Diella Days

Amazing Moment!

2011-09-23T22:52:00.000-07:00

I have a few things on my list that I need to blog about, but first I had to stop and write this down while its still so fresh in my mind! Tonight, Jacob and I experienced probably one of the BEST moments with our children…. EVER! … we had just gotten in the car to go home after a night out together, the 5 of us, and we were playing a Veggie Tales CD. There's a song on this CD that is SO adorable, and Diella is SO good at singing it, so I asked her to sing it for daddy! The song is sung by the character, Junior, so of course its already adorable! … but now our little woman is singing along as well. So she sang it, she did So great at it, and we cheered and applauded! Jake and I were already giggling, and smiling from ear to ear, just in love with this moment! So then she and Ethan were both saying, "again!" … so I took the CD back to the beginning of that track… and again Diella began to sing… and THEN Ethan joins in! We were floored that he knew all those words!!! We were trying not to giggle, so that we could hear them sing along together, and as the song progressed, it Just. Got. CUTER!!! So we're not only trying not to laugh out loud (at the cuteness), but also even fighting back tears at this point! We were overtaken with so many different emotions! We were impressed, we were in awe, we were filled with adoration for our kids, and we were just beyond proud of this little performance!!! It was the single most precious moment, and an incredible experience for us to watch our children sing those wonderful words about the lesson they learned in sharing! I tried so hard to soak up that moment, as Jake and I had tear-filled eyes, and smiles wide enough to almost make our faces hurt! I'm sure I didn't describe it here, as equivalent to what we felt at the time, but it truly was an incomparable feeling!

Nice Quick One

2011-08-29T08:11:00.001-07:00

Diella just has all the answers, hehehe. I was telling her how my back & next hurt from Ethan jumping on me. Dr. Diella told me, "maybe you just need some fresh air." Hahaha! So cute!

Playing in the basement last week, the kids have this toy camera. Well Diella took the toy snake that they have, and she strung up the camera onto the snake, so that the snake was like the camera strap. She said, "look, I'm like you!" I felt so proud that she was making herself to look like a photographer! Oh and you should hear the way she "coaches" when she's pretending to take pictures! She will place you a certain way, and then direct you while she makes little changes, until she's ready to take the picture. Its so great!

At her 4 year well check appointment, Diella had to get some immunizations. She wasn't very happy about it, and she did cry a little, but then she sniffed and said, "I'll try to be brave." I was SOOOO proud of her for that! And she DID do very well for the shots, so I was even More proud!

Every once in a while, Diella will tell me about the dream(s) she had the night before. So one morning last week, she said, "I had a dream that we were at a different church, and Nikkia was there." That was nice. This is actually the second time she told me she had a dream about Nikkia, sweet.

Last night Diella was "building a nest" with grass and dirt and flowers, etc. Then the wind was blowing a bit, and she got a little upset, and yelled that she wanted the wind to stop blowing her things! I smiled and said, "I'm sorry honey, I cant stop the wind." So she goes, "God, can you please stop the wind?!" I thought that was Awesome!!! And then I said, "Diella, you're a genius." (I've said this to her many times before), and I'm not sure why, but she replied, "No, only boys." I'm not sure why she thinks that, but of course I smiled and told her that girls can be geniuses too, hehehee.

Diella also likes to try to spell things, and I think that's great! But she usually just throws some letters out there, hehehe. Like just now she said, "I'm gonna call that the Science museum. C-A-I-D-E." Heheheee.

Jellyfish

2011-08-15T12:35:00.000-07:00

AH! I haven't posted in over 2 months! SO much has happened!

Real briefly, we discovered that Diella has the red dye allergy. It affects anger. So we've realized that that has had a lot to do with her behavior. Its been a wonderful change since we've taken the red out of her diet! It's hard for a few days when something red will get past us, but it's something we'll get through. She's very aware of it, so that's helpful too!

Here are just come funny things Diella says…

One day she asked, "why is the sun always beautiful?" And I replied, "God made it like that." She asked, "how?" I answered, "because He's SO big!" As she spread her fingers wide open, she asked, "this big?" I told her how He is even bigger than that, and I named some big things that He's bigger than, and then finally said bigger than…. our house! (we were outside), she looked at the house and said, "wow, thats big, like a giant!"

I'm not exactly sure when Diella has heard her cousin Colton's middle name, and I know she knows Ethan's middle name… but one day Diella yelled at Ethan, and she exclaimed, "Ethan Maximus!" Pah!

Once we were watching tv, and I laid my head on her and told her she was my pillow. She replied, "no, I'm not squishy."

I was so impressed one day when she told me that Simba is Lion King, in Spanish. Thats not actually true, what WHAT an analysis!!!

Ok, so Diella had never once asked about Ethan's…. boy parts. I never offered the information, I just thought I'd wait until she inquired. So finally a week or two ago, she did. It was when I was changing his diaper, and she worded it like this, "whats that twirly thing on his front?" HAHAHA!

So Jake got a terrible sunburn this summer, and one day I had him lay on his belly on the floor, so that I could peel some of it, while the kids were in the room… I was curious to see what they'd think of that. As Ethan watched, he said with desperation in his voice, "be careful mom! Be gentle!" … and then Diella asked, with so much poise & grace, "what the heck is that?"

She once asked, "why do dragons put toothpaste on their tongue, and THEN brush it?" … this is I'm sure, totally confusing until you know that that's what Mushu from the movie, Mulan, does in one scene. I quite often have to explain how some things are ONLY on tv, and not in real life.

I WISH I remembered what Jake and I did for me to write down what Diella's response was to it… but I only wrote down her reply to something that he and I must have done together… she said, "good job guys, that was teamwork!"

Once she used the phrase, "it would be my pleasure." THAT made my day!

Diella asked, "how did sayda come out of your belly, just popped out?" I figured my best response to that at the time was, "pretty much, yup!" Hahaha! oh yea, and then she also asked after that, "what part of her came out first?"

We were watching Evan Almighty. The part where the ark runs into & destroys their house. Diella asked, "what will they do?" and then answered, herself, "buy a new house… but I don't think houses can fit inside stores." LOL, Love that!!!

One day she said, "I cant go all way upstairs & then back down!" I asked why not. She replied, "cuz i don't have enough energy." So then i asked her what energy is, and she said, "it means your body helps you." I liked that answer! I've been asking her the definitions to words a lot lately, to see if she UNDERSTANDS the words she's using… another one I asked her about was the word fragile (because I've heard her use this word before), and she told me, "fragile means to break stuff." hehehe

Once after I had put down all 3 kids for bed, they were pretty quiet, and I thought they were sleeping. But I went into the girls room a little bit later, and there was Diella and Sayda, having their own little slumber party! Yappin away to each other! lol, it was bittersweet

Diella once asked my mom, "Ahna, when are you gonna have your own kids?" And then just yesterday she asked me, "why do some grown ups have kids, and some don't?" I LOVE answering these questions!!!

Diella has ALWAYS liked to name things! (which I LOVE about her!!! I have always been, and am still that way too!) So the other day she was RE-naming things. She said, "My name is Sally, and Ethan's name is Markin. My kids names are Silas and Leelee." I loved it!

Her favorite color has always been pink. Lately, she has TWO favorite colors. Pink and red. But one say she wanted to tell me why. "Do you know WHY my favorite color is red? Because its bright." That just struck me as so cute, because it describes so much of who she is! Bright, bold, loves to be seen! hehehe

Yesterday in the car, she was singing, making up a song, and it went like this, "I love Aria, and Colton, and Anna, and Cecily! And then we have 12 in our family!"

Her new thing is, when you tell her something that she likes, or is excited about, she says, "Yesssssssss!" and hold that S sound… so cute!

I loved it just a few days ago, when Diella said this…. "tell me about God. How did He make EVERYthing in the whole world? Wouldn't He get tired of doing that?"

And I assume this one probably derived from Finding Nemo, (its not said in the movie, but I'm thinking her thought process towards saying this, was maybe something she heard on that movie), but it ranked up there with my top 5 favorite things she's ever said… she told me that "Jellyfish sting you with their genicals." HAHAHHAHAAAAA!!!!

Specifics

2011-06-03T20:27:00.000-07:00

The other day Diella asked, " when i grow up, am I gonna have my same voice?" I thought that was strange, but still sweet.

Once Diella was tying a string, and she said, "I tied, then repeat." I asked her, "what does repeat mean?" and she replied, "it means to do it again." I thought it was awesome how well she defined it! Often times we ask her what things mean, and even though I know she knows, its still hard for her to explain it into other words. This time she nailed it!!!

Quite a few times lately, she has been asking for these specifics. She says, "I want silver, shiny sneakers, so I can learn to tie em. Medium ones, so they'll fit me when I'm bigger." Well like I said, she has asked for this more than once, and her birthday is in 10 days. My mom told me last night she found Diella some sparkly sneakers! I think her Year will be made!

Another very smart thing she asked the other day…. well, she both asked it, AND answered it! She asked, "How do trees stand up?" and I think I had gotten as far as the word, "Well… " and she interrupted, "I think the other part of the tree us buried in the ground." I thought that was quite analysis!

One day, I don't remember why, but she was explaining to me how, "daddy is a bigger size, mom is medium size, Diella and Ethan are smaller, and Sayda is tiny." Again… wonderfully analytical! haha!

The other day, I don't remember what Jake was doing, but Diella made an exclamation at him that cracked me up! Now, I need you to hear it right in your head before I write it… it would be as though someone was maybe teasing you, but in a playful way, and you were to shout their name, as though to stop, but not annoyed or angrily… so, whatever he was doing, Diella said, "Daddy Ritenour!!!" heheehe.

Diella has this new obsession. Leggins. She wears them pretty much every single day, its cute! She wears them under dresses and skirts. Even when we have a hot day, she "Has To" wear them! In fact, when we suggest that she doesn't really have to wear them, when its hot out, she'll say, "I don't want anyone to see my panties." haha! … but guess what!? Her MOMMA was the same way as a kid! I HAD TO wear shorts under my dresses for church on Sundays. I remember doing that all the way up through most of grade school… 4th, maybe even 6th grade!

She has a rug in her room thats got a hopscotch board on it. She has this new thing where she likes like lay out outfits, or certain toys on each number of the board. I don't think its really for any reason, she just likes to. I think its cute. She's used the word "organized" before, so I think its just part of how her little mind works!

Nothin Gets By Her!

2011-05-10T13:08:00.000-07:00

Diella used the word "absolutely" the other day! haha! I know she hears me say it often, but to hear her use words like this, and use them correctly, just never ceases to amaze me!

Our new favorite movie is Tangled. We watch it a Lot! She doesn't anymore, but I remember after the first few times, she was saying her name, Mrs. Punzel. Haha! I dunno where she got that???

Oh, and the black eye from the pictures. Ethan threw a remote at her. Nice, huh?

The other day she told me she was thirsty, so she went to the fridge to get something to drink, but when I caught up with her, she had just put the VINEGAR back in the fridge!!! With wide eyes, I said, "what is that??" she told me she drank it. I stuttered, and could hardly compose myself as I was trying to ask her if she was alright. Not that I thought it would hurt her, it just seemed as though she wasn't even phased by it! She said, "its not water." I laughed of course, and gave her some water to drink, but it just struck me really funny that she noticed it wasn't water, but didn't really act all that bothered by it! HA!

She is so OCD, haha! She does like to have things organized, which is great, and I'm not complaining! But we've noticed it in other things, like when its time for nap or bedtime, she likes her blankets to go a certain way. One of them has a hole in it, and that end of it has to be by her feet, not by her face. And her other blanket is colorful on one side, and solid purple on the other. Well THAT blanket has to have the colorful side UP, when she gets covered up. Yea. haha, we'll pray this doesn't develop TOO much!

There was a commercial on the other day, with Larry the Cable Guy. Diella says, "hey, that sounds like Mater!" HAHA!! THATS My girl!!!

We were driving home from Cook Forest, and we were passing lots of places with horses. We passed one, and Diella asked how many there were. I told her three. We passed more, she asked again, and I told her there were four. She said, "we passed 7 horses!" My mouth dropped open, and I said HOW Do you KNOW that??? Hahaha!

We were playing outside this week, in the front yard, each kid had a big bouncy ball. I told the kids, "if a ball goes in the road, Don't get it. Mommy will get it for you." Diella said to me, "well don't get mushed, because then we might hafta find a new mommy." Haha!

The other day I was drinking orange juice, and Diella says to me, "mommy, you cant drink orange juice! That might make orange juice come out of your boobies, and Sayda doesn't like orange juice yet." BWAA HAAHAA!!!

Finally!

2011-04-06T08:36:00.000-07:00

Its been WAY too long since I've blogged! Diella's imagination and vocabulary are just expanding so much! One day I walked into her room, and she was frustrated. I asked her what was wrong and she said, "I'm trying to make the walls into ballerinas, but I dunno how."

Once in the car she preceded a song with this introduction, "This is a song about when I was a little baby." … but I really don't recall the song having anything to do with that, haha! This same car ride, we were asking her to sing another song and she said, "I'm not gonna sing incase you give me money." I think she meant 'unless' not incase, but it was still funny!

One day while playing dress up, Diella suddenly exclaims, "This is So Glamorous!" it cracked me up! I thought where did she learn that word!?!? … she later told me she heard it on Nemo, and then next time we watched it, sure enough, I heard Dori say it!

She once said she wants to have ten kids when she grows up. Uh, wow.

One of my other favorite things that she's said is, "I know i'm 3, but I'm still a little kid."

Once morning she came to me and said with a bit of desperation, "I had a gerbil dream!" I realized later that she meant terrible, she had a terrible dream. Aww. Luckily, she didn't remember what her dream was about.

Some of the best things to hear as a parent just stay with you forever. Once she said to me, "You make my heart feel so happy!" What more could a momma ask for??

The kids & I love to joke around with each other! One day I said, "Diella, can I bite your butt?" she said "No…… but you can bite my ear." That cracked me up!

Awwww, the day we were having Ethan's birthday party, I went in to wake up Diella from her nap. She had a whole bunch of little hair clips in her hair, that she apparently did herself before she fell asleep. I started to take them out, not that I was mad or anything at all, but just cuz that could not have been comfortable! And she broke my heart when she sadly said, "I wanted to make it pretty for the party, but I couldnt do it." AWW!!

We've talked a lot about what things are healthy to eat and good for your body, and what is not. The kids eat a very large and very healthy lunch every single day. When I got all the things laid out on her plate, mostly fruits & veggies, but also a small leftover slice of pizza, she said, "I don't want my pizza, i only want to eat the healthy things." .... Nice!

Once when Diella was on the potty, she said "I wish I had a big butt." Trying not to giggle, I said, "you do?" She replied, "yea, cuz you're big, and you have a big butt. When am I gonna be like that?" I love that she wants to be like me! Even if that means her wanting a butt like mine, HAHA!

One day she comes up from the basement and says, "this squirted ALL over the place, but don't worry, I licked it all up." ….. um, wow, my mind went in so many places! Turns out it was yogurt, and there really wasn't much of a mess at all, but it was pretty funny!

I love how kids' minds work! How they may have the right concept about things, but the reality is so much different. Like how Diella was trying to reach the balloon that was on the ceiling, and of course she couldn't. So she stepped up onto a folded towel to get herself higher. HA!

Diella loves to play Super Mario on N64. When you first turn on the game, Mario comes on and says, "Its ME! Mario!" only he says it with an Italian accent. So Diella will ask, "can I play Madio?" She thinks his name is Madio, hehehee. I finally corrected her, and she said, "oh! Mario! I thought his name was Madio." heeehee.

I asked Diella what she wanted to be when she grew up, very interested of what her answer would be. She replied, "a collector." Haha, oh my! I said, "what's that?" And she said, "when something gets all messy, you collect it." Haha! …O…… K!

ok, so the other night, my mom told me a story about what Diella did while she was watching the kids. They were playing the Veggie Tales Silly Songs DVD, and they were all dancing! Then Diella froze, smiled, tooted once, tooted twice, and continued to dance. My mom cracked up, and Diella stopped again, and said with a smile, "thats called tooting while you dance." HAHHAAA!!

So today, Diella and I were in the car, out on our date, playin games & singing songs, and after a minute of silence, she says, "I wish daddy didn't say no….. and I wish you didn't say no, and I wish Ethan didn't say no." So I then went into the big schpeel about why we have to say no sometimes, and how its because its the best thing for us, and even gave an example from an episode of Sid the Science Kid, and so on… and she said, "do you say no to yourself?" And I replied, "yea, actually I do." and she came back with, "you cant talk to yourself, cuz you don't have two mouths." HAHAHAAAA!!!!

And the Best news of all…. After about 2 and half years of Miss Diva and her attitude, we are seeing her sweet side to be the most prominent now! I would say she is officially done with Terrible Three's! She still has her minor outbursts, but overall, she has become SO well-behaved!!! Its SO incredibly refreshing to have her obey so often, and to see her want to do nice things for her siblings and for me, with such enthusiasm! We've always known how much repetition it takes with discipline for Diella, and now to see that its paying off is Such a great reward!

Everybody Dance Now

2011-01-31T11:24:00.000-08:00

True Entertainment

2011-01-24T14:03:00.000-08:00

Well, Diella's behavior has been very up and down. She's trying to get used to the new baby, i'm sure, but she LOVES having a little sister! Once she asked, "are we gonna keep Sayda forever?" and when I said yes, she was obviously pleased. Her next question was, "does Sayda have an armpit?" Haha, what!?

As usual, she says some pretty hilarious things. One day she called me Mrs. Cheerios. I'm not sure why, but not only did it make me laugh, but its pretty accurate…. I eat them every single day!

Once she asked for water and then she said, "if I don't have water, my bones will go away." Wow, where do they come up with these things??

Its the end of January now, but I haven't blogged since a few days after Sayda was born. So there are some stories in here from Christmas time. I love how they hear a certain word wrong, and then think thats how its pronounced. Like she calls the snowglobe, a snowglope, hehe!

One day she put herself in timeout for biting her nails (I don't put her in timeout for that, but apparently she wasn't happy with herself for doing it), and she said "and I'm NOT gonna get up until I tell myself!" HAHAHA!!!

She has used some really complicated words for a 3 year old! She uses them correctly too! One day she told me something was fabulous. Yes. And another day I noticed something and told her about it, and she said "good observation!" … I mean, she DOES hear it on Sid the Science Kid, but but Still! She heard it, understood it, and used it in a sentence! Awesome!

Oh and my favorite thing that she's said…. she told me, "Jesus says, 'Diella you gotta go to bed' and when ay go to bed, He makes your heart all better." How Great is that!!!??

Just a few days before Christmas I had the kids out at Walmart. And my outgoing, adorable, fearless little first born, as we got up & down each aisle, is singing Jingle Bells at the top of her lungs! Of course I just smile and let her to it, and I'm just all warm inside!… and as we're passing other people, every single one of them would either watch & smile, or many of them even commented how great it was! It was like among all the holiday rush & stress, she was spreading Christmas cheer around for the whole store!

Diella is starting to write her letters! I didn't even know she could do this! Aunt Mia told me she & Aria were doing it when they were here back in September! She gets lots of them right on! Like E, F, H, I, L, M, O, P, Q, T, U, W, X, Y, and she's even pretty good at a few harder ones, like P, B, D, J, ! Its neat to watch! I tried to write some down and have her copy them, its hard, but she's doing great at it!

Yesterday, Diella & Ethan were playing that their closet was an elevator. I thought that was adorable! Imaginations are the greatest things ever!!!

Aw man, the other day I was holding Sayda, she had just eaten, and Diella asked me if she could say hi to her. I was sitting on the bed & Diella was standing on the floor next to the bed, so I lowered Sayda down to Diella, and she spit up right at the top of the neck of her shirt, and it even went down the shirt a bit. I froze, mouth open, trying not to laugh. And MUCH to my surprise, Diella calmly said, "its ok." So since I knew she wasn't gonna freak out, I busted out laughing SO hard! Then Diella annoyingly looks up at me through the top of her eyes, and asks, "why did that happen?" … I rolled back, laughing SO much harder!!! I simply explained that she spit up a little, and then she says, "That. Was. Disgusting." I could NOT stop laughing for some time!! It was funny how she was so calm to start, and THEN realized it was gross. Ha!

And as always, the Best story of all for last… I think I was nursing Sayda or something, and Jake was playing with the big kids in their room. I believe Ethan was entertaining himself mostly, cuz all I heard was Diella & Jake. It was the most incredible sound. She was brushing his hair, and I believe even doing his makeup and stuff. They were having some amazing conversation, and she was even asking him if she could marry him! I wish I saw & heard more details, but I do know it was truly a moment to cherish! Later that same night, Ethan and Sayda were already sleeping, and Diella was sitting in our bed with us, as we were doing story and prayers. Jake and I were talking and laughing, a bit like teenagers, and Diella said "what's that?" We simultaneously said, "flirting." She watched, smiling, but a bit unsure. Then she said to us, "thats not how it goes." We both giggled and asked how it IS supposed to go? …. She said, "you can flirt me." !!!! We both lost it! Rolling, laughing! Amazing.

Weeeeee!!!

2010-12-27T07:29:00.000-08:00

Daddy playing with the kiddos!

Baby Sister!!!

2010-12-12T12:19:00.000-08:00

Diella was very excited to welcome a new little baby into our family! When she finally met & held Sayda, she fell in love!!! Oh and she read her "a story" in that picture

(the menu) hehe.

And I have to mention. We talked about how the baby eats. Diella said, "can I see?" And then when we were home, and I told Diella I was about to feed Sayda, she said, "yay!" She watched for a minute, and said, "thats so cool. I wish I can do that when I get big!" How special!!! She also asked, "does that go into her body?" It was neat how curious she was HOW it happened, and that she was so fascinated by it!

Fun with Daddy!

2010-12-07T11:40:00.000-08:00

These pictures are from the other night when daddy was giving the kids rides on his back. The more rowdy they got, the more the kids fell off… so he decided to make a harness… he rigged up two belts so that the kids could hang on… its was a blast to watch!

Just a few new things with our big girl! She's getting excited for the baby to come! Due yesterday actually! The two "big kids" have been sharing a room for about a month now, to get ready to put a new baby in its own room. They transitioned without any problems! Its really nice!

She is really growing lately! I hate to say getting "Tall" cuz who knows if she'll ever get all That tall… but she's growing taller, way faster than she ever has before! She's actually wearing the size clothes that she should be, and we're watching her grow Out of clothes so fast all of a sudden!

Diella is loving to help out with things so much lately, and I'm thrilled! She'll get a tissue or diapers or wipes when I need… she likes (and is surprisingly good at) folding small hand towels or wash cloths! … she loves to help make dinner! and sometimes will even ask to help with the dishes! Twice now, she's even cleaned the entire toy room, completely on her own! This will be GREAT when mama has a new little one around!

We were driving home from church the other day, and we passed a trailer park. Diella points & says, "Look a big house on a truck holder." HAHA! Dunno how she came up with that, but Jake & I thought that was pretty clever!

I don't remember why she said this, but one day she said, "I wish that I had two tongues." which of course I thought was hilarious. And then it even developed into -I wish I had 4 arms, 4 legs, etc.

We have some track lighting in our dining room. Diella wanted to dance for me and daddy, so he turned off the lights… she went over to the stairs & waited… daddy announced her, and slowly turned up the dimmer until she made her grand entrance and sang & danced her heart out! This was right after dinner… so I just felt so entertained! As though I had my very own dinner theatre in our home!!! With my daughter as the headliner! It was great!

Diella is quoting more & more movies lines on her own…. and of course I am a proud mother for that, hahaha! My favorite one that she said the other day (I love the line in the movie, so of course I love it even more that she's saying it now!)… is from Evan Almighty (the kids Favorite movie right now… I know… how funny!…), and Evan drives past two dogs and he calls to them, "when you're on my lawn, keep it in your butt!" … and now Diella says this!!! HAHAHAHAAAA!!!!

One day we were on our way to the park to play. As we approached the gates, I noticed that it was closed. I told Diella that it was closed, but not to worry, cuz we would just go to another park. As I turned the car around, she said, "we cant give up. Lets just go over the fence." HaaaaahAHAHAAAA!!! But of course instead of breaking the law, we did in fact just go to another park… one that we'd never been to, and found that we loved it! So yay!

Quick Blog

2010-11-03T13:48:00.000-07:00

One picture is of the kids hugging! Willingly!!! ... another, with the 2 bananas, is what Diella did when she said, "Look! My backpack!" haha! ... and the other is her riding the ride when mommy took her on our date! One picture is of the craft we made on our date... the other craft is just one we did one day for fun!

The video is the kids giving me "smurbs" on the belly... and also hugging the belly... as well as Diella talking to the baby inside!

So... the date... Diella had been behaving really well for like 5 days straight! I was so proud of her! So I took her on a date, just mommy & Diella! We went to DQ for a dilly bar, to the store to go on that ride, hehe... and also made a craft together! It was great!

I also forgot to mention in my blog yesterday about how we're learning what time it is. We really only use it for naptime and bedtime. She'll sometimes tell me the numbers on the (digital) clock at random times too.... but she knows that naptime is at "one, three, zero," so we watch the clock when its close, so that I can SHOW her its time for nap. And that bedtime is at "nine, three, zero," ... but the funny thing is, if its like a minute passed, and we missed it, and I show her the clock, but it says 9:31, she'll tell me, "but its not nine three zero," and of course its hard to explain, but I just tell her that its PAST 9-3-0! so we're PAST bedtime, we better go, quick! hehe... its a somewhat difficult, but still fun concept we're learning!

Today Diella said something about Jesus in her heart... I remembered that my mom says she sat my brother and I down when we were two, to talk about asking Him into our hearts. So because of this, and also her comment the other day about God being "our man"... It sounds like Diella might be ready to start to understand this a little.... so I think when daddy comes tonight, we're gonna do that!

Dora!

2010-11-02T12:21:00.001-07:00

Diella was Dora for Halloween! and she LOVED it!!!

"Kids say the darndest things" right? Well this could not be more true about our little first born! One day during lunch, she asked me something (I don't remember what), and I replied, "I cant now honey, I'm makin lunch".. and she says (for who knows what reason), "with your hands or with your butt?"

Another very random, I-have-no-clue-why or where it came from- thing she said was, "my heart cant stay in my chest. I don't want it to stay in there." Yea… no clue?

She asked one day while we were driving, "how do cars move?" What a cool question for a 3 year old! And of course, that was a fun one to try to explain, hehe.

One night she was getting her jammies on, and she was doing some of it, and I was helping with some of it. Now, she's been dressing herself for well over a year now, but I was just throwing out some necessary Words of Affirmation for her and I said, "you're such a good dresser." and she replied, "you're such a good jammier." (not that I'm good at putting jammies on myself, but I think cuz I was helping her with her jammies)… and I just thought that was so great, that she returned the compliment!

