Paper Dolls

One of Piper's presents was a book of paper dolls that were the Disney princesses. This was the first time she has really payed attention to any of them, except for Snow White. She had fun dressing them up and learning their names.

Christmas Day

Piper enjoyed opening all of her presents. She loves her stick unicorn she got from Santa, as well as her Leapster Explorer and FurReal Dog.

Christmas Eve

Snowman

Here is Piper's snowman I helped her make yesterday. She was so excited to go outside in the snow. It was the perfect type for packing too.

Message from Santa

Here is the video message Piper got from Santa this year.

http://www.portablenorthpole.tv/watch/guest/c6XRS2rbWB8U9fXuSUNnTQ

Gingerbread House

She was very certain as to where the candy must go.

Every house must have sprinkles

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Here she is counting the bowls. We counted a lot during this project, the candy, the bowls, etc.

Finally it was done! She's so proud.

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Polar Bear Express

We did the Santa train last night. It wasn't a complete fail, but not exactly a success either. They listened to a story, and then boarded the train for an hour long ride. We got to see lots of lights and deocrations, as well as many people and costumed characters waving to us. On board, the kids were served giant sugar cookies, hot chocolate, a bag of candy and yogurt pretzles, and given a small stuffed polar bear. They were visited by a costumed polar bear and Mr. and Mrs. Claus. It was really nice that they spread everything out and each person took time to talk and sing to every child and take as many pictures as you wanted to take.

Hiding from Santa

With that being said, the polar bear was a hit after the first time through. Piper launched herself at him after refusing to get near him when he visited the first time. Stella was okay with him.

They both liked Mrs. Claus, I think because she passed out the stuffed bears. When Santa walked through, Stella cried when he held her, and Piper hid between the seats of the train. I managed to get this shot while she was distracted by the polar bear after the ride was over.

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First Snow this Season

She would have played outside all day if I had let her.

Advent Calendar Day 5

A new animal today: a little deer. She got the box out today by herself and said let's open number 5 and then found it herself. She's mad in this picture because I couldn't get a good shot with my camera and she was tired of posing.

Advent Calendar Day 4

We missed a couple of days while Piper was a grandma's house. On the second day she got the green tree, on the third she opened a bunch of little birds that sit on the tree. Today she got some food and a basket (?) that it sits in.

Advent Calendar Day 1

We got Piper her first Advent Calendar this year. It is a Playmobile one with a forest theme. Today she opened the first door and found a tree. It went very nicely with her Schleich raccoon.

Dear Santa

Piper wrote a letter to Santa telling him what she would like. I'm not sure about the Barbie stuff as she has no idea what that is. I will go and get her the purse she saw at Meijer because she won't stop talking about it.

General Update

NAME/ALIAS: AGE: Piper, 3 years 2months

PSYCHOMOTOR STUFF: getting better at really using a hula hoop now, tries to dribble a ball (hands)

COGNITIVE STUFF: She is big into arguing her point now, and is very logical about it too- not the typical arguing tantrum type stuff she has done for months. Her language is much more rich and complex and expressive. Sometimes I am just amazed at how she speaks- and the things that come out of her mouth in her baby sounding voice.


ACADEMICS: Last night we went out to dinner and she entertained herself with the sugar packets: making patterns and counting them. She is really into counting everything right now and has great one to one correspondence. The teens mess her up, and as long as it took her to count to 12, it might be ages before she gets to 20 correctly. She continues to be fascinated with the moon, and we talked more about it last night since it was a crescent moon. At dinner she told us that our lemons were crescents- apparently her word of the day. She pointed out the stars in the sky and argued with us about whether one was an airplane, a star, or a planet. Self-sufficient on the computer with general use. Can use Word and Paint. plus several software programs like KidPix and JumpStart. Opens and closes programs with ease, prints, and shuts down computer.

CREATIVE OUTPUT: Lots of building of forts, tents, houses: out of pillows, couch cushions, blankets, and other misc. materials. She has very elaborate plans and gets upset when we make her clean up. Poor Stella is picked up and carried to these areas and forced to play. :) She has also been rewriting songs that she knows with new lyrics. I was impressed that the meter and rhythm still matched the original tune.

EMOTIONAL ISSUES: Again, very argumentative, usually age appropriate when tired or hungry, but often just to be silly or sarcastic. Is completely logical and uses reasoning with her debating. She’s loud! I guess in general we are a loud family, but it really comes to light watching her. Will not sleep in her own bed. We have finally got her out of our bed and sleeping in a chair/ottoman combo in our bedroom. Is embarrassed about performing still- will NOT perform if asked. I caught her waltzing the other day with her stuffed dog and she immediately stopped and hid when I looked at her.

