Ten!

We have been working on things for a while now, we were pretty excited to hear her do it by herself:

It's sure fun seeing her learn things.  For the longest time she'd repeat numbers we said but then we we told her to count she'd just say "two two two two".  What got us over the hump?  Nothing short of the old standby, clip hands.

We had been playing with clips recently (Noelle found my bag of them I have around for crafts).  She found them funny to clip on my fingers so we would practice counting.  We were just going for five but sometimes she'd keep going.  Apparently she was listening to all those Sesame Street episodes.  She got to ten in no time.  Maybe I should patent clip hands for teaching children how to count... "Clip hands worked for us!"

Toddler Cookery

Noelle has been cooking with me more and more.  


She's even come up with her own recipes.  Below she is making a lovely Disney casserole.

Another new favorite is clip stir fry.

And here she is in action:

;)

The title of the post about sums it up:

Swimming

Earlier this week I took Noelle swimming--actually I just took her to a free splash park in town.  We went with a friend from our ward who has a little girl just about Noelle's age.  They had a blast.  I packed Ivy around in a wrap, and my friend was kind enough to take pictures on her phone (I left the camera at home).

It was so fun watching them timidly start playing (in their defense the water was rather chilly) and then get more brave.  As they are both small mainly they had fun watching other kids get wet, but they liked splashing in the little fountain sprays and running around.  

Don't worry, the fountains come up really slowly, so no one gets sprayed in the face.

Every so often Noelle would just run up to me with the biggest grin on her face yelling "splashin'" or "water" or something of the sort.  So cute.  We will be going back soon!

Miracle!

Before I get to the miracle I should note that Noelle recently mastered twisting off caps.  Could she have done this long ago?  Probably if we showed her how.

Whilst occupied elsewhere in the house for a few minutes Noelle found my nail polish (which for two years had been safely hidden in the back of the cupboard in the bathroom), opened the polish, and proceeded to paint her toenails.  Did I mention it was RED nail polish?  Did I mention she has never painted her nails by herself before?  When she happily came and found me proudly showing me the opened nail polish and saying "painting!" my gut dropped.  The carpet!  

Miracle of miracles this little girly painted her nails and then ran through the house without getting anything on the floor.  There was a tiny drop on the bathroom floor, which was easily cleaned up. 

For her first try she did a pretty good job don't you think?  Plus everyone knows red is one of the hardest colors to use as it shows goofs so easily.

Sisters

As I've said before, Noelle loves her sister.  

One day Noelle heard me call Ivy "Ives" (I tend to shorten or create nicknames for things) and it has stuck. 

To Noelle, her sister is "Ives". We ask her to say "Ivy" and she says "Ives!".

As long as they love each other I don't care if their nicknames for each other are "potato" and "corn flakes".  They are two cuties.  

Ivy 3.857 Weeks + Mother's Day

I hope all the mothers (and mother's to be) had a loverly Mother's Day.  I woke up to some yummy breakfast and two crying girls, ha ha.  Really, as Corey was saying "Happy Mother's Day" to me both girls were crying.  You have to laugh at those moments.


Here's Ivy one day shy of 4 weeks.  I took a bunch of pictures while Noelle and Corey were at church, but most were the usual goofy faces babies give you.  I thought this one best captured the little sweetie we see each day. 

Ivy Factoid:  Her hair seems rather curly when wet.  She's got the cutest little curl going on front and center (think Elvis curl) when I comb her hair after a bath.