First 3 pix… swimming in VA, playing with Reese in VA (Teresa’s dog who barely came up to Diella’s knee! And who chased HER! Was hilarious!) … and Diella was tired, asked for some crackers, and they never touched her lips, also hilarious!
Other 3 pix by Heather Neckers, Rachel Lusky, and Amanda Bunnel Kifer
I’ll start with the biggest news first… Diella has hit a milestone in life! She is climbing out of her crib! She tried a few months ago, so I was afraid it would happen sooner, but then still I prayed that somehow it wouldn’t happen until after she was two…. Well, its here. Diella always goes to sleep easily, unless we have people over or something… and this night, she was bawling to not go to bed, which was strange (no one was over)… and usually if she cries before bed, it only last 2-3 minutes tops… so I jus left her room thinking it’d be over in a few minutes… so Jake and I are watching TV (only a few mins after I laid her down)… and he hears something over the monitor & asks me to mute the TV… so I did, and we heard it…. Footsteps… my heart was pounding, and sure enough, she walks in, with her blanket in hand, and these puppy eyes! And says ‘couch’ … this was weird cuz we like NEVER let her fall asleep on the couch, I dunno why she wanted to so badly this night… but I’m a firm believer in, if you give in once, they’ll always expect you to for then on… so I decided to be hard from the first day of this… I gently explained to her that she had to sleep in her own bed… and when I put her back, and then she came back out moments later, I continued to explain that every time she got out of her bed, mommy would put her right back… this happened about 6-7 times… which may seem like a lot, but I was expecting worse… it only took about an hour, total… so it wasn’t too bad… so since then, I usually only hafta put her back in her crib once per night… here’s the thing… we’ve been planning on giving the kids separate rooms, now that the one upstairs is done… but now that she’s getting out of her crib, we’re thinking upstairs might not be best, in the case that she attempts to come down in the middle of the night, drowsy… so I think we’re gonna put Ethan up there… and the monitor… no prob for me, I don’t mind goin upstairs when I’m sleepy… in fact, I think I’ll like our quite lil haven that we can nurse in together! I’m excited! We’re gonna have it done by tomorrow!
Ok, that was a lot, I’ll try to make the rest of these points brief… she got Disney princess dominos from a friend… she calls em Don-imos… cute!
Her manners are getting better & better! She says thank you mommy All the Time! And whenever someone sneezes (a lot lately… allergies), says ‘Bless you (& their name)… and then today she pointed at me & said ‘move’ … I said ‘that’s not nice’ … so immediately she goes, “s’cuse me please” … MUCH Better!!!
She loves pepperoni… and she always called it Roni… I never corrected her, cuz its cute… then all of a sudden one day, I was cutting her a piece, and she goes, “Momma, Pepperoni” !!! Perfectly! Her first 4 syllable word! Then a few days later a motorcycle went by & we worked on the word motorcycle & she’s got it now! TWO 4 syllable words! THEN we watched/heard Aria say Pennsylvania on her blog video, so we asked Diella if she could say it too… sure enough! 4 syllables, Almost perfect ;) Oh and the other day, she tries to turn on this flashlight & it didn’t go on & she goes “Bat-ter-ies” lol, yes!
We’ve been trying to get her to respond when we call her name (like if she’s in another room or something)… at least to say “Whaaaat” … and now she does! Finally! “Dieeelllaaaa” …. “Whaaaaatt” I love it
Few not-so-good things… like she has her days where No! is her favorite word L it breaks my heart… and she also has her share of WHINY days, this fake, forced Ehhhh at like everything, sigh* … and also, a few times she has told ME to go to timeout… yea. That works.
On a better note, she still loves her lil brother & even helps out with him! I was giving him a bath & Diella picked up the wash cloth & rubbed his belly with it! So Cute! Oh, and sometimes she calls him Honey! Awww!