SCHOOL UPDATES: n/a

Halloween

Piper loved Halloween and true to form was Dorothy again this year. I don't think the costume will fit next year, so she'll be forced to pick something new. :) She was up bright and early Halloween Day dressed in her costume and shoes watching the Wizard of Oz for the upteenth time.

She loved trick or treating once she got into it. She was a bit shy going to the doors by herself, and when she got tired, she was done. Nothing would convince her to go to another door. She told us she had plenty of candy. When we got back to her grandparents' house, she passed out a few pieces to the kids who were still coming to the door. She also had fun sorting all of her candy into piles and counting it all.

Pumpkin Patch

We went to the pumpkin patch today with both the girls. Erick got free passes for us at work, so that saved us $18. :) Piper had a lot of fun picking out just the right pumpkin. They had lots for the kids to do: corn mazes, tricycle path, petting zoo, hay ride, bounce house and slides, live music, food, and more. She was a little cranky and grouchy by the end, but she had fun. She fell alseep in the car on the way home.

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Leaves

Puzzle Video

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She's not a big puzzler, so
I was happy when she drug this out and started showing an interest in doing them.

Riding Her Bike

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Piper finally has enough interest to ride her big bike now. Her 12 in. bicycle is too small for her, but she wouldn't really try riding this one (16 in.) much this summer because it is still a little big for her and wobbles a bit. This one also has the braking issue when the pedal is pushed the opposite direction, so she sometimes has trouble getting around it. She is getting a lot better at it after this first time though.

General Update: October

NAME/ALIAS: AGE: Piper, 3years 1 month

PSYCHOMOTOR STUFF: Finally got brave enough this last month to ride her 16in bike (even though she rode her 12in one with no problem) She’s had it forever, but I think she was scared because it wobbled a bit when she’d get on it. It still a tad bit too tall for her, but she did great. We also recently acquired a Wii system, and she is all over it. She loves the swordfighting game especially.

COGNITIVE STUFF: She’s finally ready to do puzzles on her own. Nothing amazing since she’s only doing 12 piece ones independently, but I am so proud of her for finally having the patience and drive to complete them. Previously she would only do them if I helped her and gave her hints about turning the pieces, and would throw a fit if they would not fit exactly. She will work on 24 piece puzzles with a lot of encouragement.

I always type out her update in Word before I post it. I realized that last October’s update was in the same folder so I opened it up and this is what it said:

“Piper has discovered YouTube on the iPhone and looks for favorite videos. She is really good at the puzzles on it even though she struggles with regular ones without help. She gives up too easily when frustrated because a piece won’t fit perfectly even when she knows where it goes.”

Funny that I was talking about her frustration back then too!

ACADEMICS: I’ve noticed more patterning with her blocks. She is a whiz on the computer now and it’s a fight for me to be able to get on it myself. I got her the Jump Start cd’s for Pre-school and kindergarten, and it will be interesting to see how she does on them. I’ve observed her trying to teach Stella to do things like use my iPhone and turn pages in books. Other than a couple of sight words, there’s no real reading yet. I’ve made her a couple of books to hopefully encouraqe her. She’s been very interested in the Scrabble Jr. game lately though, and also in copying my writing. She will only write her name by herself if I bribe her however.

CREATIVE OUTPUT: Lots of drawings- more birthday cakes, an aquarium with fish and a castle, has added eyebrows to her people drawings.

EMOTIONAL ISSUES: Very strong-willed and independent right now. Is having difficulty with jealousy over any of Stella’s new milestones. If someone is excited that Stella can crawl, then Piper immediately has to show us she can crawl too.

SCHOOL UPDATES: n/a

Party Montage

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Happy Birthday to Piper

We had Piper's birthday party at Incredible Pizza. It was very busy, but she still had a lot of fun with her cousins. I made cupcakes and Erick deocrated them to look like Dora. She opened presents and has enjoyed playing with all of them over the last week.

General Update

Child's name: Piper

Age (in months, or years and months): almost 36 months! She will be 3 on the 11th, so I guess this is my last general update here.

Physical abilities: She got a real hula hoop and a real jump rope as an early birthday present from my sister. Previously, she had been using various things around the house to play the part. She is not great at either one yet, but she can get the hula hoop around a couple of times, and she tries so hard to jump rope. Maybe soon she’ll figure it out. She can write her name and use a computer mouse correctly. I had to bribe her to get a video of her writing her name. She was being as silly as she could to push my buttons, but I kind of still got a record of it.

Speech/language: vocabulary, sentence length, etc: speaks pretty well in long sentences and clauses. Vocabulary is good, as in I have nothing to compare it to but she uses some fairly complex words. She surprised me by counting to 8 in Spanish the other day. I wonder how many other words she knows since she is not a performer at all. The main language hang-up she has right now is using “her” in place of “she”.

