Little Miss Opinionated

My little girl is getting so big and opinionated these days. She is such a little princess, and has started saying that she doesn't like things, but she leaves off the "don't." So "I don't like that" is "Like that!" and "I don't want that" is "Want that!" But you can definitely tell by her tone of voice that what she is saying is negative.

I'm really trying to work with her about not whining so much. It's gotten out of control. It's either the terrible twos, or she's just gotten used to getting her way, but she can throw a fit like you wouldn't believe. Lately she has been demanding to sit in the back of the shopping cart, and if I don't oblige for some reason, she kicks and screams and makes such a scene.

If she doesn't want to clean up or do something I've asked, she'll say "Mommy do it," and if I'm trying to help her but she doesn't want my help, she'll say "Arden do it." You never know what it's going to be.

Some Arden-isms:

"flone" - phone

"gobbles" - goggles

"copy cart" - her shopping cart

"panpapes" - pancakes (sometimes she also calls them "canpapes"

"marmles" - marbles

"1, 3, 5" - the way she counts anything and everything. If you ask, "Arden, how many are there?" She'll say, "1, 3, 5!"

One of the most tiring things about her during the day, is that she'll all of a sudden want some random toy and start demanding it, and though I have no idea where it is, we must search the house until we find it. It's usually something weird, like a collection of plastic cards, a set of three small plastic balls, a set of three books that she likes, a certain shape (like a triangle) that's missing from her shapes. She loves things in collections and always knows when one of her items is gone. She'll say, "Missing one! Missing one!"

All these random objects she likes to hold frequently come with us on our shopping trips. She likes some numbers from a Bingo game, and if we're about to leave to run errands, she'll say, "With us! Numbers, with us!" Of course, halfway through shopping she loses interest in them, and then Mommy is responsible for not losing them (because I know she'll be demanding them again before too long).

It is so adorable to watch her play. She loves to push her shopping cart around and loves putting things in her shopping cart or stroller. She can get so involved in her own little world. She loves bath time, loves reading, and loves watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. But we discovered she has a terrible fear of "Monsters Inc" and "Up!" because one day when Huston was watching "Monsters Inc" I was holding her and realized she was trembling violently. I immediately turned it off and if she ever wakes up from her nap and Huston's watching one of those movies, she yells, "All done! All done!" When I was talking with her about it, she said, "Scared...Arden scared." So, only Mickey for now.

Arden knows most of her colors now, which were really tripping her up for awhile, but not her letters. She can identify the numbers 3, 4, 5, 0, and a few others. She likes singing her ABC's and "Jesus Loves Me."

She's difficult, precious, opinionated, adorable, trying, and wonderful all at once. And she's almost 2! How did that happen?

A Good Sibling Day

Huston and Arden can act like such siblings sometimes. Shocking, I know. But truly, it amazes me how even at their young ages, they know how to antagonize each other with looks, pokes, and teasing. Huston can elicit screams from Arden with just a face, and Arden can make Huston so mad by taking the toys he considers precious.

Today, however, was an awesome sibling day. We went to the park, and they did everything together. Huston helped Arden up the stairs (holding her hand and kind of yanking her up), they slid down the slides together, played on the swings together, and Huston even helped push Arden on the tire swing.

Then Huston wanted to "catch" Arden coming down the slide, so she wouldn't fall. That's what the following pictures are:

So sweet.

Big Kids

The day after we got back from Chicago, Huston started preschool. He's repeating the 3 year old class with the same sweet teachers he had last year, only now, instead of being the youngest kid in the class, he's the oldest. And it is awesome. I'm so glad we held him back because he is so much more confident and mature now.

I love how in his "back to school" picture, he's still sporting a big bruise on his forehead and a big bandaid - both from his separate falling-out-of-the-bed incidents. Unfortunate timing.

Can I just say that I'm always slightly jealous of people that post pictures of their kids wearing or holding their backpacks on the first day of school? Huston will not have it. He mostly refuses to even touch his backpack, let alone wear it. At least I have Arden for those kinds of pictures. This afternoon she was wearing her backpack and lunch box, carrying a purse and diaper bag, and also toting her lambie and two blankies. All at the same time.

