Haven is 16 months old!!!

Which means she is now 1 1/3 years old!!
I've said it before, but I really wish I could clone her and make billions of dollars selling hundreds of thousands of Havens all around the world!!!  (And of course I would make a couple for myself!!!).  She is seriously just the most precious, princess-iest thing on this planet!!  And super-smart to top it off!  ♥


I'm not going to lie, but even though I have sort of made peace with the fact that I am not going to be able to have any more children (with Jason that is... I sort of have a sick fantasy where I marry someone else and have more children, but shhhhh.... lol), it is hard for me to know that I found out I was pregnant with Haven when Venily was 15 months old!  I feel like if I were to have another child, it is SUPPOSED to be right now. :(  But, alas, I sure do love the 2 I already have! :)

Here are a few things Haven's up to at 16m:


* She can repeat all the letters of the ABC's after I say them and can sing about 3/4 of the song all by herself!!


* She can count to 9 (though she is very selective as to WHEN she wants to)!

* THIS "cheese" smile never gets old!!


* Her current favorite color is GREEN!  (it was blue, lol) 

* She is obsessed with make-up and loves to pretend that everything is makeup too!  
* She can draw a circle when you ask her to! (or at least something that kind of resembles a circle as she says "circle, circle!", lol).  She really loves coloring, drawing, painting, and play dough!!


* She says "sorry" now when she does something wrong! :)  Added to her "please"s, "thank you"s, and "excuse me"s and she is quite a polite little girl!!  Oh, she says "welcome" too for "you're welcome"!

* This morning she locked herself in the bathroom.  I panicked for a second trying to think of what I could stick in the little hole to get it open and then I thought and instead said "Haven, can you open the door for Mommy?" and a second later I heard a pop sound and she had unlocked it!


* She has become such a little climber!!  Every time I turn around she is standing up on something she's not supposed to be!  There is only so much child-proofing I can do!!  Oh, and if the bathroom door is open at all, she instantly climbs into the tub (which scares me to death!)! (see high chair video)
* She is the BEST at putting herself to sleep in her toddler bed!  After only 2 nights of re-sleep training her, she started putting herself back to sleep again!!  I just sing to her and say "Good night, I love you!  Sweet dreams!" and leave and she falls right to sleep!!!  I LOVE her!!!  Venily would cry and cry and end up falling asleep up against the door on the floor, but not my little Haven! :)  She is currently taking her nap at 1pm and going to bed for the night at 8pm and waking up at around 6am (but then she crawls into bed with us until 6:45am).
* She is getting really good at filling in the blanks to songs!  I sing a part and then stop and wait for her to add in the right word or phrase.  She loves "You are My Sunshine", "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", "ABC's", "The grumpy old troll that lives under a bridge" and lots more.  Sometimes she'll surprise me and start singing songs I didn't even know she knew!


* She wants to sit on the potty all the time!


* And some of my newest favorite words and phrases that she says:
- "princess"
- "true that" (apparently I have nothing better to do than to teach my daughter silly phrases and then laugh about them!)
- "take it please" (when she has something that she doesn't want any more)
- "Shhhh... baby sleep!" (with her little finger up to her mouth. she came out of her room saying this one day and I looked in there and she had put a baby in her bed for a nap, LOL!)
- "All aboard the choo choo train!" (LOVE this one!)
-"Got you!" (when playing "tag")
- "Oh, man!"
- "pteranadon" (LOVES Dinosaur train and we have some little pteranadon toys, lol)

I really have to watch what I say b/c she repeats EVERYTHING!!!

Newest Videos!

I'm a little behind on putting videos up on here!!  I love taking videos of them though, they do the cutest things!  Hopefully they appreciate it some day! :)



This song gets stuck in her head and she'll keep singing it over and over and over! LOL!
Haven- 15m

 ************************



She knows how to do all the end words correctly except that I always sing "You are my Haven, my only Haven" lol, so she now sings it with either Mommy or Daddy, haha. Oh, and she thinks it goes "when skies are grape"! She really is my sunshine! ♥
Haven- 15m

 ************************


Sooo naughty! The first time I saw her up there I thought maybe Venily helped her up, lol! She is so like her Daddy! :)  Haven- 15m

 ************************


She says this ALL the time! :)  Haven- 15m

 ************************


I ♥ this dance!!
15m

 ************************


I call that Haven's "broken-wing" dance! :)
Venily- 3 years
Haven- 15m

 ************************


Love, Haven 15m

 ************************


that turns into "knick-knack", lol. I never know what she's going to sing! :) And the one was "I love Grandma with the dogs" lol!
Venily- 3 years

 ************************


Haven grabs my camera at the end, haha.
Venily- 3 years

 ************************


"And that's what Christmas is all about..."
She sings crazy, made-up songs all day long! :)
Venily- 3 years

 ************************


Xmas day 2010
My favorite part is when she says "I'm the luckiest girl!" lol and Haven is in the background saying "Cashew! Cashew! Cashew, please! Cashew, please!" Haha! :)
Venily- 3 years, Haven- 14m

Just for me!

