Imagination of a Child

It's so fun to watch Katie's imagination blossom. Here are some pictures I have taken over the past couple of months. The stories she tells and the things she comes up with. It's great.

She always needs to be wherever I am. The blue thing is the sink from her play kitchen. It's perfect for giving her babies a bath. Of course we use all of the creams and the lotion.


I'm not sure what the things are around her wrist but they work great for bracelets. She has really been into playdough and paint and glue and coloring. She usually goes through everything in her art box. I know she's finished with one activity when she starts singing the "clean up" song and putting everything away. I hope that lasts. :)

She raided the closet one Sunday. She loves to help me pick out a shirt(since they are on the low rack) and a tie for daddy. She will go into the closet and say,"let's see." (I'm sure that's exactly what she hears me say.) The she says, "that one" and pulls it off the hanger and then repeats with several other shirts.

Sometimes she watches TV with some of her toys. The alligator won today. They are active participants in this activity. She will tell them about the show or ask if they need a drink or just talk about whatever is on her mind. I was too slow with the camera she actually gave the alligator a drink from her sippy. So cute.

A Fairy Garden Party

Katie and her cousin were born 6 six days apart. So, my sister-in-law and I had a little Fairy Garden Party for them. The girls wore tutus and, we couldn't leave the boys out, so they came as Spider Man and Buzz Light Year. We made hats and fruit loop necklaces (the boys made fruit loop trains), danced, played with toys, and had cupcakes.

She loved all of her new toys that she got. I found her playing with her new princess tea set that evening. She matched all of the colors together and somehow she knew to put the cups on the plates. She was pouring everyone water. The sugar bowl became yogurt. Which is weird because she really doesn't like yogurt, I guess pretend yogurt tastes better. :)

Katie's Two!!!

We had a little family party for her. She has been singing the happy birthday song all month. We finally got it on camera.

She got some glasses and some playing outside shoes. She also got bubbles that she insisted on playing with that night (and blowing herself). What a mess! I'm glad they were non-toxic because after a little bit she was blowing bubbles with her mouth. She took the gift bag from one of her presents and put all of her presents in it and carried it around the room. It ended up in her little house. It's amazing how much more she understands this year.

We decided to give her the lawn mower the next morning because it was too dark to play with that night (although I'm sure she would have figured something out). She also got to do watercolors for the first time. She loves it!

Egg Dying Eggstravaganza

We hosted an Easter Egg Dying party for the cousins this year. It's one of those traditions that has stuck with me from my childhood.

We had all sorts of stickers and dyes and great moms to help. Everyone's eggs turned out great.


Katie was pretty insistent that she get an egg too. I told her she could color on an egg with a crayon. When I brought the egg down to show her how to color on it, without hesitation, she grabbed the egg and WHACK! right on the table. She knows what we do with eggs. Good thing it was boiled. I had to explain to her that we were coloring them and that I was going to show her first. After that we didn't have any problems. She got to dye them and put some stickers on them.


We saved the dye so Kimball and I could dye some that night. Here are the results.
Kimball's eggs. This one he dyed in all of the colors in order of the rainbow. We thought it would be brown. Unfortunately we didn't get pictures of all of the phases. It was pretty cool.



My eggs. We found out that painters tape works much better than regular stickers. However, the eggs have to be closer to room temperature and aren't wet from condensation. You may be able to tell that one of my eggs took a tumble. :(

Lawn Mower

As promised here are more pictures of the grass. There really isn't a lot of grass. Katie was SO excited. She was a little taken back when he turned it on. But after a little bit needed to be right in the action. Now when he mows, they have to go around 2 or three times so Katie can push it. Yes, she can push it all by herself for a little ways. The funniest part is the conversation we have several times a day about the lawnmower. It's usually the first thing we talk about when she gets up now and then whenever she sees it on the patio. This is how it usually goes:

K- is it on?
M- no it's off
K- it's daddys
M- yes it's daddys
K- it's a lawnmower (or mower)
M- yes it's a lawnmower
K- it's big
M- yes it's big
K- it's black
M- yes it's black
K- it's a push
M- yes we push it
K- it's heavy (with emphasis)
M- yes it's heavy

Naming of the Noodles

Everything is either a baby, mommy or daddy. She pulled the silverware out of the drawer one day. When she got to the serving spoon she looked at it for a second and said "it's daddys" and "it's papas" because it was the biggest one she had ever used. Everything small is, of course, a baby. She does this with everything lately. Well, tonight at dinner we had ziti. She started by saying this is the baby, then the daddy, and then the mommy noodle before she ate each one. And then she started giving them names of anyone she knew (cousins, friends, froggie). It was really funny. She was so matter of fact about it, I had a hard time not laughing.

Grass

We have grass! This was my Christmas present. It started out as rocks. Katie would want to go outside and then end up eating the rocks. The process started last fall, but the grass came during Christmas break. Thank you to everyone who made it possible.
We had some great help...

... and some Katie help.


Finally, time for the sprinklers.


And the curbing.


Here is a small piece of the beautiful green grass. More pictures to come in the lawnmower post. :)
That is Katie's microphone that we each get to sing with when we play outside. She loves being outside. It's great to have a place for her to play.