intense

this girl is intense.

and bursting with personality.

her imagination is out of this world.

i don't know how many times a day she goes to the royal ball or the dinosaur museum or picks berries in the forest or follows a treasure map to "halle's hideout" or sets up her own office for "doctor halle" or dresses up in wes's ties and my shoes with her notebook heading off to the grocery store to be the mama. (i don't wear wes's ties so i don't know where she gets that one from.)

she is an all or nothing girl.

example of all and then nothing: one day she did all of her business on the potty. hasn't done it like that since and is a major potty tease.

another example of all or nothing: i was teaching her how to use scissors, the way to hold them, and how to cut paper. she was becoming very frustrated because she couldn't get her fingers right. she got up walked away from me and turned around and said "i can't learn." and that was that.

she knows what she wants to do and isn't afraid to ask, but does not throw tantrums if she can't have what she wants.

she can be reasoned with and is mostly easy going.

she hates pop and most kinds of juice. she would much rather drink water.

she thinks she is getting a "ladder bed" (a bunk bed) we obviously spent way too much time at furniture stores looking for beds. she will be sorely disappointed when her new sleigh bed comes, but of course she will deal and love it.

she seriously refuses to learn her letters. every letter we work on is "t." I will actually show her a letter and tell her the name and then quickly ask her what letter that is and she will still say "t."

she loves her friends at joy school and thinks up funny things to say to them. she does an impression of vector on "despicable me" that is hilarious. she always asks if she can do it for her friends or say other silly things to them, but of course they don't understand that she is being funny and have no idea what she is talking about.

she asked for some pretzels for a snack the other day and quickly corrected herself. she said "pretzel" correctly the first time, but hurried and said "pee-oh-poles" which is what she has called pretzels for the last year.

the first thing she says after she does something naughty is, "i like you mommy."

she doesn't say "hey everybody!" she actually says, "hey every guys!"

she is mostly very obedient.

we're very lucky that way.

where did this sweetheart come from?

i have no doubt she is going to be a helpful and loving big sister.

the love we have for this kikster is intense.

saddle me up

my feet only like my toms. thank goodness i have three pair and one of them is sparkly.

i wear wes's shirts to bed and now i wear them out and about. they just feel good.

i wear wes's shorts to bed. don't worry i still have enough decency to wear my maternity skinny jeans when i am out and about.

it is too hard to shave me legs.

we are really just lucky i still have the motivation and the ability to shower.

baby clothes are washed and ready.

bassinet is put together and ready.

halle puts her dolls to sleep in the bassinet.

i make halle pick up everything i drop for me.

i peed four times in the middle of the night last night. i totally counted.

up every night from 2-5. bless you pregnancy insomnia.

wes has two weeks of work off starting in one week.

minor contractions few and far between.

so excited to meet our little baby we might explode.

saddle me up. i think we are ready.

special mommy and halle time

I went to the doctor a couple of weeks ago where he told me I was already dilated (TMI??). Inside I started to panic. I don't feel like I have done all the last minute things I wanted to do with Halle before the new baby comes. So I decided to just act like the baby was coming soon and spend a couple mornings doing special mommy and halle things. The first morning we spent playing at McDonald's playplace. Lame? Maybe. But, ever since Halle realized she could climb up to the big twisty slide it is one of her favorite things to do. I bought her some lunch and when she saw apples instead of french fries in her happy meal she said, "why mama? i want french fries." So I bought her some fries, because it was a special morning and let her wear herself out to her hearts content. I love hearing her yell "whoa whoa whoa" the whole way down that big slide.

Another morning I took her to one of her most favorite places, the Thanksgiving Point dinosaur museum.

The big shark is always a little scary for her.

The highlight was digging for dinosaur bones. She was digging for awhile and then realized the little brush could be used as cleaning tool just like princesses, so she "cleaned" the sand pits.

Afterwards we ate lunch at the Thanksgiving point cafe and finished it off with some ice cream.

She is such a fun buddy. She has always been so easy going and interested in new places. I don't believe our relationship is over once we bring baby home I just know it won't be the same. I feel much better about welcoming another child now that I have these last few memories of just me and my little kiks. Nothing has brought me more joy then showing her new things and taking her to get little treats that light up her face. Now if only I wasn't so huge and it wasn't such a big no no at this point in my pregnancy, I would take her to one of those bouncy house/slide places.

my little sickie

I knew this winter was too good to be true. We were getting by with no major illnesses until Saturday night. Miss Halle who was her normal happy energetic self all day went to bed and woke up at 12:30 and couldn't sleep. She tossed and turned until I heard her tell me "my ear needs a bandaid." And so began our up all night slumber party. I was pretty sure it was an ear infection and knew she wouldn't be able to sleep so we watched movies. Our old "Halle's sick and can't sleep" method that worked last year. She only whines about the pain when she is trying to sleep so it is better to let her stay up until she crashes. I must say that watching Despicable Me in the middle of the night is much more enjoyable then watching Finding Nemo in the wee hours.

She finally crashed at 6:30 for a few hours and we were ready to take her to urgent care as soon as she woke up to get her checked out and get some antibiotics. She woke up and said her ear was fine. She was completely normal all day until about 5 when she said her ear was owie again, so we took her over to urgent care along with every other sick person in Utah county. She played so well and never complained once while all the toddlers around her were screaming about their ears hurting. We finally saw a doctor and were told she had an infection in each ear. How on earth was this child so happy and energetic? We would never have known if she hadn't been able to speak. Best sick kid ever. There was hardly any indication that she could get an ear infection. She had had a runny nose a few weeks ago and that was it. Apparently it was enough to infect her ears. The doctor also suspected she had pink eye so we left eye drops and a diagnosis. Now finding a pharmacy open on a Sunday night is pretty tricky in Utah. Wes was gone most of the night waiting at the only Walgreens that was open along with every other sick person in Utah County to get her antibiotics.

Needless to say we were glad that day was over. And now I have a very happy little sickie who keeps telling me she is not sick because she wants to go to the dinosaur museum and mcdonald's play place and that she doesn't need tylenol, but rather chocolate.