I failed miserably at my New Year's resolutions last year, so this year, I'm making it simple!  Just one, quantifiable resolution that is all about me!  I set the bar kind of low, and I may have to readjust it.

*I will read AT LEAST 100 books this year.  And, no, this does not count children's book, lol!

~So far this year, I am finishing up my 9th book and January is not over yet! :)  I'm hoping my library can keep up with me.  I've been putting lots of books on hold and sometimes have to wait a few weeks before a book will be shipped from their SHARE system.  I am currently reading 2 different series of books.  One is okay (by an author I like, but not my favorite series from her) and the other series is AMAZING (I'm seriously in love, but I wish I had the money to buy the books b/c they take so long to finally get in!).

I'd like to add a few more resolutions, but so far I'm sticking to just the one!

Super Proud of my Husband!

Jason started his 2nd semester of college this week!  He went 3/4 time last semester and got all A's and B's!!!  (crazy since he was a C/D student in high school)  And he is going full time this semester!!  After all his first classes, he thinks this is going to be a pretty easy semester as well! *fingers crossed*  He plans on taking summer classes too and will hopefully be able to get his Criminal Justice degree within 2 years!

Venily is 3 1/4 years old!!

FINALLY!!!  I started writing this a while ago, but am finally finished.  Yay!! :)

Okay, so I totally missed her official "3 year update" and she is already 3 and a quarter years old!!!!  Better late than never, I suppose...


So at 3 1/4 years old...
* Venily can write her name and is working on writing the other letters in the alphabet!!

* LOVES preschool!!!

* Is still super shy at times! :(  Soccer is not going so well.  We are considering bringing her to see someone.  We're thinking being shy is fine, crippling shyness is not! :(

* Other times (like in our own home) she is the MOST outgoing child ever, even with people she doesn't know well!  Jason's friend who is HUGE and super muscular and has a huge beard (someone who she would normally be super afraid of) has stayed at our house a few times and she talked to him, danced and sang for him, etc. NONSTOP the ENTIRE time he's been over, LOL!!!!

* can cut things out really well now with scissors!

* loves to sing made up songs all day long!  And dance super crazy! :)

* she is VERY inquisitive and is very interested in things like "how people used to live a long time ago" and why we have blood in our bodies and things like that!

* has a great vocabulary and loves to learn new words!

* her eczema is finally getting under control!  We've been using her new prescription and Zyrtec each night and it looks fantastic!!!

* she tried to kiss her first boy at preschool!  His name is Nicki!  Oh, boy!!


* she is very picky about clothing!  AND wants to pick out her own clothes every day.  It's really embarrassing when we have to go out of the house.  She's always in some kind of weird dress/ sweat pant combo (p.s. only Jason allows her to pick out ANYTHING she wants to wear!  I usually give her options at least!).  She hates "long sleeved" shirts and prefers "short sleeves up" (as she calls them, lol) but in WI in the winter, that's not always an option!!  She is ALWAYS hot though and also hates wearing socks!  She also loves soft clothing and anything that sparkles!


* I was so happy that we skipped "the terrible two's", however, the 3's are coming at us with a vengeance!!!  I feel like I'm definitely doing something wrong!  It doesn't help that I'm with her almost 24/7 as well.  She has definitely had some BAD days lately where she is sassy, throws tantrums, and whines like crazy! :(  However, she also has "princess" days as well where she is a princess all day long! :)

* still takes a nap every day for about 1.5 hours!! :)  And lately she's been going to bed a lot later (9pm) and sleeping until around 6:45am ish.  One day last week she slept until 7:20am and I was super happy!


* She is SOOOO funny!  Seriously one of the funniest people I know!! 

* I am happy to say that she still has no idea what a McDonald's is! :)

* She is the perfect mix of girly and tom boy!  LOVES makeup and dresses and getting her hair straightened, but also loves four-wheeling, ice fishing, and getting dirty!

