A girl and her daddy

What's the cutest thing you've ever seen??

Well, I'll show you:
A little girl, in her princess underwear no less, helping her Daddy paint her room!

We decided to add a pale yellow accent wall in Hannah's room to match her new bedding and she could not have been more excited to help. There was even a Hannah sized paint roller in the kit we purchased- it couldn't have been more perfect!

No more bending down to get the pesky bottom part of the wall- just emplore your small child that is MORE than willing to help.

And voila- you've got yourself the most adorable 3 year old's bedroom ever!

Let's just hope she doesn't want to change the color in about 2 days...

Where has the time gone???

My beautiful, tiny baby girl- where has time gone? I just left you at the neighbors to play, by yourself, for the first time... to put it mildly I'm sort of freaking out! While telling grandma that I just sent you there- to the house that is 2 doors down, that I can see into their backyard when I look just right out of our bathroom window on the second story- I almost started to cry. I'm realizing these last 3 1/2 years have gone by so quickly, it feels like just yesterday you were in your carseat ready for your 2-day check-up with the pedicatrician
but here you are now, 3 1/2 years old and can hardly wait to be 4 years old! I'll admit, at times I do want you to be older and a little more independent- to be able to bathe yourself, get a bowl of cereal in the morning by yourself, and maybe wash dishes from our dinner at night- but then I get these strong feelings of wanting to hold on to you and have you be young forever. Just today while I was cradling you, walking you up the stairs for your nap, I asked if you could always be my baby and you responded "I can stay little forever, for you mommy!"

Sometimes, I feel this time has gone so quickly because there were so many times that I wanted it to go quickly, is this my own fault? Did I not cherich every moment of 3 am feedings and screaming tantrums enough? No, of course I don't want those exact moments back, but being your parent has been the best experience and I would NEVER trade it for a second. Now I just can't help but think of how I need to stop wanting to see what is in the future and the things I can't wait to see you do because you're already growing up way too quickly.

Moving into this neighborhood, noticing all the young families with young kids, I was so excited to have you and the neighborhood kids play at eachothers house. Heck, for the past 6 months that we have lived here, every day after nap I'm always getting us outside to play and ride your bike or go on a walk and maybe we'll make a friend that is also outside. But I just never thought I would feel so overwhelmed with wanting to hold on to you more once you did make a friend and wanted to go to her house to play and out of the corner of your mouth say: "Mom, can you go? I wanna play here without you." So, finally after about 3 days of talking to the mom, and watching how Hannah and the little girl play, I finally let go and when I walked her down to her house, asked the older sister, then yelled out to the mom if it was ok for Hannah to play, I told her I would come by when it was time to come home- her eyes lit up and she asked "are you gonna let me play here without you?" and I said yes, she basically said "cool, don't let the door hit 'ya on the way out!" I now understand empty nest syndrome, I always figured by that point you would be kicking your kids out, but no way, I totally get it! Hannah has been playing for 35 minutes and I understand the empty nest syndrome... what do I do with myself??

Is it too soon to go get her? Undoubtedly, dragging her home kicking and screaming just wanting to run back to her friends house! Nah, I'll let her play another 2 minutes, 3 tops!

Mini Golf

We took Hannah for her first mini-golf experience this last Sunday and we had a great time!! She did so good and tried really hard! For most of the holes she would run up and put the ball in whatever opening door or spinning windmill and run down to swing the club and knock the ball in the hole. I love that we have found another activity we can all enjoy together and Hannah can't wait to go again! Below are lots of pictures from our fun day:
Hole #1!

Waiting so patiently for the people ahead of us to finish up!

She tried really hard to get the ball around the loop...

Eventually realized it probably wasn't gonna go around and pouted for a minute!

Then got over it and got back to playing!

Used the ramp to the house as a slide down!!

A purple ball!!! My favorite color!!

She is constantly talking about this castle- we drive past it whenever we go to school or to Nana's and she always says in the most pitiful voice: "I wish I could go to that castle", so we had to pose for a picture in front of the famous castle! I wonder what's she's gonna think about the Disneyland castle??

Getting good at aiming her shots.

She swings and scores!!! This is how she ended each hole!

I was a little worried that she would get disinterested in playing after a few holes but just the opposite happened- she was upset when we got to the last hole. She couldn't understand why we couldn't go do the other side of the golf course and play that side too. Which brings me to my question- why can't mini golf places have only 1 round of 18 holes??? Seriously trying to explain to a 3 year old that we only paid for 1 round and that it's hot outside and time to go home was way to difficult. But she left like such a big girl and cannot wait to go back again! I wonder what we'll be doing this summer...

