Happy Halloween!

Well, your Mary costume from last year still fit. So you were Mary again. I think it actually fit better this year, although I did need to alter it a bit, which I did not do. You love dressing up as Mary and we like Saintly Halloween costumes.

We did "Trunk or Treat" at church and you loved it. After filling up your bucket you said, "I have too much candy." That night we had planned to take you to 5 or so houses in the neighboorhood and then come home early to pass out candy. You had so much fun that you didn't want to stop. You really wanted to carry your own bucket, which got a little heavy, and walk the whole way. Since you walked the whole way we only did about 12 houses. When we got back we sat in the driveway and you handed out the candy to the other kids. You put 2 candies in one 7 year olds basket and he ran away saying, "that little girl gave me two candies!"

Grandma gave us these silly hats that were fun to wear.

We also went to a family event the Friday before Halloween. You got to ride the pony, play games, and pet the animals. Sorry no pictures from that.

My big girl

Just a litttle entry to let you know how proud we are of you lately.

You can say the entire Hail Mary, Grace before meals, and almost all the Our Father. You know how to say and do the sign of the cross, and genuflect at mass (a lot of times you bring Baby and you always make her do it too). You can sing the Alleluia and Ave Maria. And you really like that we are in the gospel of Luke. You repeat "A reading from the holy gospel according to Luke" whenever you pick up my Magnificat.

We celebrated your baptism day, Sept 15th with mass, special dinner, and cheesecake. On the way to mass I was telling you how Uncle John baptised you pouring water on your head in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit and then you were Catholic. Once we got to mass you kept saying, "where Uncle John go?" First I just thought you were mixed up, but then I realized you thought Uncle John was going to be baptising you again that day.



Blowing out your baptism candle

Lastly, you are starting to sleep in your own big girl bed. You fell asleep there last night and are napping there right now. You woke up after a few hours and we brought you back in bed with us, we were secretly happy to have you back with us.

Your "own big girl bed"






Reading in Uncle John's chair




Hide and Seek


Watching the Cardinals with Dada

Birthday Party

Here's some pictures of your 2nd birthday party with our family. I think everyone had a great time. You love playing with all your cousins!




The kiddie pool with a slide, actually very hard to find for sale!




The big kids were slip n slide pros. The little kids gave it their best shot.






You LOVE the slide!


Happy Birthday is your new favorite song

Blowing out the candles with a little help.

Opening presents

It only caught your interest for a little while

Good thing you had lots of helpers

Thanks everyone!!!

TWO!

Mary Elise- I can't believe you are 2! You're getting so big, doing so many fun things, saying so many things. You're are my little monkey. You can climb on anything and everything, but you are pretty good about climbing on things you are allowed to. You are definitely interested in people now, big kids in particular. You love all your cousins and just try to do the things that they can do. I'm always worried you'll get hurt, but most of the times you don't.

You understand everything we say and I think you can say anything. I estimated that you knew over 1000 words but that seemed like a lot. So we started asking you to name things in the room and you know everything! A lot of times at dinner when Dada and I are talking you say, "no mama talk dada, talk to you." Your pronouns are mixed up so you really mean 'talk to me.' You pretty much ask everyday "maybe Uncle John come to dinner." If it's not Uncle John then it's Grandma, Brandon, Uncle Dave... Lately you say, "Dada stay home play all day." Dada had to go back to work after being home all summer so you miss him indeed.

I have a ton of pictures from this summer, but I bet you wake up soon, so I'm just going to post the ones of your birthday.

We gave you a dollhouse for your birthday, you love it. You could play with it all day.

We also went to one of those indoor playgrounds the day before you birthday with dada. It had tunnels and slides- like McDonald's but much bigger. You'd like to live there, I think. On your actually birthday we went to the splash pad,

got ice cream

and had 2 candles in a slice of cheesecake

Happy Birthday big girl!

Love,

Mama

Curious George, the curious little monkey!

Well Mary Elise, I still can't load those videos.  So instead here's a bunch of pictures.  Summer has begun, so you better keep those shades on! 

Curious George came as a special present for big girls who are almost 2 that sleep all night and are just really just so good in general.  You love to read his books, watch the first 5 minutes of the DVD, and you just love him.  "Curious George jump in the cold water!"

Dadda pre haircut.  If we ask you "where'd dadda's hair go?"  You say "on ground.  That lady cut dadda hair.  Grow back soon."

Condo fun including your new "momma doll, dadda doll, boy doll, girl doll, baby doll"

Back home on your bike- which you are learning to pedal

Uncle John

Dear Mary Elise, you are looking at all these pictures with me so I thought I'd let you decide what to write.  I just gave you a little bit of prompting like, "what's in that picture?"  You even picked the title of the post. Truth be told, you said way more than I actually wrote. 

"Mary Elise in there"

          

"going potty chair"          

             

"going down (s)tair"

"Dadda, Teddy Bear, Mary Elise" 

                                  "Jiggy on Dadda's shoulder, go mail"

                            

                                                     "Mary Elise in door"

:"window"

                                        

                                           

                                                                         "hat"

                                         

                                                        "into tunnel, Mary Elise do that"

                                          

                      

                                            "Mama bag, Mary Elise in bag"

                                             

                                                                  "Uncle John"

                                         

I just wanted to add that you've been pretty timid with Uncle John from your birth until last week.  He came over for dinner and you really warmed up to him.  You had lots of fun playing with him.  You mention "Uncle John coming o?" at least once a day. 

I can't belive how big you are getting and how much you say.  I think you're average sentence is about 8 words long.  A couple weeks ago you kept saying, "what e" and I was stumped to what it was.  I told dadda and in about 20 minutes he realized you were saying, "what is" asking the question 'what is that?  I'm very happy we figured it out because now you are constantly saying it after you hear any little noise. 

You are also starting to potty train, and are about half way there.  I'll let you guess which half.  As long as we are home you will stay dry the whole time, it's just that other half...

Well today we started talking about how you are almost 2.  I asked you if you wanted a party and you said, "pizza party."  We'll see about that. 

I had a couple videos but they won't load so I'll try again later.  We're off to have a tea party.