* She's really into doing "homework" and "projects" which are basically just her drawing, cutting, and gluing papers together, haha!  She also begs us to do her workbooks ALL the time!!! :)

* LOVES Haven!!!  Really, I don't know what she'd do without her!


Venily interview!!


FAVORITES:
food: tomatoes (she likes tomatoes a lot, but I don't know if it's actually her favorite)
 
desert: pudding (she also loves suckers and licorice and gummy worms and things like that... she a lot more like Jason, where as I prefer chocolate!)
 
vegetable: carrots, peas, and corn (she's pretty good about almost all vegetables)
 
fruit: grapes and pears. (she loves almost all fruits too)
 
snack: cereal, but that's breakfast.  (So what's your favorite snack?)  granola bars with chocolate chips
 
drink: juice, milk, and water.  and, and.... juice boxes!  and not blood.  We don't drink blood.  That's nasty, blood... (and NO she has not watched anything with vampires or anything, lol, I think she said that b/c the other day she said the juice form her blueberries looked like blood!)


things to sleep with: pillow pet, bear, and another bear... pretend bears, not real bears!! (she also loves her soft puppy and HAS to have her soft purple blanket!)
 
place to shop: Kmart, Walmart, and Walmart with food (apparently there is a difference?)
 
place to be: to grandma's house! (yep, couldn't be more true, haha!)
 
animal: lions... real lions!!  Real lions at the zoo!  And I like to go to the zoo with all my family!  Write that, okay?  (no problem Venily, lol!)
 
extra curricular activity: preschool and gymnastics
 
game: Roll the ball and you pass it to each kid and then you roll it back to different people and we touch our toes like this and then we roll the ball like... a ball you get and then you touch each feet like we did at playgroup!  (She also loves duck, duck, goose.  And any board game too!)
 
book: Lion cub.  (I have no idea which one she's talking about, lol, but her favorite book is ALWAYS changing.  She consistently picks out at least one Amelia Bedilia book at the library though and knows right where to find them!)


friend: Kaitlyn with Jacki and Jake... and Ethan and Kaitlyn in my preschool, and Aubrey and Autumn and Adalein and Haven and Alisha and Amanda and my Daddy (p.s.- she is as much a Daddy's girl as Haven is a Mommy's girl!)
 
colors: purple, blue and gray (usually it's purple, blue, and pink... but she has said gray before as well!)
 
toys: my morocca and my timer Santa gave me (she also loves her cars, her pretend food, and her jump rope (though it's always getting in time-outs, lol))  
 
things to do: make pictures, connect the dots, read books, read lots of books... my house Daddy got from the junk yard (LOL, I think she was still on the previous question).  I love painting pictures!
 
way to annoy her parents: (she yells).  Yell! (sticks out her tongue).  (anything else?)  (she pretends to bite me).  (Okay, moving on... lol)


song: If you're happy and you know it shout hurray!  Ms. Joy sings it and I love that song.  Happy Birthday (sings whole song, lol).  

songs on the radio:  Loud songs so I can dance very fast like this (dances).  Like that.  We dance very fast.  Are you writing we dance very fast?  (yes) Oh. (haha, she also loves... Lady Gaga (STILL a huge fan!), Taylor Swift (any song, but especially the "I wear t-shirts" song), Ke$ha (she calls her Ketcha), the Bottoms Up song, Pink... and tons more!


actor/actress: iCarly, Sam, Freddie and Spencer (I should have guessed!)

TV shows: I like iCarly and not Squongebob. (that's what she calls it, she's never seen it before b/c I won't let her watch it, lol).  I like Dinosaur Train and Blues Clues and Baby Bear (I don't let her watch that show either b/c it weirds me out). (She also loves Little Einsteins and Dora)
 
movie: Movies from the library!  (though she can't sit through a whole movie, lol)


Nonfavorites:
food: broccoli
 
things that scare her: maybe a witch?  ghosts... I remember... uh... maybe bears!  (she also doesn't like the dark)
 
what makes you angry: yelling.  yelling at me. (I really do need to learn to tone that down!)
 
things to do: I don't like to go in time-outs.  I don't like to go to soccer.  Did you write that I don't like to go to soccer? (yes) And when I'm angry and I'm sad. (P.S. every week she tells me she DOES want to go to soccer, but then once she's there she hates it! :(  )


My favorite things about her:
physical feature: her eyelashes
personality trait: her compassion for others (makes me want to cry sometimes b/c I'm so proud of her!)
time to be with her: when I read to her or do a project with her (I RARELY get to do anything with just her and me and it's really nice!)
thing about her that makes me smile: any time she dances or sings! :)
nicknames: mostly Ven, sometimes Vena.  I frequently call her "Venily Autumn" as well.