Reading/pre-reading: She knows a couple sight words and her name, but I have not done anything with her in the longest time. She reads her books to herself and tells the story by the pictures even if she’s never read it before. She reads to Stella all the time too, especially the concept books with a picture and one word. Asks me to write other words like mom, dad. and caterpillar. She knows environmental print like store signs and traffic signs.

Number stuff: I overheard her count to 8 in Spanish and 11 in English. Direct teaching has no result. She’ll get it when she gets it. Getting better with patterns.

Other cognitive stuff: puzzles, reasoning, etc: She is very interested in games right now, board games and especially computer games. She is quite proficient on the computer and easily starts her games up to play. These games work on patterns, letters, numbers. shapes, colors, etc. Some of it she already knows, but its still fun for her. She loves to do mazes.

Creativity: Loves to make lists, especially birthday lists, and tells me what to write. She drew this picture of a birthday cake a few weeks ago, but I hadn’t posted it yet. The cake is sitting on a plate and has 6 candles, apparently she thinks she should be six this year. The swirls on the cake are the sprinkles and icing.

Imagination: most of her play is pretend play now. She loves her dollhouse and her regular dolls.

Social:really wants to be and play with other children. She is still a bit aggressive at times with others her own age. She is wonderful with Stella, and does everything she can to make her happy when she is sad. I love that she gets up every day and tells her good morning. She talks to her like a normal person and not a baby, which is so nice to hear. She also “translates” for us what Stella is saying.

Character/personality: Still aggressive but can be very sweet and loving. I’m ready for the terrible twos to be done. She never really has true tantrums, but she is very vocal when she wants something, and has little patience for waiting.

School Updates: n/a I’m looking in to sending her somewhere for a couple days a week just to be with other kids.

Link to blog/websites/photos:

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Carnival Pics

We went to a small church fair. Piper loved riding the rides with her friend Savannah.

Marion County Fair

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We went to the Marion County fair this week. Piper had a great time riding the rides, playing games, and seeing the animals. She was just barely too short to ride some of the big rides, and she wanted to go on absolutely everything. She loved the motorcycles that had ramps to jump. I can't wait till next year when both the girls can ride together.

Using the Computer

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Piper has gotten really good on the computer and can use the mouse fairly well on her own. She likes to play Starfall and a couple other games I downloaded for her. Starfall she can do pretty independently, but with the other games I have to stay close because she can get frustrated at times since she has not played them as much yet. It's scary to think how quickly they learn technology. We didn't have anything like this when I was her age, and there was definitely no internet yet.

Smoothies

Nick Jr. has a segment on every so often about making smoothies. I figured this could be something we could do together. Piper helped me get the fruit ready, and she put it in the blender. We used strawberries, cherries, blackberries, and I snuck in a plum. She had never had one before and we had a dozen that were going to go to waste. We also added fruit juice and some plain yogurt. She loved pushing the buttons on the blender and was excited to finally make it. Of course she had to have stickers on her straw like they do on t.v. Now every time it comes on, she reminds me that we made them together.

Another Carnival Ride Post

Notice the effective safety strap...a bungee cord? I think these rides are left over from the 1970's. You'd think they would be able to update them by now.

Messy Face

We made brownies today. I think she liked them! :)

Independence Day

Piper loved the fireworks today. Erick bought her some sparklers, but she wasn't too sure about holding them. She liked looking at them though. We spent the day at the grandparents, and then went downtown to Greg's to watch the show. I think she had more fun catching fireflies with Grandma than watching the fireworks however.

General Update

Age (in months, or years and months): almost 34 months

Physical abilities: As I suspected she is perfectly capable of pedaling her bikes, she was just being stubborn. She does it all the time inside on the carpet, but refuses to do it outside, for me at least. It’s ten times harder on the carpet, but whatever. She’s getting really good on the monkey bars and I am barely holding on now. She’s just lacking a bit of upper body strength. She is very close to writing her first name independently.

Speech/language: vocabulary, sentence length, etc: increasingly complex

Reading/pre-reading: We’ve been reading more this month and I signed her up for the summer reading program at the library. This is her third year at it and we always get some good prizes at the end, especially more books. She got her first library card this week and was so excited. My goal is to start taking her to the story time once a week. On another note, I am dreadfully tired of “Word World” and “ Letter Factory” She knows quite a few letter sounds now, and tells me things like “P is for Piper, and pirate.“ She made me laugh this week when she tried to read one of Erick’s books. She told me that his book had lots of words but no pictures and her books had lots of pictures but not as many words. She then proceeded to “read” his book by pointing to the letters and singing her ABC’s.

Number stuff: nothing new except she has been focusing more on ordinal numbers: first, second, third, She is starting to really like the Umizoomi cartoon and I think it may help her with math. She loves to answer Dora when they ask addition and subtraction questions, and usually is right.

