Come to the Land of the Ice and Snow

Ready to set off on our journey.

Talking "pretend" the whole time.

Wal-Greens

Snow Angels

Meemaws tub/sled

Lilly, I always have to take a picture of her because I still can't believe how fat she is.

SNOW DAY!!

I love it and this time we actually got snow! Friday afternoon Grace and Lyla came over and I decided to walk to Publix with them to get some "necessities." It was snowing pretty hard, but the girls were troopers and just enjoyed walking in the snow. We ended up at Wal-greens because it was a little closer. The whole time in the store the girls pretended like that had just been on a long journey and they were not from here. They kept acting like they had never seen anything on the shelves before. On the way home we bummed a sled ride from a couple teenagers. The hill was perfect for Reesi, small.

By the time we made it home it was dark and almost time to the snow party. Jenny, Eric, Dan, and Amy came over with Dominoes(the pizza) and cookies. The adults played Dominoes and the girls played on the computer and watched movies. It was the perfect snow day.

On Saturday, we went to Karen's and drove to the Agricultural Center for some sledding. We didn't have a sled, but Karen brought tubs and I brought Reesi sand table lid. Neither idea was successful. There was a nice man who had an extra sled and let us borrow it. Reesi did not want to go down this big hill, but we made her anyway. I guess she didn't enjoy it because she didn't want to go again. After everyone had their turn we decided we might as well play at Karen's since Reesi didn't want to sled and Elye Kate was freezing. Next time I see a sled in the store I am buying it so we will be prepared next time we get a big snow. We ended the night with the movie Bolt. We are planning to take advantage of this snow and play again tomorrow!

Spaghetti

As you can tell, she loved it!

Purple and White

Reesi cheered last night at her school's basketball game. She wasn't excited at all about cheering. She wasn't dreading it, but just indifferent. However, what she was excited about was the amount of kindergartners that were at the game. Reesi was so thrilled that she was actually incapable of walking at all. Everywhere she went she had to run at full speed. It was a fun night, but a late night so we were so thankful for the snow day!

I'm a Country Girl

Her lassoing skills were way to fast for my camera skills.

Larry is strongly pushing Reesi choice of music towards the country. I'm trying to keep her well rounded, but so far Larry has been winning. Tonight, when I was trying to convince her that she liked other music too she said, "Mama, I'm a real alive country girl! You didn't know you had a real, alive country girl!" Then she showed me her lassoing skills and I am afraid it's true. We've got a real, alive country girl.

It was Bath Night Anyway

I am sort of paranoid about giving my babies real food. I have this fear of choking that I just can't shake. I remember when I first gave Reesi grapes I would peel the skin of of them and then chop them up into about ten pieces. I haven't done grapes with Elye Kate yet, but I did let her have some rice and black beans (cut up into about 5 pieces). Larry was gone for the night, Elye Kate was screaming, and I just wanted to eat my dinner. The rice and black beans shut her right up. It even bought me some time to clean up the kitchen after dinner! She loved it, but I am afraid she will only get this privilege on bath nights. She was such a mess!

The Science Kit

The safety girl had to wear her safety glasses.

New Year's Resolutions

I have never made New Year's Resolutions, but this year I thought I would try it. I didn't set the bar too high since this if the first time.

1) Use less paper towels. I am a paper towel junkie in my kitchen. I love my spray and paper towels to make sure the counters are completely sanitized, but this year I am going to go cloth.

2) The baby belly. I really don't care about losing weight. I just want to trim the fat. However, I haven't really been sticking to the plan so far so if I don't lose the baby belly I will learn to love and embrace the baby belly. It's like a battle wound, right?

3) Read at least 12 non-fiction books. Surely I can handle this one. I already have one and a half done! However, many times I will read one and within a month or two I forget most of what I learned. So I am going to blog about them so at least I can go back and refresh my memory.

How to Mother a Successful Daughter

by Nicky Marone (It is super cheap at half.com, but I got my from the library; She also has a book for fathers to read. I am planning on getting it and sitting it next to the toilet. I know Larry will read it then!)

