Birthdays, Valentines Day, and Everything In-between

The last couple of months have been quite busy.  Katy turned two in January and she celebrated with three birthday cakes.  The first cake was really just a slice of cake on her actual birthday that she shared with her cousin Elijah.  Two days later, we had a very small birthday party.  Our dear neighbors across the street generously provided an adorable caterpillar cake for this party.  A week later, Gigi, Pops, and Grandma Sullivan visited, and we enjoyed a third birthday cake, this one decorated by Katy (thus the reason some of the plastic cats atop the cake appeared to be sinking in snow banks of icing).  Katy was happy to share her third birthday celebration with Pops, whose birthday was just a few days away.

Cake #1

Cake # 2

The party crew. 

Katy's birthday gift from Leonardo. 

Cake #3

Big shout out to my dad, who made Katy an amazing busy board for her birthday.  One side is a magnetized chalkboard/roll down paper for drawing.  The other side is filled with knobs, latches, slots, cubbies, and lights for hours of entertainment.  It is a real labor of love, and an amazing one-of-a-kind toy! This thing really deserves its own blog post, which I hope to do soon.

Thanks to an awesome story time group at the library, Katy also experienced her first Valentine's celebration.  After story time, the toddlers made Valentine bags, exchanged treats and cards, and then went home with an adorable heart shaped balloon.  In the evening, we had a Valentine's dinner complete with heart shaped french toast, sausage, and fruit.

Raisins with a message: "To one of my favorite peep-peep-peeps!"

Why did I take the picture by the outlet?  Ugh.

Aside from birthday and holiday celebrations, the downtime in-between has been full of activity: birthday parties, biking trips to the library (compete with picnic lunches), walking at the lovely convention center grounds, taking advantage of free admission week at a local museum, crafts galore, adventures in eating and cooking, tons of books, and lots of free play.  Katy is at such a fun age - she is able to experience so much of the world around her and much of what she experiences is new to her.  What an amazing time in life!

She likes Legos!!!! Can't wait to start our collection!

Play Dough, Dry Spaghetti, and Beads

Katy's first time enjoy bouncy inflatables with out fear!

Foam letters +water = fun!

Nature scavenger hunt

Making grocery shopping a fun activity.  

She rediscovered her Duplo blocks and loves them!

Mixed media art.

Helping dad repair the dishwasher.

Playing with clear water beads - so cool!

Morning snuggles are the best. 

Tea with Ria

Chris was out of town for work last week.  Whenever Chris is out of town, I fill our days with visits to friends.  Talking to an adult everyday, even for just a few minutes, is important for my long term sanity.

On Thursday we visited some elderly friends from church.  As we prepared for our trip before leaving the house, I packed a few toys in a small box for Katy to take along.  At the last minute, Katy brought me four tiny tea cups to add to the box.  I didn't want to add the teacups.  We were already walking out the door, and I didn't want to stop to open the box again.  Moreover, I didn't want another toy to keep track of mentally in hopes of not losing anything.  But Katy insisted on the tea cups, and I gave in.  Praise God that I gave in!

When we arrived at our friends' house, Katy was clingy and shy. After a few minutes, Ria noticed Katy's tiny teacups and poured some juice into one.  Within a few minutes, Katy was willing to join Ria at the table.  What followed was one of the sweetest things ever.  On one side of the table sat Katy, barely able to see over the top of the table, sipping juice from a tiny teacup and eating carrot sticks from another.  On the other side of the table was Ria, small and slightly hunched but happily sharing her juice and carrying on a conversation in her thick South African accent.

After tea, Katy gladly toured the garden with Ria to look at all the plants.  As they walked out the door hand in hand, navigating the threshold and the obstacles of the raised front porch, I wondered who was relying on who more for support.  When Katy and Ria returned to the house, Katy acknowledged that I was still there, as if to comfort herself, and then invited Ria to sit on the floor to play with the rest of the toys in her box.

Praise God for friends in all shapes and sizes.

My first Spanish Joke

One of the hardest things to master in a second language is humor because it usually requires not just comprehension of grammar, vocabulary, and verb conjugation, but it also requires an understanding of idioms, culture, and small nuances in a language.  Understanding and using humor in a second language is a serious skill.  So, it is with great pride, that I present to you the first joke I made up in the Spanish language:

Q:  Que hace el pez perezoso? (what does the lazy fish do?)

A:  "Nada." (nada means both nothing and he swims)

I know it's ridiculously corny and it probably isn't even original, but I don't really care.  I made a joke in Spanish and that's pretty. darn. awesome. 

Guácala!

When Chris changes one of Katy's stinky diapers, he usually exclaims, "guácala." which means yuck or gross in Spanish.  Katy has since learned this word and frequently uses it when she has a stinky diaper.

This past Saturday night, we spent an evening with friends handing out around the convention center.  Katy's little friend Leonardo was there, which made Katy very happy.  Katy adores Leonardo.  Her face lights up when she sees him.  I love watching Katy play with Leonardo because he brings out her social side like no other toddler.  This past Saturday was no exception.  Katy and Leonardo climbed and rolled and danced and laughed and ran and held hands all night.

But now back to the guácala.  Late into the evening, Katy was walking behind Leonardo.  Leonardo's pants were sagging a bit in the back, perhaps because, as we realized half way through the evening, his pants were on backwards (dressing a toddler is challenging at times).  Upon noticing Leonardo's saggy bottom, Katy informed me that "Leonardo tiene guácala" (Leonard has guácala). Yup. Not only does my girl use guácala as a noun, she also knows what it looks like on someone else.

3-D Paper Heart Birth Announcement Art

When my sister-in-law was pregnant with my very first nephew, I made him a little something for his nursery incorporating the nursery theme and colors and the first letter of his name:

Two years later, when my sister-in-law gave birth to my very first nice, I knew I had to make her something special as well.  I was inspired by this image, and others similar, that I found on google:

After verifying the nursery colors, I punched out lots of hearts in three different sizes, scored them down the middle, and folded them in half.  This task was much more tedious than it sounds.  Next I created a template with cut outs for my largest flowers.  This was also much more tedious than it sounds.  Then, it was time to start gluing.

I used the smallest hearts to fill in the space between my larger flowers.  Gluing all those little hearts in place was also very tedious.

I finished it off by adding a raised strip of decorative paper containing baby's name, birth date, and birth weight.  I framed the print in a shadow box style frame.  The end result was well worth all the tedious work it took to get there!

Learning English

Katy recently started repeating English words, phrases, and sentences more frequently, which is entertaining because Spanish remains her dominant language.  When Katy says Happy Birthday, she does not pronounce the H in happy and she pronounces the rth in birthday like a soft r in Spanish.  The result is something like "Appy Burrdaye."   More recently, Katy heard Chris say, "Oh-uh, Spaghetti-ohs," when something fell.  Katy repeated the phrase as "Uh-oh, es-paghetti-ohs."  Chris found this particularly humorous because, in his words, "it sounded like my mom."  

Seeing Katy speak English is both exciting and anxiety inducing.  I want her to speak English and I know that by the time she is ready to start school, she will speak it more fluently no matter how much we emphasize Spanish.  At the same time, however, I fear that by learning English Katy will lose her ability and desire to use Spanish.  In short, I fear that this is the beginning of the end.

For now, all I can do is try to enjoy the changes as they come, which isn't as hard when Katy says things like es-phaghetti.  And I can start letting Katy watch TV...but only in Spanish.  I haven't given up hope altogether.