One of my Favorite things I've heard her say recently was during one of the tv shows she watches. She said, "I wish I could jump into the TV and dance." Awesome!!! How I wish she could do it too!

She says some clever things as she interacts with her brother as well. Like the other days she said, "Ethan, that's fake crying, stop it." haha , oh my! He really was just whining too, it wasn't a real cry. Though it wasn't the nicest thing for her to say, it WAS pretty funny. Also she said last night, as we were all playing as a family, "Ethan, you're cracking me up!" I laughed so hard!!!

She often tries to correct Ethan. She wants to be the boss, and be in charge, and have things her way. We've been working hard with her to teach her that she's not the boss, and when its ok to talk a certain way and when its not… but last night, this was sort of amazing. Ethan had just gotten a little spankin on the butt for touching the computer after he had been told twice, not to. So a moment later, he's sitting in the rocking chair, and Diella pulls up another chair in front of that one and began to have a talk with him about why he got in trouble. (this is how we handle things with her, generally… sit down, and half a talk about it.)… and she explains to him "you're not supposed to touch the computer, thats why you got a spankin, ok?" Her voice was so calm and compassionate. Even though it wasn't her job to "parent" him, it seemed as though she was helping, and it was adorable as jake and i watched her try to make Ethan understand the situation. It made me feel as though she's definitely learning the things I tell her.

Speaking of talking through things…. another thing we do (when she's in trouble from doing something she had repeatedly been warned not to do), is sometimes she gets sent to her room. And if when we go to talk about it, she cant remember why she's in trouble, then we have her sit and think about what she's done. So one day, she was on her bed, "thinking about things," and as I walked into her room, I heard her praying! The prayer didn't make a whole lot of sense really, but I could hear her heart… she was praying about what she did wrong! It was amazing!

We were watching Evan Almighty today, and God's name is mentioned throughout the movie. Diella says to me, "God's our man, not theirs." … of course I said to her, "He's everyone's." …and even though I didn't like the fact that it sounded like she wasn't willing to "share God," I still thought it was adorable!

After I wake up Ethan from nap, sometimes he and I will go in together to wake up Diella as well. Sometimes he'll gently stroke her back or her hair, its the cutest thing EVER! And one day he didn't, and Diella said to him, "Ethan, pet me." HAHA!

I've said it before, how Diella sings EVERYTHING! One day she was even singing her "I Love You's" to me! If that's not enough to fill my love tank for a whole month, then I dunno what is!

She also will make up her own random words to the tunes of songs she already knows! I think this is the COOLEST thing! She'll just sing about whatever she's doing, and put it to a tune she knows! Like, as she's getting dressed, she'll sing, "if you're happy and you know it, get dressed!" Another random time in the car she was singing different phrases in this same song, "if you're happy and you know it"… and would add, for example, "take a bath." So then I helped a little, and began to sing, "if you're dirty and you know it, take a bath." She LOVED this! So we played around with a few different scenarios, and made it into a song! That was fun!

One episode of Dora, they were doing riddles. Well Diella and I like to give them to each other now. Simple ones of course, "what has floppy ears, and says woof woof?" etc…. and she will give them to me as well… but its so adorable, cuz you can see how she chooses things that she's looking at right at that moment. Like when we were taking a walk this morning, she wanted to do riddles… so she'd say, "whats green, and has leaves on it, and you're walking?" - grass. haha! Cute!

Diella often gives names to things. Like the duck & the chipmunk rides at Whitford park are Cootie & Cona, they always have been. I just think its interesting how she Makes Up the names, and doesn't really give them ACTUAL names (like ya know, names she already knows, like her friends Anthony or Cecily or Sophia, etc.). Well the names I've heard her make up recently are so strange! One is Huthe. And then she also had these 3 birds, named Thuck, Theek, and Thoke. HAHAHA!!!

Once in a while, Diella will say she's having a baby in her belly, but then she'll quickly reassure me, "but only for pretend." hehehe

So one day after watching Sid the Science Kid, I wanted to see if she really learned anything from that episode, cuz I really liked it. It was about eating from all the food groups, and why we cant have birthday cake for every meal, etc. So I casually asked her "what did you learn about on Sid the Science Kid today?" she said, "birthday cake." I said, "yup, and what did they say about it? not to…… " Diella replied, "only eat a little." and I said, "thats right! and how come?" … and Diella said to me, "cuz you always get pregnant." OH MY! I laughed so hard!!! I think maybe she was relating that to getting fat? I dunno! But that was the most hilarious thing!

Shower Drawing

2010-10-13T10:02:00.000-07:00

This pic is what she drew on the shower wall! I LOVE IT!

Every single day Diella will ask who's coming over, or what we're doing later, etc. Like "who's coming over after my nap?" or "what are we doing when daddy comes home?" and thats cool I guess, she's a planner! But she'll even talk about the next 4 hours… like "so after dinner, we're gonna play, then get jammies on, then go to bed, then wake up, and eat breakfast… then what??" ah! sometimes I'm like, I dunno that far ahead yet! hehehee

Diella loves movies like Aladdin, Shrek, and Beauty & the Beast lately. There are a few things from those movies she's makes references to at times, which I think is co cool! Like at the end when Aladdin & Jasmine embrace each other, Diella said "look, they're back in true love!" How cool is that!!! And then the other day, I thought this was so awesome… she got a new fall jacket that's like corduroy with a hood sewn in, and she was asking about it, and we were talking about layers. So she said, "do you member when Shrek & Fiona said that?" She's referring to the scene in Shrek where he says "Ogres have layers." That was neat. Its like if there's something in a movie she doesn't understand, she doesn't ask about it, but then when she hears it in reference to something else, then it makes sense!

My mom had the kids & was taking them somewhere in our van a while ago. Well yea, she was backing out of the driveway & hit a tree, shattered the back windshield, cool. Well apparently Diella was bawling! Not scared, but she actually thought it was her fault! She kept saying sorry & that she had to tell mommy sorry that she did that! It was so sad that she felt to blame! We finally convinced her that it wasn't her fault, and even told her Ahna did it. Funny thing is, the following week, Ahna had the kids in our Equinox, and my mom said that when she put Diella in, she goes, "now Ahna, don't break the car with the tree this time." AAHAHA!

Diella likes to give me pretend chocolate when I do something good, hehehe. Well sometimes when she "hands it to me", I just say thank you and pop it right into my mouth… and the first time this happened, she goes, "mommy! you ate the paper!" haha! Apparently it had a wrapper on it… so now I always try to remember to take the paper off first before I eat it, hahahah!

Last night Diella saw this guy in the parking lot, who had a mustache and a beard. She goes, "mom! that man has a mustache all over!" HAHA!

Diella has this new phrase, or question she asks me, "what are you possibly doing?" I think its a combination of maybe few different things i say, but its kinda funny, i think.

A few days ago I just had a cranky pregnant morning for no reason. And we were in the car, and Diella nicely said to Ethan "I don't wanna talk right now." and Jake said "wow, both you girls are irritated today." and then Diella said, "Ethan, are you irritated?" that made me laugh!

Oh man, so twice now Diella has said, "I'm gonna toot… ready?" HAHA, isn't that supposed to be what you hear out of a ten year old boy, not a 3 year old girl??? And no, she did NOT get that from me or Jake. Honestly.

Diella watched Dancing with the Stars the other night, and I told her that Ahna watches that show too, so she called her to tell that she saw it. Well Ahna asked her who she liked best. Diella said "I like the girl with the sparkly dress… and the guy who didn't have a shirt" (there was a guy, during the Rumba, who took off his shirt as part of the routine)… yea, well I'm hoping thats just the part that she remembered & stuck out in her brain, and not that she particularly LIKED! Sheesh.

Diella likes to sing the Hallelujah song from Shrek. Well, now Ethan sings it along with her! COOL! Its kind of like Hal-la, but still so cute!

Diella LOVES to call people on the phone. Its usually Ahna or daddy, but sometimes Grammie O, or my dad too. Right now, she's calling & talking to Colton! Fun!

Diella likes to go through all the animals and ask us what each of them eats. Well then randomly, daddy asked her, "what does Jesus eat?" … and Diella answered "fish and bread." THAT WAS AWESOME!

Video!

2010-09-29T19:54:00.000-07:00

Diella & daddy have this fun thing they came up with! Down in the basement, there's this light, daddy will "introduce" Diella, open up the pretend curtain, and put the spotlight on her. Then she puts on a show, and takes a bow, then he'll close the curtain and turn the light off. Its adorable! and she LOVES it! Always wants to Go Put On A Show! Cute!!

The other day she bumped her mouth, and I only laughed cuz she cried, "now I cant chew!" haha! we weren't even eating at the time! ha!

I've noticed her lately doing something she just started (one of those things you don't actually TEACH them, but they must have seen you do it?)… she puts a chair right in front of the mirror, and moves her hands around like she's putting on makeup, and doing her hair, and getting dressed. Then she'll turn around, and strike a pose & say, "mommy, how do i look?" even while batting her little eyes, cute!!! … I posted a video where she's doing this, but she's far away, and its hard to hear… (I was also recording Ethan waking up daddy one morning).

Diella says dandelions smell like pineapple & yellow cake. Ha, cute!

Yesterday when Diella was in the bath, the water was draining, and she put her hand over the drain & her little eyes lit up! I was like "you feel that?" she goes, "a magnet!" lol, i thought that was awesome that she described it that way! … thats when we learned the word 'suction' hehe.

And…. the other day…. she was putting on her panties & they were Fruit of the Loom. Ya know how some of those have the "tag" like printed right on the garment? Well she looked at that (there were words, and a picture of fruit, ya know?)… and she goes "this says…. if you wanna wear panties, you gotta eat fruit first." HAHAHHAAAAA!!!! Priceless!!!

Move the Sun

2010-09-14T18:10:00.000-07:00

Quite some time ago, we tried to teach Diella to use a computer, like for games and things… but for some reason the touch mouse pad concept was a bit much for her. Well, a few weeks ago, we tried again, and she's a pro! She loves to play games on Sesame Street site, and they're educational, yay!

Diella has been quoting movie lines! Woo Hoo! She has memorized some lines from Veggie Tales, Kung Fu Panda, Robots, Shark Tale, and the Fox and the Hound. We'll even play a little quiz game, I'll say a line & she'll tell me what movie its from. Cooooool.

One day I said, "Diella I think you're funny," and she said "i'm not. I'm just serious."

Aw man, one day we were walking through Walmart, passing by the intimates section, and she said "look mom, there's panties, and socks, and…… whats those boobie things?" … huh, I told her bras. She said, Ya, Bras. Ha!

One day we were in the car, and you know the time of day when the sun in RIGHT in front of you, and the visor wont cover it, and you're blinded… well it was then.. and Diella was complaining that the sun was in her eyes, and I told her don't worry, we'll be turning soon. So a few minutes later, she complained again, with even more frustration. Well I was in the middle of a conversation with Jacob, and I got short with her & said, "What do you want me to do!!?? Move the sun!!??" … I should have seen it coming, but of course, did…. she said, "yes!" … and since then when this happens, she asks, "mom, can you move the sun please?" HAHAHAA!!

A few weeks ago, Diella was calling me in the middle of the night… I went to her, and she said, "I gotta go potty" … I was thrilled!! I mean, she hasnt had an accident for months now… but the fact that she's to the point where she can consciously prevent them, even that she was woken by having to go… I was so excited!

Every time we go to Aldi, Diella stands at the automatic doors, and says, "Open doors!" and they do. I crack up every time! Then when she's through the doors, she turns and also tells them to close. Ha! I wonder if she thinks it really works that way?

so the past few weeks for us have been NONstop!… well even before that, I've noticed we must just be a very on-the-go family… because every day now, Diella asks either "where we going today?" or "who we gonna see today?" … I think this is a good thing? I like them to go with the flow, for whatever we've got going that day, so I guess they're just getting used to all the running around!

oh man, just now we went for a walk… Diella picked up two little sticks and she was rubbing them together (I dunno how, but I knew exactly where she was goin with it)… and she said "this is just like Sid the Sloth!" …. thats what he does on Ice Age… and she goes, "make fire! make fire!" HAHAAAHAA!!

Well, Diella had kind of a big thing happen in her life. Unfortunately its not the best thing. She. Got. Grounded….. Diella, long ago, learned the lesson that when you're coloring or drawing, you ONLY draw on paper, nothing else. Well she had out some crayons the other day & drew on Ethan's rug, our bedroom door, and our hamper. Not good. So she was grounded from coloring or drawing. I'm hoping after being grounded, she's learned her lesson for good.

She's also gotten a bit bossy. She sometimes tries to tell Ethan what to do, and even mommy & daddy. Well, we've told her she's not the boss, and that mommy & daddy are. The other day I gave her a look… and she goes, "I'm not the boss right?"… well, she gets the point at least.

She has always sang Mary Had A Little Lamb like this "flinka white as snow"… it was one of those things I never wanted to correct, cuz its so cute… but I finally corrected her, and the she did this "mary had a little lamb, flinka white as snow… no wait, I gotta sing it Fleece Was White as snow" … corrected first time! Yea!

So she was riding the tricycle outside at Ahna's house once, and I was loading Ethan into the car. I said c'mon honey, and I look over & she's pushing the front wheel repeatedly over this one spot, and she goes, "just a minute, I'm making the bug dead" … I didn't even know she knew the word! But I was glad she didn't say K-I-L-L. Then she said "he's really dead." ha!

She said to me one day, "do you know why I have this line on my back?" (I think she was just talking about her spine)… "because God made me that way" … AWW!

Because of Diella's strong will, we are sure to outwardly praise her when she does well to obey. So the other day, she obeyed well, I praised her, and she said "I deserve a surprise!" … I just loved that she used the word Deserve! Cool!

Diella & Ethan, when the other is sleeping, they ask for each other. Its so cute! Ethan points to her room & says "Dit-da!" (sister) Aw!

Everyone was in town last week for Chris & Emily's wedding. Well the kids were playing, and Diella said to Colton, "you're beast, I'm beauty, lets dance" then she grabbed his hand & off they went! It was ADORABLE!!!

One day after Diella had watched Prince of Egypt, her prayer before bed was, "I pray for God that Moses feels all better" … Aww!!!

Every Day She's Funny

2010-07-30T20:08:00.000-07:00

In these pictures… kids were into this whole holding hands phase… it was classic!!! … the picture with her wearing my sunglasses, I just thought was great! My little Diva! … and the one of her pointing to the ground, they were water marks, she said, “mom! A whale and Mickey Mouse!” LOOK at the spots! How great is her imagination!!!???

Some funny things Diella has said… we were in the car, driving home, Ethan was half asleep. Diella said “Ethan’s chillin.” Haha! … I have these pair of pajama pants that have a little hole in the back. Diella said, “you have a hole in your pants, fix it with a circle sticker.” LOL, how cool that she had her own way to fix it, heheh

She was eating fries at a restaurant we were at, and there were little packets of ketchup on a plate. We’d jus hand her one at a time, and she finally said, “Can I just have the whole plate?” lol! …I don’t remember why she said this one, but she goes, “Ethan’s in trouble, lets fly in the sky and save him!” … she likes to go into Ethan’s room when he wakes up in the morning or from his nap, and once he was whining a bit, she comforted her little brother, “don’t worry Ethan, mommy’s coming. Five minutes” Awww!

we brought our dog back from Virginia, and the kids have loved it! Her name is Blue. The other day Diella was bent down petting her on the head & she said, “you have beautiful eyes, Blue.” Aww! … lately she says all the time “alrighty” that makes me giggle. She also often says “nevermind.” It started one day when she said it for the first time & it made me laugh. So now she says it a lot, just to make me laugh. Like, “hey mom….. (long pause) nevermind.” Ha!

We were listening to the oldie, “Candy Girl” suga, oh honey honey, ya know? And Diella goes, “Hey, they’re talking about us!” haha …And one of the funniest thing she says… she says everyday. When she goes into Ethan’s room after his nap, she’ll call to me, “moooooom, we have a boy in heeeere.’” HAHA! It cracks me up! I told Jake about it, and he says when he goes in to get Ethan, he says “do we have a boy in here?” so Diella picked it up from that, funny girl!

One thing she says a lot lately that kind of makes me sad… whether we’re walkin through the store, or if she sees a commercial for a toy on tv or something, she often says “I wish I had that.” Now she doesn’t say it rude or demanding at all, very innocent actually. But I wonder where she picked that up? Did she hear someone say it, or does she really have that much WANT inside her heart? I think its ok for now, and I don’t really reply with a ‘no you cant’ or a ‘yes you can’ or anything, I jus kind of smile. But maybe this will cease?

I don’t think I’ve blogged it yet, but for at least a few months now, (definitely before she turned 3), Diella knows her address!!! Woo! “where do you live, Diella?” – “2513 Bird Drive.” Go girl! … she also recently has been consistently spelling her name correctly on command! These are great milestones in her life! Spelling name & knowing address!!!

She’s also getting good at learning the SOUNDS of letters! There are still a few harder ones that she hasn’t quite mastered, like G, H, Q, W, etc. But she loves when she gets em right!

She also is becoming quite the little artist! The other day she said she was gonna draw a face, and I watched in awe as she made the nearly perfect circle, then put the eyes, nose, and mouth all in relatively the rights spots! (I think Ahna works with her on this a little bit). Then only a few days later, she’s been adding hair, and ears I think… and even cheeks! (like dots where dimples would be, kinda). Its awesome! Oh, and we got these crayons you can color on the shower walls with, and Diella drew one big sideways oval, and then a smaller one on the side, touching it, and said “a turtle!” It was SO a turtle! Then one day she was jus doodling (but not really scribbling) and she drew a line up and down, with a horizontal like on top & bottom, and said “its an I!” It Was!!!

One day she was playing with this sheet of stickers before her nap, she was putting them on this folder I gave her. Then later, when I went in to get her up from nap, I saw that both her legs were covered in stickers! Ha! Why did I NOT grab the camera for that one???

Mia was telling me how Matthew says that Diella is very athletic. I don’t know why I never noticed it before… I mean, she was running by 14 months old, and she was jumping with 2 feet I THINK by 15 months? Maybe 18? … but anyway… I’ve finally been noticing how true that really is! Diella doest really like to ride IN the cart at the store anymore, she’d rather walk. Sometimes if she wants to hang on while I’m pushing, I tell her she has to do it in the front of the cart, where I am, so I don’t run over her. So she did that, then after a while I asked her to just walk some more. So she was walking by me, then as I’m pushing the cart, so IN motion, she runs & jumps and grabs ONTO the cart while its moving! One of those things where I probly should’ve told her that wasn’t a very smart idea, but it was pretty amazing to me! So now any time she does things like that, I always wanna call up Uncle Matt & make him proud!

And the best story of all… Diella & I say our prayers together every night before bed. I say a line, she repeats it, pretty much the same prayer every night, but always with a few changes, according to whats currently going on in our lives, or that day… but one day she said she wanted to pray (like without my help, so of course I was all for that, go ahead!)… and after the first few routine things we always mention, she then prayed, “and I pray for all the things, and for everyone, and thank you for Jesus, amen.” !!!!

In the videos- 1. Diella singing the theme from Wonder Pets, its my favorite thing she sings!

2. a commercial jingle you should recognize!

3. singin & playin guitar!

4. hilarious sound she came up with, neither daddy nor I can even do it!

Lil Miss Personality

2010-06-24T11:51:00.000-07:00

Here is an random, but entertaining story Diella told me one day in the car. “Do you member when I was a bigger girl in the city? do you know what my name was? Aria. And the other Aria turned into me. And I saw a barn. And do you know who was there? Uncle Matt & Aunt Mia. yea, they were. And I saw a big giant, and I was afraid of him, it was uncle matt, the giant.” There was more to it that I don’t remember. But I just love her imagination!

This wouldn’t have been TOO long of a blog if it hadn’t been for this next story…

Last night, Diella had a brush burn on her knee. She was in the bath, and it stung a little. She slowly escalated to freak out mode, not wanting me to wash it, or dry it, or touch it, and she made it clear she did NOT want medicine & a bandaid on it. I was so proud of myself for how calm I remained as I tried to explain that I could make it all better and that she just needed to TRUST mommy, and believe that I could help her. It was pushing maybe 15 minutes of me trying to convince her. I had to fight my anger So badly, cuz I was getting very frustrated inside. So daddy came up to help for a bit, and for some reason she takes his word for it (and not mine, sniff*), so we were able to finish the bath. Then when we were getting dressed, we went through the entire cycle all over again with the bandaid… her freaking out, me calmly explaining that I can help & that it wont hurt, etc. I also kept telling her, “please cooperate, I don’t want to get mad, I’m just trying to help” and also reminding her, “you need to trust mommy.” So after ANOTHER ten minutes probly, unfortunately, I lost my temper. Then my hormones set in. I’m cryin, Jake comes up again, I dismiss myself to the next room, and I’m BAWLING. I go back in to again calmly explain things to Diella with daddy… and she sees how upset I am… I cant stop sobbing, I’m crying through my words (all hormones… I cant control it, lol)… Diella apologizes, I further explain how I need her to believe mommy when she says she’s helping… and she apologizes again & hugs & kisses all over me, and offers me a blanket & wraps it around my back, aw!… so then daddy says, “I have a good idea, I’m gonna go downstairs and fix all of us some milk & cookies, lets give mommy a minute… I’m about to cry too.” So he scoops up Ethan, and heads down & says C’mon Diella. So she walks out the door, and comes right back in and says, “remember, I’m really sorry.” I of course smile through my tears & tell her its alright & that I forgive her. So this is of course making me cry more, lol. So she walks out, and immediately comes back in and says “lemmie give you another hug & a kiss.” She does that, then gives me “a friend” too (this is what we call her stuffed animals). I can see that she’s fighting back tears. We hug… she goes to walk out of the room, comes back in & again says, “remember, I’m really sorry.” She did this quite a few times… it was like she REALLY wanted me to understand how bad she felt. I could really feel her sincerity, and I’m smiling & crying more, ah! It was quite a night of emotion! And now she’s learning to TRUST mommy!

Well, Little Miss Personality has said some hilarious things, and some well, funny but full-of-attitude things. Like one day she & Ethan were playing in my room, and I don’t remember what happened, but apparently Diella thought it wasn’t fair or something, because she (please imagine this as I describe it) stared at me, dropped the book she had in her hand, and also dropped open her mouth, and in monotone, said “I don’t believe this.” Very Hollywood, it was.

This same day, she said something to Ethan that was Not cool. Well, he’s learned a bit of attitude from his Drama Queen sister. And he did the “EH!” sound & stomped his foot (thanks Diella for teaching him that)… and she says to him, “Don’t stomp your feet! That’s what I do!” …. Oh my!!!

One more snooty thing she said, I’ll share, and then I’ll get onto the sweet things that have come out of her mouth lately, hehe. Yesterday I was braiding her hair, and she did say something snooty, but it wasn’t really in a mean tone. It was just as though she was informing me. She said “every time you pull my hair, I freak out.” LOL! And then she also said, “if you do it again, I’ll get cranky.” And again, it wasn’t said in a mean way… so it did strike me as pretty funny.

The other day, she replied to my question (whatever that was), “Yes indeed!” I thought that was adorable! … she has also asked, when appropriate, “do you forgive me?” which I think is So sweet!

When we take a walk around our block, here on Bird Drive, there’s this big dark tree we pass. One day she says “that’s a chocolate tree!” (I think that was on Dora once). And now she says it every time we pass it, “the chocolate tree!”

Once she was watching her favorite YouTube clip, ‘the Princess and the Elephant’ with Elmo & Natalie Portman. To watch it over again, once it stops, you just press the space bar. And I think you can do the same for pausing & unpausing it. Well one day as she was watching, she calls me, “mommy!” I came over to answer her call. She paused it and said, “I love you.” I giggled and said I love you too. Then she unpaused it. And then paused it again, turned to me and said, “I really love you.” Then unpaused it, and went about her way. Lol, that was great!!!

You know Diella dresses herself every morning, choosing her own outfits from her bottom drawer. Well one day when she got dressed, she also brought out a shirt & pants of Ethan’s for him to wear. I thought that was the sweetest thing! And whether or not it matched, and whether or not that’s what I wanted him to wear that day, that’s what I put on him!

I’ve blogged before how she memorized that one page to her strawberry book, verbatim, and recited it to me one day when we had that book out. Well since then, as we’ve read that book together, she is now memorizing pretty much the first line on every page, and then sorta repeats the same last 3 lines after that. But she looks at whats on the page, and remembered the rhyme that goes with it, and so almost has the whole book memorized!

Lately Diella asks me when we’re driving, to put on music in the car. I think that’s cool. She’ll also ask me to turn it up or down, and to go past a song if she doesn’t like it, lol. She also likes to hold Ethan’s hand! They did it on our walk the other day too! They both love to hold hands! …. Sometimes. Hehe.

A little while back, I showed Diella how to do the sign for I Love You (not 3 separate signs for “I” and “love” and “you”), but I Love You on one hand- thumb, pointer finger, and pinky finger up, the other two fingers down. She tried to do it, but couldn’t. Then a few days later, she suddenly goes, “mom! I can do it!” and I went to her, and she WAS doing it! Its so cute! Then a friend of ours had on a shirt the other day with a hand making that sign on it. We were all casually sitting around, and I watched the little light above Diella’s head go on! She goes, “mom! That means I love you!” it was cool!

I’ve also blogged before how she sings everything! She’s made up her own words to melodies of songs. And now she pretty much just sings her thoughts, like when she’s playing alone… she’ll sing every song she knows, and even make up a song from whatever is on her mind! Like…. Hm… if we’re going somewhere, she’ll sing about it, or she’ll sing about who’s coming over, or what she’s had to eat, anything she can think of!

Diella knows how to say Happy Birthday, in Spanish, with perfect pronunciation! She got a singing Dora card for her birthday that sings it, “Feliz Cumpleanos!” and we had to practice it a few times, but she says it wonderfully!

Which reminds me, I haven’t blogged since before her birthday! Well it was great! She had friends over, we all ate and went on the swings a little. We got her a sprinkler, but no one played in it… sad. She opened her presents & everyone played with em! Like the bubble wand, some dress up clothes, a puzzle, and the bakery set from Grandad & Mamaw! She did great singing Happy Birthday, blowing out the candles, and of course eating the cake! Oh and she stopped everyone to pray over the meal! My little angel!

And the biggest news! We got Diella ready, shortly before her birthday, that we were gonna try to stop wearing pull ups at night. The first night it worked! The second, third, and fourth nights, she woke up wet. We tried a few different things like waking her in the middle of the night to pee, tried waking her just a few minutes before she usually wakes up in the morning to pee, those all had varying results. We’ve always taken her pee RIGHT before bed, but for some reason now its working really well! We just make sure we concentrate on getting it ALL out before we’re done. She’s now been dry 6 mornings in a row, with no pull ups! Woo Hoo!

