Haven is 22 months!!

Haven is 22 months old today!!
At 22 months, Haven is as super cute as always!!

2 more months until her birthday!!!!

So far I have the following for her party...

* location- Echo park!  Last year I swore I'd never have their party at a park again... oh, well, lol!

* date- Sunday, Oct 2nd

* theme- Under the Sea

*cakes- my mom is taking car of them!

*got some decorations already and tons of ideas of other things I want to get

* working on making their pinata and a photo scene (Jason's not exactly on board with this idea, haha, too bad!)

* list of themed foods to make and how to make them

* list of themed games

* ideas for themed gift bags

* and working on the guest list 

* I have the wording for the invites, but I still need the papers (just going to make them myself)

I'm having fun with it, haha!  I've never done a full-out themed party before! :)

POTTY TRAINING:

Is going GREAT!!!!  She's been wearing underwear to bed for 8 nights straight now and hasn't had a single accident at night!  We are 100% diaper free and happy about it!  She has even slept through the night a few nights, but mostly still wakes me up to pee in the middle of the night.

Funny story-  We have been going swimming every single day in our pool and she always gets out of the pool to pee in the grass.  The other day she told me she had to pee, so I stripped her and sent her to pee in the grass like usual.  She kept squatting, but then not going and running around and then squatting again.  I didn't know what the heck she was doing.  Then I said "Just hurry up and go Haven so you can come back in the pool!" and she squatted right down and POOPED in the grass.  We were all laughing so hard! :)

UPDATE- We were having a picnic lunch today and Haven told me she had to pee.  So I took off her underwear and squatted her down in the grass and she POOPED again!!!  Oh, Haven, we can't be pooping outside out in public, lol!  I suppose it's better than in her underwear! ;)  I'm going to have to buy some of those dog bags that people use when they walk their dogs, LOL!!  Silly girl!

Recent food obsession:  raw spinach!!!  She can eat entire plates full of spinach salad and keeps wanting more!  (both the girls actually).  And cucumbers!  She can eat an entire cucumber by herself (luckily we are getting them in like crazy in our garden!)

Swimming-

Haven has been a swimming maniac lately since we go swimming almost every day.  Here is a video of her and Venily going underwater.  She kept saying how fun it was!

And she is becoming less and less tolerant of wearing anything while swimming.  She thinks she is a big kid and can swim all by herself!  The other day I took the girls out by myself and we were about to get in and there was a wasp in the pool.  I scooped it up in the net and was trying to kill it by stomping on it (for some reason I can NEVER kill a wasp by stomping on it!) and Haven decided to climb up the ladder and jump right in w/out a life vest or anything.  I was right next to her and quick scooped her up out of the water, but I was terrified nonetheless!  She is so fearless and we now keep the stairs completely away from the pool and built a gate on our deck so there is no way she can get out back by the pool by herself.

Clothes-

CONSTANTLY taking off and putting on clothes.  Every time I turn around she is either naked when she used to have clothes on or wearing something she wasn't wearing before.  Most of the time she does really well with it.  Here is a pic where she went in her room and came out in pajamas and both legs are in the same hole, lol.

We ♥ Festivals

Here we are at a Revolutionary War reenactment.  Very cool!  Couldn't imagine having children back then.  One woman took her two small children, dragged them across a field in a wash tin and proceeded to give them a bath while they ran around naked, lol!  We also went to a Hot Air Balloon festival.  We got to see the hot air balloons up in the air and then they all came back and they blew them up again at night and shined the lights inside! 

Haven loved this slide at a picnic for Grandma's work (wish I had the $175 to rent it for the girls' party!!!  I'm thinking about getting a bounce house since it's a lot cheaper):

Museum-

We went to the museum today with Haven's friends (who were all born within a month of each other)!

FUNNY things she says and funny/cute conversations lately:

One day we were driving home from somewhere and she saw the moon.  She was FREAKING out about it, it was so cute!  She kept saying "I SEE THE MOON!  I SEE THE MOON! HI, MOON!!!  I LOVE YOU, MOON!" and then we turned a corner and she couldn't see it anymore.  She was so upset and was saying "Where are you moon?  Mommy, I miss the moon." and she was almost crying, haha! :)

(after waking up from her nap) "Mommy, I'm so crabby!"  She's actually said this a couple of times, whenever she's crabby, lol!

