HAPPY NOON YEAR!

REPRIMANDING RUDOLPH

Gosh, this was hard for me to hear.  I really don't want her to think I sound this mean all the time...

"Don't touch the boat?"  I have no idea what was going on in that crib...but she sounds quite mad.  I can only hope she was channeling Nemo's father instead of me.

"CHRISTMAS" MORNING

We celebrated with a white Christmas here this morning before we head out of town for real Christmas.

And I could've spent a grand total of $2 and made the day a roaring success, because she didn't care about opening anything else after she opened these.

And then outside into the snow!

FIRST CHRISTMAS PRESENT

PLAYING

CHRISTMAS CAROLS

YIPPEE AND GIDDYUP!

We went to the carousel museum, which has an old-fashioned carousel (and no laws about how slowly it has to travel, since it is technically a museum exhibit and not a children's ride!)...

...and an old-fashioned horse ride that's a bit jerky!  Old-timey fun, before safety regulations!

CAROUSEL

She really did make up a (bad) song about a carousel, but it was too noisy to catch the words...

FROG SLIDE

POOP FACE

SURLY

OK, so we recorded her pouting and being surly for 8 minutes.  It's ridiculous.  It's practice for the teenage years...

I just missed it: right when I shut the camera off, she said, "I'm not in a good mood today."  So I turned the camera back on.

(These videos are not super exciting, but someone better appreciate them because they took me two hours to upload.)

VELCRO FARM

DANCING WITH CHICKEN LITTLE

She thinks Tweety Bird is Chicken Little...

NO, DAVID!

TEACHING BIG BIRD HIS COLORS

PHOTOGRAPHY HER WAY

PACIFIER PARTY

We threw her a little party to celebrate the end of using a pacifier.  She thought it was her birthday and wanted everyone to sing...

Then we tied a pacifier to some helium balloons and released it into the sky...

And that was the end of the pacifiers!

CARVING THE PUMPKIN

PLAYING DENTIST

EXPLAINING HER TIMEOUT

There's a lot of backstory here, but I wanted to post it anyway because it's interesting to watch her thought process.

So there's a robot on TV named Plex, who runs on electricity provided by DJ Lance Rock.  And she knows that robots need electricity but children need sleep in order to have enough energy.  And she didn't take a nap today, so she was beastly: while playing outside, she threw her smoothie straw at me and then colored all over me with blue chalk.  So she had to come inside, and she was still throwing a tantrum 30 minutes later, so I shut her in her bedroom for a timeout and rocked her world.

And this is how she processed the events of the day...like a maniac.

COUNTING LETTERS

She's got this new thing where she wants to count the letters in words.  Not sound out the words, but count them.  Concept FAIL.

BYE-BYE, GIGA!

BRAWK!

POOR PAPPY

Do we win America's Funniest Home Videos here?

CRUNCHY DADDY'S CEREAL

NOT-SO-PILATES

BABY'S SNACKS

PTERODACTYL

Daddy taught her to sound like a pterodactyl tonight...it was loud.

PLAYDOH PANCAKES

STICKING SCOPE

I CAN'T

POTTY TRAINING

PING PONG

STUFFED MANTIS

GROCERY SHOPPING

STRENGTH TRAINING

READING BISCUIT

I bought this book when I was pregnant, but she never had any interest in it until about two weeks ago.  Now she's on a kick where she only wants to read this Biscuit story compilation, before every nap and night.  We are so sick of it.  But tonight we were floored to discover that she pretty much has the entire 191 page book memorized.  She read us two other stories before we grabbed the camera.

These videos are useless unless you can read the text on the pages, and I think the video screen is too small to see the words, so I will type out the text.  Hopefully you can hear through her stuffed-up nose that at least one sentence per page pretty decently matches up with the book.

Here, Biscuit!  What have you found?
Look, Biscuit.  It's a bunny!
Silly puppy.  Don't be shy.
Good puppy! That's the way!
See, Biscuit.  Bunnies like lettuce and carrots.
The bunny likes your doll.  We can name the bunny Dolly.
Dolly likes your blanket, too!  Sweet puppy.  You always know how to share.
Oh, Biscuit!  It's always fun to make a new friend.

