Still working on the bed.

We've all been working hard on Esme's bed.  Aaron built it.  Esme helped.

I painted it.  Again, Esme helped.

picture by Esme

At first she was having a blast!

But after awhile she didn't have as much fun because I would only let her paint certain places.  She wasn't happy when I said that she couldn't paint the walls or the carpet.

Eventually we got it done.  Now we just have to move her into the room.  To be continued, again...

Before

Esme is moving to a "big girl" bed this weekend.  Yes, she's still in a crib.  She has never tried to crawl out, she's always been happy in her crib and quite frankly it makes me happy that she's contained.  As far as I'm concerned, she could stay in there until she's 16.  :)  I know, I know...  All good things must come to an end.  She's getting too tall for one thing.

Yes, I really did just take a picture of her as she was waking up.

And Aaron and I are making her bed which we're really excited about.  He built it and I'm painting it.  Here's a sneak peak.  Do I have an uber-talented husband or what?

Here are a few pictures of her room the way it was this morning when we woke up, mess and all.  Let's just call this "before".

Amazingly, I came across some bedding that I think will look great with her crazy wall colors.  I was thinking about painting the walls initially, but now I'm excited to see how it's going to look with what we have.

Stay tuned for the "after" later this week!

Like mother like daughter

How Aaron and I ended up together is a mystery sometimes.  He's most definitely a morning person and I am assuredly not!  He gets up every morning at 3:45 (yes, I think he's crazy too) and goes for a walk with the dogs.  Then he comes home and does dishes or laundry or reads or whatever.  After a while he wakes Esme up and takes her to his parents.  This all happens before I even stir.  And yes, I know I'm a very lucky woman.

It looks like Esme is going to take after me.  She's been known to sleep until after 12 noon sometimes.  This morning I had my alarm set to get up and walk on the treadmill (very unlike me) so I was awake.  All of a sudden I heard Esme crying and saying "But I'm not DONE yet!!!" over and over again.  

Turns out, she did not want to be up at that time either!  Yep, she's my kid!

Singing

Tonight we painted Esme's fingernails.  In order to make sure that she stayed still and didn't get polish all over while the nails were drying I put her in the high chair and the rule was that she had to keep her hands flat on the tray.  We practiced singing songs to pass the time.  She's usually so good at singing her songs and I've wanted to get videos of it.  It thought this would be the perfect time.  But apparently when you sing a bunch of songs right after the other when you're two, you forget the words sometimes. :)

Here's Twinkle Twinkle -

Old MacDonald was a little harder for her -

ABC's she usually does great with -

Row Row Row your boat - 

And finally the Itsy Bitsy Spider -

I actually love all the mistakes.  They're perfection!

Esme's "sick" day

We finally got some snow!  It's been a long winter and we've not had much snow.  It's also been an unusually warm winter, so even though it snowed the temp was about 35 degrees today.

Coincidentally, Esme didn't feel well and someone (not mom) just HAD to stay home with her.  Luckily a little snow therapy was all she needed to feel better!

Check out the last picture.  Esme took it.  Even in her illness she's a great photographer!

To the Gym!

For several weeks now Esme and I have been going to Jammin' Gym Time on Mondays.  It's an ECFE class that is offered in Saint Michael.  The other kids in the class are all Esme's age.  I think it's good for her because she's an only child and (because we are lucky enough to have Grandma and Grandpa do daycare for us) doesn't really get to spend a lot of time around other kids.

It is set up as an open gym concept.  There's a lot of toys and balls around the gym and it's very unstructured.  Truth be told, I wish it was a little more interactive and led because it's easy for Esme to want to play with me and ignore the other kids.  She's getting better though and it's fun to watch her play with everyone.  She definitely has some things to learn.  Sharing doesn't come easy for her although she is getting better at it each week.  She really enjoys herself.  This morning she woke up and the first words out of her mouth were "Can we go to gym today?".  I take that as a good sign.

The other really cute exchange that we've been having lately is this.  I say "Esme, I love you to the moon!" and she responds with "Mommy, I love you to the gym!".  So she must love it a lot!

Here are a bunch of pictures from the last couple of weeks.  I'm afraid that some of them are fuzzy.  I'm always impressed with people who get crystal clear pictures with their iphone.  I am not that talented...

I just realized that in all of these pictures except one, she's by herself.  That's misleading because she really does play with the other kids.  I just have to be a better photographer!  Stay tuned!

Finishing up

Today we decorated cookies.  I learned a couple of things  I haven't baked sugar cookies in forever, so please disregard the fact that Esme's are a little brown.  I got them slightly thin at first and baked them a little long so there you go.  I paid attention and they got better at the end. :)

The second thing I learned (I didn't really learn it, I knew it would happen) is that a 2 year old WAY over sprinkles her cookies. :)  Check out the very yellow ginger bread man!

At the end, she was excited to eat a cookie, could hardly wait.  After waiting an excruciatingly long time for the frosting to semi-set (10 minutes or so was all we could manage), she was ready.

And in the end...  She didn't like the cookies with frosting anyway, she liked the plain cookies better!  Oh well.

In case you are interested, here's the rest of the cookies that I made. :)  They're so yummy!

The inspiration for this entire activity was my friend Laurie's blog - www.relishingit.com.  She is simply amazing and I have made several of her recipes.  They've yet to fail me, they're always delicious!  Thanks Laurie!

Baking Cookies

Esme loves to bake.  She makes a great mess, but loves it.  She can't listen or take directions to save her life, but she has so much fun.  She scoops flour and helps me level it off with the back of a knife.  She dumps sugar into the bowl, pours vanilla in, etc.  We've made apple crisp a bunch of times, a couple of cakes and tonight she got to make sugar cookies.

Here's her rolling out the dough.  Tomorrow we're doing frosting, so I'll put some more pictures up so you can see the final product.

BTW - check out Esme's bling.  She just had to wear 3 of the 4 necklaces that she owns today.  The only reason that she didn't have the fourth one on is that it was sitting up too high for her to see when she got dressed so she must have forgotten about it. :)

I've been waiting

The last couple of weeks there have been a lot of commercials for the Blue Ray of Disney's Lady and the Tramp.  Esme sees the commercials and goes nuts.  Aaron is out of town for a guys weekend, so I got the movie for our girl's weekend. :)

Someone's just a little excited!

Play dough "may dough"

Yesterday we made play dough.  I got the recipe off of pinterest.  I don't know that it was the best recipe ever, but it was fun.  I found that it was sticky and that I had to keep kneading flour into it.

Esme had quite a good time with it.  She calls it "play dough may dough".  (Right now she really loves rhyming.)  She was making hot dogs, hamburgers and ice cream sandwiches for me.

I think that those were the best hot dogs, hamburgers and ice cream sandwiches I've ever had! :)

BTW - Happy Birthday Aaron!

Puppy Esme.MOV

We have a new puppy!

Dora rules at our house

Take a look at Esme's new pajamas.  She L-O-V-E-S them!