Story Teller!

2010-05-28T12:33:00.000-07:00

Well, uh oh, its been a while since I’ve blogged again, so my list is really long. So even tho its gonna be long, I’ll try to keep the details short.

At the park one time, Diella said, “mommy, that girl has a baby in her belly, jus like you” – about a girl, who was NOT pregnant. Woops!

A few funny things she has said. “That. Was. Disgusting.” “Yes your majesty.” She tells me to be patient, Ha! “I don’t need a ponytail, my hair’s already beautiful.” I couldn’t argue with that one! The other day she said “Aww” when daddy & I kissed in the car, hehehe.

Diella calls Dairy Queen – Fairy Queen. HAHAHAA!!!

One morning, during my first trimester, I was just feeling SO sluggish, and tired, and just yukky. I was laying in the living room, just could barely move. Diella decided to take care of me. She put HER blanket around me, and brought me some water, and even a cough drop! Awww, melt my heart!

Oh my gosh, just now we were eating lunch outside, and I said “thank you Lubber Dubber.” (she usually says, “I’m not ____, I’m Diella!”) but this time she goes, “I’m not Not Lubber Dubber, I’m Rubber Ducky!” … so I’m CRACKIN UP! And I say, “sorry Lubber Dubber.” And she goes, “I’m not Rubber Dubber, I’m a DUCK!” and I laugh harder, and she goes, “its not funny!” then looks up at me with a smile… cuz you could totally tell it was an act, she was messin the whole time. I haven’t laughed that hard in a while!

Aunt Alethea got Diella a wand, and I knew that she knows that they’re for princess, but when she said this… I found out she also knew they had another purpose. She was playing with the wand & said, “I’m gonna do a magic trick. I’m gonna turn you into Ethan, me into mommy, and Ethan into me.” !!! wow!!!

Man, one day we were getting out of the car, and she wasn’t talking very nice, and I said to her, “watch yourself.” … she goes, “I cant watch myself, I’m not in a mirror.” … sigh, I thought they didn’t back talk like that til they were like 6 or 7??? (I really don’t think it was meant to be mean, I think she honestly didn’t know why I told her to watch herself when there was no mirror around) lol, but still.

Diella usually gets up from nap between 4:15-4:30. One day she woke up at 3 something, and I said, “aw honey, why did you wake up?” she said, “cuz its thirty o’clock, so I woke up.” There ya go.

Diella often says I love you, but a few times lately she’s been saying I Like You. And I LOVE that! It almost means more, ya know!? Well one day she said I love you, and I said, I Love YOU. And we went back and forth one or two more times, and then she goes, “ok, you love me.” Hehehe!

I think its cute how instead of ‘I ate all my food’ Diella says it, ‘I ate my food all.’ One of those ones I don’t really wanna correct, hehe.

One day she referred to the crust on her sandwich, as the seam. I thought that was adorable!

She likes Honey Bunches of Oats cereal. She calls it Honey Bunch in a Boats. Lol

Diella LOVES to sing songs! And she learns them pretty fast! I tried to make a list & count em up, and I couldnt…. But there’s more than 20 songs she’s memorized & sings all the time! Then today, there’s this one toy we have in the car sometimes, and a song was playing that doesn’t really have words, so at first she was singing along with like Doot Doots, to the melody, which was cool! And THEN, she started making up her own words, she was singing “have a nice day” to the melody! It was awesome!

One day I told Diella it was time for nap, and she said, “I cant sleep in these clothes!” it was jeans, but she usually sleeps in whatever she’s got on. That was random! Then after I knew she was asleep, I went in to check on her, and she was in her winter, zip up, footed jammies! Hahaha!

A few things that my mom has shared with me that Diella has said when Ahna was watching her. My mom was telling her how big she was getting, etc. And after they talked about it a little, Diella said, “I’ll grow up, but not too fast.” AWW! … Diella was going down for bed, and Ahna told her she was gonna do the dishes. Diella said, “but not the glass dishes, ok? Then it might wake me up.” How does she draw these conclusions on her own!!?? Cool! … then last night, they went to Ziggy’s to eat, and my mom told Diella to thank Chef Bill for making her meal special. And Diella says, “thank you man, I appreciate it.” She used the word appreciate!!!!

Another word she used the other day at home was when she walked into her room, and I really don’t even know what she was lookin at, but she goes, “I didn’t expect to see THAT!” … she said expect! Wow.

The other day, leaving from the doctor, I only had Diella with me, and the kids always get stickers on our way out, from the nurses. Well, Diella was getting hers, and asked if she could have some for Ethan! How cute! (funny how she’s so mean to him at home, but this shows she really Does love him!)

I was talking to daddy in the car, tell him about a conversation I had with a friend, and I said, “the easy way’s not always the best way.” And from the back seat, Diella interjects, “yes it is.” We laughed so hard!

I often touch Diella’s face or hair when I’m talking to her. Now she does it to me All the time. I. Love. It!

The other day we were driving, and Diella says, “can I hug you when I get out?” So Cute!

A few nights ago we ate dinner on the deck at Ahna & Papa’s house. I had gotten out all the plates, utensils, and cups, and set them on the table. Jake, mom & dad, and I were all chatting, and we look over & Diella was setting the table! She said, “I’m getting it started.” She did a great job too!!!

Yesterday we ate lunch in our front yard. Diella stood by the sidewalk as the cars drove by, pulling her arm down as to signal the cars to beep as they went by, and the sound she was making, was “choo choo!” lol, only one beeped, but at least we got one! … also, that day, as I brought out her lunch & set it in front of her, (and it really wasn’t any special lunch, it was same things I always make her), she looked at it and said, “you’re the best maker ever!” … and she said it again today too!

Ok, and this girl amazes me every day, as you all know. Well there’s this rhyme that they say on and episode of the Wiggles, and one day she was playing with that wand, and she goes, “Abra Cadabra, rabbit in my hat, come on out, so we can have a nice chat.” … alright, so yea she didn’t make it up & she’s heard it before, but she said it correctly, word for word! I thought it was amazing! Then a week or two later, we had out this book that I often read to her, a Strawberry Shortcake book, and she said SHE wanted to read it. So she began, “five sweet strawberries, growing by my door, lets put them in our basket, and go find more!” … and again, she didn’t make it up, but just from hearing it a few times, she not only memorized it, but then quoted it verbatim! Amazing!!!

She’s also become quite the story teller (and I don’t mean like telling tall tales), I just mean she’ll make up fun, creative stories, and go on & on with the details, its so great! I recorded a few of them on my phone, I’ll try to upload! When they get long, it gets to this point… “and THEN…. And THEN… and THEEEEN…” hehe. She’s also very animated, and uses her hands a lot. Its amazing to watch my little almost 3-yr old do these things!

Little Prodigy!

2010-04-28T07:46:00.000-07:00

The first video, she calls to me, “mom! I’m playing Twinkle Twinkle!” so I come over to record it. Then after that, I notice that there are numbers above the keys on her little piano, so then I helped her do the rest, according to the numbered keys & she did great! Plus, I Love how she notices when she hits the wrong note! By ear! So awesome! You should have seen Jake’s face when he came home that evening & I showed him this video! He was SO Proud!

Well, Diella had come out of the Terrible Two’s for a few months there, and we were loving it! It seems as though she’s re-entered them a bit. We’re praying it fades fast!

But anyway, she’s still doing smart & hilarious things of course! Like we went over a rumble strip the other day, and she said she thought the car tooted. HAHA!

I’ve blogged before how she was naming the colors of the outfits that some of the characters on her favorite shows wear. Well we did this again for a few newer shows that she likes, and I’m just amazed because we do it in the car, and when I ask… “what color is… Millie?” … and she thinks, and then answers. Its neat for me to think that she’s going through her memory, recalling the show, picturing the character, and remembering and saying the description!

The other day, out of nowhere, she said, “B says Buh.” We haven’t gone over the sounds each letter makes very often at all. So then I was even more surprised when I then further tested her, and she got quite a few right! There were some that she didn’t know… but knowing that we haven’t gone over them repeatedly, she was just thinking hard, and concluding the right answer, not just doing it from memory!

Its funny when this lil girl tries to be a parent to me & Jake. Once I expressed that I wanted something to hurry up, probly in traffic or something, and she said, “you just gotta be patient.” Ha! … and another time I showed that I was a little upset over something, and she tells me, “you gotta calm down.” … sigh*

One night we were driving home from Chi Alpha, we had to bring the kids with us that week. And Diella rattled off every single thing that she did that night. It was hilarious, cuz it was like this one long, one-breath run-on sentence. “tonight was so fun! We played basketball, and danced to the music, and I played with Robin, and Ashley, and Courtney! And I ran around, and played with Ethan, and…. Etc, etc. etc.”

We were driving the other day, and she said “look, and eagle!” I’m thinking, “in the sky? Naw aw.” So I look out, don’t see one. I ask her where? She’s said, there on the house. And there was a decoration on the front door, an eagle. And she said, “just like Giant Eagle.” Hhaha!

She’s learning the coolest things! Like, she knows who’s MY mom and dad. I say who’s MY mom, she says Ahna. And MY dad, Papa. Cool! The sister’s & brothers & husband thing are all hard. We’ll do em someday.

And the coolest thing! She knows her address! I only went over it maybe 3 or 4 times, in one day… and know she knows it Any time I ask her! Woo!!!

Finally Getting Good at Doing Short Ones, Whew!

2010-04-14T19:22:00.001-07:00

She has always been quite the dancer (even in the womb, hehe)! She has recently mastered this one move that I love! She'll spin on one foot, getting momentum, lifting one leg while she spins on the other. I think its Great!!!

And I captured on video on my phone the most amazing thing the other day!!! But I cant find the adapter ANYwhere to try to upload the video… I’ll keep trying… She has this toy piano in her room, with attached microphone that she loves to play with. She says, “mommy, I’m playing Twinkle Twinkle!” So I sit down to listen, and she’s playing each note twice, going down, then the last note once (just like the song goes)!!! So I recorded a little video, quite impressive she was! It wasn’t perfect every time of course. So then I notice that the keys each have a number above them, so I told her to start with 1, 5, 6, then go down… and then I clicked record again for a second video, and she amazed me even further. I helped a little with which ones to go to next, but even when she pushed a wrong note, she would smile & say, “THAT’s not right!” She could HEAR which notes were right & wrong! I’ll HAFTO get this video up!!! Later that night, when I showed Jake the two videos, his face jus lit up, his expression was filled with so much pride for her! We are both pretty floored at this, and when I finally post it, you will be too!

2010-04-14T19:22:00.000-07:00

Today Diella got out a book, and wanted to read it to Ethan. She opened to each page, and made up a storyline, according to what each picture was! I wanted to get it on video So bad, but she wouldn’t do it again. It was not only adorable, but also very creative!

Lately, Diella loves to ask, “what kind?” often times it doesn’t apply really… but its cute that she wants description & specifics of things, ha!

Cousin, Aria has been using a computer! I’ve tried to show Diella how to work the touch mouse pad & understand how the arrow moves when you touch it, but she wasn’t catching on a first. I tried again the other day, and I think the light bulb went on! So there she was, playing on sesamestreet.com all by herself, yay!

And I captured on video on my phone the most amazing thing the other day!!! But I cant find the adapter ANYwhere to try to upload the video… I’ll keep trying… She has this toy piano in her room, with attached microphone that she loves to play with. She says, “mommy, I’m playing Twinkle Twinkle!” So I sit down to listen, and she’s playing each note twice, going down, then the last note once (just like the song goes)!!! So I recorded a little video, quite impressive she was! It wasn’t perfect every time of course. So then I notice that the keys each have a number above them, so I told her to start with 1, 5, 6, then go down… and then I clicked record again for a second video, and she amazed me even further. I helped a little with which ones to go to next, but even when she pushed a wrong note, she would smile & say, “THAT’s not right!” She could HEAR which notes were right & wrong! I’ll HAFTO get this video up!!! Later that night, when I showed Jake the two videos, his face jus lit up, his expression was filled with so much pride for her! We are both pretty floored at this, and when I finally post it, you will be too!

Short Blog, YAY!

2010-04-09T07:06:00.000-07:00

She's got rags in her hair for rag curls, for Easter Sunday. We added a headband too, which helped. Jake said she wasnt real cooperative that morning for pictures. The other pix are playin outside on a nice day!

Diella just came down and showed me that she put a bandaid on this little blemish on her foot that's been bothering her. I said you did that all by yourself? she said yes. I asked, "how did you get the bandaid?" (they're pretty high up in the cabinet in the bathroom)... she very calmly said, "I was just standing on the sink" .... SIGH* lol

My Funny, Growing-up Girl!

2010-04-07T08:29:00.000-07:00

Well, once again its been way too long since I’ve blogged, so once again some of this stuff is a lil ‘old news’ but it still counts!

The pictures include… all the outfits she’s put together herself… our lil Rocky Balboa, who fell & bonked her eye on the table… a night with two friends over… and a few from when we were moving in!

We recently bought a few new kids movies, one of them being “Shark Tale.” The SECOND time Diella watched it… BEFORE it started… when it was still on the ‘Dream Works” screen, playin the music… Diella goes, “there’s gonna be a worm.” … She remembered what the opening sceen was! After only ONE time seein it before! And knew that before anything else came on!! Woah.

She has a new obsession with shoes. (thanks Ahna). One day she said, “I’m gonna wear my brown sparkly shoes every day.” Hehe (and no, she doesn’t, she rotates her few favorite pair).

One day she was headed up to the upstairs living room, where my dad really doesn’t want her to be unless she’s with an adult. So I called up to her, “ya might not wanna go up on the desk chair, papa might get mad.” … she replies, “I got some work to do.” LOL

Once I put a bowl of (something, I don’t remember what) in front of Diella. She goes “but its hot,” I said “no its not hot,” … she tasted it & said, “I told you its not hot.” … that’s like something a sarcastic 10 year old would say! Ahh!

We all know Diella’s speech is beyond her age… but I was floored a while ago (over a month ago, I’m sure), she said- kinda outta nowhere, if I recall correctly- “dressing up is for celebration.” Wow.

Jake & I have given a name to her panties being on backwards (this happens a lot when she dresses herself). We call it “cheek sneak” … well, cuz think about it, when they’re backwards, the small part isn’t enough to cover the cheeks, so one usually sticks out, and its Hilarious!... so now we say, “Diella, whats it called when your panties are on backwards?” and she replies ‘cheek sneak’ …. THAT’S funny! .. (ok, so I jus looked up the phrase cheek sneak, and I guess its when you lift a cheek to let out a fart… so ok whatever, lol)

One day we drove under the underpass, and Diella asks, “was that a cave?“ hehe

Once she was in Ahna’s bathroom & she grabbed a folded washcloth from the cupboard. They all fell out, so I asked her to pick them up. She started folding them!!!... CORRECTLY! She’d fold them in half once, then in half again! Not perfectly of course, but pretty darn well! Then a few days in a row after that, she’d go knock them over on purpose so she could fold em, hehe… probly cuz of how proud & impressed I was with her when I saw her do it!

Just to briefly mention a few funny things she has said, without mentioning the circumstance, but its still cute that she said… “I’m so proud of you, Ethan!” “That would be wonderful!” ... and my favorite… “I like your panties, daddy!” LOLOLOL!!!

A while back Diella said “ok, here’s the deal…” … sigh* … funny… but… sigh*

A while back she also started saying “sorry bout that” … ok, so again, its been like 3 months since I’ve blogged… so NOW when she says these things, its normal… but 3 months ago when she said em for the first time, they were hilarious… hence why I wrote them on my list of things to blog… yea.

She also often calls Ethan, Buddy. Like she’ll say “c’mon buddy buddy” !!!

Diella, as I’ve said before, is Still SO complimentary! Like “mama, you’re so beautiful.”… these are the things that can just keep my love tank filled up for Months!

Ok, I am NOT very “soft” when it comes to my children… I don’t give in easily… well when Chris & Emily were in town, it was their last day with us and they had a lunch date with some friends… Diella asked Emily if she could go, and Emily was trying to gently & politely tell her that this was just for grown ups today… and Diella started to whine a bit… and Emily, trying to, ya know, soften the blow… and she said, “oh, honey, I don’t think there’s anything there to eat for kids… there’s probly nothing you would like.” And Diella says with desperation & a slight whine in her voice, “I’ll eat chicken! I like chicken!” …. My heart jus crumbled! I was THIS close to bursting out, “Oh Just Let Her Go With You!” lol… of course I didn’t tho… we were able to get Diella ok with the idea that she wasn’t going along on the luncheon… but it was just the sweetest lil plea I’ve ever heard!

Diella loves Dora… and throughout each episode, Dora asks certain questions, where Diella then becomes very interactive… and the Q was “what do YOU wanna be when YOU grow up?” …. Now I don’t know if Diella heard this somewhere before, or if it was on the episode, or if she jus came up with it herself, but she said “I wanna be a princess.” How adorable!

Sometimes I like to test Diella’s knowledge, cuz so often she astounds me with the things she catches onto… and one of her shows is The Fresh Beat Band… well there are 4 main characters, and they each wear the same outfit every episode, ya know, and they’re each a dif color… well I asked her which 4 colors were the Fresh Beat Band… and she slowly got them! She said… “yellow, blue, pink, and orange!”

One day we were driving, and I dunno if she just said this out of nowhere, or if she really spoted the stop sign that was on the fence that we drove by… but she says “These are octagons!” !!! cool! She DOES know the shape… I jus wasn’t sure, this day, if she said that just because, or if she really saw an octagon.

There are a few scenes from certain kids movies that Diella asks us to skip past cuz she doesn’t like them… one is the part on Mulan where the match-maker gets the coffee spilled on her face… Diella HATES that part! … and jus found a new on yesterday… its from Shrek. The part where Fionna sings so high that the bird explodes… yea, doesn’t like that either, lol.
Ok, Diella LOVES to sing.. she sings All the time! And sometimes we sing together… and once in a while, she’s off a little, but I cant lie… it ALMOST sounds like harmony, hehe! … but for Sure, alotta times we’ll sing Twinkle Twinkle in unison, and for the last line, I’ll go to harmony… and Diella stays on melody! No Joke! I can harmonize with my daughter!!!

She got this little toy like that you get from Chuck E Cheese, with those lil tickets, ya know? It was jus this lil rubber thing with finger-like things, lol, dunno how to describe it… but Diella made up a name for it… she calls it the “oobly thing” … which, if you saw it, I think you’d agree… is EXACTLY what it looks like it should be named!

One night we were driving home, and I told Diella that she could close her eyes & fall asleep if she wanted. She said “I wanna keep my eyes open so I can see trees & lights.” (no it wasn’t Christmas time) … I just thought that was cute.

One night diella asked for a sip of water before bed, as usual, and for whatever reason I asked her why she needed it, and she said “I HAVE TO drink water before I go to bed.” And I asked, “who says so?” … and of course she replied “me did.” Ugh.
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She always says, “I hafta tell you a question.” Hehehehe

Oh and she’s in the “why” stage. She’ll ask why, then I’ll answer, then she’ll ask why, then I’ll answer. Its kinda fun to just keep coming up with answers until they say, ‘oh.’ lol

Diella has been picking out her own outfits lately (just for bumming around the house… NOT for when we go out in public, hehe)… but she has got some Interesting taste, shall we say? Lol it cracks me up! They don’t even match, even close! And I cant lie… I LOVE IT! … like once she put on her tights all by herself (not sure how! Those are hard to get on!)… and I suggested she put a skirt over em, but she didn’t want to, hehe, she jus wore em like pants, haha! … and sometimes when she comes in my room to wake me up in the morning, she’s already gotten out of her jammies & into some random outfit, hilarious!

There have been 2 instances where Diella has used a word that we have no clue where she picked it up from, or how on earth she knew this word! One was one time she handed me something that was bent (I don’t member what it was), but she goes “can you fix it? Its kinked.” … I was like What??? She repeated, “its kinked” LOL! I’m pretty sure she maybe jus made the word up (like she does sometimes), and got lucky… but who knows! … the other time was with Jake. He told me she didn’t want Ethan going downstairs and she said to Jake, “we have to make a blockade.” I asked him if he ever used that word with her before, he said no…. so there’s another one! Maybe she just like used the word “block” in context? Lol, it cracks me up how this happens!

It made me laugh the first few times I asked Diella to do something, and her answer was, “I cant right now.”

When we moved into our new house, we prepped Diella many times over that this would be our new home, and that Ahna & Papa wouldn’t live with us anymore, etc. And one day when we pulled in, I said, “this is our home now, ok?” and she said, “Sure is!”

We were near the Dollar Tree the other day, and if you can picture their logo, this will make sense to you. Diella saw it and said, “there’s one trees.” Hehehe

One night we were driving home and it was a bit past her bedtime. She asked me if she could sit on the couch for a few minutes. I said, “no honey, its late, we’re gonna go straight to bed.” And Diella goes, “I’s just kidding.” Lol

Diella has gotten onto this kick of when I ask her to do something, she’ll go, “but, but, but” … I asked her where she got that from… she said ‘grammie’ lol, who knows?

Often times lately, when we get home & park the car. I open her door to get her out, and she’ll quickly go limp & close her eyes, pretending she’s asleep. I think its cute.

Diella is polite in the fact that if she spills something, or something is done by accident, then she’s quick to say sorry. Well one day I asked her to pick up the thing she had just made a mess of, and she goes “I’m sorry that I’m not gonna pick em up.” Lol, I was like, uh, doesn’t work like that, ha!

I think I’ve said before how at the end of every episode of Dora, they ask “what was your favorite part?” well Diella answered one day, then looked over at me & Ethan who was on my lap, with the binky sitting next to him, and she goes, “Ethan’s favorite part was goin to the binky store.” I cracked up SO hard!!! She goes, “why are you laughing?” I just told her how cute she is!

Oh this is like my favorite story! Diella loves to take baths, ok? Well one night at dinner, Ethan had run food through his hair, and I said, “oh, Ethan, no no, now I’ll hafta give you a bath.” And Diella said, “oh me too! My hair is foody!” HAHAHA!!

One day I think I had jus put on chapstick, and I was leaving the house, so I went to say goodbye to Diella & give her a kiss, and she looks at me up close, and says very enthusiastically, “CUTE chapstick!” lol

Once I told Diella how pretty she is. I don’t think she was feeling very well that day. She said, “I’m not pretty right now, I have a fever.” It was cute, but kinda broke my heart to hear that.

This one time (at band camp… no just kidding) I was trying to put in a movie, and my first two attempts, Diella didn’t approve, so then I asked her what she’d like to watch. And I’ll do my best to paint this picture for you, she paused, holding her banana, she took a bit out of it, and with the big piece in her cheek, she said very matter-of-factly, “Wiggles.” It made me laugh, the way she did that!

I’m not sure what commercial was on this day, but Diella said, “that was TBS.”

We were on our way one day to have lunch with Ahna at her work, and Diella asked where we were going. I told her to see Ahna. She said, ‘but I wanna have lunch.’ I said, well, we’re gonna eat too.” She goes, “we’re gonna see Ahna AND eat at the same time??!!” lol, yup!

A few of her new favorite phrases are, “whats that smell?” lol… and “I gotta idea.” Hehe

My mom was floored one day when I asked Diella to count backwards, starting with 5… then she did it, and my mom’s jar dropped… I don’t think she thought Diella would do it, hehe. I think she got it from Dora, or Umi Zoomi, or Little Einsteins, lol.

One moment that will get me through any day… is when I told Diella that I love her, and she said, “you know who else loves me? …. Jesus.” … oh I just melted! I must be doing SOMETHING right as a mommy for her to say that!

One day she was showing me two different things, and often times lately, she quizzes me (probly cuz we quiz her, ya know)… but she said “which one is the reddest?” and I said, “the top one.” And she goes, “and which one is the bottomist?” lol, aw! I said, the blue one. I think she meant to ask about the other color, but then when I described it as the top one, then she used that adjective instead, hehe, I dunno.

This one day I had to pump up the tire on our van, after a flat. And Diella asked me what I was doing. I said “filling up the tire.” And she asked, “filling it up with gas?” I thought that was insightful! That she put ‘filling it up’ and the car, together, and concluded I was filling it with gas. Then of course I told her ‘with air.’ So cute!

One day we were driving and Diella said, “when I get bigger, I go to school.” And I look over, and we were driving by a school! How did she know that was a school?” its not like all schools look the same, or that I had ever told her that was one. Weird.

Another time while driving, Diella was saying, “I spy a _____ ,” to lots of different things, then she would ask me, “what do YOU spy?” so then I’d play along. I didn’t know she knew that game! But then I asked Jake, and he had taught her. How Cute!

Ethan is very into putting things into other things, and unfortunately, one of his main goals is the garbage can! Well one day Diella comes up to me and says, “Mom, Ethan put my cup in the garbage!” then she turned to him and said, “Ethan Thaller!” LOL! That was hilarious!!!

Says the Funniest Things!

2010-01-19T10:03:00.000-08:00

I found this picture. It’s older, but I’ve never posted it.

Diella is so random! I don’t remember why, but one day she said to me, “I thought you were Megan.” I said, “don’t I look like mommy?” she goes, “no, you’re Ki lan.” (who is a character on a cartoon she likes), so I just giggled, then she goes, “no you’re Ethan, you’re Dora, you’re Boots.” Hehehe, sigh*

All of these are funny things she has said within the past 3 days, mostly conversations we’ve had in the car. She said, “do you member when we played hide and seek with the moon? It disappeared. You ready?” at first, I thought this was just her imagination makin this up… but I think this was something her daddy was playing with her a while back. But even still, it was a long time ago, and she remembered it!

Then she said, “here mommy, I made you a big big orange peanut butter cookie! Haha, sounds like she’s gonna be about as good of a cook as her mama, uh oh!

Then we were sitting a lot of cars back at a light, and she said, “why we stopped?” I said, cuz we’re at a red light. And she said “when its green, go!” Then the light turned green and she said, “THERE’s green!”

Diella, whenever she talks about a meal, she usually says the wrong one. Like she’ll say dinner when she means lunch, and lunch when she means breakfast, etc. So the other day I told her we were gonna go eat. She said “breakfast, lunch, or dinner?” She’s trying to learn which is which! Cool.

JUST NOW she told me she hadta go potty. I said, “go ahead” (and I was gonna be right behind her, following her in), and she said, “you stay here, I’m gonna go all by myself.” So I raised my eyebrows in surprise, and said, “ok,” intending on giving her a minute to she how she’d do, and assuming that she would call me for help right away. So I gave her a minute, and then went in to check on her, and she was pullin up her pants. I asked if she went, she said yes. Ha! I don’t think she wiped, so I helped with that, but I still think its funny (and really out of nowhere) that she wanted to attempt this on her own!