"Biscuit, where are you?" called the little girl.
Silly puppy! What are you doing under there? I'm sorry, Biscuit. This picnic is just for kids.  You and Puddles can run and play.  Go on, puppies.  Go and play!
Wait, Biscuit! Come back, Puddles! Where are you going with that food?
Look!  Biscuit and Puddles are having their own picnic --
and the birds want to join them.
Even Daisy wants to have a picnic.
"Careful, Biscuit!" said the little girl.  "Watch out for the --
CAKE!"
"Biscuit is covered in cake!" the little boy giggled. "Oh, Biscuit," said the little girl. "What do we do now?"
"Funny puppy. You're right, Biscuit," she said. "We can all have a picnic together!"

AS SEEN ON TV

The first is lyrics from Backyardigans:

Zoid zoid zoid
Zee zee zee
The horse is on my head
and it makes me dance with glee.

And on the show Yo Gabba Gabba, a celeb guest teaches kids a dancey-dance.  She is making up her own dancey-dances now.

TAKING CARE OF BABIES

This baby needed to go to the doctor...

...and this baby needed a diaper change.

MAKING A SMOOTHIE

LET THE PIGEON DRIVE THE BUS!

INSIDE, OUTSIDE

Practicing her inside and outside voice with Yo Gabba Gabba.

TEENY TEENY TINY

I want to capture all the pantsisms before the disappear, like how she says "teeny teeny tiny" instead of small.

HYPER BALLET

She did not want me to laugh at her doing spazz ballet.

I love how she says "gluh-lilla."

FOR THE IN-LAWS

Two videos for my husband's family...

1) Pants chases a kitty around like the neighbor girl used to do.

and 2) Daddy hits a triple while Pants completely ignores him and tries to stand on her head.

DUCKS ON PARADE!

FIRST KNIFE

I have no idea at what age children learn to use a knife, but it's clearly not her age.

GETTING DADDY READY FOR WORK

DOG'S TOY

She doesn't understand that he wants to play tug-of-war...but at least she's respectful of his private property!

LMNO PEAS

KNUFFLE BUNNY

I love when she says Trixie put the money in the microwave.

POUCH

WORM

I love when the worm curls himself up and she says, "He's messed up!"

SHE FETCHES A BEER

SHE CYCLES!

FROG

SHE LOVES SWIMMING!

She hasn't been in a pool since last summer, so I wasn't sure she'd even like it.  Boy, was I wrong.  As soon as she saw someone jump off the side, she wanted to do it.

And a few minutes later, she was begging for the diving board!

An hour later, she was running away from Daddy because she wanted to jump off "BY MYSELF!"

POP!...LOVE-A-LY

GRAMPA'S BIRTHDAY

STRETCHING ON THE CAR TRIP

CHUCK E CHEESE

GARBAGE TRUCK

DIGGING IN THE CONCRETE

FINGER FAMILY

She came up with this on her own tonight, so I grabbed the camera and asked her to do it again.

FROG & DUCK

She always wants to give them orange juice and feed them fruit.  "I'll be right back in a minute" made me giggle.

GIVING BABY A BATH

TOE POLISH NAILS

I have been trying to document all the humorously wrong things she says before they disappear...
(In the video, I repeated it back wrong.  She calls it "toe polish nails.")

DANCING TO RAY CHARLES

I THINK THAT'S HIS BOTTOM...

TWO CUTE TIDBITS

1) The snake on Yo Gabba Gabba is named Archibald, so that's what she named her own snake...

2) The other morning, I somehow got that Black Eyed Peas song stuck in my head.  She heard me singing it at breakfast and wanted to learn it.

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY

She decorated a travel mug with stickers for Father's Day, and she tells her Daddy all the stickers she chose for him...

ALWAYS DRAWING SNOWMEN

And it's really amazing she doesn't fall down the stairs more frequently...

WHERE IS MUMPKIN?