Says this all the time:  "Have to/ need to ____(insert anything)__" (go camping, go downstairs, eat a banana, etc.).  Everything is "Mommy, I NEED to go outside!"  "Mommy, I NEED a snack!"  "Mommy, I HAVE to go to grandma's house!"  :)

Calls band-aids "bandages".  So does Venily.  I have no idea why, LOL!!!  She's always like "Mommy, my finger hurts.  My need a bandage!"  HAHA!

Conversation from the other day:

Haven: "Mommy, are you busy right now?" (She actually said this, lol!  Does she think she's 15 or something?!)

Me: "No.  Did you want something?"

Haven: "My want M&M candies!" (said 'nem-uh-nem candies') :)

(After handing her a regular toothbrush when she's been brushing with an electric toothbrush since Xmas.  Misplaced her electric toothbrush)

Haven:  (trying to push the front of the toothbrush and handing it to me)  "Mommy, push button?"

Me:  "No, Haven, that's just the way it is.  Just brush your teeth" (and I give it back to her)

Haven:  "Mommy, it broken!  Needs new batteries!"  LOL!

(holding a cup and her toy lamb in her hands and playing by herself while I listened in...)

"Do you want something to drink little lamb?"

"No?"

(sings) "If you try it, you will love it!"

Another funny thing she said!!!

"Hold on!.. (short pause).. I SAID 'hold on!'!"  (I think she was talking to Venily! haha)

Any time she eats something she likes she says:

"Mmm, mmm, mmm, delisioso!" (from Dora.  She says it several times a day and I still laugh each and every time she says it.)

We went out to brunch on Sunday and the waitress asked Venily what she wanted to drink and Haven said very loudly "My want a chocolate milk!" and the waitress is like "Okay, a chocolate milk for you!"  LOL!  I couldn't believe she wasn't shy to her and ordered her own drink! :) 

(I was better this month about writing some down! :)  )

Night #3!

Also a very successful night in big girl underwear!!!!  We are 3/3!!!!  Haven came and woke me up at 1:00am by tapping my face and saying "Mommy.  Mommy!" (haha), so I took her to the bathroom.  She seriously pees for like 5 minutes straight in the middle of the night, lol.  She went right back to sleep again until 7:00am when Venily came in and woke her up (even when she was told not to).  

So now I just need to figure out a way to get her back to sleeping through the night!!  (though I'm anticipating that to take a few months)  Venily was 2.5 years old before she could sleep through the night without getting up to go to the bathroom (though she never STTN before she was potty trained either, lol).  We'll see!  When Haven was wearing pull ups to bed, she would STTN and still wake up dry so I know she can do it, but I'm glad she's so aware of when she has to go to the bathroom, even in her sleep, and there is NO WAY I'm going back to pull-ups!!!

Great work, Haven, and THANK YOU for making it so easy on me!!! :)

Night #2 with underwear...

DRY AGAIN!!!  I like this trend! :)

Haven crawled in bed with me at 3:30am, so I put her on the toilet and she went.  Fell right back to sleep and slept until 7:00am when I think Venily woke her up.  So happy!!

1st night in underwear= success!!!

Haven wore underwear to bed last night for the first time and woke up dry!!!!   She did crawl into bed with us at 1am as she has been the last couple of nights (one thing at a time, lol), but I asked her if she had to pee on the potty and she said no and fell right to sleep next to me.  I had to get up at 4:30am, so I picked her up still completely asleep and sat her on the toilet and whispered to her, "Can you pee for Mommy?"  she whispered back "yes" and went (still completely asleep, lol).  Then she whispered "big girl!" as I wiped her and pulled her pants back up and I laid her back in bed still sleeping, haha!  She didn't get up until 8:00am, which is super late for her!!!!  Yay for no more diapers any more!!!!!!!

I think we're ready for nighttime potty training!!!

Haven has been doing AMAZING this past week with going on the potty and waking up completely dry every morning.  So I think I'm going to make the leap and get rid of all diapers/ pull-ups for good (even at night)!!  She did have one poop accident at the park a few days ago that was SUPER gross, but it was one of 5 times she had to poop that day (and 5 the next) so I don't think it was her fault!

