Big Night for Verbal Skills

Before tonight, Andrina spoke 30+ words and has said one three-word phrase, "I love you". Her saying that phrase has everything to do with me encouraging her to say it for over a month now. It was not something she said completely on her own.

Well, tonight during her story-time, she hit a few more verbal milestones. When she saw a picture of a baby in one of her books, instead of just saying, "baby" like she usually does, she uttered her first spontaneous two-word phrase. Andrina said, "hi baby" and waved at the baby too!

Then when we were reading the word "horse" (which she can read because she points at her ride-on-toy horse when she sees the word), she pointed at the horse and I said "horse" and asked her to say it too. Which she did! Add another word to her 30+ list!

Last one for the night: when I turned off her lights and turned on her stars that are projected onto the ceiling and walls and showed them to her (like I do every night because she likes looking at her stars), she repeated the word "stars" for me when I asked her to! Yea! Two new words added to the list!

"I Love You"

Tonight I was reading to Andrina before bed, just like I do every night. And tonight, I was reading to her one of our favorite books titled "I Love You Through and Through". I've read her this book at least 50 times since she recieved it as a gift in June for her Christening. And for weeks now I've been trying to get her to say "I love you". Well, tonight right after I read her the first page of the book, which is the same as the title, she turned to me, took her fingers out of her mouth, and said, "I love you"!!!!!!!
I love you too, Andrina!

Another Dose of Christmas!

Today was a much better day for us than yesterday. It's too bad that yesterday was officially Christmas because Andrina had a fever yesterday and was cranky all day. My poor baby woke up crying on Christmas day and I felt so bad for her. Because she wasa not feeling good, it took us literally all day long yesterday to get Andrina to open her presents. Today was much better, her fever is gone and she is back to her happy little self. So here's more pictures of her playing with more Christmas presents from this morning...

I got her a toy shopping cart because she loves to push things!

I apparantly made a good choice!

Andrina is pointing to the doll and verbally telling me that it's Ernie
On her new pink pony ride-on

Playing with her new mega-blocks. She has spent a lot of time playing with these blocks. I knew she'd really like them when I bought them!

And from tonight at Doreen's for our Christmas get-together:

Andrina and Grandpa

Opening more presents!

MERRY CHRISTMAS 2008

Here's some pictures from our Christmas today. They are mainly of Andrina with her gifts:

Long Time Coming

I recently started a list of the words that Andrina can read. It's not done yet due to her cold, my cold and sinus infection and being busy from the holidays. So I'll have to blog that when it's done. However, here for my own memories is a list of (most) of all the words that Andrina now speaks:

Momma
Dadda
Elmo
ball
baby
bear
Ernie
Bird (as in Big Bird)
Abby (as in Abby Cadabby)
block
book
duck
dog
cat
head
hair
coat
hat
shoes
car
up
keys
kick
camel
chick
apple
juice
all gone
piano
hi
bye

"Upside Down Baby"...

... is one of Andrina's favorite games. We've been playing it for at least 8 months now. Here's some pictures from it from today. I don't have much in the way of blogging lately as I am just now starting to feel better from a bad sinus infection. There will be more blogging to come!

Upside down!

and right side up again!

Welcome Aydan!

Congratulations Becca and Eric! I am so happy to hear that little Aydan made a safe entrance into the world today! Becca Hon, please have a very speedy recovery. I can't wait until I'm completely better so I can meet your new little boy and see you. Hugs and kisses!

Happy 17 Months Old!

I love you!

Getting Better

I have not blogged much this week. That is mostly because Andrina came down with a case of pink eye and a bad cold. I took her to the pediatrician Monday and she got eye drops to fight off the pink eye. The bad news is, she really hates it when I put the eye drops in, the good news is her eyes have cleared up and her cold is a lot better now. Now Tom and I have her cold! But that's ok, I'd rater be the one sick then my baby. She was pretty cranky this week but she's back to her usual happy little baby self. As for the rest of what's going on, we got the tree up and decorated and wrapped many Christmas gifts.

Here's just an adorable pic of Andrina with an Elmo doll from yesterday. OMG my baby is such a cutie! Look at how sweet she is! I love those curls and her big hazel eyes!

