Haven is 19 months!

Well, she turned 19 months on the 26th! :)  I am behind.... and I don't have much written! :(  It's been a busy month!

RANDOM CUTE STORY FROM THIS MORNING:

Haven: "Mommy, teeth hurt!  Get medicine?  Mommy, need medicine.... teeth hurt!!"  :(

Me: "Okay, I can get some medicine for your teeth!" 

Haven: "Medicine over there!" (points where we keep her medicine and then she says) "Need medicine, mommy....(pause).... vitamins actually!"  (we also keep our vitamins over there)

LOL!!!!  That's her new favorite word of the moment!  "Actually"  I ♥ it!!  (And she LOVES her vitamins, haha!)  I'll say something like "Do you want cereal or waffles for breakfast?" And she'll be like "Candy, actually!".  She is so fricken cute, I can barely stand it!

TEETH:

And, yes, we are still fighting these darn teeth!!!  Of the 4 she's been working on, only 1 is completely all the way through, the top one is about half way through (just the middle) and the other is mostly all the way through I could probably "count it" by now, lol, and her bottom left is near the surface but hasn't cut through at all yet.  Also, she keeps biting her fingers a lot BEHIND her molars so I am praying her 2 year molars are not trying to make an appearance yet (we're not ready yet!!!).  Haven hates teeth coming out!!  We are currently in another "bad teething week" which consists of whining, obsessively chewing on fingers, wanting to be held, and poor sleeping habits!

SLEEP:

Speaking of sleeping habits... she is taking her naps on the couch still.  And they are only about 1.5 hours most days!  I lay with her for about a minute and she falls straight to sleep and then I lay her down by herself and she stays on the couch.  Not horrible, but not ideal!  Bedtime she is falling asleep in her bed again, but I have to be in there with her or she freaks (so not cool!).  It only takes a couple of minutes until she falls asleep and I can leave her room, but I'm looking forward to "fixing" this problem as well!  AND I wake up almost every single morning and she is sleeping next to me, having crawled into our bed in the middle of the night! :(

Potty training:

Venily was 100% day time potty trained in and out of the house and nap trained by the end of 19 months!!!  And night time trained only a couple days after turning 20 months!  I know Haven could do it too, but I just don't know if I have the energy, lol!  I've still been lazy about getting her on her potty.  Venily is leaving with her Daddy to go on a vacation to Colorado for a few days so I think I'll give it a more serious try then.  We'll see.   I know she doesn't HAVE to be potty trained the same time as Venily, but it's the fact that I KNOW she could do it!!  But watching another young child all day PLUS Venily, plus Allison in the mornings and after school makes it a little more challenging!  I am usually wiped out by the end of the day!

Random video- telling me her shapes!  

She's known all of these for a while now, but I finally took a video!  She'll sometimes get square and diamond right as well.

And Random pics b/c she's the cutest, most gorgeous little thing on the planet-

Easter!

We had a great Easter this year.  We got to see 4 different Easter bunnies!!  2 of them Haven "liked" and 2 of them Venily LOVED so that was good! :)  Venily even talked to and hugged one!  Yay!  We had lots of different Easter egg hunts as well.  Both girls did well.  Haven was able to find all her eggs by herself and put them into her basket on her own.  And Venily got a lot, but didn't have any real sense of urgency ever, haha, and was selective on which color eggs she wanted most of the time! :)

Also, Venily made it a point to tell us every time we saw an Easter bunny that it was just a person in a costume.  And she wanted to know why all the different Easter bunnies looked completely different... good question! :)


We went to my grandparents' on Easter and both girls did great with not being too shy!  Venily hid for about 20 minutes at first, but by the end she was hugging and kissing my grandparents and not wanting to leave, lol! :)  Both girls got lots of different Easter baskets from lots of different people and way more candy then they'll ever need in a lifetime.

And here's some pics of them all dressed up for Easter (my nephew, Chase, spent the night at our house the night before Easter):

And comparison collages of all of their Easters!
 

