Macy's Life at 2!

I can't believe I've known my baby for two whole years! I guess I can't even call her a baby anymore. The day she turned two she changed so much. It's nice that we've been with family for her two birthdays and her two biggest milestones: walking and talking. Right on her second birthday her talking took off. She had a few words before but she now repeats almost everything we tell her. It's very cute and I love her adorable voice!

Macy continually teaches me how to love. I love her more than words can explain and if it's possible I love her more everyday. It's been wonderful getting to know her fun and cute personality over these two years.

I want to share some of her newest discoveries and talents so you can know her cute personality too. These are all things she up to right now:

• Calls the camera "cheese" and puts it up to her face while she says it. Look closely at this picture  

• Loves to carry purses and uses anything with a handle big enough to go on her shoulder as a purse. Some times as were walking out the door she'll realize she doesn't have one and we have to go back to find one for her.
• LOVES her new kitchen and playing with the food. She has a great imagination when it comes to eating the food. 

             

• LOVES her new castle that daddy gave her even more

• She discovered her love of dancing. She dances whenever Ja plays the guitar or whenever she hears music. 
• A lot of her dancing is spinning in circles but also consists of head jerking and up and down arm movements.
• Calls minnie mouse (and all other mice) "mommy mouse"
• Being very shy around new people- or even people she hasn't seen in a couple of days. It takes a while for her to warm up. She only looks at strangers out of the corner of her eye
• talks on the phone- she picks it up says hi, some gibberish, and then BYE!
• Favorite food: (besides candy) pasta, black beans, shredded cheese
• Favorite activity: playing with daddy,
• Favorite color: purple (she's good at pointing it out but is quickly learning the other colors)
• Favorite person: Lily. She also talks a lot about Papa and Jill
• Favorite shows: Fresh Beat Band, Pocoyo
• Sleeps with: baby doll, pink blanket, 2 binkies (beesees), cup of milk (milt), and a book
• Likes nursery and "tells" is what she did her her own words and actions
• Talks about Addie and Hallie a lot and wants to play with them
• Good at having conversations with herself. She talks quietly and does things in her own world
• VERY GOOD at saying please (peese) and thank you (tank you mommy). Most of the time I don't have to remind her. She says thank you for everything! During Christmas break my dad moved her car seat once and every time it was moved after that she would say "Tank you papa!" upon seeing her car seat.
• Great at pretend play and will mimic the things we do and have showed her to do previously
• Very good at feeding herself with silverware (and her fingers)
• Anything that is small is "baby" and anything that is big is "mommy" or "daddy"
• Often after she is done eating dinner she wants to immediately play with daddy
• Will answer yes to questions but a lot of the time is an enthusiastic "YEAH!"
• Won't ride in the regular cart at the grocery store. If she remembers she has to sit in reclined infant seat. I hope she doesn't break it, luckily she's small.
• Terrified of animals getting close to her. She likes to talk about them but not see them up close. The other day she was scared of a butterfly.
• Likes to count: 3-2-2-3-2-3
• If she's doing an activity and we start to do it with her sometimes she'll say, "No, Macy!" which means we can't do it, only her.
• Loves building "house" out of pillows
• She's good at remembering certain events. Once Ja accidentally hit her head on the car and for a week every time we got in the car should would point to the spot, point to her head, then say daddy.
• If something is done once, it has to be done that way every time
• loves to play with my jewelry. Luckily she got her own jewelry box for Christmas so I don't have to lose anymore earrings.
• Lately she's been very cuddly- I love it!
• She greatly enjoys playing with her cousins. Yesterday she played with Caleb and Mark for 2 hours and threw a huge tantrum when we had to leave. Mark enjoys Macy too and calls her "Simi." Macy calls Henry "Honey" and loves to follow him around.
• Loves going to Trader Joe's and sampling their cheeses. She is a lover of strong cheese. Here she is enjoying goat cheese with Holly. 

Macy's 2nd Birthday

Macy is such a lucky little girl! She has so many people who love her and want to celebrate with her. We didn't do a big group birthday party so we had a smaller group at Chuck E Cheese's. The attendants were: my parents, my Francis grandparents, Jill, Ja, Granny Dot, and Henry. Small and low-key and perfect.