SHE CAN CLIMB A ROCK WALL

Daddy held the camera the wrong way, but anyway...he said he turned his head and looked back and she had climbed up the wall.  She he made her do it again.

FAMILY HANG-OUTS

MAKING A CAKE

Winding yarn like this is called "making a cake."

WITH GRAMMIE

WON'T PROCESS

I have many videos to post, but none of them will work.  They're all uploading but not processing, even the tiny clips that clearly can't be too big for the site.  So I have no idea what's going on...

SPINNING YARN

ONCE UPON A TIME, THERE WERE TREES

Daddy looked very sleepy...  (I had to split this up into two videos so we didn't lose any of the cuteness.)

A LION IN MY POCKET

I am so happy that she's a good talker, but sometimes it's mentally exhausting to hear constant chatter all day long.  This is how she narrates every single activity of every day.

EVOLUTION OF A CLIMBER

She's a climber.  And I don't want to be a hover-er, so I filmed instead of having a heart attack or holding on to her so she wouldn't fall.  She got a bit better each time!

DADDY'S SOFTBALL

Her snacks and the promise of a playground were much more exciting...

BEFORE SCHOOL

1) I am so thrilled that she's coming close to being able to help me out by performing an actual chore: letting the dog out into the backyard.  Cool.

2) It's funny how any time I tell her we can't do something, she first thinks it's because she didn't say please, and then assumes the thing must be broken.  Her brain can't comprehend that I just won't let her do stuff on principle, I guess!

GIBBERISH

Sorry, I didn't realize that every time she kicked the table, the camera would wiggle.  But sometime after the 1 minute mark, she starts rhyming and then inventing words.

YEEEARGH!

Daddy taught her to "yeeeargh!" like a pirate, but I think she thinks she's saying "yarn!"

I FEEL TERRIBLE

I noticed she had lined up her toys and was reprimanding them, so I got Daddy to egg her on.  I really think she was pretending to be me here: barking at her kids to stop dropping their snacks and then getting on the laptop...ugh, that makes me feel like a lousy mother.

IF YOU'RE HAPPY AND YOU KNOW IT

BABY DUCKS AND TURKEYS

Our friend has new baby ducks...

And the turkeys will gobble on command, but she kept messing up the word :)

BEGETABLES

The song is from Noddy; the lyrics are

"Planting seeds, pulling weeds,
it's a joy, you know.
I'm a happy gardener
I help my garden grow."

WATERING FLOWERS

SING IT TOGETHER!

TAKING CARE OF BABY

BUTTERFLY

TOUCH-A-TRUCK

We went to an event today called Touch-A-Truck.  The kids got to climb in and honk the horns of many different service vehicles.  Such a cool event.

She got to drive the firetruck...

...drive the cement mixer...

...dance in a bulldozer...

...honk the garbage truck...

...and watch a train roar by (be warned, that video is loud).  Great day!

THE MEDICINE ROUTINE

First the dog gets his pill, then he gets a cracker, then she gets her gummy vitamin.  Morning routine.

And I'm sincerely growing to loathe that pacifier.

BARN DANCE

We went to a local barn dance today!  She sure did like that old-timey music.

And as usual, she liked all the animals too.

And she liked picking up what I hope was dirt but fear was poops.

PEACOP

They also had a peacop on the farm.

And of course the exact second I stopped recording, he crowed again.

BREAKFAST SERENADE

Three little monkeys swinging in the tree
teasing Mr Alligator "can't catch me!"
along came Mr Alligator, quiet as can be
and snapped those monkeys right outta that tree.

STEP ON MYSELF

KITTY CALENDAR

SPEAK!

GOING SHOPPING

DON'T EAT GRASS

MAKING DOG TREATS

I have no idea where she learned "This Old Man."

TREATING THE DOG

I love that she wants him to smell them and also to say "Cheers!"

WORM TRAINING

I've been trying to get her to stop being biased against worms.

KNICK KNACK

She always says the exact same things when we watch the animated short...

CORN & PEACH

This Backyardigans song is probably my favorite kid song ever.  Normally she sings the words better...