Some funny things she's said recently:


"Mommy, I might be a hippopotumous when I get older!" (like that's a career choice! haha)


(while I was driving) "Mommy, when I get big hands and really good eyesight, I'm going to be able to drive too!"


"Mommy, I have my blanket and my pillow and my baby.  I'm not sick, I just want to lay down for fun."

Haven- 15.5 month mini-updates! :)

Counts to 9 now (though occasionally skips one)!!!!!!  The first time she did it I thought I was hallucinating, lol!!!  But she has done it several times now (though not always).  She used to just count to 3!


Also, getting better at her colors!!!!  She used to only know blue, but is starting to pick up green, yellow, red, pink, purple and orange!

Her blood work all came back good!  It's not something I was ever worried about before except, of course, while waiting for the results, lol!


Loves to climb (though that's nothing new!)!!  Gets up on the couch and up on Venily's bed all by herself! :(  Pulls around chairs and stands on them to turn the lights on and off!


Newest favorite things she says!


*"C'mon!"  Pulls mine or Jason's hands while saying it and leads us where she wants us to go!  :)


*"Baby- found you!!!" She was playing with her baby up on the couch and dropped her on accident over the back of the couch!  She yelled "BABY!!  BABY!!" like it was a real person, got down from the couch and ran as fast as she could around the back and got her.  Then, while looking right into the baby's face with a huge smile on her face she said "Baby- found you!!  Baby- found you!!"  It was the sweetest thing EVER! :)


*"Mommy, eat cookie!" Two morning in a row Haven woke up and came in by me in my bedroom and both times she was yelling "Mommy, EAT!  Mommy, EAT!" and then takes my face in her little hands and says "Mommy, eat COOKIE!".  LOL!  I hardly ever let her eat cookies and surely not for breakfast!  Hearing her little voice IS my favorite way to start my day though! :)

*"Golly!" (my go-to word when I'm frustrated, lol!  Apparently it is Haven's now too!) 

*** Though "Peace out, dude!" is still my favorite!  I make her say it every day and she'll say it now like when Daddy leaves instead of saying "bye, bye"!  LOL! 

I hate winter!

Jason had the flu like 2 weeks ago.  I got the flu 2 days ago and have felt like I was hit by a truck ever since (just starting to feel better) and Jason took Venily into the walk-in today b/c she said it sounded like she had ear muffs on and it turns out she has a slight ear infection!!! :(  And my Haven-lilies has something going on too.  DEFINITELY teething, but hopefully nothing else!  After an entire week of going to bed like an angel, she now cries and fights going to sleep.  She also woke up crying in the middle of the night last night (which NEVER happens) and has been clingy all day!

Pee Wee Soccer

I signed Venily up for Pee Wee Soccer (ages 3-4) and a Pee Wee Fantasy Baseball Camp (ages 3-6).  She had her first of 4 soccer classes today (1/8/11) and unfortunately, it did not go so well!  She was really excited to go, but as soon as we got there was super shy! :(  The teacher is a guy (which doesn't help matters) and there is another guy and a girl that help him.  Today was "buddy day" so I was allowed to help her out, but he made it clear that the parents were not allowed to help next week.  She went through all of the drills alright, learned how to kick properly, trap the ball, do a knee kick, chest bump, etc. but any time any of the teachers would come around or when we had to watch the teacher demonstrate the next skill, she'd cling to my side!  Her best friend Aubrey was there too (who is also really shy) but it only helped a little.  They played a game towards the end and Venily would NOT go out on the floor at all, she just sat and cried any time she was supposed to go out there.  Aubrey went out for about 10 seconds and then came and sat by Venily and cried too. :(  They were the only 2 there that wouldn't participate!

Haven, on the other hand, couldn't get enough of it, lol!  She kept saying "kick, kick!" and was practicing her kicks when she was supposed to and fought me super hard to get out on the floor and play during the games, lol.  Well, maybe I'll have ONE soccer star someday...