Yesterday she woke up dry.  Did not wear a diaper/pull-up AT ALL all day long.  Went to the bowling alley for 2+ hours, came home for a nap, went to another friend's birthday party at her house for 3.5 hours and didn't have any accidents.  When we got home, we went swimming in our pool and she even got out twice to pee in the grass (she is GREAT at peeing in the grass now, lol!).  Then woke up dry again this morning!

Soooo.... *fingers crossed* when she wears underwear to bed tonight she still wakes up dry and we can be DONE with diapers and pull-ups forever and ever!!  (She ALWAYS wears underwear for naps and hasn't ever peed in her bed.  Also, there has been a few nights where she wakes up crying in the middle of the night saying she has to pee, and then I put her on the toilet and she pees and I put her back to bed and she goes right back to sleep!  So I am very hopeful!!)

(It is currently one month, 8 days since she started her first "official" day of potty training!)

More videos of the girls!

I've been bad about taking videos again so here's some recent ones of the girls!!

Here is Haven singing the end of "Baa, baa, black sheep", "Twinkle, twinkle" and "ABC's".  Both the girls seriously sing ALL day long, haha! :) (she's known all these songs for a while now, she just was singing a way as usual and she was too cute for me not to take a video!)

Here is Haven reading books with Aunt Lisa while she came to visit.  Venily needs more attention apparently, lol.

Here is Haven talking about camping the night before we went for the 1st time! ;)

Here is Venily singing a song in the car.  Her song writing sings are phenomenal, LOL!!  And, yes, she is this crazy all the time!  The song was originally about blood and switched to bones right before I took the video.  She is strangely morbid, but a lot of fun! :)

And I don't know if I posted this video or not yet.  It was taken when Haven was 19 months and she is saying her shapes.  She also knows diamond and square now.  Sometimes rectangle.

4th of July weekend!

A wonderful weekend!!  My sister, 3 parades, a party, and fireworks!!!  What more could we ask for?!

My sister Lisa came home this week!!!  I haven't seen her for 4 1/2 months because she's been on the east coast volunteering for Americorp!!  She had 10 days off and now is leaving again tomorrow morning for another 4 1/2- 5 months! :(  I was happy that Haven warmed back up to her really quickly b/c Haven can be really shy around some people!  And Venily couldn't get enough of her either.  I think we're going to have to get a Skype account to talk to her more!

We started off our 4th of July weekend with the annual Lily Lake kids' parade.  This is a tradition that I've been doing since I was little, lol!  And the girls have participated in it every year!  It's a tiny little parade that goes from the top of a hill down to the bottom, but the kids dress up and decorate their bikes and stuff and there are prizes and free candy and soda, popcorn, games, etc.  There was only 4 different categories and a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd winner from each category and my girls won 1st place in 2 of the categories!!!  (Venily for best on wheels- she was Miss Lily Lake and had her power wheel car all decorated and Haven for funniest patriotic kid- she was a firework!!)!!!  They each won $15!

And some more pics from the parade:

And Haven was SUCH a trooper and wore her little costume the whole time (well, except for the hat, that lasted about 20 seconds, lol!  But I was still impressed!!!)

Here are pics from years passed, lol!!

2010: (Venily was 2 years and 8 months old and Haven was 9 months old!)

2009: (Venily was 22 months old- and also won 1st place!)

2008: (Venily was 8 months old!)

After the parade we went to my Uncle's 4th of July party that he has every year!

Sunday we went for a bike ride in Kenosha and happened to stumble on their parade as well!  And we can't resist a parade...

Monday we went to Kansasville's parade too, lol!!

 And we went to Kenosha to see fireworks with Jake and Crystal!  Last year we didn't go at all b/c the kids were in bed, but this year we decided to go even though it was passed the girls' bedtime!  I didn't have high hopes especially when this is what the car ride there looked like:

but the girls were great!  We sat out on the rocks right on Lake Michigan.  We were kind of far away so it wasn't loud at all.  There weren't a TON of people all around us and the girls enjoyed watching them and were really good.  Haven liked saying the colors of the fireworks and was asleep again by the end, haha!

Now I think we're going to start having parade withdrawals after this weekend, lol!!