Some funny things she says… when she hands me things, she says “Have a minute” … I think it’s a mix between hold it a minute & have this? … I LOVE when she says Nope, I dunno why, but I love it… she often says “There. Got it.” … and when she’s showing you something, she says “Riiiiiiiight there” and points to it. Hehe…. And the past few days, she’ll get up on the back of the couch and go Mommy watch.. and as I watch she pretends like she’s falling & goes ‘uh oh, uh oh, uh oh’ and then falls to the couch… she is a funny girl! Oh and she also says “Hmmm let’s see” … I love that! Oh AND, certain words that start with an S, she leaves the S off, like sky is Ky… well I worked with her on sky & snake, and its cute, cuz she kinda says em like 2 dif words, she’ll go… “Sssss- nake… and Ssssss- ky” hehe, at least she’s trying!
Every other day or so, I do this workout with the TV, and sometimes Diella tries to do a few moves along with me!... like she does crunches really well! And today, she was copying the guy on the TV, saying ‘push, push’ and ‘up and down’ … it was great!
Ok, songs of Diella… she still sings her ABCs ALL the time! Some letters that she used to skip though, have made their way back into the alphabet! And at the end, it used to be just ‘sing with me’ and now its Wont You sing with me! Yay! … she also likes to sing E-I-E-I-O still… but now has added Moo Moo There, hehehe, I love it! … and there’s this song I made up about her when she was really little & I sing it to her every once in a while… the first few words go “you’re my beautiful girl, yes my beautiful girl” … and this is how we sing it now… I’ll sing a few words & then I’ll stop, and Diella fills in the blanks! Its fun! … so we did this in the car the other day & of course every time we finish, Diella says “Again!” … so after we did it maybe 3 times, I switched to Old MacDonald…. So we get through that one.. and Diella goes, “Good Girl Song!” .. she gave the song a title, yay! Hehehe… so now it’s the good girl song J … and then the other day I was Whistling the theme to Backyardigans (as I have blogged before, for some reason, she calls them See Sings)… but I Only whistled it and she goes “See Sings Song!” hehe, yes!
So most of the shows Diella likes are cartoons, (Baby Einsteins, Super Why, Backyardigans, etc)… well every day, we watch Full House. And she never really expresses her love for it, or repeats anything from it or anything… but she always watches very intently… usually, when I have on a non-cartoon, she says No, or ‘kids’ which to her means cartoons… so, cool, she likes Full House, hilarious.
Few short things… on our trip to VA, I expected Diella to sleep the whole way & Ethan to wake up throughout, to eat (we left late at night) … well it turned out to be opposite… Ethan slept The Entire Way! And Diella woke a few times. Weird. … ok, and she used to wanna dress herself so bad! Well that desire has sorta left, and often times I just do it for it cuz its faster… my fault… well she tried with her shirt the other day, and got it on pretty much all by herself, like I barely touched the shirt but once to adjust… good girl! … and we’ve been watching Fatty & Maddie (our pet squirrels that live in the tree outside our living room window) pretty often… well, they brought home another friend! And they introduced her to us… its Hatty! And then there were 3!
K, three quick stories & I’m done… bear with me… #1 - Diella joined us for a worship practice we had one night in the gym at the church… course she needed something to occupy herself, so after the basketball & the toys that brought got boring, I put a chair up in front of the water fountain for her to take a drink… well she played in that water fountain for the rest of the night, it was hilarious cuz she was soaked all down her front! Its one of those ones where the whole front is like the bar that you push down to turn it on… well, once I looked over and she was trying to push the bar down & touch the water, like with the same hand… kept missing of course… that was funny… then another time I looked over & she was putting the back of her head in the line of fire, getting her hair wet… crazy girl! Its cold water too! …. #2 – most meats, Diella likes… she likes chicken.. and whenever we put another meat in front of her, she stares at it & we tell her its just LIKE chicken, and then she’ll usually taste it.. funny thing is, then she’ll call that mean chicken too… like the other day we had really yummy ham, and she ate a bunch! Kept saying “more chicken” haha! … and #3 – we were walking outside to the car & it was a bit overcast & she said “Sky, scary” .. I said “the sky’s not scary, its pretty!” (cuz I don’t want her to be afraid) … she said “sky, pretty. Lips” … I said “lips? You see lips?” she nodded & pointed into the sky… sure enough, this big cloud looked like a giant pair of lips! She made a picture out of clouds with her imagination! None of us ever showed her how to do that! It was awesome! Now she says both all the time… “Sky, pretty” and “Lips, clouds” heheh, cool!
