may see a messy kitchen with an empty papertowel holder... I was in the process of cleaning up though! :)

Some Things Heidi Is Stubborn About

Heidi and I participated in a banner signing today for Brian's company. Some families just got together and signed a couple of banners and put handprints on them. We will mail them over after the next FRG meeting. In one of the pictures above, I had asked Heidi to draw a picture for her Daddy and then I said "Why don't you draw him some circles." You can see her drawing a circle in one of the pictures above. She also drew like 2 or 3 more next to it.

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Today, I just thought I would write about some things that Heidi is stubborn about...

1. Heidi is very picky when it comes to getting her own silverware, or should I say plasticware, out for meal time. As soon as she finds out we are eating, she HAS to have a fork or a spoon... and sometimes even one of her plastic knives. Most of the time, she doesn't want to wait until I am finished cooking. She has to have her fork and spoon right then! She also usually wants to get it out of the silverware drawer herself. She is especially picky about the colors that she gets (also with her plate colors). She normally ALWAYS wants PINK silverware, but when that is dirty, she has to settle for another color. We have the plastic IKEA silverware for kids, which comes in a bunch of different colors.

2. She is also very picky about what plate she eats off of. She normally either wants a pink plate or a princess plate. She gets upset if I hand her another color, unless I explain to her that her pink plate and her princess plate are dirty.

3. Heidi also likes to choose which brand of diaper to wear. We have Blues Clues diapers (Luvs), Minnie Mouse (which are really Mickey and Minnie, but she calls them Minnie Mouse; Huggies), and Tweety Bird (White Cloud). She usually has to pick or gets upset, unless I explain that we are out of the kind she is wanting at that particular diaper change.

4. Heidi does not like for me to brush her teeth. She is EXTREMELY stubborn about this! She will brush them herself, but does not do a very good job, so I always brush after I let her have a try. She really fights me with this! I sometimes have to pinch her cheeks just to get the toothbrush into her mouth. Then she clamps her mouth closed, she bites down on the toothbrush, and sometimes she even will stick her tongue in front of her teeth so I can't brush them. This is probably the one thing that she is THE MOST STUBBORN ABOUT!

5. Being NAKED! I guess this is just a stage she is going through, but a lot of the time if we have been away, as soon as we come in the door and I start taking my shoes off... Heidi not only wants her shoes off, but she wants EVERYTHING taken off! She says "clothes off... naked naked." She will do the sign for clothes and say she wants them off. I have decided to pick my battles, and that this is just something I don't care about fighting over, so I usually will just take her clothes off for her. She usually sings kind of a naked song after I take her clothes off.. saying "naked naked" and kind of dances. I talked to someone else at church and she says that her daughter has done the same thing before. I guess she doesn't like wearing clothes either. I remember my sister Joie didn't like wearing clothes when she was younger. Brian had a sister that didn't like wearing clothes either, so I guess it is just in Heidi's genes.

6. Heidi is also pretty stubborn about the tv. I hardly EVER watch tv, but if I do want to try and see if something is on every great once in a while, Heidi and I sometimes have to have a talk about whose turn it is to pick what is on the tv. She gets really upset when she doesn't get her way, but I am not going to give in on this. Lately, she has been wanting to watch Pocahantas and Sleeping Beauty a lot.

MPAT Fun Day

Heidi and I went to a Military Parents As Teachers (MPAT) fun day today. We started off the meeting with a couple of songs and a story. Then, we made a paper doll that looks like Heidi and we made one that looks like a boy too. We also started an ABC book. We made two pages today, one for the letter A and another for the letter B. On each page, we put a few pictures of things that begine with either A or B. Then, Heidi got to color and we had a snack (rice cakes with peanut butter & a Caprisun drink (not sure of the spelling of that).

When we got home, it was time for Heidi to have a nap. Heidi told me she needed to go use the potty though, so we went to the bathroom and she sat down on her little potty chair. It took her a little while to go, but she eventually went pee pee in the potty. She got a Barbie snack as her reward. They had some new Island Princess Barbie snacks on sale at the commissary a few days ago, so I bought some, and that is what she had.

Tonight, I think we might try to go out to eat for something fun to go get out of the house and do. There is a family at church that has just recently opened a restaurant in Harker Heights that I think we will go to. They make pizza and some other Italian meals. Hopefully Heidi will get a good nap, so she won't be too grouchy to go out this evening.

Verbally, Heidi is on a 3.5-year-old level

Heidi has just started in the Parents As Teachers (PAT) program. A teacher comes to the house once a month and does acitivities, songs, and reads books with the kids in this program. Last month, the teacher mainly just came to introduce herself and tell me about the program. It is totally free. It is funded by the government to help prepare children for school.

The teacher who came today gave Heidi an assessement to find out where she was verbally and with motor skills. She tested at a 3.5-year-old level in her verbal skills & was just on her age level with her motor skills. She is only 21-months-old (going on 22 mo.) right now, so I think she did pretty well.