And Daddy shut off the camera right before she said one of my very favorite words: "peaCH."

CAROUSEL

Today we went to the carousel museum.  This is the fastest danged carousel I've ever seen...

A NECKLACE FOR THE HIPPO

ONCE UPON A TIME

I don't know where she learned it, but she opens all books and says, "Once upon a time..."

EGGS FILLED WITH SNACKS

She is such a cheap date!

And if the eggs had been a snake, they would've bitten her.

EASTER EGG HUNT

BANANA TALK

HUMINA-HUMINA

Most of the Noddy songs are fairly complicated.  She's started singing the one line she knows and then humina-huminas through the rest of it.  The parts that are intelligible are actual lines from a variety of songs, strung together with mumble-singing.

KITTY THIEF

CHASING LINUS

SNOWMEN ALL YEAR

She's bonkers for snowmen.  We read these books over and over.

SGUSTING

ABC SONG

She's actually better at singing the regular old ABC song, but she adores this youtube...

READING BOOKS

BATH GABBA GABBA

CORNSTARCH QUICKSAND

Boring video alert.  Also, if I had a dollar for every time during the day she implored me to "make a snowman"...

STUFF MOMMY MADE

ISN'T IT?

Apparently she learned to end sentences with "isn't it?"

BUBBLES

PICNIC

A MEDLEY OF HER GREATEST HITS

When she wakes up in a good mood, she often sings.  The first song is from the Noddy show:

"Hooray, today we are going out!
Let's all check the weather.
It's a windy day today,
Let's all have fun together."

Then of course "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and "Old MacDonald."

All muffled by the pacifier in her mouth.

PAH

Back at Thanksgiving, I taught her to pronounce it "pah" instead of "pie."  Now she is a bit confused...

And she wants "googleberry pie", a fictional food on the Noddy show.

FIRST SLUG

MILK & TEA

She was fun this morning...we did a lot of pretend drinking.  It was delicious.

HAM CREAM

She thinks every little plastic bottle has cream (lotion) in it.  Even cans of ham.

HER OWN THEME SONG

PLAYING WITH MARKERS

HURRY UP

I guess I say it a lot...

TALKING TO GIGA

Only a toddler born in 2010 would know how to use a bluetooth...

My mom asked her what we did today, and I grabbed the camera as she started to explain.  "Have bubblegum and sing songs and...Maxine...paint!"  Yep, we went to playgroup with Miss Maxine, where we paint and sing songs about bubblegum.

PUPPY LOVE

SECOND BIRTHDAY

She started the day putting on makeup with Giga...

Then we went to playgroup...

She loves her new presents, especially to feed her new baby...

And she fell in love with her new robotic kitty...

She's so big this year that she blew out her own candle!  I can't believe she's already 2...

TOO LOUD

We went to the zoo, and she thought the tropical birds were too loud.

POLAR BEAR FLIPS

EVERYDAY LIFE

My mom said she'd like to see more longer videos of everyday life...so here Daddy is getting her ready to go to the park.  (Yep, she never stops talking.)

GARBAGE TRUCK

Ugh, I juuuust missed her saying "Let me show Daddy how it works."  What a sentence!  She loves her new garbage truck from her aunties in Indiana.

YELLOW & WHITE

She came to me with the white and yellow crayons, and I thought for sure we were making progress with our colors.  Meh, not so much...

PUT YOUR FINGER...

At playgroup we sing this song "Put your finger on your head, on your head."  Which then morphed into the babies crying during "Wheels On the Bus."

MARTHA MONKEY

She explains the plot of her favorite episode of Noddy.  (Don't worry, you probably won't understand what she's talking about.  We do, since we have seen this episode 800 times.)

JUMPS

Her mouth doesn't stop running even while she's bouncing.

JOHNNY CASH

MAKING GRANOLA

Boring videos of us making granola.

PICNIC LUNCH

BY ICE CUBES

She has a Nemo cold pack to put on bumps and bruises, and she asks for it every time Daddy gets in the freezer.  I had to post this because one of my family's first memories of me talking was me asking for something in the refrigerator.