When we got there Macy runs right to the rides. We let her sit on them but didn't have any quarters yet to turn them on. I thought she would love the little rides since she loved the little pony and carousel at the pumpkin patch. I couldn't have been more wrong, she was terrified once they started moving! She wouldn't go on them at all. I was worried that this party was going to be cut short, but she quickly learned the word money and loved putting the tokens in the games and getting the tickets.

We had about a million tokens so we let her put in as many tokens as she wanted into whatever games she wanted. As soon as she put in a token she would say, "More money peese!" At first she loved the one where it takes your picture with Chuck E. Then she liked the one that drew your picture. We have about 5 copies of each. Once we showed her the games that gave tickets there was no going back. She actually earned 226 tickets (maybe with some help from the adults).

Macy really enjoyed ski ball. Most of her balls rolled back down the ramp so I rolled them back up for her. Some balls even went behind her. We played this game many times.

We took a break from playing games to eat pizza, open presents (which she really loved), and had cupcakes. She really liked that we sang to her and that she got to blow out a candle. She wanted to blow again so we lit the candle and told her to blow. She then pointed to us which meant we had to sing again before she would blow out her candles. Macy also requested a 2nd song and candle blowing at each of her other 2 birthday celebrations on our trip.

She loved her Dora tent from Grandma

We were originally going to the Chuck E. Cheese in Placentia but changed to go to the one in Diamond Bar so it would be closer for Dorothy and Henry. We ended up being really glad we did because we drive past it every time we drive from my parents house going to my in-laws house. You can see it from the freeway so it's a great reminder of what we did for our little angel's 2nd birthday party and all the fun we had. When we would drive past Macy said "More chuckecheese, more chuckecheese!" She loved it so much that her loving aunt's took her  again to spend the rest of her million tokens.  

Happy Birthday Macy!

December 2011- Pre Christmas

I've already blogged about our hot chocolate race, seeing the temple lights, and about Macy taking naps again so here is the rest of our month in pictures.

I bought Macy her own little Christmas tree. She loved to take the ornaments on and off,

I think children are born with the instinct to love band-aids. Macy loves to put on her "owie's" and also loves to hold the neosporin tube as well.

We went to a holiday concert at a local high school that was geared towards toddlers. It was really fun because Macy enjoyed it immensely. She did not want it to end and when it was over she kept asking for more. They had special guests that came and danced such as: Dora, Pooh, Tigger, Bob-the-Builder, Elmo, Cookie Monster, Big Bird, and of course Santa.

As the weather started to get cooler we often would walk around at the mall. Macy loves the lego bin wall at the Lego Store. She picks out a few, shows them to me and actually puts them back in the right bin. 

 She also enjoys going to the Disney store and playing with the stuffed animals there. Luckily she doesn't know anything about Disney movies so she doesn't throw and tantrum when I don't buy her the princess dolls.

 As something special for me (and Macy) we buy a pretzel and eat it while relaxing in the massager chairs.

 Our next stop is L.L. Bean. They have a waterfall and fish tank that Macy likes to watch. She pulls up her camping chairs, asks for her drink then relaxes. 

Here Macy is missing her mall buddy Lily. She even saved a seat for Lily.

Right after I took this picture a huge catfish swam right at Macy and Macy was so scared. She ran to me and her little heart was beating so fast. We went a couple of times after that to see fish and she gets scared if they even look at her now.

This is a house close to us that we enjoyed looking at during Christmas. Macy touched as many lights as she could.

Can she get any cuter?! Talking on two phones (one is a wallet) at the same time with that cute little smirk!

Our mall buddies Lily and Tiffany joined us. Here the girls are at Barnes and Noble after hanging out at the Lego table.

Macy actually let me put pigtails in her hair! They lasted for a while too! I don't know how I did it because she hasn't let me since.

For a playgroup activity we went to the U.S. Botanic Gardens in D.C. Macy enjoyed watching the trains go around even though she wouldn't let me put her down to walk. My arms were tired at the end!

Izzy really wants to touch that pole but as you can see Macy is not about to let her.

Seagulls we saw in D.C. which of course Macy was afraid of once they started to move, even though they moved away from her.

What can I say? Macy loves to sit in little places.

And sleep in little places.

I know this picture looks like Macy was hanging herself, but she wasn't. The apron straps were not around her neck. She was spinning around so the straps eventually wrapped around some of her hair which she didn't like but she sure had a great time before that happened.