Creativity: not as much drawing lately, more writing of letters especially her name. She still draws people from time to time, and the occasional object like a rainbow, snake, boats, etc. I noticed her figure out how to draw water by adding waves underneath her boat. Today she was drawing a seahorse who lived in the river, and then wanted to argue with me about it.

Imagination: has added more voices to her imaginary repertoire. I love her evil laugh!

Social: very social with kids, initiates conversations with them. She made a new friend at the park, and I think I did too. (Why is it so hard to makes new friends as an adult?) Piper still tends to be aggressive towards other though in her play.

Character/personality: Has two personalities at times. She can be sweet, thoughtful, and helpful one moment, and the next be screaming and whining. Again, food and rest play a major part. She will not nap anymore even though she really needs it.

School Updates: n/a

Link to blog/websites/photos: http://onefunkymunky.blogspot.com/

Carnival

Today Piper finally achieved her long awaited dream to ride a roller coaster. It was really

cheesy, and I think she would like a bigger one better. At first she was upset because she did not want to ride it herself, so Erick got on with her and she had a great time.

She loved all of the other rides, especially the Tilt-a-Whirl. She rode it once with Mommy and once with Daddy. Apparently we are getting old since we both felt sick after riding it.

On the scrambler with Daddy

She threw a fit because she wanted to ride one of the bigger rides, and I was surprised they let her on it. She thought it was a train because it had a train whistle and played music. Of course she loved every minute. She would have ridden more rides but she was too small for some of them, plus it was expensive since we had to ride with her on most of them. They wouldn't let her

on the pirate ship because she was an inch too short.

This is the one kiddie ride that she rode by herself. It just flew in a circle up in the air.

On the Ferris Wheel with Mommy. We rode with some older kids and she was cracking them up talking the whole time.

Library Card

Piper got her first library card today. We went last week to get it, but I didn't realize she had to have her birth certificate, so we returned today. The library down on the Southside is actually a lot neater than the one we used to go to up North. It has a farm theme (Yeah...there's more than corn in Indiana) and it's really cute. She loves the tractor that you can climb inside and "drive" as well as all the puzzles and computers. We picked out lots of books to read. Last week she got a bunch of books about storms and weather, but this week she has been really into animals so we got some on snakes, cats, and dogs. We signed up for the summer reading program last week too, and I need to try to start taking her to the story time each week.

Old Settlers Day

We went to the fireworks display after Old Settler's Day in Wanamaker. She enjoyed looking at, and touching the reptiles they had on display, and loved the snakes especially. It was stormy so they moved everyone inside the church. Piper had lots of fun playing with her friend Savannah and the other kids. At one point she was in a group with Savannah and another little girl. Piper is the youngest at age 2 1/2, Savannah is 3 1/2 and the other girl was 4. Guess who was the tallest in the group? Yep, my little Piper was the biggest one there.

She accumulated numerous tattoos tonight and eventually pealed this one off her cheek. She loved the fireworks, but fell asleep in my lap at the very end.

Happy Father's Day

I wanted a picture of everyone for Father's Day, but Piper did not want to cooperate. We had to trick her to even get her in this shot. Oh, well! Happy Father's Day!

At the Drive -In

We took Piper to her first movie, and decided to go to the drive-in because we weren't sure how she would handle it. I thought she might talk a lot or not be able to sit still. She was pretty good and watched the first half hour or so, then she was done. She said she loved the movie, but eventually was running in circles in front of our area. We watched Toy Story 3, and she thought the monkey with the cymbals was funny. By the time the second movie started at midnight she was asleep.

Rascal's Fun Zone

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Piper had fun riding the go-karts and the bumper boats. I even went on the go-karts with her, but it's not really my thing. I thought it was too bumpy and smelled. :)

PBS Kids Day

We took the girls downtown to Military Park for the PBS Kids Day. They had lots of free activities for children to do. It was very hot and muggy, and the lines to do anything were extremely long. We only stayed for about an hour and a half due to this. We did manage to meet Clifford, whom Piper was terrified of seeing. I think she just hates mascots in general. We skipped the other ones which included The Cat in the Hat, Super Why, Rosita, Elmo, and a few more. We did see Gordon from Sesame Street on stage though.She loved the bubble stations and had fun bouncing in the bounce castle. She started to do a couple other bounce stations but didn't get very far. She was so tired and hot.

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Swimming at Grandma's House

Piper had lots of fun swimming in her little pool at Grandma's house. She really liked the hose best though. It was pretty hot and the water felt good. Even the cold water in the pool got really warm quickly. She enjoyed playing with Peyton who lives down the street. They both took turns emptying out the pool, and watering the flowers and trees.