We do plan on going back next Saturday (Venily really wants to!) and hopefully Jason will be able to come with and help me out!  I promised Venily a million things if she'd participate so I'm hoping it works!!  Ice cream, candy, circle money to put in machines (lol), and even a new BIKE, so hopefully....!  (not sure how I feel about the bribing thing, but I just don't want to imagine her growing up as shy as I was!!!!)

15 month well-check! And toddler bed update!

 Showing off all 5 of her band-aids! :)

Haven  had her 15 month well check today! (1/4/11)


Her stats at 15 months:
WEIGHT: 24 pounds, 4ounces (70th %ile)


HEIGHT: 33.3 inches (99+ %ile)


HEAD CIRCUMFERENCE: 47.5cm


She is doing great!!!  The doctor was very happy and impressed with everything she can do!  And even though Haven is a little shy to the doctor, she talked to her quite a bit!  She had to get FOUR shots today though! :(  She just whined for a few seconds though and was happy as could be again!  We brought her baby and her puppy with so she was good to go! :)  She also had to get her blood taken at the lab... Venily had never gotten hers taken b/c of moved around appointments and stuff and then the doctor forgot about it, so this was my first experience having a child get their blood taken (Venily is now going to have hers taken at her 4 year check since I brought it up to her dr).  It is EXACTLY like an adult getting it taken!  She had to sit in the chair (on my lap), put her arm on the little chair table thing and they put the rubber band thing around the top of her arm!  Luckily Haven takes after me and has practically translucent skin, making finding veins very easy! :)  She whined a little again and said "Mommy, mommy!" absolutely breaking my heart, but it wasn't too bad.  She also kept saying "Baby!  Puppy!" (even though she had them in her arms, lol.  And when she was all done, she pointed to the door, looked at  me and said "Mommy, GO!" (b/c she wanted to leave)  LOL, the 2 women with us thought it was very funny!  We will hear back in a few days to find out if she is anemic or not and what her lead level is!

Venily also got her eczema looked at while we there.  Venily weighed in at 32 pounds, 4 ounces.  The doctor put her on a new prescription: Fluticasone 2x a day until it *hopefully* clears up, as well as Chilren's Zyrtec each night before bed for a few weeks!  The prescription I guess is pretty strong!  Right now her legs look pretty bad and they've been bothering her and she has just started scratching them, which of course makes it so much worse!


On another note, Haven is 7/7 in sleeping great in her new toddler bed!!!!!   4 nights of sleep and 3 naps with ZERO problems!  She always goes right to sleep and doesn't get out of her bed until it's time to get up!  We have rearranged and reorganized the girls' room several times and have found a way we like.  It turns out that the bunk beds that Jason made for the girls wouldn't have worked out really well so Haven is going to stay in her toddler bed for a while (after having to disassemble and reassemble it), but we lofted Venily's bed and she is VERY excited about that.  However, Haven can climb right up into Venily's bed still, so hopefully we aren't going to have any problems with that!


AND!!!!!!  I went through ALL of the girls' toys today and got rid of about half of them and organized the rest AND took down our Xmas tree and decorations!!!!  I am so excited and feel so much better about everything!  There is still more work to be done, but today was a HuGE accomplishment!

Big girl bed!!!!

Jason decided that for a new year, Haven should start in a new  bed!  He REALLY wanted to put her in the bottom bunk and move Venily to the top, but I wanted to see how she'd do in a toddler bed for a few days first, before we take out her crib for good!  She  was SOOOOO excited to be able to get in and out of her bed on her own after Daddy converted it, lol!  Her grandma came over and she kept saying "Gramma, BED!" and then would take my mom in by her new bed and say "sleep, good night!", get in, and pretend to sleep, lol!  And then she'd run back to the living room and 2 minutes later do the same thing all over again.  I was a little worried with all of the getting in and out stuff, that maybe she would think it was a game and not want to sleep that night, but she did AWESOME!!

We put her to bed last night, same as always and she laid right down with her puppy and baby and went right to sleep, as usual!!!  She slept in her new bed all through the night and even slept in until 7:20am (which is quite rare for her)!!  I checked on her quite a few times, lol, and she looked so cute laying there!  She slept in her new bed for nap today as well with no problems.  And as soon as she woke up, she got out of her room and came to find us!!  Hopefully she keeps up the good work and we can try the bunk bed in a few days!

I have a pic, but our laptop crashed and I'm on a makeshift computer while we get it fixed!

I told Jason it's kind of sad that she is no longer in a crib because it  was one of her only "baby" things left.  Now we just have diapers and she will be a real little girl, lol!  Jason doesn't think it's sad at all! :(