Father Christmas & Noelle

It's been a while since I've felt compelled to share a Noelle story, even though they seem to be endless, but this one I just wanted to stop in time and remember. She is so funny the way she thinks and reasons and talks to us these days. There really does seem to be something funny and interesting that comes out of her mouth all the time.

Within the last month this particular phenomenon has made me laugh so many times and really has just been a joy to experience.  Probably 3-4 weeks ago Noelle and I were chatting about something. She mentioned something she wanted but didn't have and she looked me in the eye and said, "We could ask Father Christmas for it!"

I was happily stunned. Father Christmas? How did my child turn British??!!

"Noelle, who is Father Christmas?"

"He comes down the chimney, and he leaves PRESENTS!"

"How did you hear about Father Christmas?"

"I don't know."

Me thinking...where could she have learned about him?....YOU TUBE.

"Noelle, did you learn about Father Christmas from Peppa Pig?"

"Yeah. And I want him to bring a red car and a blue train. He'll come down the chimney."

If you don't know, Peppa Pig is a super cute british cartoon of a little pig and her family. It might play on cable channels, but we don't have that, but leave it to You Tube to somehow connect my child to Peppa Pig. I am not complaining - I think it is a cute show and I love the british accents, and have secretly always wanted a child with a British accent.

Anyway - once I realized that she knew who Santa, aka Father Christmas was, I knew I had a new level of parental power. We weren't 100% sure how much we were going to push Santa in our household. We weren't against it, but it just felt like alot of effort, so we thought we might just wait it out until the kids realized who he was and what he did. So, it took 3+ years...but even better - we get Father Christmas!!! I have not corrected her because (1) how cute and (2) I LOVE IT!

Now, back to the power...it's the Christmas bargaining tool that all of our parents used on us. Either you say "you can't have that now...but you can ask Father Christmas for it!" - or of course as it gets even closer to Christmas time you use the nice list/naughty list to get good behavior. Noelle totally responds to the asking Father Christmas for stuff, and I'm pretty sure the good list/bad list gig is gonna work on her too. I completely avoided a complete meltdown in Target with her this week when I lovingly convinced her that we can just ask Father Christmas for something - we don't have to buy it now! #winning

So then today was another magical Father Christmas moment...Louie was asleep and it has been raining here, so I was trying to come up with anything fun to occupy her. She dressed up in her Halloween costume for school (Minnie Mouse) and one of her classmates dressed up as Elsa. Naturally when she came home from school she had to put on HER Elsa costume...but the problem was she didn't have a crown. Her friend had a crown.

So being the resourceful mother that I am, we made Noelle a paper Elsa crown. But that wasn't enough. Then Mama had to have an Elsa crown. And then we both had to have Elsa hair. Well, duh.

As I was finishing my Elsa hair in Noelle's bathroom, she was completely thrilled at my transformation. But then it took a turn...

"Mama, I love your Elsa crown and your Elsa hair...but you don't have an Elsa DRESS!"

"That's ok Noelle, I don't have to have an Elsa dress."

She looked at me with her big blue eyes, put both her hands on my hips very tenderly and said,

"It's ok you don't have one now. We can ask Father Christmas for one, it will be ok."

I. Love. This. Kid.

So, Happy Christmas from the Watkins clan...we hope Father Christmas brings you all sorts of good gifts this year!!!

Elsa very pleased with her paper crown

crown buddies!

Rainy day Elsa's!

First Day of School, First Day of School!

If you read the title of this post and had Nemo's voice in your head, you get bonus points!

I have been waiting for this day for months! Today was Noelle's first day of preschool. She has been longing to go to school since she figured out this past spring that her own personal hero (Meaghan Mahoney) went to school.

Here's what she knew about the day: she would have a teacher, make new friends, and that Mala (my mom) would cry.

Here's what she kept asking about school for the months leading up to it: could she ride the bus and would Meaghan be there.

Now I told her over and over again that Meaghan went to the big kid school and she would be going to the little kid school, but she still kept asking. On the bus thing we told her she just needed to pretend that Mama's car was a bus and she seemed to be able to deal with that.

We had her open house last week and it went pretty well. She was shy, but she was excited about her classroom and was mildly interested in some of the other kids there.

The night before her first morning it literally felt like Christmas Eve to me. I was so excited for her, for me, just all of it!  She's a great kid, but Mama needs a break from being the constant playmate. It's a little tricky with a 3 month old in tow and the constant rotating schedule of his needs. She also just seems to thrive with structure and learning and being around other kids...it's all going to be so good for her.

Today was day one and she did great! She had fun and even though she still seemed a bit shy about it all, she immediately asked if she could go back to school as we were driving out of the parking lot. That's a win in my book!

I very much look forward to the days where she can actually tell me about what she learned in school. Right now her answers are pretty much "I don't know" to most questions. She retains lots of knowledge and picks up on stuff pretty well, so I'm not quite sure why she isn't able to tell me what she did...I'll just chalk it up to her being a threenager.

Here's some pictures from this morning of our big girl!!

