Katie is so busy and learning and telling us so many things. Her vocabulary and talking has expanded. She will say  things like "There is nothing in here" and appropriately. She has been saying "no never" to everything. Want to have dinner? Want to go potty on the potty? Almost everything you ask and you may get the answer "no never". She says and understands so much. She is always pointing things out to me and telling me what they are. Umbrella, frog, guitar, oranges and so many things. She loves to take a bath and loves to be outside. She likes to drive around in the car and go to the store and to lunch and of course to play at the park or someones house or superfranks! She has been eating fairly well and still loves spicy food and mexican food. She likes rice also, chinese fried rice or spanish rice. She is very loving and likes to give hugs and kisses to her friends and to mommy and Daddy and sometimes other people, like Aunt Dorothy. I believe I posted about the somersaults and you can see a video of this on my blog at www.blondekris.blogspot.com. I will also post some other videos soon of Katie trying to climb at the park and some of her playing with Daddy time. Now dont get me wrong, she has a mind of her own and is doing a lot of "katie do it" and making mommy crazy also. I am slowly putting stuff together for her to have some art and craft stuff. Safety scissors and paint and glue or glue stick and whatever else. I am adding things to her birthday wish list, because people always ask what to get and these are things she seems to like. I need to look for a little table for her and chairs or an art easle for kids. She seems to enjoy all the art stuff. She loves markers (mommy hates them). I guess I need to get her some of the washable markers and come to terms that they make a mess and will not actually wash off her hands very fast. I would rather just stick with crayons for a while. She also loves to color and put stickers on paper. I have a bunch of stickers for her but need to add that to her list also. Geez I guess I need to add a bathing suit and so many things to her list. Ok I will work on it.

Anything you want to know? OH she had 3 teeth come in between Feb 1 and 28.

Today Katie had gymnastics and had so much energy and so much fun. Tonight, Mommy showed her how to do a somersault, oh my god I have not done that in a zillion years. Anyway, Katie picked up real fast and pictures and videos to come! Daddy even did one!

Katie is learning and growing and mmm getting a mind of her own. (my mom said that sounds familiar)  Today I had two brushes and comb in my hand and said "Which one do you want" Katie answered "all 3 of them". She is making sentences and apparently counting things. I knew she could count, she counts with me to 10, but did not know she would count objects. She told Shannon the other day "there is something in there" regarding a little car and it had a sticker under the hood to be the engine. Very cute. She is repeating lots of things we say. I am  blank again so maybe Shannon will add in to this.

She eats fairly well. She wont eat anything beef so far, I have tried lots of things. However, she likes to eat lots of things week to week. Today she seems to just want to keep eating. She is getting a little better about sharing her toys. We had a playdate here and she does not want to share her toys, walks around shaking her finger at kids, "no no no no no". She does ok. I found out she knows all the characters on Sesame street by name. I did not know this.

Ok I will try to think of what else is going on and post more.

I know I last updated this when she went to the dentist. So much has been going that I will start with this last week. Katie has done very well with potty training, which she initiated herself. She would tell me she had to go potty and we would race to the potty and she would go and...... her diaper was still dry. Yay. Well then I did not push it further, as we moved. Yes we moved out of the cottage and into a house we are renting in Dublin. (make sure i have your address to send the change of address out)  Katie has done super as for transitioning to the new house. She has her own room and slept in it just fine. She is now saying house all the time and likes her new house. She will really miss her friends The Casavants at the old place but we will go back to see them. We got keys friday at the end of January to our new place. Katie also had a "well check" at the doctor, for basically 21-24 months. They measure her and weight her and ask what she is doing. Well she ended up catching a cold from her dr. office visit. This cold comes with a fever and nasty cough. So needless to say, I am a little bothered by this, I can measure her and weight her and tell them by email and not get her sick. Anyway, now the cold traveled to Daddy and a little to me. Shannon has the fever. I have the stuffy head and it goes into my asthma. Yuck. So we have  had a not so fun first week in our house. Things Katie is doing, well she replies with yay yay yay all the time, but i noticed that this is changing to yes now. She is talking so much and repeating things, like stupid orange tree. (we have a huge orange in the front yard next to the driveway and it hits us in the head getting into and out of the car). Lots of things she says and talks about. If you ask her "Are you Emma? Are you jasper? or whoever, then ask "who are you?" she says Katie. I got it on video so i hope to upload pictures and videos soon. Videos will go on my blog at blondekris.blogspot.com. She is so smart and growing and cute as a bug. I actually had to pack away all her 18 month clothing today as I unpacked boxes. How Sad. Now that I walked away from the computer, I forgot what else I was going to put in here, so will update as I remember.