Easter

We had such a wonderful Easter this year! It started off with getting Hannah's picture taken with the Easter bunny. I wasn't sure how this was going to go, because personally the big rabbit looks kind of scary, but Hannah ran straight to him and gave him a hug! It was so cute, while we were waiting for our picture to be printed she was blowing the bunny kisses!
The day before Easter, we colored eggs. She does such a good job at keeping everything clean and not spilling the cups of dye. Since we colored eggs last year and she was so very careful then, I knew we would have a similar experience.

So excited waiting for the color to stick! She mostly colored all the eggs yellow or green- I was suprised she didn't do very many pink or purple eggs since she LOVES those colors.

I kept trying to get her to draw on the eggs with the special crayon first but she wasn't too interested in that. So I would ask her what I should draw and she would tell me. She wanted to write "Grandma and Etta" on one egg, I drew a bunny on another, I wrote "I love daddy", and for the last egg she wanted me to write "Table and chairs"!! I was cracking up, I guess since we were at the dining table is how she came up with that!

She was so excited for Easter morning. She came into our bed to cuddle for a minute in the morning and then realized it was Easter and asked "Did the Easter bunny bring me anything??" She could hardly wait for us to brush our teeth so she could go downstairs and see what she got.

The bunny was very good to Hannah this year... in fact I think she went a little overboard- but Hanah loved everything she got.

Even though we dyed eggs the day before, the weather was so bad that we hid plastic eggs that had candy inside all over the house. It tok her about 2.5 seconds to find the eggs! Next year we'll have to think of better hiding spots than in plain site!! But she had a blast getting all the eggs!

She then had a blast eating ALL the candy that came in those eggs!! Later in the morning, Grandma, Grandpa, and Nana came over for brunch. It was such a lovely morning and it was great spending the day with family!

Our Baby Girl

Well, I guess not really a "baby" anymore, our BIG girl is 6 months older (well almost, in 2 more weeks), Hannah will be 3 1/2 years old!! I really cannot believe how time flies! The day to day does not seem to go fast enough sometimes, when all we want is for the end of the day for Daddy to come home, but looking back it's amazing how long we have been blessed with our sweet girl! Lately, she's been moving past the terrible two's, which has been wonderful- we rarely experience tantrums anymore. With that being said we are experiencing a whole other side of our sweet girl, and the only way I can describe it is by saying she is starting to be, what I call, a typical kid! Hannah has always been really well behaved- she never stood on furniture, she wouldn't do things after we told her not to, she wouldn't really talk back, and over all she never really had a mischievous way about her... until now! I don't know what has gotten into this kid, but for some reason running on the couch has suddenly become a great idea to her! We will see her start to do something that we don't want her to, and she'll look straight at us and do it anyway! She gets this look of happiness on her face when she knows she's misbehaving, and I don't like it one bit!! Thankfully, it hasn't been for anything too serious, but it can still be aggrivating. I am also thankful, that she knows from right and wrong and will usually follow rules really well in public. In fact she gets so upset when other kids are not behaving in public, and she has become a taddle-tale. At the park, if kids are cutting the line for slide, she looks over at me like: "Do something, they just cut in line!!". Beside this new personality she has, she is still so funny! I swear, we crack up everyday from the silly things she says! Her favorite things to do include: playing at the park, digging in the sand, lately she's gotten into playing with her babies and wanting to dress them, she loves to play with water in a bowl in the sink still, she's been wanting to paint a lot lately, she could watch movies ALL day long if we let her (she totally took after me and the whole tv watching thing, I could sit on the couch forever if good tv was on!), she likes to just run around in the neighborhood, she loves being "mommy" which just means she bosses Nick and I around without getting in trouble for being rude, and she loves to "read" my books- obviously there are no pictures so I don't know what she is looking at, but she always has to take at least 2 of my books to bed with her to look at! She is getting pretty good at keeping herself occupied if I ask her to go play and she is really into pretending and talking out loud to herself! She also HAS to do everything herself: she washes herself, gets herself dressed everyday (which a big help to me in the morning), wants to choose her clothing each day, she puts salt and pepper on her food (which sometimes gets "spicy")...ect! Her favorite foods at the moment are: pancakes (which she could eat every morning, but I don't have time to make them before school), bunny fruit snacks, strawberries, bananas (still!), applesauce, mac n' cheese (she would eat this everyday too), "hamburgers" (a hamburger bun, with american cheese and turkey lunch meat), she also eats a piece of american cheese everyday while I cook dinner because she can see it in the drawer when I open the fridge (which I think is so gross, but she loves it), popsicles, and she loves our trips to frozen yogurt- she usually gets vanilla or strawberry if they have it and she tops it with marshmallows, chewies (mini gummy bears), and 1 more item that changes (m&m's, sprinkles, chocolate chips). Her schedule is pretty much the same, but she has been sleeping a little later than usual, waking up or having to be woken up for school, by 7:30. She thankfully still takes naps, we puther down by 1pm and she will sleep until 3-3:30 on good days, and then she goes down to bed by 8pm, but is up talking to herself for awhile after that. At 3 1/2 years old, Hannah is constantly keeping us entertained- sometimes it's positive and other times not so much, but we love her little scrunchy nose smile so much and her crazy loud laugh keeps us laughing! We are so proud to be the parents of such an intelligent, sweet hearted, funny little girl and we often wonder how we got so lucky!