EATING APPLES

She knows her birthday is coming up and she can answer when her birthday is, but out of the blue she said the whole sentence "My birthday is March 1st."  And of course she wouldn't do it again for the camera...

I'M NOT SICK

HEAD BUTT

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

She is absolutely enthralled year round by a Halloween counting book she has.  It says stuff like "3 pots boil and bubble" and "9 ghosts give a fright."

IN THE CAR

She was really chatty in the car on the way to her grandparents' house last night.

I speak Pacifier, but I don't know if anyone else can...

And she loves the hills on the county road short-cut we take to get there.

WHAT DO THEY SAY?

MY VALENTINE

"MOMMY, USE YOURS!"

GOATS & TURKEYS

We went back out to our friends' farm.  They had five baby mohair goats born this week.

It's just the most interesting front yard in the world...

WHEELS ON THE BUS

We finally branched out from "Old MacDonald" and she was singing lots of verses of a new song...until we got the camera out...

DINNER & CONVERSATION

ON SHELF BY OVEN

Apparently she knows where we keep the raisins better than her dad does...

GET A RAG

FEEDING BABY

ICK

SNOW ANGEL

SURPRISED THE GLASS DIDN'T BREAK

CHARLIE & PANTS

ARMS IN THE AIR

This morning she decided she wanted us all to raise our arms in the air.  It was a pretty odd request.  This is how the rest of breakfast played out...

PEDAL

This was her first real forward motion.  The first time she did it, she exclaimed, "I DID IT!"  I wish I had gotten that excitement on tape...

INTERROGATION

Pappy broke a glass, and Charlotte pointed at him and hollered, "He did it!"  Ha!  We tried to get her to do it again on video, but she refused to give up her partner in crime.

PAPPY JUGGLES

WHEELS ON BUS

Out of the blue, she knows a new song.

GARBAGE TRUCK COME FRIDAY

She is completely fixated on telling everyone she meets two things: "Garbage truck come Friday" and "Jumps are over."  The first is fairly self-explanatory; she loves to watch the garbage truck go by.  The second refers to how there is a bounce castle at playgroup on Thursdays and at the end of the play period, they deflate the castle.  So "jumps are over (until) next week."  She obsessively recites these two tidbits of information.

SPIN

She loves to get herself dizzy.

FOOLING AROUND ON CHAIR

Every time she touches the sore spot on her forehead, I make her go through this conversation.

DADDY LEAVING FOR WORK

GOOD NIGHT, GORILLA

UNDIVIDED ATTENTION

This is one thing I really do not understand about toddlers.

ABC's

And this is why we had to go to the emergency room the other day: she's the type of girl to screech her ABC's while standing on a rocking horse.

PLAYING WITH KITTY

Right before I turned on the camera, I swear she held Kitty up to our OIF II print and told Kitty to look at the Army picture.  But then she moved on to other stuff.

RECORDER

Our friend apologized for giving this to her as a gift, but seriously, I will take the music notes over her whining any day.  (I love how she tries to play it when it's on the edge of the table.)

PLAYGROUND PEEKABOO

TAG TEAM COUNTING

QUACK WOOF GRRR

I caught some of her post-nap blathering on tape.  It's hard to hear because of the white noise and also because she has a pacifier in, but she is practicing her animals: "duck quack quack, what dog say? woof woof, bear say grrrrrr."

I'M FLUENT IN PANTS

I speak fluent Pants, so sometimes it's hard for me to tell if other people can understand her speech like I can.  This is a typical conversation, which I think is a lot of talking in complete sentences.  (For reference, Big Ears is a gnome character in the Noddy series.)

HOW ARE YOU?

FRIDGE

She's late to discover that she can open the fridge herself, but I'm glad she waited until now because now she can get her own stuff and I don't have to do it for her!

CEREAL BOWL

HULA HOOP

She really wants to hula hoop, but this is how she thinks it works!

BLINDFOLDED STAIRCASE

KNOCK IT DOWN

KNOW MY H-I-J-L

BUDDER PANKIPS SYRUP