Ok, back to the conversations we’ve had in the car. She asked “why is it really wet?” (I said why is what really wet?) She said, “The other side of the car.” She was pointing to the window, but I thought it was neat that she realized that the ‘wet’ was on the outside of the car.

The other day I grabbed a glass to pour my milk and Diella said, “mommy, that’s glass, we don’t wanna break it.” Lol, what Which one of us is the mom???

Lately, she LOVES pickles. So she was eating one, and seemed to be enjoying it. So I said, “how’s your pickle?” She goes, “Nice and goupy.” I laughed, and she goes, “I say goupy all the time.” LOL!!!

There was a red flower plant of my mom’s in the middle of the table, and Diella asked me if I could give it to her so she could smell it, and she said, “I love those flowers. It smells red.” Heheheh, love it.

She has been saying this a lot lately, and I have no clue where she got it from, but usually when Ethan’s taking a nap (but some other times too), she says, “When Ethan wakes up, we can have another big jammie party!” lol…. O….. K!

We were sitting at the table, eating, and I think I was tickling Ethan’s feet. Diella says “tickle mine” So I reached over and did it, but just used my thumb. Diella said, “tickle with your whole hand.” Sigh* geez, she really likes things the way she likes em, huh?

Also, while sitting at the table, talking, Diella was looking at the pictures on the refrigerator, and without me even mentioning a thing about it, Diella says, “I wanna go on airplane to see Aria.” I just smiled, cuz I hate telling her how impossible that is.

Just Now, I had Ethan sitting on my lap. I asked Diella if she’d like to sit on my lap too. She said, “no thank you, I’m sitting on the rocket. Oh yes! I’d love to sit on your lap! I’d love to, love to, love to!” hehehe

We were driving home the other day and Diella said “where is home?” … I wasn’t really sure how to describe it in a way that she would understand, so I just told her how it was. I said, “on East Lake Rd.” She goes, “you’re gonna follow the lake?” LOL! I was like “pretty much, yea!”

Aw man, hilarious… the four of us sat down for dinner the other night and I told Diella we were gonna pray first. She goes, “lemmie do it.” So she bows her head, and begins, “Once upon a time… “ then she stops, looks up, smiles, and says, “That’s not it!” The three of us cracked up so hard!

A few days ago, Diella said she had a headache. I was sure if she really did or not, cuz she hears mommy and daddy say that pretty often, I thought me might just be saying it cuz we do. I told my gramma that day when we were over there, and gramma said she probly did have one. So then yesterday, she said it again, so I thought I would test it. She said she had a headache, and I said, “oh yea? Where is it?” she said, “In my belly. We don’t have medicine for it.” I said, “nope, not for a belly headache.” Hehehe.

Diella has a Leapster (interactive learning book) that she loves! She plays with it a lot while she’s sittin on the potty, hehe. But I like how lately I’ve noticed that she’s following the directions better, how the thing helps her with each page, she does great!

The rest of these are all from this morning. I brought Ethan downstairs when we woke up, to join us for breakfast, and Diella said, “He’s so excited to see me!” Ha! I never heard her use the word excited before!

I dished out her bowl of cereal & put it in front of her. Usually she says Thank you mommy. But today she said, “thank you mommy, thank you mommy for the big cereal that you made.” She just talks like such a big girl! I love it!

She asked me if I like the Ariel socks that she was wearing. I said yes, and she reminded me that she got them for Christmas. Then I reminded HER that yes they were for Christmas, from Aunt Stephanie. And she said ALL this, “I wanna say thank you to Aunt Stephanie for the Ariel socks, and then we say goodbye everyone, we’re goin back home!” Wow!!!

A lot of times Diella will change a word in a song to be funny. Often times its to Old MacDonald… but usually she jus looks around the room & inserts the word ‘table’ or ‘bowl’ or whatever, like “old macdonald had a bowl…” Today she sang, “Old MacDonald had a frumpy.” LOL! I know she just made up the word frumpy, cuz there’s no way she’s ever heard that word before, but it sounded hilarious when she said it!

Just a minute ago, she was watching the Fresh Beat Band dance on tv, and she put out her arms and said, “I’m flying! I’m dancing like a bird!”

Then during lunch, she had a mouth full of peanut butter, and she said, “look at my mouth, inside my mouth.” And she smiled & giggled, cuz she said it with peanut butter all over her lips, hehehehe. She’s so fun!

Quick One

2010-01-13T20:51:00.000-08:00

I’m finally short-blogging!!! Starting off the year right, hehe.

Diella is suddenly… not Diella. The other day, totally out of nowhere, she says, “My name is Pal, not Diella.” So I laughed, we both laughed. Then a little while later she says, “I’m Nate, Uncle Nate.” Haha, ok Bond, James, Bond!!! And I think she even did this another time, the following day, but I don’t remember which name she said that time, but it still cracks me up!

The other night I was brushing her teeth (she does some, I do some, so she’s being independent, but I still help so its thorough), and she says “you forgot the sides.” Lol, I mean, I just hadn’t gotten to them yet, but she’s here, correcting me, HAHA!

Ok, this is hard to explain… she’s been using phrases with the word “without.” But they don’t always make sense. I think its cool that she kinda knows where she’s goin with it, but not really… like she said SOMETHING like… “I cant pee without getting wet” or something? Lol, random! And even MORE random… once we were drivin in the car and she says, “the trees cant talk without faces.” LOL! Ya got a point there, Diella! I think on one show that she watches, some trees have faces & talk, but I thought it was hilarious that she came up with that!

I said in the last blog how Diella counts in order, but has a hard time actually counting objects (cuz for example, if there’s 5 things, she’ll count the 5 of them, but then keep counting, like to 7 or whatever number). Well, she’s getting better at actually counting now! Like I was doing simple things, like asking her to count my eyes, my ears, my nose, etc. and she would say either “two ears” or “just one” that kind of thing. Then when we got to my fingers, she counted the ten of them, putting her finger on each one at a time, perfectly! Yay!

She started singing, “Bingle bells, bingle bells” the other day! HAHA! Random, and hilarious!

I said in the last blog how she is trying to communicate “right side up” but has said “upside up”… she’s done it a few more times… I love it! One’a those ones that I wont correct her on, hehe.

Today it struck me funny…. She said, “I need some help here.” She must just hear these phrases in casual, everyday talk, and just pick them up that fast!?!?!

I think in the last blog I said that if her sock or pants are twisted, or other little things she notices aren’t perfect, she was saying, “somethings wrong”… well now she says “there’s something not quite right” That is hilarious! How she phrases things like a grown up! Ah!

She also says a lot lately… if we say to her something like “you’re so your dad” or “you’re a goob” just joking around, she says, “no I’m not, I’m Diella!” That cracks me up! Cuz she doesn’t realize we’re not telling her she’s anything other than Diella, its just that… oh you get the point.

Last night she was playing with this game, similar to scrabble, that has all square pieces with letter on them. The piece with the letter Q on it, also has the joining you, like Qu. Well, she’s laying all the letters out, and she comes to this one, and goes “I don’t like this letter” and she sets it aside, apart from the rest. I think it bothered her that it had that extra letter on it, and it wasn’t a single letter like the rest of them. Sigh* Is she gonna get worse at this OCD thing, in the name of Jesus, I hope not! Perfectionism, I can handle, OCD, I cannot. I guess we’ll see!

And lastly, Diella is saying “I love you” a lot lately! She has always said it back, when someone says it first. But lately, every time you pick her up or ask for a kiss, she initiates the saying first, and says I love you. Even lately doing the kissing & hugging first too! How affectionate she is becoming!!! Often times, “I love you mommy” or even “I love you So much” … these are just moments a mom treasures for ever and ever!

Update Over the Past FOUR Months!!!

2010-01-08T12:46:00.000-08:00

K, for some reason it wont let me insert these pictures in between each paragraph, only all at the top of the page... so I'll leave these two up here, and for LOTS more pictures, please visit my Facebook page! Oh, and due to the length of this blog, I did not review it to check for any typos, so any that are there, I apologize. (no comments on them, Uncle Chris!) ;)

Good news and bad news, the good news is even though I haven’t blogged in about 4 months, at least I kept a list of lots of things the kids have been doing so that WHEN I COULD blog again, I would remember a lot of the stuff. The bad news is, now my list is 10 miles long, and this one is gonna be a doozy! Plus, there willk be some older stuff (that I probly wont remember much detail to), and 3 months for kids this age is A LOT of time to grow & develop! I mean, you’re talking that’s a third of Ethan’s life & a tenth of Diella’s, holy! So starting with a while back… (some of these stores I may not even remember very well, but will just make a quick note on it

She had been saying words that I never heard her say before, and using them correctly in sentences…. Like “both” and “slowly”. “Probly” and “I thiiiiink”. She would put her index finger over her lips and say “Hmmmm”, or “lets see”, or “what else?” hehe Love that!” Once she said, “this is Ethan, he has blue eyes, just like me!” Aww! Once she called me her daughter, that was funny. A few months ago, when she was really forming longer sentences (now she’s much more conversational), she would often use words like everything & everyone. She would do a lot of “I forgot” and “you forgot.” She would often say Guess What, which I loved! And also “How bout that?” like she would offer something, or suggest something and then say How bout that? So Cute! She often said “I thought I was, or I think I am” in reference to things, that sometimes were applicable and sometimes not. That just makes me laugh cuz she’s using these ‘grown up’ phrases, whether she knows the meaning of them or not, hehe. She was on a Charolette’s Web kick, and would often go over whose names were whose, Henry Fussy, Fern, Templeton, Charolette, and Wilbur, and then one day she saw a spider web & said, “look, Charolette’s web!” …. And my favorite thing she has said… we were at an aquarium in Virginia Beach, and we were watching the otters, and she said “mommy look, they have tails” and I nodded & acknowledged, and she continued, “and we have butts.” HAHAHAH!! Nothin gets by her!

A few other funny things she has said… before she was annunciating more clearly, she would say clap clap clap, but it really sounded more like “crap crap crap” lol! She has learned the words why and because, and for a while was asking Why for a lot of things. NOW she’s starting to understand reasoning, and making sense of things. It’s So fun to watch! She, for a while, was saying “Ope” like instead of oops. I think that’s probly how we generally say it without thinking, and so she catches onto that stuff. She often asks (usually when she’s wearin something special), “you think I am pretty?” aww. When she was talking about more than one bath, she would say bathis, hehe. Once we were laughing about something, and Diella said “that’s hilarious!” … Oh my gosh, I laughed SO hard!!! How great is that!!??

I love how she’s is grasping concepts, and applying them, with things like under and behind, things like that. When she describes things she really has strong feelings towards, she’ll use words like “really Really REALLY”. She used to say her name was Ella (not Di-ella), and one day I asked her and she said, “my name no Ella, its Jake!” Ha! One day she crossed her arms in front of her and tilted her head, and said “how’s it goin?” (oh I am giggling as I write these, just picturing my little girl grow up and say these hilarious things, it just makes my world go round, really!!!)… She used to pronounce Swing, like Sfing, but we worked on it for a while, and now she finally says it right! (but we also worked on Banana, and she still says it Balana, heheh). She now says “no you may not” haha, which is funny, I don’t say that often at all, so I’m not exactly sure where she picked it up. She’s also getting much better with manners! She’s finally started to say You’re welcome, and she also says please & thank you much more often! I’ve had people comment on her politeness, this makes me So Happy!!!

Ok, now a few certain instances where she says funny things in certain scenarios. I’m actually gonna start with one’a my favorites! Once in the morning, of course I’m still only half awake, and I’m sittin with her and she says, “momma, you not happy yet?” I said “yes I am,” and she goes “then lets see you smile!” lol, so I DID smile, and then she goes, “Oh, good girl mommy!!!” Ahhh, I love it!!!!

A while back she put in a pair of the fake teeth that I have, and she goes “Raaarrr! Are you scared?” lol, oh geez, she’s tryin to frighten me!? Why? …. She has this lil baby doll, and one day she squeezed the face and said “doll face is squishy,” haha, I think its funny that she used the word squishy, hehehe. Oh and I love, lately, when she’s exited or if something good happens, she says “woo hoo!” Ah, I love that! That one she must have gotten from me, but I’m pretty sure I say Woo Hoo!

One time, I don’t remember what I was trying to open, but I think something out of a package, and I was struggling with it. Keep in mind, I’ve always called scissors & knives “no-no’s”. And so as I’m trying to open this thing, Diella says “probly need a no-no to open it.” HAHA!

For a while there, every once in a while she’d say “Ready to go to the fair.” No clue why, or where she got it, but every so often she was ready to go to the fair, haha!

One day I was putting her in bed, and I noticed some bruises on her legs, and I jus told her how she’s like her mommy when she was a kid, with all those bruises on her. She said, “I think pants will help, will hide em.” Hehe, so put some pants on her and she goes “now they’re all gone.” Funny girl!

Once in the car, she was looking in the rear-view mirror, and ya know how it’s adjustable, like when you tip it up & down to dim the lights behind you) and you can kinda see a glimpse of the second reflection in there… ok, I dunno how to word that… I’ll explain what she said and you’ll be able to understand… she said, “Mommy, you have a nose on your head” (like the reflection of my face was centered on my actual reflection, to where my nose was on my forehead), so I laughed and she said “you have antlers on your head, see?” Hahah! Antlers!!! HAHAHAHA!

One day we were out grocery shoppin, and it was raining. I go to load the kids in the cart and Diella says “this is fricken wet!” … I FROZE and gently & calmly said “what did you say?” …. She repeats, (in a normal, surprised, not angry voice) “this is fricken wet” …. Ok, yes, she got that from me, I say the word Fricken a lot…. But I jus casually went about my business, acted like she said nothing wrong, and didn’t acknowledge it… if I would have told her not to, I KNOW she would have done it again… instead, I acted like it was no big deal. This was a while ago, and so far, I haven’t heard her say the word since… so I think we’re in the clear.

So Diella is starting to grasp timelines, at least a little. She often uses the words Today, Tomorrow, and Yesterday. But “yesterday”, to her, just means anything in the past. So like, mommy had a baby in her belly yesterday…. Hmm… well not YESTERDAY, but before, yes. Hehe. And then the other day she said we did something Today. (and it was really a few days ago), and I said, “today???” and she tilted her said, and said very matter-of-factly, “tonight.” Ha!
From day one, Diella has been so much like her daddy, looks-wise mostly, but we’ve discovered something else they share in common. She talked in her sleep the other night, hahah! She said, “I can eat it” LOL!

On Halloween, we were at Kayla’s house. Diella was entertaining the room, as usual, and she had laid out a blanket & was playing pretend with a picnic, we were all eating imaginary food, etc. and so we bow our heads to pray for the meal. Diella’s prayer, if I remember correctly, was something like this, “Jesus thank you for mommy & daddy, amen” … so we all lift our heads & open our eyes, and I look over at Kayla, and she just had the look on her face as thought she was truly touched. That made my night!

Once, I believe even for no reason at all, Diella was singing to Ethan (she’s become quite the little singer!), the words, “Blue eyes, blue eyes” !!! A moment to treasure! Speaking of songs, Diella sings SO many these days! Including Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Itsy Bitsy Spider, Rockabye Baby, Old MacDonald, and a few others. The newest one is Little Monkeys Jumpin On the Bed, ya know the one that you sing while you jump on the bed and count down from like 5-0, my mom thinks its amazing that she jumps and sings to the same rhythm, especially the last line “No More Jumping On The Bed!” Its SO cute! It used to be that I would sing part of a song, then pause and let her fill in the blanks, but she’s starting to sing them all by herself, in full!

While on the topic of singing, we sometimes watch Mulan, its become a favorite of ours. And once in a while, usually at random, Diella will ask me to sing ‘the Mulan song’ (“Reflection”), and so I sing it for her. Sometimes I ask HER to sing it for ME, and she wont… but lately, I’ll do the pause thing, where she fills in the blanks, and she’s starting to do that with this song. She also asks me to sing this song that’s on a commercial. But she doesn’t know the name of it, she jus says, ‘sing that song’ when the commercial comes on, its “I’ll Be There.” I like when she asks me to sing!

The past few months she has been recognizing places that we go. Like when we stop at the blinker light on Barlet Rd. (for those of you who don’t live in Erie, that’s like a lil over a mile from our house… the last turn we take before pulling in), she goes, “we’re almost there!” And when we pull into Wal-Mart she says “Wal-Mart!” and when we pull into Giant Eagle, she says “are we gonna ride the big red car?” (at Giant Eagle, they have carts for children, that are big red cars, she loves em). And when we’re getting of the exit, off of 90, on our way to church, as we sit at the light at the bottom, she says, “church!” AND every time we pull into the bank, for some reason she asks, “are we gonna get out?” … we rarely get out at the bank, usually just do the drive up window, but for some reason she always asks this when we go to the bank?? Weird.

Diella has this game she likes to play, the “freeze game.” I think I tried it with her a long time ago & it didn’t work… but then she brought it back all her own. Its just where she says (out of nowhere), “Freeze!” and you stop what you’re doing, you Freeze, then she’ll wait, then she’ll say, “now go” … and this goes on & on… “now Freeze! … now go.”

We had our vacation to Virginia Beach, where we spend some wonderful days with our pals, Noah & Julie, it was So great! Then we sent daddy back to work, and the three of us continued our vacation the following week and flew to Texas! That was also a blast! I’m not gonna say a lot about those 2 weeks, I’ll just count on the pictures as our memories! But just that Diella had SO much fun with her cousin Aria! They played dress up every day & just were joined at the hip! One thing I DO have to mention about the flight though, was when Diella was sleeping in her seat, she started to wake up, and me and the woman in the seat on the other side of her (who I had chatted with & she was really sweet, and had a few daughters of her own), kinda froze, not knowing what to do, hoping she would fall back to sleep… Diella squirmed a lot, and slithered her way down to the floor, all still with her eyes shut! So, with Ethan asleep on my lap, I look down at her, and she was using this woman’s foot as her pillow! HAHA! I didn’t know what to do! I was looking at her like “uh, is this ok?” and as I reached down to move her, the lady says, “no its fine, let her sleep” … LOL! So she spent the rest of the flight asleep on the floor of the plane! Hilarious!

A few funny gestures Diella has picked up & used herself… she’s started to drop her mouth open with something significant happens, ya know like wow, in awe. She also sometimes slumps her shoulders, like if she’s trouble or bummed about something, her lil shoulders will droop and she slowly walks away. Lol, like a lil actress!

Back to funny things she has SAID… ugh, I hate when she picks up on a negative phrase, like a few times she has said “lee me lone” (leave me alone), ya always hope that they didn’t pick these things up from you, but you know they heard it from SOMEwhere!... one day she said something about an ‘assignment’, that cracked me up! She learned it from the show ‘Special Agent OSO’, he has assignments, and I don’t think she used the word correctly, but it was still hilarious to hear her use that word. In fact, my mom & I both have been noticing how ‘grown up’ her conversation is. The way she forms whole, complete, descriptive sentences, and how she words things so well, and is using tenses very well all the time, and she just speaks so intelligently! For quite a while now, when she suggests something, she’ll add on the end, “how bout that?” Well now that she knows that phrase, once when I said how bout that, she said ‘how bout no’ HA! One time I think she had something stuck in her teeth…. And she Asked for a Toothpick! So funny! Most of the time when she wakes up from nap, or gets out of the bath, we always ask, “what it a good nap/bath?” and she always just said yes. Well now, when she wakes up or get out of the bath, she tells us before we have a chance to ask, she says “that was a good bath!” or “that was a good nap!” hehe

Once she was making reference to these bugs (I’m sure they weren’t real bugs, but I don’t remember if they were on TV or in a book or what), but she said, “these are friends, mommy & daddy & Ethan.” Then moments later, she also added, “and this is Aria, and Chanson, Uncle Matt, and Aunt Mia!” (and you guys, this was BEFORE we saw all of you at Thanksgiving!)

Ok, this one was random! I don’t know why she put all of these together, but it was kind of like a few different phrases wrapped up into one. She said, “you’ve got 9 seconds, sit on the couch, time for bed.” Often times, after we get ready for bed, and she asks to ‘sit on the couch for a lil bit first’, we do let her, but we usually tell her she’s only got a few minutes, then its time for bed. Maybe that’s where she got this?

Diella doesn’t usually eat a very big breakfast, always has a BIG lunch, and usually hardly anything for dinner. For lunch I usually start her off with a few things that I just put on a plate to get her started, then sometimes I’ll ask her what else she wants. Well one day it was about lunch time, and she asked, very specifically, for “perogies, green beans, nuts, and tuna.” I thought that was cool! And yes, she got what she asked for!

She talks a lot about things growing, like herself, or ‘when Ethan gets bigger’, and sometimes even inanimate objects. She has also said to ME “when you get smaller like a baby” … and I’ve been trying to explain which things grow bigger and what doesn’t, and how things don’t usually get smaller… it’s a hard concept! But once she said, “I’m just little, like Ella, gonna get bigger like mama.” Aw!! My mom said she has also heard Diella say, “when I grow up, Up, UP to the sky!” hehehe

Diella has very good at interacting with the television, ya know how a lot of these kids shows are interactive, well she does it a lot, which I think is cool! But this one time, I don’t think it was that kind of show, and I wasn’t paying attention to what was on TV, but I tuned in when I heard her talking to the TV, she said, “you dunno who? I can help you.” Lol, its like the characters on tv usually tell HER how things go, it was like she was gonna teach the TV something for once, hehe!

She is starting to name things. I love this!!! Sadly, Elmo has sorta been “replaced” by a new stuffed animal she got from her cousin Jasmine for Christmas. It’s a pink care bear, she named it “Caba.” (no clue why, or where that’s from…. I think just from Diella’s head, hehe). And one day she was carrying this little stuffed animal, a Tigger, and I asked her what his name was (I thought maybe she knew Tigger’s name?), and she looked at him, and had a puzzled look on her face, and paused, then said, “Smiley walks.” HAHAHA! What??

Ok, JUST now, Diella got up from her nap, and after we talked for a minute, she said, out of nowhere, “when she comes here, she’ll sing a song” … I said who?... she said, “Aria. My best cousin.” !!!! (she reminds us of that every once in a while! That Aria is her best friend & her best cousin, hehehe, aw!)

A while back, Diella was saying pumpkin, like pop can. I dunno why, cuz she first said pumpkin when she was like 16 months er something? She also made up her own version on a word. She was trying to communicate that she wanted whatever the thing was to be the opposite of upsidedown. I don’t think she’d ever heard “right side up”, so she said she wanted it Upside up! Ha, I like! She recently often asks, “what’s it time for?” I think its because, ya know, when we’re about to eat, we say Its Time for Dinner, and when I need her to go down for nap, I say “ok, time for nap.” So whenever we’re preparing to do something, or whenever I take her hand and lead her somewhere, she says “whats it time for?” hehe.

Pah ha! Just now, we were in the bathroom, and daddy’s shorts were on the floor in there. Diella said “those are daddy’s pants.” I said “yep.” She asked me why they were in there, and I just said, “I dunno honey, I guess he just took em off & left em in here.” She said “well I’ll tell him not to leave them in here.” Haha! So I called him to tell him, cuz I thought it was funny, and then Diella wanted to talk to him and she said “daddy, your pants were in the bathroom. You need ta get em when you come home. You left em.” Hahahahahaaaa!! (ALL on her own, I promise! I did NOT put this idea in her head, honest!)

Diella is SUCH a complimenting person! She hands out compliments like its her job! To EVERYone! Random people in the store, everyone in this house, everyone she sees! Its, “I like your shirt!” “I love your pants!” “I like your shoes!” “Your hair looks so pretty!” etc. Its SO Sweet!

One day Diella was layin out these toy horses, and she was ‘counting’ them… and I did NOT teach her this… she said, “uno, dos, Grace, Carto, cinco.” LOL! So she said two of em not perfectly, but she did FIVE numbers in Spanish! I was like Wha??? Awesome! I asked her where she learned that, she said Dora. (I should’ve known!) There’s another thing she says in Spanish, “Ayudame,” which means ‘help me.’ But this whole words-in-another-language thing is a REALLY hard concept for them to grasp at this age. I mean, I know she knows what ayudame means, cuz she usually says that AND help me, back to back, but when I try to explain that ayudame means help me in Spanish, she’s no clue what I’m talking about. So I cant get her to do it on commande cuz she looks at me like “say help me in Spanish? What??” … we’ll get it.

A few short things…. She was counting on her fingers a while ago, I dunno why I found that so cute, and ‘bloggable’ but I did. She has often used her pillow as a blanket, which I think is hilarious & random, I’ll peek in when she’s sleeping & she’s got her pillow on her legs, funny! She can Finally do a somersault! It was as of maybe a month ago! Oh, she calls me Mom now, not mommy. And she is suddenly Rapidly growing! I mean, everyone says how quickly kids grow into & then right out of clothes, but we haven’t seen much of that with her, cuz she’s always been pretty small & just not growin too fast. Well, she went from a shoe size 4 to a 6, like overnight. She was wearin 18 months pants for the longest time! Then just recently finally grew in 24 mos, and is now almost not fitting in those, finally get to wear the 2Ts. Yay! We knew the day she started to grow would come!!!

Oh my gosh, one day she goes “mommy did you toot?” I said yes. She goes, “what kind of toot?” I said “What??” she goes, “brown or pink toot?” LOL, what the???

This girl. We all know she’s smart. One day she asked if we could go outside (it was snowing), so I said, “um, no not today honey.” So she walks over to the big picture window in the living room, puts her hand on it, and goes, “see? It’s too cold outside.” How cool is that? My little weather girl, hehe.

So Diella has become quite the little sneaky sneaker. Every morning she likes to eat blueberries. We always have some in a bag in the freezer, from our backyard, we have enough each season to last all year long, and by the way, the freezer is on the bottom, below the fridge. So once, Diella got up before Jake & I, and when I got up and came out to the living room, there she was, With the ENTIRE bag of blueberries, eating away, blue all over herself! Just helped herself! Ahh! Independence is a good thing, but woah. Another thing she has done a few times, once we’ve put her down for nap or bedtime, and she’s quiet, and we assume she’s fallen asleep, we’ll finally walk back there, and a few times we’ve found her sleeping in OUR bed! Lol, lil sneaky woman! Just took it upon herself to decide she’d rather sleep in our bed than her own, sigh*

Diella is such a little singer! I know I’ve said this before, but she is just learning & memorizing, and Performing more & more songs! Plus she makes songs out of just things she says sometimes (I do this to her sometimes, so I’m sure that’s where she got it), but she’s just always got a little melodic tune in her voice. Oh, and Honestly she matches pitch pretty well! I’ll listen closely when she’s singing along with a new song, and I can hear her trying to sing the same notes as the song! It’s awesome!

