Beebop-a-Lula

Another ham in the family.

Regular view:

Artsy view:

Two different interpretations of the same subject: Daddy

Rosie's drawing

one of Lulu's many pictures of Dad

Yesterday the girls had themselves a little dress up day in their fairy best. Rosie was sort of a pirate fairy. She had on her beautiful pink tutu but put on her pirate hat and kept yelling “YARGH!” Lulu looked like some sort of nymph wearing one of her really short skirts on her head. And of course there was a little dance party!

Video may take a moment to load. It kills me when I thank Lulu in the video and she says “oh, don’t mention it!”

Rosie got a taste of the snow while her sister was in school. She loved it!

I’ve been bad about updating the girl’s blog, I admit. Things have been very busy as a lot of you know, but my little ladies have been growing and changing and I just need to start documenting it.

Rosie turned 2 in November. We had a very nice party at Grammy & Grampy K’s house. The weather was gorgeous and warm, so the kids got to spend a good chunk of the day playing outside.

A week after her birthday she had her two year check-up. Over the summer Rose shot up in height and slimmed out a lot. Her stats were:

height: 36″
weight: 27.8 lbs

Ever since then it’s like the development floodgates opened up WIDE! Her speech and vocabulary has improved in leaps and bounds. She picks things up really fast (probably because she has a big sister) and she’s talking in full sentences now for the most part. She knows her alphabet, can count on her own up to about 15 and knows her shapes. We’re working on her colors. She is a great little artist, holding her pen or crayon the “right” way and drawing very intricate faces (complete with ears and hats) and lots of circles.

Rose’s personality is very different from Lulu’s. They’re both sweet and really funny. Both have really huge personalities, but Rosie has an unbelievable temper (must be the Italian side coming through). She’s not quite as easy going as her sister, which can make outing a little hairy.

Some of my favorite things about Rose:

• I love how she dances! She’s got great moves.
• When she runs after her father yelling, “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!” It’s too cute.
• When she looks at me and says “hi Mumma” waving her arm stiffly.
• Lately she won’t go anywhere without her blanket (the black & white striped one that I made). There’s a corner on it that has a long piece of yarn hanging off and she will turn the blanket all around to find that one piece, just so she can tickle her nose with it.
• She’s super snuggly.
• Her big brown eyes and long eyelashes.
• Her big belly! She’s a skinny little thing now but when you take her clothes off she has this BIG baby belly. It’s awesome.
• Her awesome laugh.

We’ve recently stopped using her high chair. Because her sister sits on a stool in the kitchen, she decided she wanted to as well. So far, so good. She hasn’t fallen off yet. And the potty has once again taken up residence in the bathroom. She’s been sitting on it and whenever someone goes near the bathroom she announces that she’s going to go pee, but she hasn’t used it yet.

It also seems like we’ll be moving her into a bed soon. Over the past couple of weeks we can’t seem to keep her sister out of her crib and in the mornings I’ll find both of them in there. It’s cute because I will hear them giggling and tickling each other. When it’s quiet for a few moments I’ll hear Rose say, “hi Lulu.” I know that it’s typical for girls to do this when they share a room, but it’s not so cute when they are squealing at 3am.

Lulu has been going through some growing pains but I think we’re nearing the tail end of any more major problems. Since she turned 3 there has been a lot of conflict and temper tantrums as she tries to exert independence and figure things out for herself. She can be insufferably defiant at times, but mostly she is a sweet little thing. Life is all about Daddy these days as well. She cannot wait for him to come home from work every day and on the weekends if he tries to sleep in she will climb into bed and usually poke at him until he gets up.

She’s gone through a big growth spurt and all of a sudden is super tall! Actually, that’s true for both girls. I have to go through their clothes again because some of them are too small.

School has done wonders for her. She’s become more outgoing and talkative, more social. Now that she is comfortable there she looks forward to going and doesn’t hesitate to see me leave anymore.She is a sponge and loves to learn new things. Lately we’ve been learning how to write the alphabet and she’s begun writing letters on her own, easy ones like “A”, “T”, “H”, “M”. She also sounds out the first letter of words and figures out what letter that word begins with. Not bad for a 3 yr. old, I dare say.

Both girls are still taking swim lessons and doing great. Lulu went up a level and Rose will most likely go up a level in the Spring. They also both love to draw and color. We have the dining room table permanent set up with coloring books, crayons, paper and markers. It’s a frequent go-to area throughout the day.

I will try to be better about updating from now on. I think I just got out of the habit for a while.

