Peas and Cookies

At 20 months old, Catherine is learning new words every day. She's pretty good at repetition, repeating words after my identifying prompt; but, she surprises me every day by using a new word correctly all on her own.

We've been working on "please" and "thank you" a lot lately. Mostly, anytime she wants something, I say, "say please," and she responds with "peeeeease." It's adorable, but she hadn't quite grasped the purpose of that word yet. That is, until last week. She was eating goldfish for a snack. When her cup was empty, she brought it to me, turned it upside down and shook it to show me it was empty, and said, "peeeeease."

It was the cutest sound ever. 

So, of course, I gave her more goldfish. Then, she asked for a pony and I said, "okay, whatever you want!" (kidding...)

The other word she suddenly started using lately is "cookie." I mentioned before that her current favorite book is The Cow Loves Cookies. It's about all the animals on a farm and what they eat everyday, but the cow only loves cookies. It's pretty cute. 

Since we read it every day (some days more than once), I've been stopping when reading to see if she could finish the sentence. I point to the cow and she says, "cow"; and then I say, "but, the cow loves..." and she excitedly says, "cookies!" It's not necessarily a new word for her. She has identified her play cookies correctly for a while now. But this weekend, while my parents were watching her, she brought her book to my mom, held it up to her to read, and said, "cookies." 

She's learning to ask for things she wants in a way we can actually understand and it's so exciting to watch her learn right in front of us. Plus, hearing that sweet little voice politely say, "peeeeease" melts my heart.

If she plays her cards right, and asks politely, it's going to be hard not to buy her that pony...

Mommy and Me Time

Let's face it, most days are "Mommy and Me" days; but the past few days, we have gone into activity overdrive to make up for Monday stuck inside with a stomach bug. Mommy is pretty warn out today, but it was so worth it!

The weather has been perfect (making our inside sick day even harder to bear), so my goal for Tuesday was to spend as much time outside as possible.

We spent the morning running around the backyard, playing with balls, looking at birds, and laughing at Banks. We ate lunch outside and, after nap time and a snack, we painted outside! I cut the ends off of a celery stalk and a potato to use as stencils; I put her in an old t-shirt, gave her the stencils, brush, and a plate of paint; and I let her do her thing!

Wednesday, we headed to iJump to play with some friends. She had never been in any kind of bouncy house, so I wasn't sure how it would go. But, this girl loves to hop and jump around the house and jumping is pretty much her signature dance move, so I had high hopes. Well, she loved it! She was a bit apprehensive about some things (she will not, under any circumstances, crawl through a tunnel), but overall, she had a blast jumping and running around with Sara and Lyla. Her favorite thing there? The ball pit - just a bigger version of what we have in our living room!

Thursday, we started our day as usual with Kindermusik. I needed to run an errand afterward, so we made a lunch stop first at Edgar's. I got her the usual grilled cheese, but she actually ate most of my chicken instead (big day!); and no trip to Edgar's is complete without a treat. She picked a skeleton cookie. Yummmm!

We planned to go to the McWane Center that evening for an opening of their new Clifford, the Big Red Dog exhibit, so our friend Sara came over to play before we all headed that way.

Then, it was time for Clifford! The girls ran wild in the exhibit. It was a lot of fun and a nice change up to our usual low key evenings.

Whew. It's been a fun week! I'm so lucky to get to spend my days playing with this little angel.

Hi

Catherine has started saying, "hi" and waving with gusto at every noise she hears and everything she sees.

The other day at the park, she waved at all of the children getting off the school bus. She waves at honking cars, at fire trucks with sirens blaring, at dogs barking.

Today, while playing outside, three crows perched high up in a tree in our backyard and began cawing. She got so excited. She looked up as high as she could, waved her whole arm, and shouted, "hiiiii!"

I certainly hope this friendliness carries her through life.

Pumpkin Patch

Last Sunday, we ventured to our favorite pumpkin patch in Harpersville to find the perfect little pumpkin. We went for the first time last year and had so much fun posing a giggly baby all around the farm. This year, we had a busy, running, jumping toddler. Thankfully, my dad came armed with his camera and caught our little firecracker in action.

She loved riding the little John Deere tractors by the corn field.

We headed to the pumpkin patch first. We got to ride a horse drawn wagon to the patch. Catherine wasn't entirely sure she liked it.

First, we stopped to smell some flowers.

Then, it was off to find the perfect pumpkin!

She did lots of stacking and sorting...

And then settled on this adorable little green pumpkin.

She was also quite fond of this little white one. So, of course, we got both...

Success!

We attempted a quick family shot with my parents and sister, but this is the best we could get.
The angle makes Mom look like she's on a giant hay bale above us all.

When we got back, we snacked and discovered that Catherine really likes corn on the cob (she ate all of CiCi's).

And then, we headed to the petting zoo. She had a blast, as usual, with the animals. She loved feeding and petting the goats and even got to pet a fuzzy baby duckling. 

She made friends with a baby cow. It was the sweetest thing. She held hay out to feed it and it walked over to her, ate out of her hand, and let her pet him. Her favorite book right now is about a cow (The Cow Loves Cookies), so she was very excited!

Before heading home, we played in one strip of the corn maze. We ran back and forth over and over and over again. I think she had just as much fun as she would have in the real thing.

She loves her CiCi and Poppa!

It was a pretty fantastic day spent enjoying time with family, eating delicious fried foods, and watching Catherine run around with complete glee. I love our little tradition. Now, we just have to carve our pumpkins!