I told her to show how excited she was to start school :)

Another excited face. I will show her these one day when she doesn't want to go to school, in like 5th grade.

Posing before we left! Louie wasn't so sure about all this school business.

The Next Level

If you follow me on instagram you probably have noticed the potty training posts. We started potty training the second week of September, and it hasn't been the easiest or the hardest thing in parenting. I would mostly describe it as annoying. Mostly annoying because I haven't felt like I can go about my life normally until she gets this one down pat.

I kind of went with a modified version of the 3 day potty training method. We had pants off and basically I watched her like a hawk the first two days to try and catch her going so that I could sit her on the potty. By day 3 we had some mild success but then our schedule got busy so we weren't quite as focused for 4 days. We started back up the following week and she was peeing and pooping like a champ at home. I will say I introduced candy rewards that day, and it really helped!

Then we were doing great at going potty at home with minimal accidents but we remained pants off.  I was doing pull ups out and about because they weren't short trips, and if she wasn't with me no one would have known to take her to the bathroom. You can't ask Noelle, "do you need to go potty?" - the answer will always be no right now. So I don't ask, I take her to sit on it and remind her that if she makes peepies then she gets candy. It works some of the time.

Then I noticed she seemed to HATE going to the bathroom outside of the home. She really really protested. If I had a pull up on her though she wouldn't go on the toilet and she would conveniently wait until I was driving to mention "potty" and by then it was too late...into the pull up it went. Sigh.

So I was telling my mom friends about the situation who have successfully potty trained one or more. They told me I have to rip the band aid off. No more pull ups while out and about. Time for the real deal, and if she makes a mess - well then I just have to have back up clothing. That is the only way she is going to get it. Yikes.

It was scary to me because I don't want to set her up to fail! And yet, for her to learn control, there has to be some failing (and some being upset about failing). It's a hard reality, and seriously very minor in the big scheme of things, but as parents we have to let our kids fail sometimes. It's the only way they will become who they were meant to be - we just have to love them through the whole process.

So we are doing it. And I will be doing more laundry possibly. But who knows - maybe by the end of October we will be done with most of the messes!! A mom can dream, right?

Next on the list is the crib to bed transition. That one doesn't scare me as much as the end of sleep time pacifiers. I keep thinking once THIS milestone is reached, then it will be super easy....oh wait - except there will always be another milestone. And I'm learning that mostly, parenting doesn't get easier...maybe after she's 18. We'll see :)

Where are you Moon?

A few months ago, Josh taught Noelle where the moon was in the sky. She would love it when she saw it in the daytime, and was always so excited to point it out.

Since it has been getting darker earlier these days, she has started looking for it at night as well. I don't know why she is so obsessed at finding the moon, but she is...and it is totally endearing. I kind of get it - the moon is really cool and I have always been fascinated with the stars.  She is just taking it to another level though.

I wanted to distract her one night earlier this month when we were leaving a restaurant and she didn't want to go. So I told her maybe we will see the moon! Well, the moon was late in rising that night. And let me tell you, Noelle was pretty upset about it. She was literally weeping because she couldn't find the moon. She cried all the way home for it, poor thing.

And now every time it is dark out side and she is awake she is on a mission to find that moon. If you were not aware, we recently had a new moon, so there was much disappointment that she couldn't find it. Sometimes I can convince her it is behind clouds, but she wasn't having it.

Then last night we got our sliver of moon back, and Noelle saw it as we left church. The moon wasn't very high though, so it continually disappeared on the car ride home. I managed to catch her asking for the moon. I know I am driving. I know it is very very very wrong to film and drive, but she only does this in the car!!!!! I promise it was a very quiet road and no one was endangered from the making of this moon video.

Please enjoy her search for the moon :)

Noelle - 28 months

I know I am rounding up because she won't be 28 months until the END of the month, but it's close enough in my book. I keep thinking each age is so much fun, and then she just gets more fun. I believe I might keep saying that until she is 13 and then all the poop hits the fan, right?

But seriously, 2 has been really really fun. Sleep is good, though with eating we have some pickiness it is still relatively simple, she has a longer attention span, plays well with others, and is downright hilarious. This kid picks up so many funny things from what people around her do and say (it's a good reminder that our children are SPONGES) and overall she is sheer delight to us and so many others.

Every day she is saying something new or doing something new. And she loves loves loves learning new things. We are in the potty training process and it hasn't been super simple, but I think we've fully committed her to this transition now. She's made progress and shown that she is capable and ready. But during the process I told her "great job!" and Now everything is "great job!" So cute.

CC and G were here last week and took some great photos of her that capture her sweet nature. Enjoy!!

The child is serious about her coloring.

No, Seriously. We color every. single. day. Multiple times a day.

Cheesing for the camera and looking FAR too old.

Cuter by the second!

Noelle does something unbelievably cute every day I think. Probably much more than once a day, but at least each day it seems to be something new and cute that she hasn't done before.

I think her official first sentence is "I got you!" Mostly from playing lots and lots of games of trying to catch her.