When the lady was asking her to name some pictures, she said that the bird was an eagle. The teacher said that Heidi is only the second child she has seen to call it an eagle. Heidi has really been into Pocahontas (and Sleeping Beauty) lately, and there is an eagle in the sky in the movie. Heidi also asks me to draw an eagle for her Every Single Time we sit down to color, which is maybe a few times a week. I guess she has a thing for eagles right now.

When the lady asked her to throw a ball, she kind of throws from the side. We are going to start practicing throwing overhanded.

We are also going to practice hopping over things. She kind of hops unevenly (with one foot jumping off of the ground before the other). She has jumped the right way, but usually does it one foot before the other. So we are also going to work on that.

In the bathtub tonight, Heidi showed me that she knows the letter "E" now too. So we can add that to the list of letters that she now knows really well. She likes to play with her foam alphabet letters in the bathtub. She likes to pick them up and ask me what they are ("Was dis?"), and after I tell her, she sometimes repeats me... and then sticks her letters on the wall. She had learned the letter "E" a while back, but I think she forgot what it was called for a while. She also knows "M" too. I am not sure if I put that on the list yet or not.

Heidi also went pee pee on the potty today! YAY! She told me she had to go potty, so we went back to the bathroom and she went.

Tonight before I put her to bed, she told me she wanted to wear "pink panties." I had bought some panties at Wal-Mart a while back. I told her that she had to be a big girl and use the potty all of the time if she wanted to wear them. So we are going to wait a little while before we put them on her.

Hitting: Heidi is acting out her frustrations in her pretend play

I was trying to get Heidi to go down for a nap today, but she didn't really want to go down for one. She kept telling me that she had to go potty (saying "Potty Mommy... Potty!" and doing the sign for potty). I thought she was just trying to get out of going down for a nap, but after a couple minutes of her telling me "Potty Mommy!" I finally gave in and we went to the bathroom. She sat down and wanted me to get a book to read to her, so I picked up a book called "I Love You Papa In All Kinds Of Weather." After I brought the book in and started reading it to her, she went pee pee in her little potty chair. :) Some days she is interested... and some days, she is just not. She is only 21-months-old now though (going on 22 mo), so we still have a lot of time to work on it.

At church on Sunday, she was hit a couple of times by a couple of the kids in the nursery. One little boy hit her pretty hard and when she fell, she fell pretty hard and her head hit the ground. She was REALLY upset and cried a LOT. Well, today... some of Heidi's pretend play was about someone hitting another person and the person who was hit would always cry... and I think the other person was hit back and she called them "mean." She called the two boys who hit her "mean" in the nursery too. I guess she is just acting out her frustrations.

She is also still pretend playing sometimes that one of her dolls wants to be breastfed, but the other won't breastfeed him/her... and so that doll ends up crying and sad too. She is still trying to work through my weaning her to only morning feedings. I REAAAAAAALLLY want to have her weaned by the time she is two-years-old! Maybe things would be different if Brian were home.

I Know You...

Today Heidi was dancing around the living room singing the same song as yesterday, but today it was a little more clear (and easy to understand her words). Today, it sounded more like she was singing "Upon a dream..." and "I know ooo (you)." She even took her Barbie and held her hands and danced around the room in circles singing this song. It was very cute.

S'upon A Dream... and Pocahontas Pretend Play

Today, Heidi did something that I just thought was so cute, so I thought I would write about it in my blog. She loves to dance whenever she hears music, but today she made her own music to dance to in the living room. She was trying to sing the song from Sleeping Beauty that Aurora sings in the forest (the Once Upon A Dream Song). Heidi kept saying "S'upon a dream" ... and I think she was also singing "I love you," but it sounded more like "I lub oo." She danced around in circles in the living room while she sang.

I have been taking an FRG class this week for the past three days. It was also a food training course that I had to take in order to do a fundraiser with food sales. Heidi has been in the free day care that is available in the same building this week. The ladies who work in the room seemed surprised that she knew all of her colors when they did a coloring activity. She does know them all pretty well. She knows: red, yellow, blue, green, orange, purple, pink, black, white, and brown.

We are just now starting to work on silver. I told her that our car was silver yesterday, and she said "silber." I am not sure if she remembers or not... we might need a couple more examples before she has silver down.

Oh, she also knows more letters too now. She has known a few for a while (like: x and o), but she also now knows really well: J, C, P, I, U, and B.

I told her that "S" was like a snake and said "ssssssss." So, she calls the letter "s" a snake. I guess we will have to work on that one a little more.

She also pretent played that she was Pocahontas today too. She climbed into a basket today and stood waving and saying "bye bye," kind of like Pocahontas does at the end of the movie when John has to go back to England after he was shot. Then, she said "boat ... bye boat." She also does the sign for boat... and she did the sign. It is interesting to see the things they do in their pretend play at this age.

We had no potty chair visits today. Some days she is interested and others she is just not.