Adrianna: Mommy, how do you spell nothing?
Amber: N-O-T-H-I-N-G
Adrianna: No, I mean how do you spell nothing!

After a moment of confusion on my part, it turns out she didn’t want me to spell the actual word ‘nothing’ but wanted to know how something that wasn’t there (i.e. nothing) would be spelled. Hmmm, not sure how to answer that one!

Last week, our calendar was pretty uneventful. Lots of nice time spent at home or running errands. (This week, however, has been a different story! Busy, busy, busy…)

Bree hanging out in her exersaucer.

Enjoying her oatmeal.

Adrianna painting her birdhouse.

Lots of love for Chloe.

And lots of love for Molly.

Bree often resists taking regular naps for me in her crib, even when I know she is tired. Which results in this:

I bought Adrianna her first Barbie doll last week, at her request. The doll is actually Princess Aurora, AKA Sleeping Beauty. Adrianna has been wanting this particular doll for a couple months because her hair changes color in the water and we all know how much Adrianna likes to play with water. I like this particular doll because her shoes are painted on (meaning less little pieces to get lost or find their way to Bree’s mouth), she is modestly dressed and her one removable piece of clothing (a skirt) is easy to put back on. This Barbie has been getting a lot of bath and pool play time.

Adrianna wrote and illustrated her first book of fan fiction tonight about…well, I am sure you can guess. Princess Peach. And Bowser.

She started her book early this morning. I peeked into her room and could hear her sounding out words as she wrote. Later, she asked me to spell “Princess Peach” out loud for her. When she was finished, she brought me the pages and asked me to staple them together into a book. At this point, I was asked to read the story out loud to her. Though I am very proud of her for sounding out how she thinks the words might be spelled, I was unable to decipher what all the words were, nor was I able to talk her into reading it out loud to me first in order for me to try to gain a better understanding. Because I didn’t want to squelch her desire to write or sound out words on her own, I didn’t want to tell her outright that I couldn’t tell what the words were supposed to be. So I did my best and eventually began to recognize what some of the words were meant to be. It seemed to satisfy her and she even made me read her story out loud again (twice) at bedtime.

Here is her story with my loose interpretations.

Page 1:

“Once upon a time, Princess Peach was put in Bowser’s cage”

Page 2:

“Bowser Trapped Princess Peach”

Page 3:

“Bowser put Princess Peach in a trap”

Page 4:

“I don’t like Bowser”

I think we have a budding author / illustrator on our hands.

Bree can mostly sit up on her own unsupported. I say “mostly” because she CAN do it if propped up just right. She still tends to sway around a little…she’s still working on the whole balance thing.

She also has been busy trying to stay up on her hands and knees. Up until this week, her attempts to get into this position would just result in her legs, and subsequently her whole body, scooting backwards. But now she seems to be getting it down to where she can rest on them and rock back and forth without completely scooting backward. One more step toward crawling. I am so not ready. Guess we need to start baby-proofing the house again.

We spent the fourth of July in Longmont at Jeremy and Amy’s again this year. Just like last year, we had a wonderful time and stuffed ourselves with a ton of delicious food from the grill. This year’s theme was food on sticks, so even the dessert we put together was on skewers.

After dinner, the kids got to see some smoke bombs, snakes, and throw some poppers before the rain began pouring down. We were hoping to walk to the fireworks show again this year, but we weren’t sure if it would be canceled or not due to the rain. So we decided to stay put and watch the fireworks, if they weren’t canceled, from their house. In the end, the fireworks show did go on and we were still close enough to hear the big booms and watch the brilliant lights. In the rain. (Thankfully, we had umbrellas.) Even Bree watched and seemed to enjoy the show.

Afterwards, the rain had let up enough to do some fireworks and sparklers of our own. The kids were thrilled (and so were their fathers).

I took Adrianna for her first pedicure. I thought it would be a fun way for us girls to spend an afternoon together. She seemed to really enjoy it and giggled quite a bit when her feet were scrubbed.

What about me, Mom?

Adrianna and I cleaned up the loft/playroom a little bit this afternoon in anticipation of Greg’s plan to begin installing some adjustable custom shelves into the closet.

After we got the floor picked up, Adrianna flounced back into the room, eyes opened wide for emphasis, and told me in a serious voice, “Now I’d better not see any more toys on the floor. If I see any more toys…”

She paused for a quick moment, probably thinking about how she could threaten me, her mother, since she can’t really send her mom to time-out or otherwise make up a punishment for me. Meanwhile, I was eagerly waiting in anticipation to see where her threat was going to go.

She then finished her statement, as threatening and as serious as before, with, “…then I will pick them up.”

Now that’s a threat I can live with!

Here is a photo comparison of myself and my two little girls, each of us at six months of age. (You can click on it for a slightly larger version.)

Bree has discovered a new sound/babble and I just love it. The sound of her little voice babbling “MomMomMom” is so adorable and so is the way the whole lower half of her face is involved in saying it.