A while back, I had gotten some Sponge Bob tattoos out of a machine. Well one day, she took all the plastic covers off of all of them, so we had use em all at once, or they’d go to waste. So we did. There were a bunch of em, so I had on two, she had on I think 3, one on each foot, and I asked her where she wanted the other one, she chose her belly. Then I later noticed that they glowed in the dark! So I went to show her this, and for some reason she didn’t like that they glowed in the dark? I thought she’d love it? Strange. I THINK its because I told her it was Glowing, and she thought I said Growing? (ya know, her hole Michelle’s feet growing thing? Yea, she’s gotta weird issue with things growing, its scary to her for some reason.) But yea, that was weird.

A while back, Diella had a chart we were keeping for good behavior, the “obey chart.” There was a path, and she would get a sticker on each square along the path, and after I think maybe 20 stickers, she would get a prize at the end. (and it was like, if she obeyed on the FIRST time I asked, not if I had to remind her to obey for a sticker). The first time the prize was an umbrella that she had been asking for, and then on the 2nd half of the chart, the prize at the end was silver shoes that she had been asking for. Well, we’ve completed the chart, she did well. And now she’s on this Shoe kick, she LOVES shoes! So she had FINALLY started to (sometimes) go #2 on the potty again! Halleluhia! (its once in a while, though, she still goes not-on-the-potty sometimes too, but we’re getting closer at least). Well the first time she did it, my mom brought her home a present, it was fairy wings, a wand, shoes, and a skirt, it was cute! Then her daddy told her next time she #2’d on the potty, he’d get her some sparkly shoes. So it wasn’t long until she got those, but now I’m to the point where she’s not gonna get something like that when she goes, but just a popsicle or something instead, hehe. So we’re still working on it, and making progress at least!

A few MORE little funny things Diella has said. When her pants are twisted a bit, or if the top lip of her sock is folded down, or any little thing like this, she says “something is wrong” hehe. And to any kids she sees, anywhere, at church or the store or wherever, she says “those are my friends” hehe. And she has been saying “you’re welcome” lately, which I love! Her manners are getting better & better! She recently has been asking, “right now or not right now?” Whenever we’re talking about doing something, like going potty, or going to the store, or eating a meal, she asks Right now or not right now? Ha! Oh, when she gets excited, she says “woo hoo!” like literally Woo. Hoo. I love that, it cracks me up! And one more thing, a lot of times when I’m trying to teach her consequences of things, I say “see?!” or “see what happens?” and now she says that as well, she says, “see wha happens?” but sometimes it doesn’t really apply to what we’re doing, hehe. Oh wait, ONE more thing… this one I hate that she says. Sometimes if she isn’t behaving too well, and then she asks me if she can do something, I’ll say “you can when you start to obey.” And now when I ask her to do something, she’ll say, “you can when you obey!” I’m like, “Diella, it doesn’t work that way honey. Mommy makes the rules, not Diella.” She’s like “oh.”

On the note of her behavior, (ok, I’m sorry, I don’t remember if I already wrote this, I’ve been working on this blog over a matter of DAYS, so I’m sorry if I’m repeating), but she’s gradually coming out of the terrible two’s! It is So nice! I mean, she for Sure still has her not-nice moments, and sometimes she is SO Dr. Jekyl & Mr. Hyde, so polite & sweet one moment, and a Monster the next… but she’s learning that when she misbehaves, there will be repercussions, and its getting better, Finally!

Just now, Diella was saying she wanted to take a nap LATER. I said, “well, in just a little bit.” She goes, “a little bit LATER.” I said, “ok, a little bit, Later, same thing.” She goes, “yea, they’re the same color.” Lol!

Lately, when Diella says ”c’mon”, she does that finger gesture that goes with it, where you bend your pointer finer towards yourself. I think its cute.

Haha! And just now she asked me, “can you turn the TV up so I can hear it?” I said, “are you deaf?” and she goes, “Mmm hmm.”

Diella has been dressing herself for a long time now, and its 100%! A few times lately, either first thing in the morning, or randomly during the day, she’ll go into her room, and come out with a totally different outfit on, it cracks up!!! Once or twice she came out & all her clothes were backwards, which is hilarious, but its cool that she’s doing it all herself! One time she came out in tiny shorts that barely fit, and a tee shirt that was also short & showing her belly. It was hilarious! And it was also an indication that I need to go through her drawers and take out the too small clothes, lol!

Diella started doing this thing lately, where she babbles…. Like a baby. At first we were like, ‘uh, this is NOT cool.’ But then she started doing it and laughing afterwards, and not like a ‘haha, I’m doing something wrong’ laugh, but a ‘I’m doing this to make you laugh’ laugh. So I think she’s jus tryin to be funny, cuz she’ll do it like at the end of a sentence. Like, “twinkle twinkle little Ethan, balah beloole” … its interesting.

She loves to dance! When she was in my BELLY, I Called it that she would be a dancer! She’s getting good at copying moves that she sees. Yesterday I was doin some dance, and she was watching so closely, trying to mimic it, and she would try (and not come very close) and I would say “good job!!!” … well today, she got it! Its like you spin around on one foot… like get momentum & then spin all the way around, she does it Great!!!!

Ok, we were in the doctors office a week or two ago, around Christmas time, and we go into the room and there’s Christmas music playing (like through the system, ya know?). And Diella says, “where’s that coming from?” and I pointed to the ceiling & said up there. (there’s two big lights & a speaker in the middle) She looks up and says, “hm, the left one or the right light?” wow! … I said, “in the middle honey, the circle.” She goes, “oh, the holes.” Hehe yea! …. Then minutes later, we were looking at this decoration on the wall of a snowman, with a scarf & hat on. We were talking about him and his carrot nose n stuff, and I said, “and whats on his head?” (thinking she would jus say ‘a black hat’ or something) and she goes, “a magic trick hat” hehe, cool! My mom & Aunt Mia both thought she maybe got that from the song Frosty the Snowman? And it’s a possibility, but I dunno when she would have heard that song? Either way, that was neat, her observation of detail!

One day this week she had just gotten on a shirt & her panties, and then I asked her to put her socks on. She said she didn’t wanna wear socks, and then she goes to walk out of the room. And just so sharply & dramatically, she stops… says, “wait a second” … turns around… and says… “I need pants.” It was just like a little actress, So hilarious!

And lastly…. I’ve said before how we have this long prayer that we say at night, its usually the same each night, but once in a while we’ll add on something new at the end, pertaining to whatever we’re going through at the time, like when she had the sores on her mouth, the end of our prayer we’d add “and please help my mouth to feel all better.” Well, she’s starting to memorize this long prayer, and do it mostly herself, it is adorable! And she’s even starting to add phrases herself, almost like she is Really praying in her heart! I mean, who says she’s not! I love it!!! Praise the Lord!

Crisis!

2009-09-17T13:07:00.000-07:00

So it was a pretty normal day. We went to the store, she had her angel moments and her throwing a fit moment, no biggie, normal day. Then we went home, started lunch, watched Full House as usual, everything was normal. During lunch she said “I wanna nap mommy,” I said, “ok, after you’re finished eating,” she said, “ok.” So then something happened, and I’ll mention it a little later… but then we continued on as normal, and we’re about to go down for a nap, and I close the door as usual, and she starts SCREAMING, “Mooooommyyy! Moooommyyy! Mooommyyy!” So I go in and ask her what’s wrong & she just tells me she doesn’t wanna take a nap. So I said “ok, it’s a little early for nap, how about you stay there in bed, I’m gonna go change Ethan, then come in here & pick up your room.” (I’m only gone for a minute, changing him, and she’s still jus cryin cryin cryin). So I get a tad upset with her, cuz I cant believe she’s throwing this kind of a fit over not wanting to go to sleep. So I ask her if she’s hurt, she says no. I ask her whats wrong, she says she doesn’t want a book. So I took the book off of her bed. Then she says she hasta go potty, so I take her to potty, and she’s still sorta cryin through all of this (and I’m starting to think something really may be wrong), and I said “did you pee?”… she said, “no, I pooped” …. (she hasn’t pooped on the potty for over two weeks!) so I throw my arms around her & cheer & offer her a popsicle! I bring it in, she takes it, and then says “I don’t wanna popsicle” … So I’m SO confused! I call my mom, jus cuz I’m wonderin what the heck is goin on, see if mom can figure it out. I tell her the thing that happened earlier, and mom goes, “I bet that’s it, that’s what bothering her.” So here’s what happened…. In this episode of Full House that we were watching, Michelle has to get new shoes cuz her feet are growing, and everyone’s teasing her about it, so she has a bad dream that her feet are getting bigger & bigger & bigger. On the show, like during her dream, they’ve got these huge fake feet on her, like probly 2 ft long. And Michelle’s dressed like a clown & she’s like “oh no”… and then they get even bigger (you kinda picturing what I mean, in this episode?)…. Ok, so I’m eating lunch, and then Diella starts BAWLING! So I run to her, and she’s just got sheer horror on her face! Through her cries she says “Michelle!”… so I stand between her & the TV so she cant see it, (and the weird thing is, is that she’s still crying, but trying to look around me, so she can still see whats happening on TV), and I’m telling her “its just pretend, its not real, its ok honey”… and she’s like shaking! So I take her out, change the channel, comfort her, try to explain, and she calms down. So back to the not wanting to nap issue… I asked her if this was the problem (the Michelle thing), and tryin to hold back her tears, she’s stutters, “Michelle’s feet… I cried, I was scared.”” and so again I try to explain, “they’re all better honey, it’s all over now” and she says “no, its still growing.” So I did something I never do…. I said “c’mon, you come in mommy’s bed, I’ll lay with you” So we did that, and she still mentioned Michelle’s feet again, so I said, “lets pray about this honey, do you wanna talk to Jesus about it?” she nodded, so we prayed together, “Jesus, please help me not to be scared cuz it was just pretend, and thank you that Michelle’s feet are all better.” So she took a nap in mommy’s bed today because an episode of Full House scared the crap out of her… well literally, I mean, she hasn’t pooped on the potty in a long time, and finally did after this incident… AND didn’t even want a popsicle! One of her favorite things lately! It was insane! And of course it broke my heart, poor girl! I’m afraid we never may be able to watch Full House again. Then that night for bedtime, we hadn’t mentioned the incident all day long, and right after we all brushed our teeth, Diella, with a little whine in her voie, said “Michells’s toes are growing.” So we had some trouble getting to sleep that night, had to repeat the whole calming procress, daddy & I took turns. She got up a few times during that night too, but never mentioned Michelle or anything, just couldn’t sleep, so not sure if that’s related or not. Throughout the long time, I’m just keeping in mind, telling myself “at least she’ll probly be so tired that she’ll sleep in.” Well, she got up at 8, as usual, refreshed, which is good! She did mention that Michelle’s feet are growing once in the morning, but I jus made no big deal of it, and giggled and said “no they’re not.” And then that was it, she moved on. So we’ll see how this thing plays out. And we are NOT watching Full House today, hehe.

It’s now two days later, and still, whenever its time for nap or bedtime, Diella reminds us that Michelle’s feet are growing. We continue try to comfort her and reassure her that they are not. Now she says, “Michelle’s feet are growing, the boys don’t like it,” and so now I’m thinking that her watching them grow is only part of the problem, she also didn’t like everyone’s reaction, on this episode. As they grew, Michelle said ‘oh no’ and Danny & Uncle Jesse & Joey were like “everyone run, they’re growing again!” …. So great, THAT’s whats bothering her too. And the thing is, she associates this memory with taking a nap, so every time its nap or bedtime, she’s reminded of this image. It makes me so sad, and I wish there was something I could do to help. We’ve prayed about it again a few times… and one night we even showed her a picture on the internet of Michelle Tanner and showed her that “see? She’s all better, her feet are small like yours.” Last night, as we were getting out of the shower, right after she randomly remembered and told me the Michelle’s feet are growing, she then, with concern all over her face, looked down are her own feet & watched them for a moment, as though she was making sure hers were staying just as they are. This whole thing has just traumatized her & I feel terrible!

Easily the Longest One I've Ever Written

2009-09-17T12:34:00.000-07:00

So the terrible two’s are still pretty terrible. And potty training is still going well! But it just makes the terrible two’s even harder, I think. PLUS, I just discovered something else that might be contributing to these tough times… I see Both her molars almost all the way through! I Just noticed them! So I bet that might have something to do with all the misery. We’re just gonna keep prayin though, through all of this.

Here are some great things Diella has said lately! Once, getting out of the car, Ethan was asleep and Diella said “Aw, he’s all quiet & calm” !!! (how does she know calm!?)… She has said a few times, “Jump on trampoline, Kelsie’s house.” … last time we were at Kelsie’s house was 4th of July!... She says every single day, “Sun goes down, go on playground.” I think it means she wants to go on the playground before the sun goes down… and I guess Jake said it one time or something, she says this A LOT! … This one was So Random! We were driving in the car at night, and she said, “tickle moon, cant get up there, its too high”… lol, she wanted to tickle the moon!? How cool! Don’t you LOVE kids’ imaginations!!??... Once she said, “I hear a motorcycle in my ear” (I like that she puts together hearing- with her ears), yea it seems like a simple concept, but I like to know that things are clicking inside of her, and they make sense, that’s good!... Another time she said “I got a bug bite. From a bug.” I loved that one! Again, putting things together, and reasons Why or How things happen!... the other day she hugged Ethan, and no joke, said, “he’s my best friend”, now THAT is a moment!!!

She also often asks “What’s that?” So then when I answer (let’s say… for example, it’s a shoelace, something she didn’t know the name of it)… So I’ll say “it’s a shoelace” and no matter what is it, she’ll go “Oh, a shoelace! I like shoelace!” hehe. We’ve also begun to discover Why & Because. So I’ll ask her “Why, such & such” and she’ll say, “Becaaaaauuse… such & such” (SOMEtimes her Because answer makes sense, but most of the time it doesn’t), like I’ll ask “why did you throw that?” and she’ll go “cuz Ethan’s sleepin” which makes no sense… but today she made sense of one! She told me her finger hurt, I asked why, and she goes “cuz the bandaid fell of” there ya go, D! … and also I’ll tell her something and she’ll go “Because Why?” Oh, And she asks to do something and then goes “Can I? Can I?” OH Yea AND also she’ll tell me something and then go “Thaaats Whyyy” … I love all of these that she says! Oh except the only thing I Don’t like as far as the Why-Because thing goes, is that a lot of times when I ask her a question like “why don’t you ____?” she answers (no matter what the question is), “because its scary.” Which is usually not even relevant, and I dunno why she calls everything scary?... but sometimes she answers with this, with a smile on her face, knowing she’s jus sayin that cuz I’ll laugh & say “its not scary.”

Diella has been using funny terms, that I dunno where she gets them from, like “Alrighty!” and “oh boy” … lol, I love it! …. She used to say the word camera correctly, but now she has changed it to “crama” lol, oops! … If any of you know me well, you know I have a terrible memory. Well Diella is well aware of this as well. So many times when she’ll ask for her treat after she’s gone potty, and I’ve forgotten to go get it, she’ll remind me, and then I’ll say ‘oh yea’ and she’ll go, “you forgot” … that cracks me up! She also says “jus for a minute” for some things, like if she wants to do something, but I say no, she’ll ask “jus for a minute”… sigh* my little negotiator…. She also says “I wanna talk ta you” (I say that to her a lot, and now she’s saying it to me, hehe). Oh and she also says “Hooray!” (she didn’t get it from me, I’m sure there are plenty of shows that she’s picked it up from), but this is another of my Favorites that she says!

One day we were driving home and I was singing. Diella asked me to stop singing, and I said “why?” and she goes “because I’m counting.” I said, “counting what?” “Houses,“ she answered. I thought that was hilarious! Then a few days later, she did it again, she told me she was counting houses, trees, and cars, Haha!!

Diella loves to read stories, and have them read to her. She sometimes will tell them herself! When she does, they Always go like this… “Once upon a time, there was a ____, the end.” And every time the blank is something different. Once upon a time there was a froggie, the end. Or a kitty, or a doggy, or whatever. So cute!

Diella can put her own clothes on! I mean ALL of em! She can do panties, pants, socks, even shirts, and most of her shoes (one pair she has are really hard for her to do by herself). But its SO great! I love being able to jus grab pants & a shirt for her & asking her to get dressed! I jus take off whatever outfit she had on, and then hand her a new one, I love it!

Diella can be a good helper! The other day Ethan spit up a little and Diella told me that he did, but before I could grab a rag, she had already run to get the rag and wiped his chin! That was such a sweet big sister!

I was singing “All You Need Is Love” the other day, just as I went about my business, I wasn’t singing it with Diella or anything… and after a few minutes, I hear from the other room, “All you need is La” …. So cute! So then I sang it better pronounced- love. I just like that we sing that song together now!

I may have mentioned before how obsessed with The Wiggles Diella is. Well, so many people are ‘creeped out’ by the Wiggles, and the only reason I don’t like them is just because their catchy songs are constantly stuck in my head! Diella likes them, so I’m ok with that. She asks to watch it ALL THE TIME, and sometimes I say yes, sometimes no, but the one reason I’m starting to like when she watches it, is because she’s starting to imitate the dance moves! Like my favorite one that she does is this one song where the little girl dancers are dressed like horses & they have tails, and one lyrics goes “their tails in the air go *swish *swish *swish” and during this line, they move their lil butts, so the tails swish. Well, Diella sings along & swishes her butt along with this part, and is it classic!

The inflection in Diella’s voice so often lately is hysterical! Its so “grown-up” and so dramatic! I cant really describe it, of course, cuz its not what she says, its HOW she says it! Like, imagine with me, if you will, the other day she says “we’re goin to the store, I thiiiink. Not goin home, just laaaater” (and the ‘i’ in think goes up, down up, like notes… and the ‘a’ in later goes up and comes back down on ‘ter’… get it?). Things like that. I LOVE her inflection on things!

As most of you know, our next door neighbors, the Stickels, have moved away. Well of course this is a difficult concept for a 2 year old to grasp. She’s been doing fine with it, cuz I don’t think she fully understands that they just don’t live there anymore. But like the other day I told her we were going home to have ice cream (a lot of times the Stickel kids would come over for ice cream and they always had theirs in ice cream cones). So Diella said “yay! Have a pine cone? (she calls ice cream cones- pine cones!) With Jeff, Jasmine, Caeden, and Colton?” And again, I had to explain that they no longer were next door. Well, when they first moved out, and all the rooms were empty, I think it was my mom who was explaining to her that they were moving, and she said “see? There aren’t any beds, they’re moving their beds to a new house.” And so now, when we remind her that they moved away, she says “there aren’t any beds.” Hehehe, love it.

Lately, Diella likes to try to spell things. Its so cute, EVERYthing is spelled I-E-L-A (like the middle letters of her name). She goes, “I-E-L-A, rain! I-E-L-A, trees! I-E-L-A, Diella!” hehe

Oh, Diella does this new thing that cracks me up! The first time I saw it was one day at the park, she was playing on the playground that was wet from the rain the night before. We figured she’d get a lil wet, and that was ok, but when she was done playin, she was walkin over toward us & she was Soaked, shirts & pants and all! We were crackin up and were like, “did you get wet?” She walks towards us, with a totally straight face and her shoulders slumped down, and her arms hanging limp. We laughed harder, and then she finally cracked a smile. But the shoulder slump thing is what makes me laugh, she does it all the time now. Like if we tell her no for something, the shoulders fall & she slowly turns her back & walks away, all disappointed. Its pretty funny.

Oh scary, sometimes Diella thinks its funny to play with Ethan while he’s layin on the floor. I always watch so closely, so she’s careful, but I hate to hinder her playing with him. She jumps over him with 2 feet, ah! Every time she does it, I cringe, but she’s been successful every time so far… luckily.

Sigh* Diella is learning more manipulation, boo. Like she’s starting to say sorry Just to get out of timeout. Like she’ll sit there for a few mins, then say sorry, and then say “I saaaaaid Sorrrrry.” Too smart for her own good.

Diella said her longest sentence ever the other day. (she usually does about 8 words, this one was 10…. except, since then, I’ve been trying to count the words more often, and when she describes things & like lists them, then that usually comes out to more than ten words… but anyway…) It was, “wanna watch a movie, on the couch, for lil bit” I thought that was cool!

The other night I was putting her to bed, and she usually asks for a book lately, and always a specific one. This time she said “I want a science book” I laughed so hard! She doesn’t even have a science book, I dunno why she said that! I said “silly, you don’t have a science book” She goes, “how bout…. A bunny book” So I handed her the bunny book, and she goes “G’nite mommy,” satisfied. So cute!

Holy! Do you ever do simple math out loud, jus without thinking? The other day I said, “Diella, whats 16 plus 8?” … Of course I knew she didn’t know the answer, let alone what one number PLUS another number even meant! She goes, “26.” LOL!!! I mean, it was wrong obviously… but how did she know to answer me with a number when I asked ___ plus ___ ? And it was close, Hahaha!

A few mornings ago when I woke up, I saw her bedroom door open, so I figured she was up, with Ahna. I finally crawl out of bed & go look around, and then ask Ahna where she is. Ahna shrugged, and we both look in each room. I get back to her room, and she’s got this big stuffed animal alligator chair… she’s asleep on it, in the corner of her room! So she made it over there, either awake or still in her sleep, and passed out on it, hilarious!

The other day, Jake was cookin dinner and he had a bag of walnuts out. Once he went to put them away, he couldn’t find them. He said “Diella, where’s the bag of walnuts?” She said, “in my room.” He walked back to her room, and sure enough, there they were! She took em back there, who knows why. Its just funny how even though she took em & didn’t tell us, all we had to do is ask her where they were & she’s honest about it, haha! There was another similar instance, I cant remember specifically, the next day… we didn’t know where something was, assumed Diella moved it, we asked her about it, and she knew right where she left it, too funny!

On the drive home from church on Sunday, Diella was playing with her new piano book (it has keys that you play), and it was playing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (just the notes, not the words)…. And after she played it over a few times, I heard her trying to sing Right Along with it, the words, and trying to stay right with the timing, And on key! It was very cool! And then when she stopped singing it, she would tilt her head side to side along with the song, right on tempo, so cool! (as she did it more & more, she actually got off tempo, and not with the tune anymore…. But still, she got it right the first few times), I think you’re just born with an ear for melody & rhythm, especially with musical families on each side, its just cool to see that developing already!

Ok, story to remember forever!... We went to this restaurant that we’d never been to the other day, and it wasn’t very big, and it wasn’t very full of customers at the time (it WAS very yummy!), and this was the second day that Diella started to ASK to go potty. So during dinner, she asked, and I took her, and she went! So in the bathroom there, I clapped & praised her. Jake & my parents were sitting in the back of the restaurant, so we had to walk ALL the way across the place, back to our seats. So we leave the bathroom, and she Runs back to the table, yelling “I peed, I peed!” There were only about 4 or 5 other tables with people at them, but as she ran & shouted this, the entire place broke out into applause! It was hilarious! I was proud of her & so embarrassed at the same time, but it was quite a memorable moment! And Then when we sat down, after the applause, of course she said “I wanna go potty AGAIN!” Hahaha!

We have had a few people comment on how they love that Diella says “Yes” so perfectly (I think they mean, as opposed to ‘yea’)… well it was only 2 or 3 days after the last time we got a comment about it that Diella’s Yes’s have finally switched to Yea’s, boo, I’m sad… I Loved the Yes’s!

A few other cute things she’s said recently (this blog is being written over the period of a few days, I never have the time to sit & finish the whole thing, Plus she keeps doing things that I wanna add, so it jus gets longer & longer, my apologies)… but the other day she woke up from nap & I said, “are you dry?” she nodded, and then said “you dry too?” lol, I said yes, hehe…. The other day we took her backpack somewhere with us (haven’t taken it in a while), and when she put it on, she goes , “that’s pretty cool” Ha! … and a lot of times when she asks for something, but its not time yet, I’ll explain, for example, she’ll say “have a apple please?” and I’ll say, “well, lets play outside for a little bit, and THEN we’ll come in & have an apple.” So now she uses this ‘and THEN’ phrase all the time. Like I’ll say “let’s go potty, Diella” and she’ll go “and THEN take a nap.” Nice! Oh, and yesterday, out of nowhere, in the car, she goes “Adios!” She watched Dora A LOT! I’m sure she got it from that. She doesn’t know what it means, but now that she says it, I’m working on teaching her what it means, as well as Hola.

This morning, she got this from whatever show was on, I think maybe Dora, she goes “Banana pants make turkeys laugh” Hahaha! I think maybe she was confused about what they were doing & twisted it a little, but it was still pretty funny to me!

We were watching Full House the other day (as we do every day during lunch & Diella likes the show), and in this episode, Michelle took Comet (the dog) for a walk, and the Oscar Meyer Weiner-mobile drove by, and Comet chased after it. Then Diella tells me, “Comet ran away with hotdog, that’s really bad.” (she didn’t have concern in her voice or anything, was just telling me, very matter-of-fact-ly). And then a minute later, she looks at the TV & says “Comet! Story time!” lol, no clue where that part came from, haha! We had another incident with a different Full House episode that I will blog in a separate post, stay tuned.

We had our big labor day picnic! Diella & Ethan both loved chicken string, Mmmm! How can you not!? That was a fun day! Even some of the Ritenour side came up for that! That was a special treat for Diella!

Once in a while, Diella & I like to hold hands in the car. The past few days, she’s been taking Ethan’s hand to hold while we drive! Precious! (probly wont last, hehe)

Ok, potty update, then we’re done. Since its been a while, I’ll give you some steps that have happened since, up to now… we took the step to diapers only for naptime & bedtime, panties all awake times. She still had some accidents, but was doing well. Wouldn’t ASK to go potty, but always peed when we took her on the potty. Then tried no diaper for nap, and I think that worked right away! Once or two accidents, but almost always dry after nap! So then diapers were just for bed time. She has also taken the step to where she ASKS to go potty, which we love! So now she’s SO close to being all the way trained… she still won’t go #2 on the potty… in fact, she Used to, but hasn’t in a while. She did ONCE a few days ago… what she does is hold it for about 2 days, then go in her undies. She knows she’s doing that, but just does NOT wanna do it on the potty anymore, dunno why. Two nights ago was the first time we tried bedtime with no diaper, and she ended up having trouble sleeping that night, and once when she got up, she said she had to go potty, so I took her & she peed, which is great! But then in the morning she had had an accident. Then we tried again last night, so what I did was, when Ethan woke to eat at 3:30, after I fed him, I woke her & sat her on the potty (cuz she was dry up to this point), so I let her lay her head on my shoulder, half asleep, and she peed… and then dry in the morning, yay!!! So, like I said, we’re So close!!!

Panties!