Workout Week 4

Sun, April 17- 30 min Bridal Body Burn (cardio blast and full body toning)
Mon, April 18- None :(
Tues, April 19- 20 min 10lb slimdown upper body (the instructor's huge arms are gross, lol, but I liked this one.  I think a huge problem is my arthritis/tendinitis as to why I can't do a lot of upper arm exercises on the ground.  This didn't have any and I was able to do pretty well, though I also don't have a lot of upper body strength!)
Wed, April 20- 20 min 10lb slimdown lower (LOTS of squats.. yuck, lol)
Thurs, April 21- 20 min Cardio Burn Abs (so fun!  standing abs w/ dancing- though I am glad no one is here to see me, lol!), 10 min Buns & Thighs (love this instructor!)
Fri, April 22- 20 min Cardio Burn Abs, 10 min other abs workout (forgot the name)
Sat, April 23- None (way too busy with Easter stuff!)

Yay for finishing 4 weeks of working out!!!!! :)

Haven's 18 Month Well Check!

Haven had her 18m well-check today!!  I prepped her a bunch beforehand.  I told her all things Dr. Welka was going to do (listen to her with a stethoscope, look at her ears, look at her eyes) and I even told her that she was going to get shots, but that she'd get a surprise when she was done.  She was very excited!  All morning long she was saying "Go Dr. Welka's?  Go Dr. Welka's? Listen heart beep? Give Dr. Welka hugs and kisses?  Get shot?  Get surprise?"  Lol, she always calls heart beats "heart beeps" and she didn't give Dr. Welka hugs or kisses, haha.  :)

The nurse that we usually have was out sick, and I really liked the nurse that she got this time!  Haven did really well!  She measured in at the following:

WEIGHT: 25lbs, 12 oz (75%- the nurse looked at her chart and was annoyed that they weighed her at the walk in at 27lbs with all her clothes and shoes on last time and it made a weird spike in her chart, lol)

HEIGHT: 36 inches (100+%- well off the charts, lol!)

HEAD CIRCUMFERENCE: 48.5 cm (90%)

So here is her updated charts:

Looks like she will be tall and thin like the rest of her family, lol, no real shocks there!  I am betting that she is going to be even taller than me! :)

Haven was talking like crazy to the nurse and the doctor. Dr. Welka kept saying how different my 2 girls are since it took Venily FOREVER to finally start talking to her, lol!  Haven checked out great!!!  Her blood tests from last time all look good.  Her lead level was less than a 2, which I guess is good.  And her ears are all clear!  YAY!!!  (I can totally tell that she is starting to feel a lot better b/c she actually slept all through the night last night in her own bed and is taking a nap as I type this in her OWN bed!  Hopefully we are done with ear problems for good now!  Also, 3 out of her 4 teeth that she is working on are cut through, so hopefully that will be done soon too!).  Everything else with Haven is just perfect!  She is well ahead of everything she is supposed to be doing at this point and the Dr. just went over a ton of different safety things to watch out for in the summer.  She also commented on how her belly button hernia has gotten much smaller!  When she said it, it was the first time I really noticed that it had gotten a lot smaller as well!

And a wonderful surprise... NO SHOTS this time!!! Yay!  As we were walking out to the car Haven was confused looking at her surprise (which was destroyed before we even got home) and kept asking me... "Get shot, Mommy?"  Lol, I was happy to say "Nope, not this time!".  She won't need shots again until her 2 year well check in 6 months!

Haven peed on the potty!!

This isn't her 1st time or anything, but it's her 1st time in a long while!!  She'll occasionally poop on the big potty, but I haven't been putting her on her potty chair all that often lately.  Today, I decided to leave her diaper-less while I made dinner, put her potty seat on the floor with a towel around it and gave her a big cup of juice to drink (she hardly ever has juice, so she drank it all really quickly).  Within a few minutes she had peed in her potty!!  Yay!  And oh did she put up a fit when I had to put her diaper back on her so she could eat her dinner!  LOL- I think that's a very good sign! :)  That and she is CONSTANTLY stealing underwear out of Venily's drawer and putting them on over her clothes, lol!  

