Mother Goose!

Today was our last storytime at the public library for the summer and Mother Goose came to share some of her rhymes with them.  She even brought along a few puppets!  After storytime, she let the kids come up and take pictures with her.  My shy little girl was very reluctant, but on the way home she told me all about how Mother Goose talked to her and she said, "Mother Goose is awesome!"



Ready to Dance!

I registered Katie to start her 1st ballet and tap class this school year!  She LOVES her tap shoes!  I can't wait for her to start classes in a couple of weeks.  I don't think she's going to want to participate the 1st week or 2.  I know she'll be really shy at first, but once she warms up to her teacher, other dancers in her class, and the whole idea of dance class I know she will love it!

 

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

 

Kids in the Kitchen

One of my favorite things about the summer is going to playdates with our play group.  All of the other moms and kids are so sweet and we have some really fun, creative playdates.  This week we had a "Kids in the Kitchen" playdate where our fabulous hostess, Brandi shared some fun kid recipes she found at Weelicious, a fun blog with lots of great kid recipes! 

Brandi had all the ingredients for several recipes set up and ready for the kids to put together then they all got to sample the different foods the made.  What a great idea.  We came home with some good new recipes that Katie loves!

I love these next 2 pictures.  It's so much fun to see Katie playing with other kids her age.  She talks about her friends at school, but I don't know them and never get to watch her play with them.  I'm sad that summer is almost over and it may be next summer before we're able to get together with the playgroup again.  :( 



Family Night at Church



Every summer our church started having "family night" a couple of times during the summer.  Everyone brings a picnic dinner, we sing and dance, play games, and praise God.  Good family fun.  Here are some pics from this week's family night...



Gatti Town

Today we met some friends at Gatti Town for lunch.  Usually when we go, we just eat while watching cartoons then leave, but today we played some games for a while too.  We had lots of fun.

Bowling...

Hannah and Daddy went too...

 Air Hockey with Katie's friend, Logan...



Beating the Heat

We have had a really hot summer so we've stayed in way more than I would like to stay out of the heat.  We've kept ourselves busy though...

more tummy time and play time

watching baseball with Daddy

I've been doing lots of sewing/crafts.  I made this dress and bow for Katie.

We finally played in our little blowup pool today.  We haven't even been out there much this summer because it's just way too hot to be outside for very long at all.

Andy let Hannah put her feet in the pool.  She wasn't sure what to think about that.

Katie LOVED having her slide right there and sliding into the pool.  Much better than the built in whale slide on her pool.

On a side note... Katie's new favorite word is "amazing!"  She's so funny.  She says our new car is amazing, Daddy is amazing, her new Veggie Tales silly bands are amazing.  Just about everything is amazing to her.  :)

I'm planning ahead for her Veggie Tales birthday party (still 2 months away) and brought her with me to buy plates, napkins, birthday candle, etc for her birthday party a couple of weeks ago.  Now she keeps telling us we're going to her birthday party.  She doesn't get the concept of time yet.  We keep telling her it's 2 months away but that just goes in one ear and out the other.  Ha!

Fun summer days.  I can't believe it's almost time to go back to school.

Night Night

I love watching my girls sleep.  They look so peaceful.

She loves sleeping on her tummy.  Always has.  I can't wait unti she can roll over both ways really well and I can let her sleep on her tummy at night.  I don't give Hannah tummy time as much as I should but have tried for about the last week to put her on her tummy more often so she can learn to roll over.  She doesn't get much practice in though because she falls asleep after about 5 minutes of tummy time since she likes sleeping on her tummy so much.  LOL

Sweet baby all balled up. 

Wore herself out.

She still sleeps with her hands up in the air sometimes.  Look at how big she is getting in that bassinet!

I like to keep my babies in the bassinet right next to me at night until they are consistently sleeping through the night (9+ hours a night).  Hannah usually goes for an 8 hour stretch and school will be starting in just 3 weeks so I started putting her in her crib last week.  Because I never put her in there for naps or anything, she wasn't used to her room and has not liked it very much.  Tonight though she finally went to sleep without crying.  I think she's getting used to her room.

Katie is not much of a napper.  She's just like her daddy... doesn't need a whole lot of nap time during the day, very much a night owl, has a hard time going to sleep (fights it), but once she's asleep she's such a heavy sleeper!  We always go tuck her in again before we go to bed at night because she doesn't go to sleep right away when we put her in bed and kicks her covers off.  I went to tuck her in a few nights ago and she had taken her pajamas off.  I completely redressed her and she was sleeping so good she had no idea I was even there. 

Yesterday when I went to get her up from her nap, this is how I found her sleeping.  Her bed is full of toys too.  I guess she was bringing toys in her bed to play with when she just finally wore herself out and fell asleep before she made it back in bed.  LOL

 My sweet little girl!

 

Proud Mama!

In Hannah's 3 month update I said it's been a big week in the Knapp house.  Hannah rolled over for the 1st time and we pulled out the bumbo seat and exersaucer for her this week. 

Katie's had a big week too.  She likes to play the Dora Skywriting app on my phone. It's a little challenging for her and she gets frustrated with it but still goes back to that one every time she plays games on my phone. Today I was doing dishes while she was playing with her chalkboard and she said, "Mama do you like my A?" I turned around and saw this!

I thought maybe Andy had written that earlier but then she drew another one.  I'm so proud of her.  She's really growing up!  I love teaching letters and sounds and teaching kids "how" to read.  I love that Katie's getting to the age where I can start teaching her letters and sounds and I'm sure it will feel like not time at all until she's old enough for me to start to teach her to read.  What an exciting age!

We decided to start potty training.  We tried for 2 evenings and all day 1 day and it was an absolute nightmare!  I can honestly say I've loved every minute of parenting (even when we have 2 year old toddler tantrums) but potty training has not been fun.  We were taking her to the potty every 30 minutes and even with a fun potty watch, Emlo potty book, etc she still threw fits most times we took her to the potty.  After the 1st full day, I cried and cried that night feeling like a horrible mother to put her through all of that if she's not ready.  The problem is that her daycare won't move her up to her 3 year old room unless she's fully potty trained so I feel like I have no choice but to do it now, even though she's not quite ready. 

After such a rough day though, I decided to step back and take a break for a little bit.  We'll try again next week.  But yesterday Katie asked me if she could wear her potty watch and sit on the potty.  She woke up from her nap with a completely dry diaper and used the potty when she got up!  It was all instigated by her.  I was so proud of her and she was proud of herself too.  She told me she was using the potty like her friends.  I told her that her friends at school are all learning to use the potty and apparently that was motivating for her.  I'm feeling a little more hopeful now that maybe next week when we try it again that it will go smoother.

Butterflies

A little over a month ago I got a butterfly pavillion for Katie and ordered some caterpillars.  She knew right away that the caterpillars would turn into butterflies and we watched them and talked about what was happening as they made their big transformation.  This week the butterflies finally came out of their chrysalids and we let them go yesterday.

We had 3 pink lady butterflies to set free in our back yard.



Sci-Tech Discovery Center and Legos

Our playgroup went to the Sci Tech Discovery Center last week.  I wasn't sure there would be much there for a 2 year old, but Katie had a blast.  There was plenty of stuff there she could do.



Of all the things there, her favorite was the Legos.  She played with them for quite a while when we got there and went back to them after exploring everything else there.  She played with those things for a while even after all of her playgroup friends left. 

Because she loved the Legos so much, after the Discovery Center, Andy and I took Katie to the Lego store and got her a Lego train.  Andy likes Legos too so he had fun helping Katie put it all together.

She loves watching the train go around the track.

I used to sit like this all the time when I was little.

So excited.