Have I mentioned that I'm teaching at Huston's preschool this year? I'm one of two teachers in the 2 year old room. So Huston's first day of school was my first day of work. And I'm loving it so far. I love working two days a week instead of five. Love taking him to school with me. Love seeing him at recess on the playground. Love my co workers and the kids and pretty much everything about it. Hooray for less stress, more fun, and more time with my kids!

Don't you love that hilarious face?

In other big kid news, Arden's hair is getting soooooo long and scraggly that I occurred to me she might be able to sport a pony tail. So I attempted it the other day and was so enamored with it that I took a billion pictures of her outside. It just makes her look so big!

Don't you love those little curls and tendrils at the back?

Oh that face. I could eat it up.

Let's sum up this post with the obvious: My Kids Are Cute.

(actually, probably most of my posts could be summed up that way, but I'm cool with that)

Chicago!

We went to Chicago!

Okay, so it wasn't just the two of us. We took the kiddos over Labor Day weekend to visit our friends the Casburns, and lots of our other friends (Stephen and Katherine, Sol and Carolyn, and Ian and Katherine) met us there for some good, quality hanging out time.

I booked our flights with airline miles and somehow we got first class on the way up there. Imagine us with two young kids, sitting with all these business men, and Huston says to his daddy, "Daddy, this is a big, fat airplane. Kind of like my big, fat poop the other day." Yes. Yes, he did say that.

Our flight left at 7:30 am, which was insanely early. We woke up at 4:30 (and Clarke hadn't gotten to bed until 2:30 because he was at the Baylor vs. TCU game the night before. Sic 'em Bears!). Our traveling went pretty smoothly until we had to wait for an hour for our rental car. The kids did really well, which is all I could really ask.

The kids immediately had a great time playing together. Arden is in love with Josh and Heidi's baby, Elise. Or "Baby 'Lise" as Arden calls her.

These two boys were best buds the entire time. When we were leaving, Logan said, "Thank you for coming to my house," and Huston said, "I like you." I started crying, it was so sweet. (Huston had an enormous bruise on his forehead during our trip, from falling out of his bed the night before we left. The night we got home from our trip, he fell out of his bed AGAIN, cut his forehead on his dresser and had blood all over his face. It was freaky, but he's fine. Anyway, I digress...)

Sol and Carolyn were so sweet to play with the kids. This is them playing Duck, Duck, Goose.

Clarke with Sol, Ian, and Josh. Stephen and Katherine came later that evening.

Here they are. Katherine, looking beautiful. And Stephen... well... Since he insisted on making this face, I'm insisting on putting it on my blog.

We barbecued in the evening and the kids chowed down. After we got them to bed, the adults talked and played two rounds of Fish Bowl. Could anything be more fun than that?

On Sunday, Clarke, Josh, Ian, and Katherine were gone all day at a Cubs game at Wrigley Field. No pictures of that because the paparazzi didn't follow them. Heidi and I were alone with the kids, so we relaxed most of the afternoon and took them to the park around 4.

Here's beautiful Heidi with beautiful Baby 'Lise.

Huston and Hailey helping Arden find the stairs on the playground.

In the evening, we had Gino's East pizza for dinner. Seriously sooooo good. If you ever go to Chicago, eat there. You won't regret it.

The next day we took the train into Chicago.

The kids had a blast on the train ride. We met Stephen and Katherine downtown, and altogether there were 10 adults and 7 kids traipsing about the city. We were like our own tour group.

After we met up with Stephen and Katherine, all 17 of us took a water taxi to Navy Pier, where we walked around, had lunch, and saw a very bad, very painful improv act.

The guys.

The girls.

After Navy Pier, we walked and walked and walked, saw Carolyn's gorgeous apartment, got coffee at Intelligentsia, and then walked over to Millennium Park.

This is the Bean.

So fun to take pictures in front of.

I seriously could have stayed there all day.

Then we walked over to Crown Fountain.

It projects cool pictures of people's faces, and occasionally, water comes out of their mouths, making it look like they're spitting. It was cold, so I didn't let the kids get in, but it would have been awesome to splash around in on a warm day.

Clarke and Huston watching the fountain.

After hanging out at the fountain for awhile, it was getting late, so we said our goodbyes, took the train back to Josh and Heidi's, packed up, and got up bright and early the next morning for our flight home.

And we all felt like this.

BUT, it was so worth it. We had an amazing time with everyone and feel so lucky to have such great friends!