And Venily is my wonderful little helper!  She kept asking Haven if she has to go and telling her to sit back down on her potty seat (she gets a couple M & M's too for helping whenever Haven goes on her potty!).  Now I need to remember to do this every day b/c in a month I'd like to step it up to SERIOUS potty training! ♥

Workout Week 3

Sun, April 10- none! :(
Mon, April 11- none! :( (which means no more slacking the rest of the week!)
Tues, April 12- 20 min total body (perfect 10)
Wed, April 13- 20 min total body (perfect 10- still can't do combo #7 and #8 all the way through!),10 min rock solid abs (good, lots of crunches and easy ab stuff, but effective!)
Thurs, April 14- 30 min bridal body burn (no worries, I'm not planning on getting married again, but I did love this workout.  Combo of cardio and full body toning and I like the instructor's accent! :) )
Fri, April 15- 20 min 10lb Slimdown Core (loved it! Cardio and total body, focused on abs), 10 min sensual bellydancing (lol, Haven thought this one was hilarious!)
Sat, April 16- none (sick!)

I got my butt kicked again this week, lol! (which is fine with me...)

Venily is 3.5 years old today!

(This was supposed to be posted on Wednesday the 13th!  Oops!)

(I'm big on half birthdays... but only for the kids, of course!)

HAPPY 1/2 BIRTHDAY VENILY!!!!

 Rainbow color day at school today!

You know the "There was a little girl" nursery rhyme? It ends with "And when she was good, she was very, very good but when she was bad she was horrid"?  Yep, it was written about Venily!  That is her EXACTLY!!

She can be the sweetest little girl that ever was.  I can ask her to do something and she literally says "Yes, Mother!  Sweet, sweet mother!" (she says this often!).  She helps her sister with things and makes her feel better when she is sad. She picks up her toys and does things I ask without any complaints!  She is very loving and always giving kisses and hugs and "I love you"s!

And then there is her "horrid" side!  Pure and absolute sass!!  Sassy arms across her chest, sassy voice, stomping, and tantrum throwing!  Unfortunately, this side comes out often as well!  It's usually pretty manageable, but some days I just want to pull my hair out!!  Uhhh!  I'm really looking forward to "4's" since I've heard they are a lot better!  Only 6 more months to go! ;)

And some totally random stuff about Venily at 3.5 years old!

On a more positive note, I think that Venily is going to be an awesome mother.  She already thinks that she is Haven's and Kylee's (and any other small child that she's around's) mother.  And she loves taking care of things (including bugs, plants, baby dolls, etc.). :)

She's really into puzzles right now.  She's gotten like 10 from the kids' resale book store and she'll do them over and over again with crazy amounts of focus!  She's even done a few 63 piece puzzles with very little help!

She is an excruciatingly slow eater and face/hands washer!  It takes her FOREVER!!!!  Most of the time when I send her in the bathroom to wash her hands and face after eating she'll be in there for like 30 minutes playing around!  LOL!

She loves picking out her own clothes! (Which I try to only allow when she doesn't have school or somewhere we need to be... though she did wear her bug catching vest to school one day since Daddy brought her, haha).  She loves doing her own makeup and her own nails and things too! :)

She is super stubborn and always wants things her way or not at all.  So much like her father... (and I'm sure he'd tell you she's just like me...)

She is definitely caught in that "wanting to do things by herself" and "wanting everything done for her" stage.  For this, I've found that reverse psychology usually does the trick!   There are a lot of things that I want her to do herself... wipe her own butt after she poops, wash her own body in the bath, put her car seat buckles on and off, zipper up her own jacket, put her own shoes on, etc. etc. (all things she's perfectly capable of doing herself, but if she KNOWS I want her to do them herself, she's much less likely to do them!).   But if I pretend like I want to do them, then she HAS to do them by herself, haha!  (And vice versa when I want to just do something for her b/c we are in a hurry or something).

She has an imaginary friend named Fanna and at one point Fanna had an unfortunately named daughter called "Fucka" (which I quickly put an end to!).  Lol, I have NO IDEA where she gets these things from!  She's been talking about Fanna for weeks now though!  She lives in Africa I've been told and she's always telling me things that Fanna likes and doesn't like!

