2 Months Away from 2

This is what she does when I say, “Look at Mommy.”

Helpful, isn’t it?

I can’t believe she’s almost two. I have such a hard time catching a photo of her because she’s always moving, always busy. The day I took these photos, she was fevered throughout the day, most likely because of teething. She’s getting those 2 year molars, and they aren’t going very easy on her. Her fever responded to Tylenol, but each time the medicine wore off, her temperature was high again. Luckily, she didn’t have that problem the next day.

She is so favoring Mommy right now, always wanting to be with me and cling to me. Sometimes it’s inconvenient, but most of the time, I am eating it up. I know she won’t always need me so much, and I’m enjoying my chance to be her sole source of comfort.

One of the things I love to hear her say is open it. She pronounces it “Opuh dit.” I just love toddler mispronunciations!! They absolutely melt my heart.

I love this girl.

Facing Forward

We finally turned Phaedra’s car seat around yesterday. The bathroom scale said she was finally ready. We weighed her a few nights ago with only a onesie and a diaper, and she was 21 pounds.

And what did she think of the whole thing?

Well, she was mostly interested in munching her pretzels. We were on our way to a ward breakfast for 4th of July, and she was ready to eat.

 

And a picture of Eleanor just so she wouldn’t feel left out.

Zoo Trip

Here are some photos of our trip to the zoo last Friday. I took a bunch of pictures. I guess it’s easier to think about pictures with Grant there to help with the kids.

We saw the bears first. They were very entertaining. There was one bear up by the bridge where everyone could stop and look, and these two bears were down below, playing around.

We hurried over to the Africa section to get to the lions in time for the trainer talk. The zoo maps list times throughout the day when animal trainers will go interact with the animals for people to watch. We’ve seen the sea lions do tricks, and now the lions. I highly recommend trying to catch a trainer talk next time you go to the zoo.  

We passed the crocodiles on the way. This one thought it was so well hidden.

We pulled out the snacks while we waited for the lions.

We sat right next to the glass of the lion enclosure, so when the trainers called them, I could take pictures of them approaching.  

 The lions weren’t in much of a performing mood. They came in and out, getting a few squirts of goat’s milk and then leaving. Apparently, some people had been working on the roof earlier that day, and it made them nervous. It was still fun to see them run back and forth, and I’m certainly interested in seeing them in a more cooperative mood.  After seeing the lions, we went to eat our picnic lunch at the auditorium. Eleanor loves to sit in the front of the stroller. She didn’t want to get out to sit on the picnic blanket with us; she was content to stay where she was. I accidentally bought these ballpark nacho flavor Fritos that are really quite spicy. Phaedra didn’t mind a bit; she just munched away until I took the bag from her.

We decided this would be the trip when we would finally pay the extra money to ride the zoo train. This is how Eleanor felt about the idea.

On the train. 

 The train wasn’t quite what I expected. I have memories of Hogle Zoo and riding a train that passed by more of the animals. This train did pass by their new dinosaur exhibit, so we felt like we saw it without having to pay the extra admission for that area.

This otter was just relaxing right by the glass. When it got right up against the glass, it would reach out one paw to push off and go back to relaxing.

I think our daughters’ all time favorite at the zoo is the petting area where they get to pet the goats. They wish they could pet all the animals. 

 Phaedra really got up close and personal with the goats.

A few more animals . . .

Some playing around . . .

And that was about all the fun we could handle!

A Walk in the Park

We had a great time this afternoon walking around Minto Brown with Grandma, Grandpa, and Uncle Mike. My feet are sore, and I’m ready to sit and watch TV with my sweetie. More later.

Phaedra-isms

Just as I predicted, since I wrote that post describing a few of the ways Phaedra mispronounces words, I’ve been remembering more that I wanted to write down. Here are a few:

“Want some” sounds just like “awesome,” but in a whiny voice. When she’s begging for something, it’s so tempting to taunt her with, “It is awesome. I know.”

Clean up: “leem up” (You should hear her sing the clean up song for nursery. I love it!)

Doing? (As in, “What are you doing?”): “Doongin’?” I’ve heard this one a lot lately, and it just cracks me up. Unfortunately, I think my laughing at her has clued her in to her mistake, and she’s starting to say it correctly sometimes.

Earlier this week, Phae was trying to say helicopter, and it came out “hackilockiluh.”

Most words that start with S and another consonant are pronounced without the S, so squeak becomes “queak.” Those are fun.

Eleanor pronounces pretty much everything perfectly. I think the only mispronunciations she does now are on really new difficult words or old classics that I think she knows she says wrong. One that she’s still clinging to after all this time is calling elevators “alligators.” I just love it.

Eleanor spent the day at work with her daddy today. Last year, she begged and begged to go to work with him until he finally just took a day off so he could take her to work with him without anyone looking down their noses at him. She loved it so much, I think it has become a summer tradition for them. She is such a Daddy’s girl.

Phaedra and I hardly knew what to do with ourselves. She woke up after they had left, and chanted Eleanor’s name until I called and let her talk to her on the phone. I took her for a little walk in the stroller since I figured it was a rare opportunity for me to try to go jogging with only one child around. I don’t know if it was because I’m so out of shape again or because it has been so long since I’ve actually tried to jog with that stroller, but I was out of breath in no time. It wasn’t long before I decided the whole jogging idea was a loss, and I just walked us around for a while before going home. I wanted to play with her and do what she wanted to do. She saw the video game controllers and asked to play a game, so we did that for a little while. She mostly handed it over to me and told me to do it. She was getting tired, so I put her down for a nap. She slept for about 3 hours and woke up very grumpy. I had to ease her into eating, and she would hardly leave my arms. She’s starting to get her 2 year molars, poor girl. Her bottom left one is just cutting through the gums, and I can tell it isn’t pleasant for her.

Grant and Eleanor came home a little early, Eleanor asleep from the car ride. Yesterday, Grant had told her she would have to get up early, and she had been worried that she would be too tired (probably from all those talks we’ve had with her trying to encourage her to go back to sleep when she wakes up too early in the morning). I had told her she could rest in the car on the way home. She thought it was a great idea, and apparently, she followed through with it. They seemed to have a good time. When Phae called Eleanor this morning, Eleanor was talking all about how she was eating pancakes at the eating store with Daddy. I’m amazed that she entertains herself all day at his work. She finds little projects to work on and wanders around the people she knows. She basically owns the place.