2009-08-24T09:42:00.000-07:00

As part of potty training, I'm putting Diella in panties Much more often. I'll leave the potty out & leave her panties out, and a few times she has pulled down her own panties, sat & peed! she pees pretty much every time she sits on the potty (and goes #2 only sometimes). We still have some kinks to work out, but she's gettin it, step by step!

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The other day I was baking (cookie dough!) and the brown sugar was out, Diella asked what it was, I said brown sugar. A minute later she asked for some, but she said 'booger' LOL! I think she was mixing the two words, haha! Brown + sugar = booger, ha!

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The other day we were talking, and she looked so happy, and I asked her "are you happy?" ... she goes "No, I'm sad" with a Huge smile on her face, ha! That made me laugh!

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I dont remember what this was in reference to, but one day she, out of nowhere, said "its amazing' !!! What a great phrase for a 2 year old! Cool!

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She's doin that silly face that kids do, with one finger on each side of the mouth, pulling out... dunno where she picked it up, but it makes me feel like she's a big kid, doin kid things! I just like it!

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And this morning, the 3 of us are in Ethan's room, and she brings in a book and says she's gonna read it to Ethan. She she opens it up and said this... "God made chicken. God made hotdogs. God made ketchup. God made Ethan. God made Diella. The end." LOL!!! Soooo Great!!!

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I short blogged! Finally!!!

Lotsa Pix & Lotsa Stuff!

2009-08-20T10:59:00.000-07:00

Diella has been making an extra syllable out of words that have an R in them, like “uncle Ka-ris” or “ta-rees” (trees) or “der-ress” (dress). Hehe, dunno why, but its kinda cute…. She will also say Anything we ask her to say, even hard words, like Congratulations (ok, she’s got that one ALMOST perfect, I think she sats 4 of the 5 syllables), but she tries! Oh, and there’s this commercial on TV that she sang along with yesterday, has the song “Lollipop lollipop, oh la la lollipop” and she says is “hollipop” Cute! (she also sings along with the commercial “Beep Beep dot com” lol!

Now, when you ask her a question, she says “uh” first… so like “uh, yes” or “uh, no” … I dunno where this came from, but its kinda funny!... she also (unfortunately) got the phrase “get outta here” from me. Its ok when she uses it like yesterday, she said to this bee flying around, “get outta here bee”, but she’s also said it to Ethan once when she was mad, oops.

Poor Diella has been getting bitten by all the mosquitoes so bad lately! She’s got like 8 on her back right now! When she wants me to scratch em, she says “mom, I got itchies, kratch it” hehe, aw.

Even though Diella doesn’t obey sometimes, I wonder if she does it to make me mad, or just to test me or what… because when she disobeys, we sit down & talk about how it makes mommy sad, and she says “make mommy happy, I want to obey” … so ya know kids, maybe she’s just saying that to get outta trouble, but I just really hope her heart is right.

One day she was sitting in time out, SINGING “I don’t want to sit in time out” … that was hilarious! (another one of those things I really should have grabbed the video camera for!)

Diella likes bandaids, sometimes she even asks for one when she has no boo boo. She’ll even tell me she got shots in the leg (when she hasn’t had those for a while now) hehe

One time she was getting frustrated with something & she asked me to do it, and I told her “you can do it, just try” … and so she tried, and then yelled, “I Cant….” And stopped, lol, she DID do it… it jus made me laugh cuz in the middle of her about to say ‘I cant do it’, she did it, and swallowed her words real fast, lol!

One day I asked her to do something, and she goes “I’m busy” LOL! Sigh* the things they pick up on! … oh, and once I was doing something with Ethan, and Diella reminds me, “just be gentle” she said. Haha! How cute!

Diella is starting to be able to get doors open on her own, some she can get all the way, others, if you have to pull it open, she’ll get the latch, but can hardly pull it open… anyway, we have to lock doors now, and get screens on them so she doesn’t escape in the middle of the night! Ah! (lol, like she ever would.. but safe than sorry)

Oh my goodness, sometimes when she walks around naked, I call her Cheekies!... and its just become a habit, every once in a while I’ll call her that… and if I need to get her attention, I say “hey Cheekies”, and she goes “what.” Lol, she answers to the name Cheekies! HAHA!!

One day, I have no clue where she got this from, but she just said “Ladies And Gentlemen!”… well, she said it more like “lady and geni-mens” heheh, love it!

Ok, some of the songs she sings… like Itsy Bitsy Spider, when I sing it with her… I’ll sing a line, then she’ll sing a line, through the whole song, funny thing is, every time its her turn, she sings “washa spidoout” (well, that was a while ago, now she’s starting to get other parts, like ‘dried up all the rain’ she sings like ‘grabbed all the rain’ hehe, love it! … and here is the song that I made up for her when she was just a little baby, and now we sing it together, I sing some of it, and she fills in the blanks… (BOLD is Diella)…. “You’re my beautiful GIRL, yes my beautiful GIRL, the most beautiful in ALL THE WORLD, she’s got beautiful EYES, and a cute little NOSE, her precious LIPS, and her tiny TOES, she’s got cute little EARS, it’s the music she HEARS, and her dark blonde hair all the WAY UP THERE, she’s my BEAUTIFUL GIRL” !!! Yay! Fun!

Ok, I SWEAR to you, Diella can read lips (I mean, no perfectly and anything you say), but like if someone asks her a question and I think she knows the answer but she wont say it… she’ll look at me & I’ll mouth the answer to her & then she says it! I’m so not joking, this has happened quite a few times! COOLNESS!

And another really cool thing that she does lately… connect the dots! (not like a whole picture or anything), but like I’ll draw out some dots on a paper & tell her which one to start with, and she does it! I’ve got one on the fridge, cuz she does surprisingly well with it!

Diella loves The Wiggles… and the past two days, when she asks me if she can watch it, she also asks to put on a dress… she says “put on a dress, watch Wiggles, and dance!” So cute!!

Oh, and Diella LOVES her little brother! She is constantly “Eeeethaaaan”, all sweet voice & big smile! And she tries to help if he’s ever fussy. And she’s the one who knows just how to make him laugh better than any of us!

And, as usual, potty update… she will go pee on the potty every time she tries to, but she still doesn’t ASK to go… and she is, just the past few days, finally going #2 on the potty again (used to, and hasn’t in quite a while)… so this is good! And now we try big girl panties once a day or so… yesterday evening she kept them dry all evening long! (she does sometimes have pee accidents in her panties… but as soon as she goes, she says “mommy, I peed”…. So its like she knows right when she goes, but doesn’t know right before she’s about to go…. Its ok, we’re learning, we’re getting there… good girl! In fact, yesterday, I suggested she go potty, but she didn’t want to, so I just got out the potty & kinda didn’t pay attention to her for a little bit… so she sits on the couch for a while (she’s in her big girl panties), then goes over to the potty, opens the lid, Pulls Down Her Own Panties, sits down, goes pee, and pulls her panties back up, all By Herself!!! Then I handed her a wipe & she wiped too! If only we could do this more often! Go Girl!

link to Ethan's blog www.newritenourangel.blogspot.com

Finally!

2009-07-27T13:01:00.000-07:00

Playin dress up in the pics! Sorry, its been so long. I’ve got a million little stories that I jot down. I’ll try to do short version of each, then after this, I swear, I’ll try to do like one short blog, once a week!

I was cutting onions the other day, preparing for dinner. She asked for a bite, so I let her try… she likes em! Ah! She said “Mmm!” and even asked for another one! (lil tiny bites, but still)… and funny thing is, she wont eat cooked onions, ha!

All the time now, when Diella asks a question, and then you answer, she goes “Oooooh” hehe, its funny every time.

She’s starting to use different tenses of words and different usages of words correctly, like “I am” and “I do” and “I can” … and “where is IT?” and “where are THEY?” I think its so neat, that she catches on & corrects herself for these things!

Some things she says a lot lately… “where ya goin?” or “Wha happened?”… when we talk about something she’d like to do, she always goes “that’d be fun!” ... I LOVE that one!... oh, she says “Some’m” (ya know, how adults condense the word Something…. Like that). Hehe

She has been making Ethan laugh lately, I LOVE to watch that! Usually she spins in circles, then laughs, and that makes him laugh. These are such priceless moments!

Whenever I’m on the phone, be it at the house or on my cell in the car, whenever I say bye & hang up, Diella will say something about whoever I was talking to. Like I’m on the phone with Jake & she’ll say “where’s daddy at?” … how does she know I’m talking to him!!?? It’s so weird, and its like every time, she gets it right! Spooky.

Oh another weird thing, the other day we were driving on the highway, and Diella goes “turn left” …. My mouth dropped open & I asked her Did you jus say turn left!!?? She smiled & nodded… I still wasn’t sure if that’s really what she meant to say or not… but then she goes “Right and left” !!! When did she learn those words!? Musta been TV or something. Crazy!

One day, like after a bath or something, she comes runnin out & says “momma look! I’m naked!” … I dunno why this was so funny, but it was!

I saw her by herself one day, touching her toes goin “this lil piggy all way home” … hehe, aw! I think her daddy played the ‘this little piggy’ game with her on her toes, cute!

She’s been trying harder & harder to get her own clothes on & off. She DID get a tank top on 100% by herself the other day! (well, it was backwards, but that’s one’a those things you don’t correct, cuz it was by herself!) And sometimes she can get her own shirt off. We’ve been working on pulling her own pants down to sit on the potty, its hard for her, but we’re getting there. And then the other day I handed her her ‘big girl panties’ to put on by herself, and when I came back in the room, she had em all the way up! Lol, only two legs in one hole, all the way up to her waist, it was hilarious!

Certain words that she mispronounces, mostly ones that start with an F or an S, I will help her sound them out better, and she usually can get it when she tries…. She says swimmin, like Fimmin…. I said, ‘no Diella, with an S… Sssswimmin” … she goes, “Ssss fimmin!” hehe… and then one day I don’t remember what the word was, but I know it started with a C sound, some simple word… and she was saying it wrong, so I corrected her & tried to help her through it, and she totally made it harder than it was (lets say the word was carrot, cuz I don’t member) … she goes “Ssss, fffff, carrot!” haha! She can say C words, I dunno why she had trouble with this one… but I thought it was funny that she added and S & an F, outta nowhere!

She asked Ahna what this one fruit was, it was a nectarine, and she said it like “Macarene”, ha! So cute!... oh, and she has always called Aunt Alethea, just “Aunt” cuz its easier… well we finally tried to teach her to say Aunt Alethea, and she does it like “Aunt Alethela” (uh-lee-th-la)… love it!

Sometimes I hate how she catches on to things that I say… like when she’s in trouble… cuz sometimes she’ll say those things to me! Like she has said “Say no! Spanka butt!” (which is “don’t say no” and “I’ll spank your butt”) sigh*

Ok, a story like that one when Aria was told that the rules are different, so she took that how She Wanted to take it! … Colton was over, I think playing with her rocket, and I think one of them had just gotten over bein sick. And Diella was walkin around, eatin something, and she goes to give some to Colton, and Ahna goes “no, don’t share with Colton!” … and so she takes the rocket away from him… haha!

Diella sings SO many songs now!!! Her favorite I think is Twinkle Twinkle Little Star… cuz if she’s not singin the actual words to it, then she’s either humming it, or singing like little ‘doot doots’ to it!... oh, and its Tinkle, not twinkle, hehe. The other ones she does are Old MacDonald, Itsy Bitsy Spider, ABCs of course, Patty Cake, Head Shoulders Knees & Toes, Veggie Tales theme…. And my favorite… she mixed two songs together and sings it like this… “and on that farm he had a dog, and Bingo was his name-o” lol… love it!!! Oh, and Itsy Bitsy Spider goes like this… “bitsy bitsy pider, washa pida wout” over & over…. Oh I Love it, love it, love it!!

K, a few other things with her lil brother… he was sleeping in my arms & I took out my phone, scrolled to a pic of Diella as a baby, sleeping… and held it up to him… oh my gosh, TWINS! … since then I’ve showed the picture to mom, dad, alethea, whoever, and ask them who the pic is, they all say Ethan…. But it’s D! …. She loves him… the other day she was wearing Ahna’s high heels, and she came in the room & goes “Ethan, look, I’m cool” LOL!!! … sometimes when he’s talkin to the tv, she goes “good talkin Ethan!” aww, cute!.... oh, and … oh geez, she hasn’t done this in a while, but a few weeks ago, she would take Ethan’s binkies and put em in her mouth. At first it was like a “haha-this-is-funny-cuz-I-know-I’m-not-supposed-to-do-this” thing… cuz ya know, I’d take it out & tell her those were not for big girls, they are for babies… Then it got the point where when I would take it, she’d whine & say “my binkies!” … sigh* luckily, she’s stopped doing that now. Whew!

One thing she does that drives me bonkers…. When she’s doin one thing, but tryin to get my attention at the same time… she softly, but repeatedly goes “ma, ma, ma, ma, ma” … like stuttering almost, and its like she’s saying my name to pay attention, but she’s not ready to show or tell me whatever it is she’s trying to communicate… and I’m like “what!?” hehe, cuz I’ve been ready & attentive, and she’s still distracted, goin ‘ma, ma, ma, ma, ma”… lol

Last week she asked to get in the shower while I was taking one, every once in a while I let her do this if she asks… and so she asked me if she could see the soap (the bar of soap), so I hand it to her & continue washing my hair… after a minute or two, I hear a scream unlike any other I’ve ever heard… she somehow got the soap in her eyes… then as I’m trying to rinse her eyes, her lil hands are all lathered in it too, and as I turn to get more clean water, she rubs her eyes & makes it worse… aww, it was so sad. But of course she was ok.

Diella loves to pick up any toy phone & have little conversations with people! Sometimes it’s Uncle Chris, sometimes it’s Emily, sometimes it’s Uncle Nate, different people. And she’ll just say little things like “hi, yea, oh, ok bye” things like that… but the conversation she had with her cousin Aria today, was priceless! She calls and says “Hi Aria! Wha chu doin? Cleanin up Diella’s room? Ok, I’ll be right there!” HAHAHAHA!!! That. Was. Awesome!

This girl picks up stuff from tv, without help, all the time, its crazy! Like, during Dora, she’s starting to answer the questions they ask… like they name 3 places, and then they say the first two & ask which is the third one, and she’ll answer them! Cool!... and we watch Full House every day during lunch, and one day it was on, and she goes “look mommy! There’s Uncle Jesse, and Michelle, and Joey!” oh my gosh, hilarious! She knows all their names, ha!!

One day she just started naming things, talking to herself…. Like… “a boat, aaaaand a chair, aaaaand a doggy, aaaaand a tree…” and the list went on and on, hehe! … and then the other day, she was watching me eat lunch, and jus named everything I was eating, one by one… hehe, maybe she’ll be a list-maker like her mommy!

I’ve been tryin to teach Diella that sometimes, when the answer is No, you just say “yes ma’am” … well she says it, but is usually crying by that time, cuz we’ve already sad no & then reminded her, what do you say when the answer is no? and she says it through the cry “yes maaaaa’aaaam” hehe… and other times she says it when it doesn’t apply… but still, I like that we’re trying.

We were walkin up to the house to go in the other day, and she looks at the ground & says “I see shadows” … she saw our shadows, so we waved at them!

There has been endless rain here is Erie, and so now Diella is old enough to hear & react to all the thunder. She’s actually doing well with it! Especially considering she doesn’t like anything loud, like the vacuum, or cars that are closeby, or the tractor, or fireworks. Sometimes out of nowhere she’ll even say “I like a thunder”. Hehe

When Diella is being nice, I tell her how happy it makes me (since quite often these days, she can be quite…. Not nice)… and then when she misbehaves, and we talk to her about her poor behavior, I tell her it makes me so sad. Well, she’s said this a few times, “makes me so sad” … sometimes it fits, sometimes not, but I think its cute, I think she understands the concept.

Diella was watching The Wiggles a few days ago, and she was showing daddy who “Wags” was… he’s the dog on the show… but she actually made the W sound kinda like an R… so he was like “who’s Rags?” and she’d go “Wwwwaaaaaaags” … and he’d tease her further, and say “Rags?” … and she’d again slowly try to pronounce, “Wwwwaaaaags” so that she wasn’t misunderstood… and he kept goin on & on, to bug her…. But it was hilarious to hear her try to convince him of how to say it, even tho he would jus keep messin around….. “Wwwwwaaaaags” hehehe

Lately, like if she gets a snack or whatever, I’ve seen her rub her two little hands together in anticipation… ya know, like you’re anxious to eat something yummy… she does that… I dunno where she picked it up from, but its adorable!

Every night, right before I go to bed, I always look in on the kids sleeping. Just because I love to look at their little peaceful, angelic faces. And when I went in to look at Diella, she tossed in bed and smacked her lips together and said “gum” … LOL! Talked in her sleep! I never heard her to that before! Hahah!

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And she does this thing lately, thats so funny, we all do it, like every night! ... it started outta nowhere, one day during lunch she looks at me with her head tilted down, looking out the top of her eyes, and her eyebrows down, so very angry looking, and took her arms and made them go in little circles, almost like she's swimming... so i did back to her, and we both started cracking up! She's doing it just to be funny! and now we do it all the time, for no reason, but its hilarious! and when there are other people in the room, she tells them to do it too, like "Papa, do dat", until we're all doing it! hehe... and its just funny how she knows how to make her face look so angry, and puts those eyesbrows down, and the arm circles go really slow... oh, its just funny!

Ok, and the two big things! … Her naptimes & bedtimes are officially back to normal! Where she goes down without a fuss, and just right to sleep with no problems! Praise the Lord!!! And even, for I have no idea what reason, for the past few days, in between waking up in the morning & going down for nap in afternoon, she’ll say ‘take a nap’ and just go sit quietly in her bed for like 15 minutes, awake, but just quiet. Its weird, but Lovely!!! Like her own little personal time her something, hehe, great!

And potty time. We sit every day, after lunch, before nap, and in the past 8 days, she’s gone pee on the potty 7 times, and poop twice! Only one time did she sit & try & not go. And one of those times was the first time she did both #1 and #2 in the same turn! Yay! I guess if I put her on more often, she would go more often? Cuz she still goes in her diaper, but also on potty when we try. Emily asked me if Diella ASKS to go… actually no, but she did once! And it was actually in Target! So I took her word for it (that she really did hafta go) and took her to try on the potty, in the public bathroom! (she went once before in public bathroom!)… but I think she was too distracted to go.. I think she really Did Need to go, but couldn’t. But anyway, I was still proud that she asked to!

Apology

2009-07-22T07:41:00.000-07:00

She wanted to put these sneaker skates on, but just Could Not stand up without falling, wanted to do it so badly without help, but it was just too hard (and pretty funny!) ...Anyone who actually reads these or follows these, I just want to apologize for taking so long between posts. I need to do it more often, so they are shorter. Thing is, lately, all my computer time is spent editing pictures (I've been getting lots of gigs!), so I just jot down my ideas to eventually blog... but the list is getting WAY Too long! So for the moment, I will just post some pictures for your enjoyment... and I will soon let you know all the little happenings around here!

4th of July!

2009-07-06T12:20:00.000-07:00

This is a pic I forgot to post. Took one of each of the grandkids, who live in PA. Put them in a baseball album to give to my dad for Father's Day! Will add pix of the TX grandkids when we get them! :)

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Ok, so last year Diella liked the fireworks, just watched em & smiled, thats about it. This year, a month or so ago, a friend of ours did a few at a party at his house when we were there, she Did NOT like them! "fireworks scary" she would say, and even "go inside!" she demanded. So since then, we try to explain how they're not scary, they're just loud. And that they're pretty! So, we'd been telling her all day that we would see fireworks tonight & she would say "ok!" So it was another long day with no nap.... and by the time we got to the fireworks at night, she had fallen asleep about 10 minutes before they started. And loud as they were, she slept through It ALL! I'm kinda bummed too, I wanted to see how she'd react this time.

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So last night, the Stickels were over & we did some sparklers. She was not a fan, but didnt make a big deal about not liking them, just kinda, 'no like em' she'd say. But my sis also bought 3 lil spinner firecracker things that spun on the ground & then they did lots of crackling & sparkling! When they crackled, they were pretty loud. My mom was holding Diella, and she said Diella Freaked out when they went off! Like, she was shaking! She bawled & again, said Go Inside! I dunno why she doesnt like em & why she gets so scared. (she's never liked the vacuum either... doesnt cry or anything, just has cautious look on her face & usually will watch the vacuum from the other side of the room & just not go near it)... but, aww, poor girl.... I want her to like the fireworks!

Picnic & Stuff

2009-07-02T12:31:00.001-07:00

I did her hair in all little funky ponytails again! Hehe. And all those other pix are from her Birthday party/Chris is home/going-away party for Stickels, which by the way was So fun! Even with yukky weather. We put up a huge slip n slide & had a ball! That first one is actually at the end of the day, she never got a nap, and was SO tired!

So the Terrible Two’s got better for about a week, but unfortunately have come back a little bit. During that week, she would go down for bed a little easier, she was behaving a little better, it was looking bright. But then this week, for a few days, she would be nice to me during the day, then get that way for Ahna (it used to be, she would act that way just for me), and she’s almost always nice with daddy. I know that’s normal, for them to do it most with mom, but its just tough.

On the brighter side, she’s still goin on the potty on & off! Just yesterday, she went pee on her little potty, AND THEN went into the big bathroom, on the big toilet, and went poop!!!! So exciting! She gets yummy rewards when she goes! So we’re still on this track toward being trained. Long way to go, but doing well!

Diella is singing All the time! I love it!!! She (sorta) sings Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. She sings Old MacDonald. But she does that one her own version, lol… like “Had a dog, moo moo there, E-I-E-I-Yo-Yo-Yo” hehe, I love it! She made up her own song the other day, jus sweetly singin random words, sounded something like “boy yay yow ya” it was cute! She also likes to sing the Veggie Tales theme songs, she sings “Broccoli, celery, veggie tales” perfectly! … and then, oh my gosh, the other day, I took her through the other part “Cauliflower, sweet n sour, half an hour, veggie tales”…. And not only did she mix that with the first part… but she put her own lil twist in it… she used Gotta Be (from that one part) and I think she added this cuz it sounds like cauliflower…. She goes… “Gotta be, Ritenour” LOL!!!!!

Few quick funny things she’s done lately. Two nights ago, we were all eating dinner at the table together (having homemade mac n cheese, Mmm!)… well Diella has never liked any kind of mac n cheese, dunno why…. I mean, what kind of American kid are you?! … anyway, my mom taps me & points to Diella so that I’ll look at her… she’s quietly putting her food UNDER her plate! We’re of course trying not to laugh, but still watching with curiosity… she finally catches us watching her & she says “hiding it” … we cracked up! Then we asked her why n stuff… I don’t member the answer, but it was funny & so not funny, at the same time.

K, the other day, I went in to wake her up from nap, and she was sleepin like a rock. Usually, I jus lightly touch her hair or softly say ‘diella, time to wake up’ and her eyes open right up & she’s awake. But this day, I continued to touch her & gently talk to her for a while before she showed any signs of getting up… so for some reason it started to make me giggle,… so then when I would giggle, she would smile, but still with her eyes closed…. So then I wonder, is she playing a game? Pretending to be asleep?... or is she really asleep & smiling in her sleep cuz she hears me giggling? So I see her smile with her eyes closed & I laugh a little harder. Then her smile gets even bigger (eyes Still closed)… then I start crackin up! Her eyes open & she giggles too. I still don’t know if she was faking it, or not, but it was funny either way!

We got weighed & measured the other day. Well Diella is normal & healthy, and for weight, she’s in the 26 percentile, not too bad I guess…. But for height, she’s in the 9th percentile! lol, shortay! hehe

So its just neat how well she’s talking now. Practically to the point where we’re having a conversation. Here are some of the things she’s been saying…. The other day, Ethan was laying on the floor, Diella & I were kneeling near him & I gently patted his lil belly. Then Diella does the same and says “like a drum” … lol, hilarious! …. She’s been saying ‘oh my gosh’ more & more often, hehe! sigh* …. The other day she was playing with Ahna, and I don’t even remember why, but she looks at me and says “you’re cool” ! Ahna & I both giggle, and I say thank you & then she looks at Ahna & says it to her too, how funny! …. One day we both got our fingers pricked at the doctor for something, and I thought she might fuss about it a bit, so I went outta my way to keep her attention on lighter hearted things, so then when we got our bandaids on our fingers, I told her ‘we match!’ … (the prick didn’t bother her at all actually)… but now she says ‘we match’ all the time, hehe… like even at the little things. Like yesterday she & Ethan & I all had on pants… just pants, not the same color or anything, we were just all wearing pants & as she points this out to me, she excitedly says We Match! Hehe…. Oh, she says Banana, like Balana, cute! (one of those ones you hate to correct, cuz its so cute)… and now she always tells me who got her what… (I think we often remind her, when she’s playing with something, like “so-and-so got you that!”… so now she tells US who got her what. Like her new flip flops that she loves (her 2nd pair now), she says “Ahna got me those” , and her guitar, she says “Dave & Marijke got me that” … and so on with everything, I like it!

Yesterday Diella was running in the living room & Ethan was laughing at her. It was no big deal, really, but I just loved that it was like they were finally a part of EACH OTHERS’ worlds! Like she loves him, but now he’s more aware of her & interested in her, yay!

A while back, Jake & I kissed in the kitchen (like not a little hello peck, but like a romantic kiss) and Diella goes “Oooo, BIG kiss!” LOL, that was SO Hilarious!

Yesterday I was trying to get this toy of hers to light up & it wouldn’t and Diella says “Actually, maybe broken”… oh my gosh, that was so funny!... I told my dad that & he goes, where do you think she learned that word?... I said, well the other day I said it & I saw the curiosity in her eyes, so I said it again, “Actually…” She didn’t repeat it & that was it, we didn’t continue with it then, that was just it, I said it twice. Then yesterday she uses the word! How cool!

Sometimes lately I ask her the question ‘why?’ … and I don’t think she knows what that means yet, but I still ask, cuz I know she’ll catch on one’a these times. Then yesterday I told her something & she goes “why?” … I’m still not sure if she knew what she was asking, but we’re gonna keep plugging away at this one, so she can learn the why & because of things.

Today she comes in and says “get the key, be riiight back, oooone minute” (with one lil finger up, holding it out to me) I asked ‘how you gonna get there?’ she said “car” … and then she said “shoes, flip flops, and hat. I cant open doors” … lol I have no clue what this lil chica was up to, or what she was after, but she was just in her own lil world & ready to take it on, head first! It was adorable! I think she wanted to go next door to the Stickels, cuz eventually she said “she Jasmine, see Jeff, see Caeden, see Aunt” (but she had on her flip flops & a batting helmet! Haha!) … so we called over there to see if she could come, yes, and so I take her to the front door & say bye honey, gimmie kiss, and she does (it was like I was sending her off to school or something, hehe)… (oh, cuz I stand at my door & my sis stands at hers, so she’s being watched the whole walk over there)… and not only am I giggling because she’s still in this batting helmet & saying things like “bye mommy, see ya little bit mommy, have fun!” … but its like every two steps, turning back to me & saying these things…. And also “be back, oooone minute” … oh my gosh, I laughed harder & harder & harder… turning around every 2 steps, saying the Cutest things, in a batting helmet… It Was Priceless!

