Princess Mirror Craft Project

Piper received this Melissa and Doug craft kit for Christmas from Uncle Greg and Aunt Rory. We finally got around to doing it today. She thought it was lots of fun and has a blast using the glitter glue. It was very messy though. I was impressed that she kept the glitter off the mirror part and put all the stickers on except for the first one that I did. The finished product is god-awful and garish, but she loves it. When you're two more is more, not less. :)

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Fresh Fall Leaves

We had beautiful weather here over the weekend. Piper had a lot of fun playing outside in the leaves and on the playground. On Sunday she played in her sandbox, for what was probably the last time this season.

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Trick or Treating

Piper loved trick or treating this year. She was amazed that people would just give her candy when she went to the door. She did pretty well and said thank you a lot, but wasn't into actually saying "trick or treat" even though she says it at home when reading her Halloween books.

General Update: November

Age(in months, or years and months): almost 26 months


Physical abilities: jumping off higher objects to the ground, helping with chores such as putting silverware away, making her bed, more laundry help, spontaneous cleaning, etc


Speech/language: vocabulary, sentence length, etc: still talking non-stop in 5+ word sentences. Adds words to the end of her sentences correctly such as: again, too, now. Finally saying “thanks” correctly instead of “your welcome” Is very polite and says “please” all the time without prompting now.


Reading/pre-reading: continues to love her books and can be rather demanding in the car when she wants to read. I have a bag of books tied around the back of my seat, but she still can’t reach them from her car seat. I used to just give her a couple books when I strapped her in, but she is reading through them so fast that she needs more to sustain her. Now she yells at us to give her more books while I’m driving. “Mommy, three more books please, NOW!” She is starting to recognize the humor in stories better. She loves the David Shannon books like “No David!” and also the Bad Kitty ABC booksNumber stuff: no change


Other cognitive stuff: puzzles, reasoning, etc not sure if this goes here…but has started responding to the t.v. as she has become more exposed to it recently. She is infatuated with Dora now, so not only am I watching Dora, but reading tons of Dora books. We watch mostly Nick Jr (used to be Noggin) because there are no commercials. She loves the little puzzles and songs in between the cartoons. and is going up to touch the screen on the right answer or talking to the t.v. about what just happened.


Creativity: this was the month all about play-doh, although she still loves to paint. We do play-doh at least twice a day, and boy am I tired of it.


Imagination: big increase in pretend play with cooking food and serving us things to eat. Is very attached to her dolls and stuffed animals.


Social: did great trick or treating and did not bother the other kids. Was polite and said thank you (usually) when she got candy.


Character/personality: very loving this month and has been initiating hugs and kisses with us. Kisses the baby in my belly, although I think she is clueless about what it means. She is also very empathetic towards the characters in her books and has been giving them kisses when they get in trouble or look sad.


School Updates: n/a

Trunk or Treat

Last night we took Piper to the Trunk or Treat event at church. This has to be the best way to get free candy. :) We walked through a lot of cars that had been decorated for the holiday. At each car Piper went up and got a piece of candy, sometimes more since she thought each person was supposed to give her a piece. Everyone thought she was just adorable with her Dorothy costume on, and she loved telling them about her new red shoes. She even was asked to have her picture taken with another Dorothy who was passing out candy.

The only problem was that we didn't bring her basket for the candy, and we used the bag they were handing out instead. So, at every stop she would get the candy and then set it down on the ground to open it back up and put the candy inside. She didn't like people putting the candy in the bag for her. Then she was also not very happy that Daddy kept stealing her candy and eating it.

I know she will be so excited to go again this Saturday.

Pumpkin Time

We currently have seven pumpkins at our house, two itty bitty ones from the pumpkin patch, and five from Walmart. It was cheaper to buy them at Walmart than the pumpkin patch actually. Erick and Piper carved one of the big ones last week, but I was indulging in a much needed nap, so I didn't capture anything on film. Then after a few days he gave it away to some of the neighbor kids.

So yesterday I decided to let Piper decorate a pumpkin by herself, no carving needed. I had some puffy Halloween stickers that she loved. She was even able to get them off the paper herself this time. Yay! Lately she has been infatuated with ghosts, and talks about them all the time. Fortunately there were plenty of ghost stickers.

I will warn you that although she was occupied with this activity for quite a while, after she finished, she dragged that darn pumpkin around and the stickers started falling off all over the house. I'll probably still be finding Halloween stickers at Christmas.

Pumpkin Patch

Piper visited the pumpkin patch and farm for the very first time this weekend. She loved picking up nearly every single pumpkin in the patch before choosing a couple to take home. They had several activities for the kids to do. There were some inflatable bounce units, and true to form, she managed to make another kid twice her size cry, as she does every time we go to Monkey Joe's. I swear she picks on the weak, as she really barely touched him, but I don't know how to break her of this bullying. She also got to ride a pony and get her face painted.

They also had two corn mazes and a hay tunnel maze that I refused to go in. :) The maze was way too easy though, and I was hoping for more of a challenge. Piper loved the hayride and climbing the hay mountain. I think she liked kicking and throwing the hay into the air mostly.

There was a mechanical dinosaur that chomped on pumpkins. She was bored with it after a minute, but I was happy that the sound effects did not scare her. She still has a hard time with loud noises like thunder or firecrackers.

She loved the animals of course and thought it was great fun to feed the goats. They had an exhibit there for rescue dogs also, and she kept running back to it to pet all the doggies. Imagine that!

By the end of the day she was so tired and a little grumpy, having missed her nap. She was determined she was going to ride the tricycles even though they were too big for her. Mommy was way to tired to push her around too, so she reverted to pushing herself with her feet which barely touched the ground.

To see all the pictures, please watch the slideshow at the top of my blog.

October General Update

Age(in months, or years and months): almost 25 months

Physical abilities: perfected her frisbee throw, moves in all sorts of ways to get where she’s going i.e. galloping, jumping, spinning, etc., buckles herself into her carseat (just the top part)

Speech/language: vocabulary, sentence length, etc Sentence length increasing to regularly 3-4 words. I hear longer sentences at times. This isn’t new, but I keep forgetting to document it: uses lots of descriptive words when talking (big, high, heavy, colors, numbers, etc.)

Reading/pre-reading: She got the Tag Jr. Leapfrog system for her birthday and loves using it. It gives me a break at times, but she is still demanding to be read up to 100 different books per day.

Number stuff: Recognizes most numerals now, but rote counting is usually not in the right order although she hits all the different numbers.

Other cognitive stuff: puzzles, reasoning, etc has discovered YouTube on the iPhone and looks for favorite videos. 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.

Creativity: still loves to paint and do art, enjoys picking out her own colors and applying them to the paper or canvas. She is in a stage where she wants me to draw things for her to color.

Imagination: lots of pretend play with little people and these Animal Planet dogs she got for her birthday. Still enjoys cooking food and serving us

Social: still a bit of a bully, has trouble sharing

Character/Personality: testing boundaries this month to gauge our reactions, I’ve noticed that when she is in trouble or sad she refers to herself by her name, but most other times still calls herself “baby”. She doesn’t want to sleep in her bed and wants to be with us in our bed. We switched over to a day bed for her, and she’ll sleep in it, but has to be really tired to go directly there without a fight. Potty training is progressing. She goes on the potty about once a day, but we aren’t consistent enough with it yet. I’m hoping to make it a priority over my fall break in a couple weeks.