KICK

Andrina can definatley read the word "kick". Yippee!

I Forgot...

...to blog that Andrina is now really enjoying school! There are no more tears when I drop her off in the mornings (and it's only 2 days a week). She goes and plays with the other kids and toys and I tell her that I'm going, I'll be back later, and can I have a hug? She comes and hugs me then goes back to playing. She eats her lunch, takes a nap, and has fun! I am so happy that it is working out. It is good for her and now that I have the holiday madness to deal with, it's been easier to do all that "stuff" and not have to worry about her. It really helps to get more done. But I still can't wait to see her at the end of the day!

A Letter From Shellie

Dear Santa,
I've been a very good girl this year. I am a very good mom and wife who is pressed for time, very busy, and quite stressed out. For Christmas this year I'd like to have
1. More hours in the day
2. Need less sleep
3. Have more time to study
4. Have more time to exercise
5. Have more time to blog
6. And most important of all, I'd like to have more time to spend with my baby. Actually, could you keep her just the way she is, right now, for longer? I am so loving this stage of her development and I want to enjoy it forever.

Ok, I understand that these are unreasonable requests. If I can't get any of the above for Christmas, could I please have a new computer?

My current computer is 3 years old and its age is showing. Its processor is not capable of handeling all of my applications for long. It takes quite awhile to upload to blogger, myspace, facebook and to do my emailing, online shopping (I'm buying many presents this way) and access my word files and photos while having my iTunes playing too.

Please send me a new computer for Christmas. One with a extremely fast processor and huge memory capabilities. A faster computer would mean I would spend less time on the computer and have more time for my baby, my friends and family, and myself. Thank you.

Love, Shellie

Too Busy

Life is too busy. And now that the holidays are upon me, I am ever more busy than ever. I still don't have my tree up. I still don't have a tree! Our tree got ruined when our basement flooded and Tom and I need to buy a new one. That's a whole day's project to get the tree and up and decorated. And that's without taking care of a baby. And I am having a lot of trouble keeping up with blogging. And I now have a myspace and facebook pages for networking. Because I need to get liscensed (and I have to study) because I have to go back to work at some point. Because my baby won't be a baby forever and before I know it she'll be in school full-time. And she's the most important part of my life. I want to spend all of my time with her. But there are too many other demands on me. I'm getting pretty stressed out. I need a time out!

Christmas Portraits with a Toddler

I am so glad my morning was a success and is over with! I had an appointment at Penny's for Andrina's Christmas portraits today. All in all, it was a success but the experience was really difficult to deal with. For starters, toddlers generally don't do well sitting for portraits. Andrina certainly didn't when it was time for her 1 year old ones. In fact, it was so bad for those that she cried and was cranky the entire time so we had to do those twice. So I was not looking forward to today's Christmas ones.

Andrina did not want to cooperate with her portrait sitting. She was walking all over, trying to walk out the door. When I'd sit her down, she'd either get up and refuse to sit back down, or she'd start crying. As if me asking her to sit and be still for 5 seconds was taking away from her freedom. Well, yes techincally it is but it's only for a little while! There were a few quiet moments when she was standing up and looking at the Christmas tree there. And she did turn to the camera and kind of smiled so the photographer got a good shot with those (and that pose is her "official" Christmas one for this year). She did sit quietly with a Christmas book so we got some good shots of that. The worst of it was when she was crying and reaching for me when I stepped about 4 feet away from her, out of the shot. She really was acting like I was going to abandon her. Towards the end of the session, I literally was singing and dancing behind the photographer to get her to be happy and smile. Thankfully, it worked! I had to sing the "Elmo's World" theme for her and I danced for her too. But it worked and there were about 6 different "poses" of her that I bought portraits of. I also had our Christmas cards made from those and all will be ready to be picked up next Wednesday. But they gave me the envelopes today so I can address them by next week.

My goal is to get all 50something envelopes addressed by the weekend. I did want to do a family portrait for our cards this year, but I can't go through that again! One Christmas photo session for Andrina is enough. Hopefully she's be better able to deal with it at Easter time.