Brother!

2009-06-17T13:33:00.000-07:00

they're Both makin faces in that first one, yea!

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So I forgot to mention in her last blog about her Birthday! well, the Stickels came over to sing & give presents! She got a teddy bear & stickers & a coloring book with a height chart! ... well, the day of her birthday was mostly driving down to VA, and that night was her cousin's graduation. So later that night she got presents from her aunt, and then the next day from a friend, Marijke! ... she got bubbles, and I think more stickers, and a bunch of cool books that you can draw & erase on, and a tea party set!!! Plus, this weekend is a 3-fold party at our house, Chris being home, the Stickels' going away party, and happy birthday to Diella, so there's more fun to be had!

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Just now she had her toy camera & she was 'taking pictures' of me, and kept showing me what poses to do... Hilarious!

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Oh and did I say she uses the word "really" all the time now... like really hot, or really bad, etc.... its funny

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Oh, and I forgot to mention in the last blog, all that goin on the potty she's been doing, awesome! but she hasnt gone since Friday (its Wednesday today) boo... oh well, it'll pick up again!

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oh, and when we were in VA, there was this toy bird that played the chicken dance song, well Diella learned it & now she loves it! Haha, fun!

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and these pix I took of the two of them, there were FOUR good ones, so you'll hafta check out Ethan's page to see the other two ;) newritenourangel.blogspot.com

ok, I Do NOT know how to short blog

2009-06-17T11:29:00.001-07:00

More pix of Diella posing for me. Surprise, surprise, hehe. She’s a Pro!

Let’s start with the no-so-good stuff, and then end with the fun stuff! Diella is now officially full-fledged in the Terrible Two’s stage. I think it started a while back, but it is unfortunately quite bad now. Just disobeying, and saying NO, and occasional screaming, and even has thrown her food on the floor once or twice. Also with the napping, still having problems (bedtime isn’t Half as bad, that’s gotten a lil better again), but she still throws a fit when it’s naptime, sigh* … we’ve tried everything, we try to be nice and explain things, and try to have her explain whats wrong, we’ve tried to be firm & use time out & spanks on the butt… so I guess its just a matter of time until she grows out of this. Today, after an episode, I sat her on my lap, facing me, and I worked up some tears and told her how sad it makes mommy when she disobeys & when she says no, and I told her that I don’t like yelling at her, and that she has to start being nice again. She just wiped my tears away & looked at me with such concern and said “ok.” … So, we’re just praying until that day that this is over!

This other thing that she does that I cannot stand… when I ask her if she wants something, for example a food, like perhaps, chicken… she’ll say yes, and then as I go to get it, she says ‘no, no chicken’ … so then as I put it away she says, ‘yes! Chicken!’ and she does this All The Time! And with Everything! Not jus with food, but with goin potty, with getting a toy, with anything! Grrr!!!

Yesterday I saw that she had drawn on the floor and on an end table with blue crayon… she KNOWS she’s not allowed to do this… so we had Her clean it up Herself… handed her a Lysol wipe, and she did, perfectly, every spot, all by herself, I was glad! And a lot of times lately, while we’re goin through this tough stage, when she’s in timeout, we tell her she can get out when she stops crying (we explain that there’s no need to cry when she has no Reason to cry…. Not that crying is bad all the time) we have her take a deep breath & usually she stops right then… so today, in timeout, she (without me prompting her) took a deep breath and said ‘stop crying’ … I’m glad that even though she continues to disobey & face the consequences of it, at least she’s starting to know the pattern of this, and she needs to do to correct it.

K, some new things she says… Jasmine taught her how to say hippopotamus… and she says it Perfectly! Every syllable! Her first FIVE syllable word! … she’s getting very good at single & plural usage of words, like that & these & this & those… she uses them correctly almost always! I think that’s hard for her age! … The other night we were getting ready for bed and she said ‘relax’ … hehe, I said ‘you wanna relax?’ , she said yes, hehe, aww… I figured maybe she learned that word from Jake. I asked him, and she did, aw! … We added a few things to our nightly prayer, we ask Jesus if He will help Diella feel safe & comforted & help her have good dreams, etc… and I LOVE how she says comforted, its like ‘con-ti-fed’ ! love it! … oh and she says ‘watch a movie’ a lot, I’m not sure why, she never used to be That into tv, now she seems to love it & wanna watch it a lot, boo.

Yesterday, while wearing her jammies, she decided to do some accessorizing… she put on a necklace, her rain boots, some winter gloves, and a tutu… she was a fox!

The other day she was coloring, and you know, at age two, its pretty much just scribbles… but I asked her to color the shoes on the page we were on, and she scribbled over the shoes… I mean, I guess that’s not a really big deal, should be easy enough for her, but I wanna keep teaching her to color specific parts of the page, steada just all over the whole thing with one crayon, ya know? …. And then she got this toy from a friend for her birthday, ya know that thing where the pen is magnet & it draws, and then you move that thing across the bottom to erase it, dunno what its called… well she was drawin on that, and she goes “mama, look! Happy face!” (she always asks us to draw happy face & sad face).. and she drew, all by herself, I’m telling you, it was almost a Perfect circle! And like two dots in the middle!!! Cooool! Oh then she erased that & scribbled a crooked line, and she goes “a seven!” … sure enough, it looked like a seven! I don’t think she meant to draw a seven, but realized that it looked like one, once she did, hehe

Yesterday we were on our way out the door, and I asked her if she would please turn off the tv, and hand me my phone that was on the couch… and she did both… I just think its neat that she cant understand & follow 2 directions at a time… I dunno, I thought it was cool.

I was singin random stuff in the car yesterday, trying to keep her entertained, and I would use one person’s name & just sing it over & over in this little ditty.. like “mom-mie, mom-mie, mommy-mommy-mommy, Mooo-ooooo-Mie” … and then we’d do daddy, then Diella, then Ethan, and everyone in our whole family, both sides, and just kept going on & on, and she’d just giggle… and when she’d say “again!” … I’d say ‘who should we do? Howww boooout…. _____?” then we’d do another one… then she started to decide the next person, she’d go, ‘howwww booooout…. Chicken!” and we did chicken. Then a few other animals. Then she suggested Jesus… then she even named a few family members that I forgot! Hehe, I just loved how she picked up on & repeated… ‘Howwww boooout”…. And filled in the blank, hehe, it was fun!

Ok, we had a trip to Virginia again last weekend, and two things she did, that we so great!!! … we were at her cousin’s high school, at his graduation, out in the football stadium, and after a while she said she wanted to go potty, I said “really!!?? Ok lets go!!” … so I took her to the public bathroom, thinking No way would she actually use that potty, she’s never gone on a big toilet… sat on them before, but never went on anything besides her lil training potty… but …. She did!!!! She went pee on a potty in a public bathroom! (yes, Of Course we put TP down & washed our hands Really good!), but I was just So proud of her! Oh, and at home when she goes, I usually give her a piece of candy as reward, well I didn’t have any with me then, and she Always asks us for gum (we’ve never given her any, we always tell her its for big kids, not for little kids), but so I gave her my gum, and you should have seen her… the entire rest of the night, she was just glowing, SO proud to be chewing gum, like she was the biggest Big Girl in the world… and she didn’t swallow it, she chewed it like a champ, and she loved every second of it!

And the other awesome thing she did in Virginia, really kinda blew me away… we were all eating at a restaurant, had just gotten our meals (it was us & a bunch of the fam), and I asked Diella if she would pray for the food, so she folds her hands & looks around and says to Aaron, “you pray too” (he wasn’t folding his hands yet, so she was asking him to), then she continues to scope everyone out, and points to Ben, says the same thing, and then to Nate, “you pray too”… and she would not start the prayer until everyone was ready & everyone was joining in… I thought that was kinda deep!!! Then she prayed, “Jesus, thank you, Amen”… but it was so neat! Almost like she was keeping all her uncles and everyone accountable for praying over their meal! Yea girl!

Pictures & Potty

2009-06-09T09:28:00.000-07:00

I took some pix of my kids, surprise surprise. (check out some of Ethan on his page... newritenourangel.blogspot.com )

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The other night, Diella was real tired, it was time for bed... ya know how when ya get tired, you can get a lil clumsy... well we were in the bathroom right after she just brushed her teeth, and she stumbled a bit and bumped into the garbage can... she goes "sorry garbage" lol!

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The other day she was watchin TV, I dont remember what we were watching, but she puts her hands over her mouth and says "oh my gosh, oh my gosh oh my gosh" ... hehe... oh yea, and then last night she said "holy mackrel!" lol, I didnt realize I said either of these often, but apparently I do.... Oh, and One More! ... I must say "fine" alot, (not as is 'that's fine'... but like when she wont do something, I say "fine!" like... 'have it ur way')... and now she's saying it.... oops :(

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One time, I dont remember what we were doing, but something cute & loving, and Diella goes "family." ... I wasnt sure what she meant by it, but then yesterday was huggin Ethan, like our cheeks touching & I smiled, and Diella goes "family" ... aww, she saw us loving each other & was calling it family!

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She was playing with one of her toys phones the other day, and alot of times we'll pretend certain people are on the other end, like Ahna, or Aria, or Elmo, or Dora, etc.... well I handed her the phone the other day and it jus made me laugh cuz she put it up to her ear & then held it there with her shoulder, like an adult would... i'm sure she picked it up from any one of us, but I thought it was funny!
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We're still battling a bit with naptime & bedtime... it gets a lil better everyday (like last night she Finally went right down! prayin that happens more!)... and I think something clicked to her a few nights ago... I think she finally realized 'wow, I'm in this room with all these toys!' ... and so she'll bring a toy or two in bed with her, which is fine, cuz then usually she passes right now... and I always check on her right before I go to bed... and the other night I went in there, and she's got this big musical farm toy, and she's sounds asleep, with it sitting right on her chest, haha! Then last night, she was asleep with this lil toy keyboard, also on her chest, hilarious!
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Before bed, every night Diella asks us to tell her a story. Whether its Jake or myself, we usually just start making stuff up off the top of our head. So then the other day I was pretending to fall asleep and I asked Diella if she would tell me a story. She nodded and said "Frog. Kiss on the nose." ... so I later asked Jake if he even told her a similar story, and he had. How cute! She remembered the story her daddy told her & she passed it on to Ethan!
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And the biggest new of all!!! She's using the potty!!! Consistently!!! On Thursday, she peed on the potty & got all the rewards we always have promised her (a cookie, money, a stamp, stickers, etc.)... then the next day she went again, twice! And then again on the third day.... and then yesterday she pooped on the potty! And then just did again today!!! So it's happening! The beginning of successful potty training! YAY!!!

ANOTHER one

2009-06-04T11:46:00.001-07:00

I had no pic of Diella to put up, and I CANT blog without a picture! So here was one where I was taking pictures of Ethan & she butted her lil head in to get one of her! lol

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Ok, so I needed a whole separate blog today for her two big things. We’re still struggling with whatever is going on with her for bedtime. She’s been crying and not wanting to go to bed (as you know, very unlike her usual self). So when it started, I would continually and calmly put her back in her bed until she stayed there… then after a few nights, we resorted to shutting the door all the way… this sort of worked… so last night, I thought I would sort of combine the two… so after I put her into bed & tucked her in TEN times (which basically was only ten minutes, cuz she didn’t stay in her bed at all, jus got straight up & came back out, so the cycle continued very swiftly)… THEN I finally shut the door, and then we only heard her for another minute after that… so I guess I’m not really sure which is the ‘right’ method, but this combination seemed to work last night, so I guess that’s what I’ll try again tonight and see how it goes…. Oh and when she keeps coming out, she’ll make things up for why she’s up, like she’ll say ‘poop again’ (cuz she knows I’ll come in & check if she’s pooped or not)… or she’ll say ‘story’ (wants me to tell her a story, but usually I do that when I put her down the FIRST time), so I’ll say ‘I already told you a story’… and so she’ll say ”daddy, kiss” and I’ll say, “you already gave daddy a kiss” and she’ll say “daddy hug” … and the list goes on, sigh* … my mom says this excuse thing is something four year olds usually do… Diella, stop growing up so fast!

So after the fiasco the other day, I was afraid potty training would never get accomplished… well, I had a crazy idea, and you may agree with it or not, that’s ok… but she tends to hide behind the couch to poop, soooo I put the potty behind the couch… I showed her & told her that she could go back there to hide while she goes potty… (this was yesterday).. she seemed to like the idea, tried it once, and didn’t go… so I tried again today…. AND SHE WENT PEE!!!!!!!! So came the rewards, she got a sticker, a stamp, a “big girl diaper” (a pull-up), and a cookie! Let’s see if this method continues to work! Oh, and so I called Ahna & told her (on speaker phone) and we all got excited, and then we called daddy & did the same (so she was being praised by all of us)… and then we hung up & she goes “call granddad” !!! :) how cool! (we didn’t, cuz he’s at work, but I thought it was awesome that not only did she catch on to the fact that we we're calling people to tell them something exciting, but that she then suggested the next person to call!!!)

Also, when we called Jake to tell him this, a man answered the phone & when we were on hold, Diella said “Jack. Pastor Jack” … lol, she thought that man was Pastor Jack, hilarious!

Ok, so she learned ANOTHER 4 syllable word… (that’s, I dunno, like 6 of em she knows now)… it’s ballerina. She learned it because she’s got a pair of ballerina jammies. And whenever we’re going through those words (I say a word, she repeats it), and we get to ballerina, she says ‘ballerina jammies’ every time, hehe

Ok, last quick silly story, then I promise I’m done ;) Diella had gone into her room for nap, but it hadn’t been real long since she’d been in there, so I had a feeling she wasn’t quite asleep yet… and I was folding towels in my room (right next to her room, we share a wall), and I had to sneeze… but I was trying to hold it in, cuz I didn’t want her to hear me… but it came out anyway & I cringe, hoping I didn’t wake her… and I pause to see if I did…. (pause)…. Then I hear a loud & cheerful “Bless you Mommy!” HAHA!

Quick Little Stories

2009-06-04T11:07:00.001-07:00

She did the diaper on her head thing again, lol! She brought it to me and said ‘on right now’ … (she only gets those pull ups if she goes pee or poo on the potty, she gets them as a reward… so I said she couldn’t put it on now) … so she puts it on her head, Ha!

Diella had a toy phone in the car, I pretended to answer it & tell her that Dora was there and wanted to talk to her… she puts it to her ear and says Hi Dora and Boots! (Boots is another character on the show)… I jus love how her lil mind works, she associates Boots with Dora, automatically… all I said was its Dora, I didn’t say Dora & Boots… cool!

Diella got this new lil baby doll. It’s so cute how she holds it… she like puts it sorta on her hip, (like I might hold Ethan sometimes) and she like holds the back of the head…. How Cute! She’s taking care of her lil baby! :) hehe

We were playing upstairs yesterday and I don’t even remember what we were doing, but Diella goes “cool mommy!” haha, I love when she picks up on phrases & then just uses them correctly out of nowhere!

A long time ago Diella learned about putting her hands in pockets… well she does it all the time now, whether in her jeans or her hoodie, or whatever… she loves to do it & walks around like that… and I dunno why, but I think it makes her look a lil older!

Diella’s manners get better & better every day! Always please, always thank you, always excuse me… and now if she bumps into you, she says sorry, hehe, so cute!

A few times lately, if she sees a letter or a number, instead of just saying the letter or the number, she says “Number three” or “Letter J” (prefixes it with ‘letter’ or ‘number’) I think that’s cool!

Some things that she calls scary, I don’t want her to be scared of them (like cars for example, I mean, it’s hard to balance wanting her to not be AFRAID of them & being cautious, ya know?)… well she says ‘cars, scary’ and I say ‘not scary, just loud’ … this was a few days ago I said that… then just now, on our walk, a car went by & she said ‘loud’ … I’m just glad that she listens & remembers what I say!

Little things I just love that she says, like today 1.) she needed a diaper & I stood up to go get one, and she runs in front of me & goes “Diella get it, Diella get it!” hehe… 2.) A lot of times when she asks me for something, I say “not now, later” ... and today she asked me for something & I said not now… and she goes ‘later’ … again, I love that she listens & remembers! … 3.) she was sittin on the potty & every once in a while I would ask, ‘did you go?’ … and she would say ‘not yet’ … another phrase that I never really taught her, she jus heard it, and applied it, cool!

This morning, I’m sittin on the floor, eatin a bowl of cheerios… she came in from her room with a bunch of scrabble letters in this lil bowl from her play kitchen… she put one in her mouth then offered me one… I said ‘no, those aren’t for your mouth silly, you know that’ … so she takes the bowl of them & dumps in Into My Bowl of Cereal! Grrr! One'a those things that was funny, but I couldnt let her see me laugh.

And right now she’s got this game called WaterWorks, there are cards with pipes on them, some of them have leaks, some of them don’t… so last night we were playing with them, learning what a leak is… so right now, she’s showing me one card at a time, asking me, ‘that a leak?’ , ‘that a leak?’ …. Oh I love this girl!

Haha! And just NOW, she’s singing ‘Happy Birthday to You’ … I have no clue why she is, but I’ve never heard her do it before, so cute!

Boo Boo

2009-06-03T10:55:00.001-07:00

Since we got the double stroller (for $2 at a garage sale!), the kids have used it non-stop! It's usually Jeff who loves to push around Diella & Colton the most. They're out there any day its nice enough, takin a walk in the stroller, around the driveway and the yard. Well I ALWAYS buckle them in... and alotta times, since she's buckled in, Diella likes to lean forward (just looking at the wheels as they spin n stuff)... well the other day they went out, but I wasnt the one out there with them, so I wont say who forgot to buckle her in, but thats why the bonk on the face... she wasn't buckled & she leaned forward... and Thwap! Faceplant into the concrete, ouchie! When people ask what happened she says either 'bonk on face' or 'sidewalk' ...aww! But she rocks it like a champ!

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Today I asked Diella what hn'ter name is, waiting for her to say 'Diella Ritenour' and she goes, D-I-E-L-A!!! Well, ok, she missed an L, but she has Never done it that well & without help! Yay Diella!!!

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My Birthday's comin up! In 9 days! I'm gonna be 2!!!!!!!!!!!

LONG one

2009-06-02T11:27:00.000-07:00

I called for Diella, she said "whaaat" I said where are you? she said "Baaathrooom", so I go in there, and THIS is what I see... hehe... what a goof
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So there’s all kinds of new fun things that Diella says! The other day she did a few whole sentences… like, she said “mama, did it all myself” !!! and also “looka me, I’ma mess” !!! She also started saying I dunno, like if you ask her where something is & she doesn’t know, she says it so sweet, like her voice goes up on the O, I dunnoooo, it cute!... Sometimes when she falls (like jus clumsy fall, not big painful fall), I say ‘wipeout!’ real playfully, so she doesn’t get scared or cry or anything… then the other day she fell and goes “Wipeout!” it was hilarious! Everyone in the room was cracking up!... Oh, she also says yup for yes and nope for no lately… so cute, I love it! Yup! Nope!

A few other quick stories that have to do with cute things she’s been saying… the other day Deal or No Deal was on TV… Howie said to the contestant “Deal or no deal?” … Diella goes, ‘no deal’ haha! … whenever she’s naked, about to get in the bath, or has jus come out of the bath, she yells “naked butt!” hehehe…. I’ve started to have her repeat after me, her numbers 11-20… then the other day she goes “sixteen, seventeen, eighteen” ! so, we’re catchin on, cool!... Diella pronounces Noodles, like Loodles… haha! I dunno why, but it sounds so cute! … And a long time ago we learned how to shake hands & say ‘nice to meet you’ … well she does it all the time lately, she’ll do it to Ethan, “Nice to meet you, Ethan” .. or the other day just out of nowhere, like I think she was getting in trouble, my mom & dad & I are explaining to her something she did wrong & outta the blue she goes “nice to meet you” , so of course we all cracked up… her lil scheme to get outta trouble worked! Lil booger.

She was reading this book, and there were pictures of food in it, she always says the food & then says ‘taste it’ … then she’ll lick it & then usually ask me to taste it too… where I don’t love the taste of paper, I do love that she’s using her imagination!!! … and she’s also quite sensitive. Someone fell down on TV & she said “fall down, tv, Diella fix it” that was so sweet! And then in this book she was reading, there was a drawing of a baby in a basket. For some reason, Diella thought this wasn’t a good thing and she pointed to it & said “baby basket. Diella fix it” awww!!!

We’ve decided that Diella’s love language is definitely words of affirmation. She used to always remind us to say ‘good girl’ when she did something good. Well the other day the Stickels were over and I looked at Colton and said “Colton, you are cute.” … Diella looks at me and points to herself, and with this puppy face, she says “cute too?” her lil voice went up at the end like a question too… and of course I was like “aww, yes you’re cute too!” and hugged her….. And Diella has learned something Huge this week!... she learned her last name! And she says it perfectly too! We started by saying Ritenour & having her repeat it. Then we explained that that was her last name. So then we’d ask ‘whats your last name?’ and she would answer ‘Ritenour.’ And now we ask her “whats your name?” and she says “Diella Ritenour” !!! It’s awesome! So again, along with her needing words of affirmation… she did this the other day & I smiled & hugged her and she goes “proud of you” … so of course I said “Yes, I’m proud of you!” hehehe

The other day she got one of her pull ups & put it on her head & said “mommy, hat!” and started dancing around! You could tell she didn’t think it was really a hat, but she was doing it to be funny! What a lil comedian! … she discovered her shadow a while back, but it still cracks me up when she sees it & waves at it, heheh…. And she’s been saying “kiss it all better” and “bandaid on it, all better” a lot lately…. Oh, and she calls things pretty.. she says ‘daddy, hair pretty’ or ‘mommy, eyes pretty’ all the time :)

Diella is starting to be a pretty good singer! That song that she sings with me, when I pause & she fills in the blanks, she’s on tune a lot! And once, the first word she filled in, wasnt very on key, then the second one was! It was like she was correcting herself, it was cool! …. The other day we were in Diella’s bed, praying, and Ethan was with us. When we were done & said amen, Diella took his hands & made them into the sign for Amen, she was helping him sign it! That was neat! …. And Diella can read lips! Like if we ask her her last name & she doesn’t answer right away, she’ll look at me & I’ll lip ‘Ritenour’ and then she’ll say it! Or if she’s supposed to say sorry or thank you or any of those to someone, I’ll lip it to her & then she does it!

There’s this website that we play with Diella since a long time ago, and its an animal for each letter of the alphabet. Well there’s an infant version, where they jus press the spacebar to go through each letter, and there’s a toddler version, where they type a letter & that animal plays. I just love to watch the fascination on her face when I tell her a letter to type, and she does it, and then sees THAT letter come up, she thinks its awesome!

Weird thing. One day she kept saying doctor. I would say ‘you wanna go to the doctor?’ and every time she said yup….weird! … She got her own pants the other day when she was asked, yay! I love that they can hear & understand & follow through an instruction, that is so great! Growin up! … The other day Diella negotiated with me! It was cool & So uncool at the same time. A lotta times if its not time for snack, she’ll ask me for one, and either I say no, or I'll say ‘one and that’s it’ … so the other day, its bedtime, she had already brushed her teeth, and brought me a can of cashews, and said ‘one, that’s it’ lol! So I let her… cuz that was amazing, using her skills like that, hehe… And Diella is getting even better at working out with me! She was doing crunches really well, and now she’s pretty good at push ups (well, lil kid style), and certain movements that she watches me & the TV do, she can copy quite well!!! Atta girl! Teach em young!

Ok two more things… we had a bit of a disaster this morning… Diella was up playin as her daddy left for work, and right then I got outta bed cuz Ethan was calling me to eat… well we went upstairs in his room to feed him & so as I am, I noticed diella’s jammies hangin low, Very full, and even looked like the diaper may have slid halfway off… so I’m finishing feeding him, and as she continues to play, I can see that its not just pee in there, and it started to seep through, ugh! I finally get to her, to clean her up & its jus everywhere from waist down! (and yes, the diaper had come halfway off)… so I stick her in the utility sink in the laundry room & hose her off… she didn’t like this… so, I wasn’t upset that I had to clean such a mess, I was upset cuz it didn’t even bother her to have all that yukky in her jammies! She just carried on & played like nothing was wrong, Grr!! Now I feel like she’ll Never learn to use potty! :’(

Ok, and another crazy thing, that we’re not real happy about. Diella has always Always been a good sleeper, has always gone down easily, and even often asks to go to bed… well, something changed, we dunno what, but now she cries when its time for bed, and even sometimes for nap… she says no, she fights it, and asks us to lay with her… we never lay with her, so I dunno why she wants this so badly… we’ve found that the only thing to do is to shut the door all the way, then she’ll cry for a lil while and then pass out… she used to close the door til it latched by herself, I think because she knew I’d come unlatch it, so she was tryin to get me to keep putting her back in bed, well now we jus start off by keeping it closed & she doesn’t fight as long… its nuts.. and I have no clue why this is goin on… but, sigh* … a few times she has fallen out of bed in the middle of the night, once time she didn’t even wake up, it was funny… but when that happens, I just put her back in bed & she goes right back down… other times, not real often, but a few times she has woken up in middle of night for no reason, and usually cries… she hasn’t woken up at night since she was nursing, so like a whole year ago! We dunno why all this is happening, but we’re prayin that sleep habits go back to the way they used to be!... like I've always been consistent with scheduling naps, and she always takes one right after lunch... it used to be where she'd be almost done eating & she's say 'mommy, nap' (like she's ready for her nap)... and now she goes, "take a nap, no" ... sad :( ...Oh and once in a while she’ll cry for no reason, outta nowhere, or sometimes misbehave & nothing works… dunno what she’s goin through, it breaks my heart… please pray for Diella (its not all the time, but we’d like to get past all this).

Well to end on a more fun note, Diella did the most hilarious thing! I laughed forever! …. I was feeding Ethan in my room & Diella was in another room (I didn’t know which one) and she was really quiet… that usually means she’s gettin in trouble… so when I was done feedin him, I start to look for her & finally find her in her room, on her bed, with a blanket over her head & she’s jus sitting there, So still! I start crackin up, and figure that she’s hiding from me under there… and I’m still laughing, and she still hasn’t moved an inch… I’m thinking she’s been sitting there, waiting for me to find her & I’m jus so tickled over this, still giggling (cuz I’m laughin so hard & she’s STILL sittin there, so I thought she was jus standin her ground, bein funny)… then she finally starts to come out from under the blanket, and she has found a pack of daddy’s gum! … so she WAS gettin into mischief! … she had unwrapped & started chewing a piece! … (she knows she’s not allowed to have gum, every time she asks us for one, we say its not for little kids)… so she wasn’t hiding to be funny, she was hiding to try to keep her lil stunt a secret! Haha! Well, it was so funny to me, she didn’t get it any trouble at all… I just asked her to give me the gum & she did. Then she goes “gum, Mmmm” hehe, Priceless!