Right now Venily is obsessed with ladybugs.  Venily and Haven literally love them to death most of the time.  They are picked up and carried and "protected" and "fed".  But most of the time they end up in pieces (YUCK!) so I've tried to put a stop to any ladybug handling when Grandma isn't around!!

Venily and Haven are also both obsessed with princesses and Tinkerbell.  Venily lives to be a princess!  She always tells me that when she's being good she's "acting like a princess".  And when she goes to bed nicely she "went to sleep like a princess", etc.  I've been renting a lot of Disney princess books and movies from the library and she loves them!  Her favorite princess is Jasmine.  And she talks all the time how she wishes she could go to Jasmine's house and see her.  I told her about Disney World and how we will go there some day and she's VERY excited (though it probably won't be for several more years)!

Fears.  She seems to be getting a lot better about her fear of adults and adult men. I just need to make sure she is continually exposed to new adults all the time!!  And the other day Venily shocked me by climbing right into the Easter bunny's lap at the store and talking to her and even giving her a hug!!!!!  Last year she wouldn't even stand next to the Easter bunny without me holding her and was absolutely terrified.  This year every times she sees an Easter bunny at the store or a picture of one she tells me that she thinks there is a person inside the costume!!  What the heck!!  So I only get 2 years of her believing that the Easter bunny is real?!  That doesn't seem fair, haha!

Lately she's been getting sick and hurting a lot suspiciously after being around other people who aren't feeling well or get hurt.  For example, a girl in her class got her tonsils out and could only eat soft things and ever since Venily's throat has hurt and she can only eat soft things.  Hmmmm...  similarly, Haven's teeth have been bothering her a lot so Venily's teeth have been hurting her too, lol!  And if Haven falls and hurts her foot or I have a headache, etc, Venily has the same problem!!  I don't know if she's just sensitive and "feeling others' pain" or she's just in need of attention!!

She got gum stuck in her hair the other day and luckily Aunt Jacki was able to save her hair with very little having to be cut off!!

She is incredibly silly all the time!!

Yesterday I asked her what the colors were in the rainbow since she had just watched the rainbow episode of the The Cat and the Hat earlier that day and she told me "Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violence"!!  LOL!!  I thought that was so funny! :)

Dance Class #2 for Venily!

Oh my gosh!!!!  Venily did AMAZING!!!!  I was astounded!  She walked right in, went right up to the teacher and started talking to her... followed her around a little before her class started (lol) and then took her seat on her carpet square with all the other girls (ON THE OPPOSITE SIDE OF THE GYM AS ME!!!!)!!!!  I was in shock until it was time to go around and say what color butterfly they wanted to be and Venily was 2nd in line and actually said "sparkly pink" loud enough for me to hear her across the room... then I was close to tears, lol! ♥  She did everything with all the other girls and couldn't have cared less that I was there or not (she was never more than 1 foot away from me last time, haha)!  She was so fricken cute I could hardly stand it.  
 

They worked on lots of different ballet moves and she was even picked to be the leader for one exercise and all the other girls had to follow her! :)  She was shouting out answers to things and chatting with the other girls... it was simply AMAZING!!!
  
 

And I LOVE her teacher!  There are 20 girls there and this teacher teaches tons of other dance classes and Zumba classes and at the start of the 2nd class she had already memorized all 20 of the girls' names!  Venily was so far away from me for most of the class that I could hardly get any good pics or videos of her, lol!  And she told me beforehand that she wanted me to take 103 pictures of her (her favorite #)! :)

**I'll add the couple of videos I got later!


Also...
* We got 2 offers on our duplex!!!  I doubt it will all work out, but I am definitely hoping!!!

* Still no letter from Wheatland saying Venily can't go to Trevor-Wilmot next year (had to be postmarked by last Friday) so it's looking really good!! :)

*Haven's teething is continuing to wear on my patience!  I miss my sweet little girl who used to sleep in her own bed and was never crabby! :(  She still has a lot of good times throughout the day, but when she is crabby (especially later in the day) WATCH OUT!