The Next Olympic Star?

Will Hannah follow my dream of becoming an Olympic gymnast?? That is still to be determined, but what can be seen is how much fun Hannah had at her first gymnastics class! I always knew that if I had a little girl I would put her in gymnastics, hoping she would totally love it. I always wanted to do gym as a kid but it was just too expensive, but now, (since I am obviously living through my child), I have the opportunity to watch Hannah enjoy it!! This might be a short lived thing, and that's ok, I just wanted to get her into an activity young, so she has the opportunity to see what she is into and what she isn't. When I asked her what she wanted to do, her first choice was soccer, which I looked into, and they don't have any leagues that aren't parent participation, until kids are 4. The next choice she made was gymnastics- which made me thrilled! She attended her free class at Tricks Gym this morning and after seeing how much she enjoyed it I think we will be signing her up and this will become a weekly thing... until she finds another activity she just has to do!

During the warm-up, she listened very well but was a little apprehensive with doing the hand motions to the songs and stuff, so she just sat quietly waiting for what she really wanted to do- the trampoline! They broke the class up into a few groups and they had the kids do circuits for about 10 minutes on each one. The first circuit, the teacher was having to help her and show her at each step. The second circuit, was the tampoline which she needed no help with. It was adorable how excited she was- when the teacher was explaining what they were to do, Hannah kept looking at friends next to her with the hugest smile on her face, it was like she was saying: "Can you believe we get to do this!!! I can't wait until my turn!". She hopped up to be the first one jumping and went to town! By the last circuit, she totally had the hang of it- except for the somersault down the triangle, she kept wanting to just lay flat on her tummy and not bend at the hips. I know she'll get it soon, but it was really cute to see her trying! She also kept looking over and Nick and I and would say: "Look, momy and daddy, I'm doing it!!" I think it's so important for her to be able to do something on her own, without our help, but have us their cheering her on! She looked so proud whenever she finished something!!
Somersaulting (with a little help) down the triangle pad.

She did awesome at the bar- the rolling pad underneath her helped her be able to swing back and forth really well!

Hahaha This was another thing she will need to work on- rolling down the triangle like a "hot dog", maybe it's because she doesn't eat hot dogs, but for some reason her rolls were all over the place! She could 've cared less though, she still had fun and by the end of class she was just scooting down this one on her tushy!

Another fave- a mini trampoline used to jump onto a taller square pad.

Then a slide down! Weeeeeeeee

Finally hop, hop, hop back to the begining of the circuit!

Next stop- picking out a cute, tiny leotard!!

Our Backyard Oasis!

That's what we are calling it- our backyard oasis! hahaha We are so excited that the weather was finally nice long enough to dry up all the nasty clay-like dirt we had in our backyard so it could be replaced with beautiful grass!! I was hoping for it to be done before Easter, so the Easter bunny had a place to "hide" the eggs for Miss Hannah and I'm happy to say it is done with 2 weeks to spare! In the Spring and Summer months we practically live out back- playing during the day and drinking and BBQing at night with friends, so we are really looking forward to breaking in the new digs in the coming months.
Here is what 2800 square feet of perfect, green sod looks like when it gets delivered... on a Saturday morning at 6:40 am- sorry neighbors, hope you don't hate us too much for the lovely wake-up call from the big rig and lifts bringing our sod in!
Our backyard before....

Our backyard after!!

It's so perfect and lush!! In the next few months we are probably going to get a trampoline for Hannah... and of course for Nick and I- I always wanted one as a kid and now I can finally get one!!

Our next step in making our backyard perfect for entertaining was installing speakers! (If the neighbors didn't hate us for the sod delivery noise then they will now when we are playing music outside during our BBQ's!)

Of course what would a backyard be without proper lighting?? Nick hard at work putting up our new lights- I just hope they actually give enough light to see out there, with no street lights in the alleys at night, our backyard is pretty dark!

He totally loves that I document every little thing in our lives with pictures!! How am I supposed to blog and update the world if I don't snap a few photos??

Up next is our outdoor kitchen- we have ordered the BBQ and island and it should be done and delivered in about a week. Then our backyard should be done for good and ready for fun!!