Own Room

2009-05-18T07:20:00.000-07:00

I forgot to say in last blog, Diella learned something new from a friend in VA... there's this thing at her house, a lil Hawaiian dancer on a spring, so it like moves like it's Hula dancing... and she taught her to dance like this & sing "Hula, Hula" !!! and THEN when Ahna came back from Texas (the same weekend we came back from VA) , we showed her this and she said she had just taught Aria the same thing! Crazy! So now the girls can Hula dance together!

So now that's she gots a big girl bed, and her own room, there are a few good points & a few bad... Good thing is, we dont hafta put her back in her bed anymore... even with the freedom to get out as she pleases, she just goes to bed! :) Bad thing is, both nights so far, she has woken up at night once... not sure why? I dont think its cuz of new bed, but I guess there's no telling WHY. But we like it, its going well!

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Oh, and she still hasnt gone pee or poo on the potty yet, but we still try everyday... I think we might be getting a lil closer tho... she always tells me right after she poo's, so I'm sure she's uncomfortable with it in there... and then this morning she says 'mommy, diaper wet, off' ... so she's aware when she's wet too, good! Maybe soon! Let's pray!

Milestone!

2009-05-15T10:23:00.000-07:00

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!

Curls!

2009-05-01T14:45:00.000-07:00

Her hair is curling! Never has before! Yay!

2009-04-30T08:45:00.000-07:00

She is such a good helper! I can ask her to bring me almost anything & she does! Diapers, rags, wipes, even puts Ethan's binky in his mouth for me if i ask her to! Its really nice to know that she's already helping, since I assume she'll always be able to help out! :)

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I'm still loving this manners thing! The other day my mom told her she looked pretty & she said thank you! I like that she knows when to say it, not just when she's given something tangible, but also when she's given a compliment! :)

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I dont remember if I blogged it or not, but a while back, she discovered her shadow. Every time she notices it, she waves at it! hehe :)

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She says please a lot, but when she forgets, we've introduced the phrase, "what's the magic word?" hehe... pleeeeeease :)

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I still cant get over the sentences that are pouring out.... today she was playing with her puzzles that each piece is a letter... she dropped a few & said "dropped my ABCs" ! And then she was looking through this book & got yelled out when she ripped out a page or two... and she said "Book. Rip the paper. Not nice." ! Cool!

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Yesterday she was playing with her alphabooks, they all come in a square box... well she was putting them back in, one at a time, and I noticed that she was putting each one in, front facing up, and right side up, so pretty much perfectly... and she if she picked them not facing the right direction, she said "flip it. there. got it." hehe, and they all went in, in the same direction... hilarious!

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Ok, and the potty thing... she still hides behind a couch or chair to poop... and when I ask her if she pooped, sometimes she says yes, sometimes no (when she Has)... so she understands thats she's pooping and everything, jus still wont go on potty... well, today, she went behind couch & goes "Hidin. Poopin." lol, oh geez.... soon, it'll happen soon...

Pictures!

2009-04-29T05:51:00.000-07:00

What a treat for you! TEN pictures today! That Elmo costume thing, we got at a garage sale for two bucks, yea! (my sis also got something for me at this Huge kids/maternity garage sale at a church…. A double stroller! Also For Only TWO Bucks!!!)

That one of her with the marker all over her…. Well, SOMEone *cough* handed her some markers & then didn’t keep an eye on her… the Stickels were over, we were havin cake & singin for Ahna & Papa’s birthday… so there was lotta commotion… after a lil while Diella comes in, and I look over & gasp, and she’s covered in marker… trying SO hard not to laugh, I asked “what happened?” … she goes “draw. Face.” … I took her to look at herself in the mirror, and as she saw it & had this concerned look on her face, I couldn’t hold it any longer, I laughed so hard!

The other day we were playin on the deck… she went over to the grass and was picking these lil blossoms from the grass & bringing them to me one at a time, after a few, we were gasping & saying how pretty they were, it was just so cute!

Lately, when there’s a food Diella likes, she’ll go “Ooooo” and say the name… like “Ooooo chicken!” or “Oooo cake!” so funny!

And sentences are an everyday thing now! Jus a few minutes ago, she said “Momma, hand, boo boo, hurt, kiss it, please” !! Cool!

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The other day Jeff asked Diella where she was born. I told him she didnt know that yet... so we talked her through it, we explained that that's where she was born in Virginia & thats where Grandad, Mamaw, Nate, Caleb, Dave & Marijke are. So the other day she says, "Grandad, Mamaw, Ginia" .... awesome!

ABCs, Manners, and Scary

2009-04-23T06:59:00.000-07:00

1.) She was posing for me again! I will forever have someone to take pix of! 2.) Sharing a hoodie with mama, hehe 3.) She laid next to him like this, it was a perfect moment for pix! 4.) this cracked me up!

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Even though Diella is going through this somewhat mean stage, she still has her moments where she’s still her sweet self, praise the Lord! Like she’s been so good about manners lately! So often she says ‘thank you mommy’ at the appropriate times, as well as ‘scuse me mommy’ when I may be in her way. I’m such a stickler for manners, I’m so glad she uses them so well already!

She’s been using ‘ing’ words at the right times, which I think is cool. Like she has said running, hiding, cleaning, raining. I like that!

The other day, my mom and I witnessed the most freaky thing! Diella said a word that I didn’t know she knew, and was wondering where she may have picked it up from? So I went to my mom and said “hey mom, earlier today, Diella said the word, (and I spelled it) s-c-a-r-y” …. Diella looks at Ahna and goes “scary!” … our mouths dropped & our eyes popped and we were like WHAT!!?? I’m sure it was coincidence, but it was… well scary! Haha! (we figured out later that we use that word casually a lot, like for example, if she’s standing on a chair or something, we say its scary… so not like frightened scary, but more like nervous scary, must be how she knows it.)

Diella is coming closer & closer to singing the whole alphabet… right now, it sounds like this… “A-B-C, E-F-G, H-I-J, O-P, Q-R-S, TV TV, Y-Z, Now I ABCs, sing with me” … so we’re still missing a few letters, and a few words at the end, but its So cute! I especially like the ‘t-u-v’ part, she says ‘tv tv’! She skips a few letters in the middle… And she used to do W and X, dunno where they went?

Last night, cutest thing!... we were saying our prayers before bed and she’s been doing then almost all by herself lately… it starts “Jesus, thank you, for mommy & daddy” … then we mention all grandparents names…. And last night she goes “Jesus, thank you, Elmo” !! Thanked God for Elmo, how cute! And then at the end, when we said Amen, she took her stuffed Elmo’s hands & made them do the Amen sign! Hilarious!

I'm Almost 2

2009-04-20T08:47:00.000-07:00

Diella, Ethan, and their 4 grandparents! And they have SIX great grand parents!

The bottom picture, she took one leggin off, and fell asleep like this... how I used to sleep when I was a kid, bum in the air, hehe. And those stuffed animals, she put there! I walked in & saw em like that, cracked up, had to take a pic!

Diella, we think, might be hitting her terrible 2s. I guess it COULD be still adjusting to the new addition to our family, but she never seems to be bothered by him, or the fact that she has to share our attention with him. In fact, she still hugs & kisses him and I just thought she would tell us if she had a problem with it. Well lately she cries at So much! Mostly when she’s told no and stuff, but sometimes for it seems no reason! (like just now, she was trying to take her sock off & couldn’t, so she cries!) And sometimes she gets mean, like sasses, “No!” and even once in a while she’ll hit! I dunno what’s goin on, but it breaks my heart. It’s not all the time, and we try to talk her through things, its just something we’re going through that I totally don’t understand. (like once I thought maybe it WAS jealousy, so I put Ethan down & picked her up & hugged and snuggled her, but she whined some more, and it didn’t work?) I’m sure it’ll pass, I just wish I knew why, so I could help it.

Like she got put in time out for disobeying. She cried for a little bit, and I finally asked “why are you crying?” And she paused for a minute and goes “eat” … I said “its not time to eat yet” and she goes “EEEeeeeaaaat!” sigh*

As I was on the computer, she was typing keys, I asked her not to. She did it again when I wasn’t looking, and then she pointed to the computer and said “not nice”… I said ‘what did you do?’ … she said not nice again, so I put her in time out. But it was crazy cuz it was like she told on herself. She did this another time, which I actually thought was kinda cool… My mom told me she saw red crayon all over every key of the piano. I didn’t even remember giving her crayons that day, so I was a bit confused. So I showed Diella & reminded her that we draw only on paper (which she knows & tells me all the time), and as I clean it, she points to it and says “candle” … so I realized she had gotten this red candle from her room & rubbed it up and down the piano keys. Again, it was like she told on herself… so I felt I really couldn’t punish her at that point, of course.

Well on a brighter note, she is still fun & entertaining! There are some new things she’s learned and worked on pronouncing correctly, that she says so adorably & perfectly! Like “Mickey Mouse” and “piggy bank” and “kangaroo” and “jump on your bed.” Actually, the first time she tried to say kangaroo, it came out cow-foo-foo, hehe… but we went through each syllable and she gets it right now… but cow-foo-foo was cute!

I cracks me up, lately to her, everything is pretty. Ahna took her outside and she said ‘trees pretty’ (my mom thought it was funny cuz the trees were all bare & ugly)… she often says that her hair or my hair, or her clothes or my clothes are pretty… and a few times lately she says ‘mommy’s lips, pretty’ … then she even followed up with Ahna’s lips pretty and Papa’s lips pretty, Ha!

When she was a baby, and being held, she was always happier when you were standing & not sitting while holding her. It was funny, like if she was fussy, all you had to do was stand up & she was better! Well, now when she says Uppie & you pick her up (if you’re sitting… ) she says ‘stand up’ … crazy! Why does she like this better? And how funny that she was like that as a baby & it’s stuck!

She sings this lil ditty.. “Ahna Mommy Ahna Mommy Ahna Mommy” all the time, hehe its so cute!

She used to sleep in til 8-8:30, like always... lately she's been getting up around 7... Boooo

When she got all her Easter stuff this year, (oh, which by the way, was a TON! From her Ahna, from my gramma, and from Dave & Marijke, who got her tons of stuff!) as we looked at each thing, we would kinda gasp and say wow & everything… well this was the first time she did it too, gasped. It was cute! Now she does it all the time at things that excite her, I love it!

I have a trait that I am so glad I did not pass on to Diella… I’m horrible with names… in fact, she’s just the opposite! I cant even believe how she remembers people, let alone their names! A few months ago we saw Aunt Jeannie at Outback & she was gonna watch Diella the next day, and it jus surprised me that when Aunt Jeannie walked in the door, Diella screeched “Jeannie!” … and she’s got the family book of faces that my sis made her… I go over it with her seldom, but one day I did, and the next day, she remembered Uncle Tom, who we don’t see Too often… and then we started going to class, where he also went, once a week, and she knew his name… same with Aunt Alise, after only once telling her her name, she gets it right every week now! Same with the Disney characters on her memory game… there are So many different cards, and some of them I don’t even know HOW she knew the name! Like Snow White, she showed it to me the other day & said Snow White, I never even taught her that & Ahna said she didn’t either! Strange! Also, most of them I’ve only told her their names once, and she knows Simba, Genie, Mickey Mouse, Peter Pan, Mrs. Pots, Goofy, and Tinker Bell!

D-ella!!!

2009-04-03T11:30:00.000-07:00

She kept putting this container on her face & it was cracking me up so hard, I got tears in my eyes! When it would fall off, she would get so frustrated & put it right back on! Then she crawled up onto the piano bench & played the piano... with it still on! This girl is TOO funny!

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Diella, for some time now, has been saying her name like "Ella" which was fine, and once in a while I will work with her to try to say it correctly... and then sometimes it comes out "E-ella" ... well, she Finally got it right yesterday, "Dee-ella" perfectly! And how she says it all the time! Yay!

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Her hair seems to have grown quickly the past few days, yay! Soon we'll be braiding! hehe

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As far as colors & numbers n such... she's got all her colors down (even black, brown & white) , but not yellow, for some reason? ... and she's known all her numbers by sight, but now that she's counting to ten (and she does it all the time, she loves to count at random times), she skips 5 & 8... I dunno why, cuz if you show her a 5 or an 8, she says em right, I dunno why they get skipped over? ... oh and her alphabet song, is still about the same, she'll sing chunks of it, but not the whole thing through

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I think that's it! (Oh, and now that you've read this, maybe you could comment, so that I know you stopped in? :) sometimes I feel like I blog for nothing, cuz I dunno who takes the time to read em)...? :)

Diva

2009-04-01T10:54:00.000-07:00

Diella has learned a few new words... we've taught her how to put her hands on her hips & move her shoulders, and that this is how you pose, & she says "pose" (like in the pix above) ... so we were on Skype the other night with Diella's aunt, Jake's sis, Caty, and I was having Diella do this for Caty, so as she's entertaining us & we're giggling, I say 'what a Diva' and Diella goes "Diva!" Haha!

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There are a few words, 'pose' being one of them, that Diella has changed her pronounciation on a bit... a few others include out, house, bounce, and down... when she says these words now, she pushes her lips out on the 'o' sound... try it... it sounds hilarious!

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She said a FOUR word sentence the other day! She was sharing her snack with this stuffed animal, a cow... and she said "Cow, have some, more" !!!! Yay!

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Time out has been working quite well with Diella... and now she has decided that she wants to be on the other end of the punishment... so more than once I have seen her put her stuffed animals in time out, she sets them sitting against the wall (just like we do with her when she's in time out), and points a finger at them and says "Sit. Up." Which is like what I say to her, ('SIT there & dont get UP til mommy says')... I cant decided if I think its funny or if it scares me a little that she's doing this... I guess it's probly normal... and yes, funny

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I think she used to do this a long time ago, but lately she has this forced laugh that she does, and she drags it out til she's out of breath. She was doing it in the bath the other night, cracking me up, and she'll do it other times, like when she's hyper, or trying to entertain us, you Gotta hear it!

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There are alot of things lately that Diella wants to try to do herself, and she says "self" all the time... jus simple things like putting her socks on, or putting her clothes away, its cute.

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My dad dropped a glass the other night, and later that evening Diella stepped on a tiny piece of glass that didnt get swept up... she cried & we put a bandaid on it, and she did what she usually does... reminded us all night (and the day after) of her wound... she would point to her foot & say 'glass' ... and she also was calling the bandaid, a headband, I thot that was adorable, lol... everytime I would correct her, "bandaid" , and she's go 'headband' hehe

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She still loves her lil brother, kissin & huggin him all the time... in fact, often when I'm holding him, she'll start panting & running in place, saying "hug hug hug" until I let her hug him... but also often times she hugs him when he's asleep in his chair, she practically smothers him... I'm really glad he never seems to mind.

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And we are SOOOO anxious to meet the kids' new cousin, Chanson! Unfortunately it might not be unil Thanksgiving, but we are already counting down the days!

Finally Got A Pet!

2009-03-25T12:55:00.001-07:00

.... hehe, well... sorta.... these are 2 squirrels that live in the tree in our front yard... we have named them Fatty & Maddy... Maddy is Fatty's girlfriend. They disappeared for two weeks, we thought maybe they moved away, but they're back! They entertain us! We watch them, Diella and I, and sometimes they watch us back, no joke! Its fun to have "wild" animals as pets, hehe :)

Constant Progress

2009-03-25T08:37:00.000-07:00

Quite a while ago, Papa taught her how to say "ta da!" when she accomplished something... well lately, she says it ALL the time! Its so cute, she gets so proud of herself! And then sometimes, adds "good girl" hehehe

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The sentences are finally starting to pour out! So our communication is just getting better & better! Like she'll say "Ella do it" and "Ella share" and "Daddy home"... things like that ... lol, she JUST now was looking at a book and said "flower, good girl, the end" lol, random! She's in Diella Land! I LOVE when she plays by herself & uses her imagination!

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I said how her new fave show is the Backyardigans... well thats a hard word to say! And we'll go through each syllable... i'll say "Back", she repeats it. Yard, 'yard' - Again, 'again'.... I say "Backyardigans" ... and she says "See sings" lol, thats what she calls em, cuz she cant say the whole word, hehe... random!

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Aunt Alethea bought her a little apron (for when she's over there & they cook)... she likes to wear it around the house almost every day! She also likes to wear her sandals, which she calls slippers... and she'll walk around the house, rockin this look... then the other day, came into the living room in the get up, but also added her sunglasses, and she enters the room & just stands there til she gets a reaction out of me... and it totally works, she Cracks me up! (I took a pic of this when it happened, but its kinda a crappy one)

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A LONG time ago, Diella made up her own word for water - 'gakee' ... and i've never corrected her, cuz its so cute... well lately her dad has been working on pronouncing Wa-Ter, and she can do it fine :) so, sometimes when she asks for water it comes out 'water' and other times 'gakee' hehe... there are Lots of words we have been working on pronounciation with her, and almost every time, she corrects herself & gets it right... like this morning she said 'pace' (face), and all I said was "Diella, face, with an F"... she goes "Face" ... perfect! A few ones that she's corrected lately, she repeats them all the time, to remind me that she's got them right now, like she'll say all these in a row, like she remembers them... Light, jammies, bunny, friend, cuz she's got the pronounciation down, finally :)

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She's got this new thing, when she's telling me something or asking for something, she tries to be all cute & tilts her head & has this little grin... she knows JUST how to make us smile & try to get what she wants by bein extra cute... we're in trouble

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Alphabet song, she's still learningn it, piece by piece... her favortite part right now, is H-I-J ... she sings that part over & over, hehe, cute! ... and she'll go "X-Y-Z, now I know, ABCs" ... so we're still pluggin away at it... the other day, I heard her over the monitor, she had her Leap Frog who sings the ABCs and she would repeat every few letters, cool!

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We have a new nickname for Diella... I call her Tornado, my mom calls her Cyclone... this girl jus tears up a room, one after another... we make her pick her messes up, but its jus crazy how fast they happen! Puzzles, will dump them, play with em for a bit, then move to the next room, get out paper & crayons, play with em for a bit, move on... etc.... SOMEtimes we'll leave a room & she'll remind me 'mama, back' ... she knows she has to put everything back... but its just nuts how often we're picking up.... Constantly!

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And there's actually one More nickname we've been calling her lately... Terradactyl... sometimes when she's playin & bein hyper, she's got this LOUD screech that we say sounds like a terradactyl... and its funny, cuz when she was first born, one of her nicknames was "mouse" Jake & I called her that cuz these little tiny adorable squeaky noises she would make... so she's graduated from mouse to terradactyl! ... my dad's one of the ones who calls her that alot, and I always joke with him that its his fault that she's got such a big voice... see, when she was a little baby & she would cry, I would go to get her & my dad would sometimes say 'let her cry a little, she needs to build up those lungs' ... so now I say, "see dad? its all cuz of you that she's so loud" hehe

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I know this sounds silly, her being so young, but if I had to pick, I'd say her love language as of now is Words of Affirmation. Whenever we ask her to do something & she does it, she says "good girl" and we agree, "good girl!" ... I think she wants to hear it from us when we're proud of her, that is so cool! Like we'll say 'take one more bite' or 'use your spoon' , and when she does, she goes 'good girl' ... hehe, and when I said "i'm proud of you" she goes "prou-vu" hehe :) ... oh, and she's really good when we make deals with her... like "if you eat more potatoes you can have a cookie" (or "if you dont eat your potatoes, you dont get a snack) and she says "ok" and does it! Yeeeeaaaahhhh!!!

Played at the Park!

2009-03-18T05:49:00.000-07:00

We went to the park with Aunt Alethea & her kids. It was pretty chilly, but we still had fun!

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Diella is so sweet. She asks, alot, "are you ok?" all she says is, 'ok?' but thats what it means... like if I bump my arm or something & say ow, even under my breath, she says 'ok?' I say, 'yea i'm ok" and smile.... she does it if Ethan cries at all too... 'ok?' and I tell her, yea he's ok :) and I've even seen her ask Colton, like if he falls down or anything... 'ok?' ... she's so sweet!

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So her colors, she's got down, all of em. And I noticed something... we never really worked on shapes, but I think one of her books is shapes... she has, for a long time, known star & heart (which I think should be the hardest?) ... and she's also known circle for some time... and quite a while ago, I didnt even know she knew this, I think Ahna helped her with it, but she knows oval, which I thot would be a hard one!... and I think she said triangle the other day?! Cool

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She has discovered the Backyardigans, and LOVES them! I felt bad yesterday, she pointed to the TV and asked me, "duck, moose?" ... I said Backyardigans? she smiles & nodded, but I felt bad cuz it didnt come on for abother like 2 and half hours! But its cute that she likes them so much!

Few Little Stories

2009-03-16T06:49:00.000-07:00

The pictures... Diella was doing all kinds of different poses in this chair & turning to me to smile for a picture, it was hilarious! ... Ahna put some clip on earrings on her, she liked that! ... and She Finally Let Me Put Pigtails In Her Hair Again!!! She hasnt left them in since last August! I held her down & put them in the other day & we were all sure to make a BIG deal of how pretty she looked with em in, so she left them! Then even to church this Sunday, I put some in her hair & she left them, YAY!!!!!

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Last blog, I said how Diella has been sitting in the most 'grown-up-looking' positions... well her new one is with her arms behind her head, ya know like arms up, elbows out, hands behind the head, all relaxed... it is So cute! (except she does it alot when she's sittin in her high chair & then whatever food is on her hands gets in her hair... so I am Not for that, but watchin her is adorable!)

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She's getting So much better with pronouncing things correctly! Like for some reason she always said bunny like 'buckin' ... well her daddy helped her say bun-ny, one syllable at a time, and now she says it all the time BUNNY! Like reminding us that she says it right now! :) same with jammies... she used to say it, oh geez, I cant even describe how she used to say it, but she's got it right now anyway :) hehe... in fact, last night I put her down for bed and she goes "jammies, bunny" hehe

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When she's saying a word that we dont understand, we'll go what is that? And she'll keep trying to say it... sometimes she'll hold out her hand and take you to Show You what she means, and she'll say 'show you' ... then when we figure out whatever it is she's getting at, we casually say "oh, ____!" (whatever it is)... and she goes "Oooooh" like to say 'you got it' hehe

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The other day she was sitting in front of the bookshelf, and got out a bunch of books (some kids books, some adults books) and was just so calm & quiet 'reading' these books! It was so cute to see her so entertained all by herself! Then she brought me this huge adult book & sat it on my lap & said 'read' ... lol, ambitious!

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She's finally doing so much better with sentences, starting to put them together much better! We were puttin her down the other night & I said 'tell daddy nite nite', she says 'nite nite' , then I said, 'say nite nite to mommy', and she goes "nite nite mommy" I was so elated!

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One day she was spelling. She said D-I-D-I! I think she was trying to spell her name? It was cute. She was so excited about it too!

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She sings the beginning & the end of the alphabet song (she's trying to catch up with her cousin Aria ;) ... she goes "A, B, C's.... Now I Know!" hehe... and lotsa times she'll jus walk around the house singing "Now I know, now I know" ... aww

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Another kinda sentance she said was "Hi baby"... funny thing is, she wasnt talking to Ethan... she said it to me, LOL

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Ok, every night, Diella & daddy & I say our prayers together before bed. Well there's this specific one that we do with her, thats the same every night. Usually, we say a word, she repeats it, til we get through the whole thing... well the other night, we folded our hands to pray, and all by herself, she begins.... and says ALL this all by herself... "Jesus, thank you, Mommy, Daddy, Ahna, Papa, Amen" !!!! That's most of the prayer, she left off a few things at the end (like her other grandparents that we always mention, Grandad & Mamaw) but I was amazed! She is memorizing! And did it witout us asking her to, it was awesome!

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And lastly, everyone has been asking how she's doing as a new big sister.... (I guess a lot of first borns have trouble with a new baby around)... well she's doing great! She loves to hug & kiss Ethan... and she doesnt seem at all jealous when we hold or feed him... (not even when Ahna holds him... I thought maybe she might not like sharing Ahna with him, but she doesnt mind! :) ... and with them sharing a room, she only woke up the first night, and not since :) So all is well, everyone is adjusting & making it work!

I'm A Big Sister!!!

2009-03-08T18:26:00.000-07:00

"I love my new little brother! I love to kiss and hug him! And I'm even (mostly) good about being gentle around him! He's so cute! I cant wait to be able to play with him more!"

~Diella

Just Bored, Figured I'd Blog

2009-03-04T11:59:00.001-08:00

Just some pictures Jake took on Sunday, cuz we were rockin the headbands! :) I think Diella is ready for this baby to come, as we are! She hugs & kisses my belly alot! :)

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The colors and numbers have been popping out correctly, left and right! We've had out the two puzzles with colors & numbers & she'll jus plug away & rarely mess up! Even white & black! :) Plus, she loves to count lately, so its really coming along well now!

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Still no success on the potty yet. We're working on that... sigh* ... feels it will never happen.

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We met a squirrell the other day. There's one that lives in the tree right outside the living room window, we named him Fatty. We threw him some bread, and I think he saw us. He went to another tree & started showing off... then walked right up onto our front step! :) Then we saw another one, so we figured it was his woman & we named her Maddy. Fatty & Maddy. They're not out every day anymore, like they were, but we're hoping they come back to stay! Its entertaining for us!

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Oh and she has become quite the little negotiator, believe it or not! Like for example, she'll ask for a cookie... and lets say we tell her either "after dinner" or she didnt eat a good enough dinner & we say no, she holds up one finger right in front of her face and says "Oooone" ... lol, sigh* tryin to inch out every little allowance she can get... thing is, mommy's good at standing her ground & following through with NO, daddy is Such a softy!

Key Moment in My Life

2009-02-27T10:04:00.000-08:00

Diella and I just returned home from running a few errands. It's one o'clock, just in time to put her down for a nap. She begins whining & wouldnt tell me what's wrong, little tears on her cheeks... finally she says "bed" ... I said 'yes honey, we're gonna lay down soon as we finish getting you dressed' ... a minute later, I lay her down & cover her up, she says "kiss" :) so she stands up to kiss me... I lay her back down, cover her up, she says "hug" :-D so she stands up to hug me... and as I lay her down once more, she says "love you" !!! I say it back, and cover her up with her blanket once more & she just laid there, looking at me with tired eyes and a beautiful grin, as though to say thank you. It was a very special moment for me!