So here’s what we’ve been up to the past few months, in picture form (not necessarily in chronological order)! We went to see Yo Gabba Gabba live with Aunties Chrissy & Sara, had a beach day in October, fun in the fall, Halloween, Rosie’s 2nd birthday and Christmas!

Time to start back up with the updates. We had a busy summer. A family wedding, lots of beach visits, story time at the Peabody Essex Museum, visiting, BBQs and local field trips.

Lulu turned three and is no longer in diapers. Rosie grew two inches and is starting to talk more and more. School has started and Lulu loves it. Rose and I have been spending some quality one on one time together. My girls are lovely and full of love. They amaze us daily at how smart and beautiful they are. We are lucky.

Instead of trying to recall every significant event that’s happened this summer I’ll just post lots of photos. And end with a promise of trying to be better at updating.

I don’t even know where to begin when it comes to Lulu these days. Lately, I’ve been struck with the fact that she is no longer a baby. I watch her play and the way she runs, climbs, jumps, twirls and hops…she’s a kid now! She makes up silly songs and scenarios using her imagination and she plays with dollies, dances around builds with blocks and sings songs…and she IS a little girl.

The biggest thing we’ve been up to the past few weeks is potty training! It was a rocky start, beginning with using the little potty chair. She did great starting out with that. Then she used the regular commode one night and she never wanted to use the potty chair after that. I got her one of the little seat inserts for the toilet and she used that for a few days, but then decided she didn’t want to use that anymore. Then there were a few set backs, frustrations and even flat out refusal to use the potty.

But the past few days there’s been an amazing transformation with her. She’s finally “getting it”. Today was the first day she spent totally out of diapers. I took her to Target to pick out her own underwear (she chose Paul Frank monkey panties and Disney fairies, cuz she’s all into fairies these days). She successfully used the restroom while we were there and I was astounded. Yes, this is what my life has been reduced to…

We’ve also hit DRESS UP stage (my favorite)! She frequently leave the house wearing strange little outfits. After Easter she refused to leave the house without wearing her bunny ears. One day it was one of daddy’s t-shirts. Some days it’s the devil hat. And the other day she was in full on fairy mode. It’s really fun to see what she comes up with and in Salem, no one cares!

Her communication and speech patterns have changed dramatically. For the most part she has learned how to properly use her pronouns, especially when talking about herself. She’s very polite (although still learning). I love when one of us says thank you to her she says “YouAre Welcome.” It never fails to pull a giggle out of Forrest and me.

It’s crazy to think that she’ll be 3 years old in a few weeks. People weren’t kidding when they told us that the time would go by fast. It has but it’s been amazing to watch her transform from infant to toddler to an incredibly beautiful, smart, sometimes stubborn but mostly silly little girl.

I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that my little cherub is a year and a half. I feel like I say this a lot when it comes to both girls, but she has changed a whole lot over the past couple of months. Her face is changing, she’s getting really tall and has slimmed out a lot (still has that big baby belly, though, which I love!).

Since she started walking she’s been running around all over the place like a pro…inside in the house. Outside the house she’s kind of a spaz. One of the first days I took her out of her stroller to walk around outside, she started to run so fast that momentum took her faster than her feet could go and she fell flat on her face. GIANT fat lip. I felt like the worst mom in the world. Since then I’ve been making it a point to take both girls out on short walks without the stroller, so she can get used to walking on bricks and uneven walkways around town.

fat lip

It’s interesting to see how Rosie is progressing since she has an older sister that sets an example. A result of that is that she is fiercely independent, she refuses to hold my hand while walking and gets frustrated if we offer to help her with more advanced things. The iPhone frustrates her because she isn’t as adept at using it as Lulu is.

Her vocabulary has been growing exponentially and I hear her singing quite often (the alphabet, Ring around the Rosie, Elmo’s theme-she has the melodies down. The words will come soon.). She and her sister are starting to have more fun together, which I love to see. Sometimes I catch Lulu trying to hug her (which ends up in a choke hold) or Rose will dive on Lulu if she’s on the floor. They even gave each other a kiss yesterday which turned me into a total gushing idiot.

Lately she’s been a real momma’s girl. She sits snuggled in my lap for most of the morning while I drink coffee and we watch Sesame Street. I have to admit that I eat it all up with a spoon, but it gets difficult when both girls are clamoring for my attention.

Did I mention that she started going to swim lessons? We started her around the same age that we had Lulu start, but Rosie started at a level up. She likes the water and she does well considering she’s the youngest in the class, but she’s still getting used to being in the pool environment. I purposely don’t sit on the side during her classes because she gets distracted when I’m there. Like this:

Ok, I feel like this has been a long update, but it has been a while so…I’ll just post a few more photos and consider it done.