I found more pictures on my camera so here is an update from the original post:

Macy looked so sweet and pretty in her Christmas dress from Granny Dot. In Macy's words, "Tank you Dot!"

This was the very first time I got pigtails in Macy's hair. As you can tell if was very hard to put in because she was very wiggly. She did like checking herself out in the mirror though.

 This is the second time I put pigtails in. They are so dang cute I wish she would let me do them more!

Crisis Averted!

Macy did not take a nap Monday or Tuesday this week. On Monday she at least was quietly playing in her crib for an hour. Tuesday she only lasted 20 minutes in the crib. I was really worried because I'm not ready for my 2 year old to stop napping! How would I get anything done?! My day would be crazy Macy all day long!

Then I remembered, she took a 2 1/2 hour nap on Sunday. Why? She didn't go to sleep until 2:30 which is 2 hours later than she usually goes down. Today I put her down at 1:30 and it worked! She is still asleep and it's been an hour. Thank you Heavenly Father for that realization so I don't have to go crazy.

The only good part of her not napping is I was able to put her to sleep at 7:15 and 7:30. Last evening she must have been tired because she quietly laid down on my chest for at least 5 minutes while we watched TV. It was very sweet and reminded me of her newborn days when she would do that. As sweet as that was, I still love nap time too much to give it up.

I do love your cuddles Macy so you can keep that up too!

D.C. Temple Lights

Macy loves looking at Christmas lights so we knew she would like to see the lights at the temple because she could go up and touch them. We, and she, were not disappointed. The lights were better than I remember. Perhaps, because now I see them through a child's eyes.

We were watching Lily that night so she tagged along with us. Both girls were very good. Lily pretty much didn't move from Ja's chest the entire night. The one time we did for a picture she cried. It was very cold so I don't blame her. Here are a few photo high lights. I just love little kids in big puffy coats!

I think Macy loved the Nativity the best. She could have sat and watched it the whole time. It was a recording of the nativity story in the Bible and only mannequins. She wanted to get closer and closer to it. It was very cute when we walked away and she kept saying, "baby, baby!" because she wanted more baby Jesus.

Macy's face shows how happy she was. She was so content touching every single light she could. I think the green were her favorite because she repeatedly went back to the green bush.

I love the moon in this picture

Hot Chocolate Race

My friend told me about a 5k race that was called the Hot Chocolate Run and it was sponsored by Ghirardelli. She told me about it back in the summer when I was training for the Ragnar race so I thought sure, I can do 3.2 miles, no problem. I quickly signed up because I heard it can fill up quickly. I didn't even consider that it was in December. Luckily Ja was also on board and signed up with me (or I signed him up, hehe).

As we got closer to the race I was beginning to realize the logistics of it all. We would need to leave at 5:25 a.m. That meant we had to get a babysitter to come at 5:25 a.m. Tiffany volunteered herself and for doing so wins the best aunt and sister award.

We got to the race at National Harbor at 6:15 a.m. and it was dark and cold. The race didn't start until 7 so we had to wait around for it. We were encouraged to get there early because parking is always bad at a D.C. event.  We walked up and down the start line to stay warm. I was cold but I think Ja was colder. He didn't have any gloves, had only his vibrams (no socks), and his pants were very thin. I felt really bad for signing him up and dragging him out there. He was a very good sport and never complained.

Then as the race was about to start we were told it was going to be delayed because there were traffic problems and delayed the shuttles that were bringing people to the race. Then we got a series of "delay start" announcements. We didn't start until 8. We thought we would be done running by that time. Since we hadn't done a race like that before we didn't realized how unprofessional and terrible it is to start a race late. My friend was very upset about it all.

I ran in thick running pants, a long sleeve shirt, a long sleeve exercise shirt, a wind breaker, a scarf, an under armor beanie, another hat, and gloves. I was still cold for awhile during the race. Eventually the scarf, gloves, and wind breaker came off but soon came back on after the race. It was cold! I ran faster than I ever have before and I felt really good during the run so that part was fun and exciting.

Afterwards we got some really good hot chocolate and fondue. I obviously didn't eat my fondue fast enough because it turned into a solid block of chocolate soon. It was that cold.

All in all I had a great time. I just don't recommend ever doing a RAM Racing event. Especially one that allows 20,000 runners in a place like National Harbor that can't accommodate that many people. And I won't ever do a large event like that for when it's the first time because all the kinks haven't been figured out yet.