Today Katie went to the dentist for the first time. I took her to the children's dentist, thinking it would be better. There were a few things to play with in the waiting room. We waited forever and we went out in the crazy storm we were having, it was only a few blocks away. Anyway, Katie finally got called in and we went in to the office. I was thinking they would have these little dentist chairs and stuff. Nope, but they did have a little sink she could stand at and wash her hands, which she saw the sink and wanted to wash hands. She did not really want to sit on my lap or play with the things they gave her to play with. The Dentist asked me typical questions, like what she eats and drinks and does she brush her teeth. I explained she does her attempt of brushing (its improving) but its mostly chewing toothbrush. She wont let us do it. She wont let us floss either. The dentist is not too concerned on that. The dentist was nice, a man, but Katie was afraid of him. Wondering is maybe I should take her to a woman, she reacts better. All in all, they looked in her mouth, with a struggle and dentist said "dont bite", hehhehehe. Anyway, she did get to get a prize out of the bin, she picked a necklace. She came home to brush teeth, which she does like a zillion times a day. So that was her first dentist visit.

Katie is full of words and talk. Half we do not know what she says. She understands all we say. She does not listen but she understands everything. She adds new words daily. Some she says and some she says and signs at the same time but mostlly saying things. Suddenly she says yah yah yah, not yes yes yes. I ask if she wants cheese, yay yay yay she says. She also does the NO no  a lot. Makes it difficult to get her dressed sometimes. She has also put potty in her vocabulary. About a week ago she started to push the potty training a lot. She goes all the time when at home. She started telling me she wants to use the one out when we were eating one day also. (i was not ready for that and i did not think she was) She is getting closer and better at using the potting. Its only about 10 or 15 minutes in the bathroom, not 30. She sits on her little potty, pees then wants to sit on the big potty with her elmo seat, pees again or poops , then wants to use the little potty. She does not seem to empty her bladder in one sitting, she does 2 or 3 or more. It is getting better though and taking less time than last week. She wont wear training pants though, she says no. So we are making some progress I guess. Just get to see where this week takes us.

Will Katie say twenty 10 or two thousand ten? Or both like mommy? Who knows. We had a fun New years eve at www.superfranks.com. we had dinner and coldstone creamery cake. Katie played for about 2 hours. She did not make it to the 9 pm countdown with New York like they were doing. They did a balloon drop and blowers and all, but we went home about 8:40, she was so tired. (probably could have made it) Anyway she really seemed to have fun. Mommy and Daddy survived it, even with 350 people sell out they had. Will post the pictures.

Katie told me today her little people she plays with, one is a boy and one is a girl then added in that she is Katie. Wow, I did not know she knew her name already, that was a first. She is slowly thinking about the potty training thing, slowly. I might have to break down and try the 3 day method or something. She certainly adds new word to her vocabulary each day, both in voice and sign. She is yelling color right now as we speak. She wants to color.

Other things that are new? see my blog for the pictures of the tea party with Aunt Dorothy, so cute. www.blondekris.blogspot.com  She likes to tell me she is swimming in the bath tub, she lays down in the water to swim.

Happy Holidays everyone! Hope you all have had a wonderful Christmas or which ever holiday you celebrate and a fantastic new year in 2010.

Katie had a great Christmas. On December 1, she had an elf come visit. I may have mentioned this before. The elf would be on the shelf or frame or xmas tree, a different place everyday. Katie would look for him when she got up in the morning and say hello. He would watch her all day long no matter where she was. Then each night he would report to Santa if Katie was being naughty or nice. The next morning he would be in a new place to watch her. On Christmas eve, he left and Santa came. (Katie is still looking for him each morning, does not understand yet that he will be back next December)

So on Christmas eve, we went to Aunt Carole and Uncle Tom's on Christmas eve. First we stopped by my Aunt Dorothy. She recently turned 91! She was so happy to see Katie. (This is something I did as I was growing up, on Christmas eve, go to Aunt Dorothy's house and a few other houses) We did not stay long as we needed to go to the Dewing's for dinner. It was a low key group at the Dewings, with James and Sarah, Tom and Carole and us. After dinner and dessert, Katie opened a few gifts. She got a cute fairy princess type outfit from James and Sarah, a leotard with a tutu. She also got a 6ft long centepede from Mike and Amy, it has lots of colors and the alphabet so she can learn colors and the alphabet. She loves it!! We went home and we put Katie to bed so santa could come.

Christmas morning, Katie got up and was so excited to find all the packages and new toys under the tree. Santa left her a little kitchen and a container of foam blocks (200 of them). Katie also got mommy's old cradle for dolls. (Aunt Dorothy painted it about 35 years ago for mommy). She got tons of books, a baby doll, lots of food for her kitchen, clothes and 3 trains. She loves everything and is having fun with it all. Pictures and videos will be posted next and on the blondekris.blogspot.com