The key concept of this book is two characteristics of behavior: mastery oriented(MO) and learned helplessness(LH). (I really need to insert a table to compare these, but I don't think blogspot does that. ) Here are the differences:

MO-do not compare themselves to others, LH- compare themselves to inappropriate others

MO-use fear because it contains the energy to sustain you through difficult things LH-resist fear

MO-effort and time, not destiny, heredity, or luck, produces results LH-"no matter what I do" attitude, there is no connection between actions and the final outcome of events

How you explain bad events to yourself: MO-all things change, the problem is limited, and this is not necessarily my fault. LH-nothing changes, this will effect everything, it's my fault.

MO-choose to master new tasks, LH-only chooses activities they are good at.

After looking at these characteristics I have to be honest and say that I see some characteristics of LH in myself, especially comparing myself to inappropriate others. I know I need to work on those things so that I don't just pass them along to Reesi. I also see a lot of the LH characteristics in Reesi.

So how to I change those? One way is to use visualization and set the bar high. When Reesi says she wants to work at the zoo, instead of telling her, "Yeah, you could work with the elephants." tell her, "Yeah, you could be in charge of the whole zoo." Another way is to help her with failure. This is her biggest struggle. She hates to fail. We have to teach her that failure is a good thing. It makes you stronger, not weaker, as long as you don't quit. We also need to teach her not to put the blame on herself. Ex:"You failed not because you are bad at it, but because you are new to it. This is hard and you are just learning." When she says, "I am dumb or I can't do this." instead of telling her "No, you're not or yes, you can." talk about a time when you felt dumb and you kept messing up. When boys fail they just fail and then they try again. When girls fail they express much more anxiety and then want to quit.

This is only a snip-it of what the book discusses. If you see some of the learned helplessness characteristics in your daughter I would highly recommend reading it. Even if you don't it is still a great read because the author points out that the majority of girls switch from mastery oriented behavior to learned helplessness behavior when they hit puberty. I think I will need a refresher when Reesi hits puberty. This book reinforces that with girls the hardest part is yet to come!

Just Pathetic

That's how I would summarize our snow days. Reesi wanted lots of snow so bad, but she had to settle with a dusting. She still worked her hardest to come up with some snowballs. I enjoyed the snow day from inside. If there's not enough snow for a snowman or some sledding then I am not interested in going outside. We still have our fingers crossed for a real snow day!

And She's Up

When I came to get Elye Kate out of bed on Saturday she was standing for the first time! Well, actually the first time was at 1:00 that morning, but I wasn't in the mood to get the camera at that point. The past several nights she has been up several times! Not sure why, but it may be because I gave her soy yogurt and later found out that it was made with milk! Why would they do that? I have a lot to learn about feeding a baby with allergies!

School Picture

Eight Months

The window seal is the perfect height for pulling up and you love to lick the cold window.

Trying to pull up

The crooked smile!

Little Elye Kate, at eight months you. . . .
-make me smile every time with that little crooked smile.
-are beginning to imitate things. You have perfected the fist squeeze and grunt, and are now moving onto almost mastering the kiss.
-are eating three times a day and are also eating Puffs, Biter Biscuits, and Mum-Mum bars.
-are crawling and trying to pull up on everything. Occasionally, you make it up, but then topple right over.
-think you can walk. Whenever we try to sit you on the floor you stiffen your body and won't bend so that you stand up.
-wake at between 6:30-7:00, nap from around 9:00-12:00 and 2:30-4:30 (when the car rider line doesn't intrude), and back to bed at 7:30.

-are never still.

-like to poop as soon as you wake up in the morning or from a nap or both. About half the time when I go to get you out of bed the room smells horrid.

-will still sit still through our whole meal at a restaurant! I am hoping you don't grow out of this.

-get lots of kisses to the head. That's my favorite place to kiss. Your dad's favorite place is those puffy cheeks.

-are a little puff ball. That's Reesi's nickname for you.