She is recently obsessed with carrying her blanket around and trying to wear it. I think this is partly my fault since I am almost always sitting or walking around with a blanket, and also the fact that she likes to pretend it is a dress.

Being coy and snuggly

Just surveying the yard with her blanket.

She likes to dress up in other things too - like the poncho! She thought it was so fun to wear it, and even started calling it a "tent" at one point.

Ponchos are cheap fun!

Everything looks pink...

Mama, how does this work?!

Poncho model in the making

She also is so very attached to all her stuffed animals. This past week it was Mr. Peanut ("Peanut") and a baby My Little Pony doll ("Pony"). And for whatever strange reason, she associates them together. So when I asked her if she wanted to go for a walk, she grabbed Pony & Peanut and asked if they could come along. We got some strange looks along the way, but she was happy to have her buddies on the walk with her.

Pony & Peanut

She is mixing up her pronouns now, which is extremely common for toddlers. There is lots of "hold you" when she wants to be picked up. And I just realized she also says "down?" when she wants to get on a chair and also when she wants to get off of it.

She so sweetly will call for me to come play with her or color with her. She make her voice really high & gentle and says, "C'mon Mama, coolioo?" or "C'mon Mama, go play?"  Lately she has even been asking me to dance on occasion which would be so fun if she didn't constantly want me to spin around. Old people get dizzy fast!

And whenever she is looking for something or knows that I am looking for something, she calls out to it. This is something I taught her along the way - though it wasn't intentional. But I LOVE it when she does it. She might know that I am looking for my keys and so she will walk around as if she is searching for them and say "KEY! WHERE ARE YOUUUUUU? Oh KEY?!?" Sometimes she is looking for something on her own, maybe her Ariel doll, and I hear her in her room...."ARIEL! WHERE ARE YOUUUUUUU? ... THERE SHE IS!"

2 is turning out to be super cute and I know it is only to get cuter as she adds to her vocabulary and is able to communicate exactly what that precious mind is thinking!

A Rainy Saturday

Usually in the summer rainy days really bum me out. I love the sun and I love being outside - and Noelle loves everything about being outside too. But this Saturday it was rainy and just overall kind of yucky - and it was such a nice change of pace!

I realized just how little it had rained so far this summer, so it was such a relaxing day. Instead of hurrying off to make the most of the sunshine at the pool or the park or something like that, Noelle and I lounged in our pajamas for the first half of the day.  We ate a leisurely breakfast and then snuggled up on the couch to watch the new Tinkerbell movie which just got added to Netflix.

Sadly enough, I was the one who mostly did the watching and Noelle was enthralled with playing with the ipad under the blanket (also known as "tent"). I had downloaded a new app that morning and she just LOVED it. It was a very well spent $1.99 I have to say. For those of you wondering - it was a Daniel Tiger app.  She was literally laughing out loud while playing with it a few times that morning.

We ate a snacky type lunch because we had had a late breakfast and sometime around 1:30 Noelle wanted to play "bed" but she brought along her blanket and pacifiers...so it was pretty clear to me that she was ready for a nap. She had a nap and I was even more lazy on the couch actually getting to enjoy my ipad - which let's face it, really isn't mine.

Around 3 she woke up and we played with some puzzles and then decided to run a few quick errands. We wrapped that up and splurged on some Chick-fil-a for dinner because I have been craving their cobb salad since before my birthday. If you are still thinking about a salad for 2 weeks, it is time to cave and just go eat it!

After dinner it was a bath, which she got REALLY mad at when I had to rinse her hair, and to recover after that traumatizing experience she requested some Ariel. I obliged and she got about 15 minutes of The Little Mermaid in before it was time for books and bed.

She is getting so funny at really "experiencing" a movie as she is watching it. She does the hand motions, the body language, all the movement of her favorite parts as if she is the character. I tried to capture some of it last night but it was pretty dark in our living room. I used instagram to try and lighten it up so you can see a small clip on there. I made a longer one and put it on youtube and it is below! It is so very cute in person, and if you watch that part of the actual movie on youtube you can see what she is doing during the "burn" and "above"! For reference you can watch the youtube clip of Part of Your World. Josh and I will be working hard to capture her rendition of Let it Go. It is awesome!

It was such a quiet Saturday and it was just what Noelle and I needed after a very busy couple of weeks!  Not sure if it was rainy by you, but hope you made the most of your day too!!

Ask 'em My Questions And Get Some Answers...

Since I have gotten the gift of watching The Little Mermaid more in the last two weeks than maybe I have ever watched it for the entire 25 years since it was originally released, I decided to write about a few little nuances I never noticed before. I'm wondering if anyone else has ever noticed!!

Ariel has this amazing voice, right? She sings 1 song. ONE. I don't really count the reprise of Part of Your World because it is basically the same song. Don't get me wrong, that one song is incredible, but I had never really noticed it was only one.

Right after Ariel sings part of your world and just as she notices the ship passing over her cavern Sebastian tries to talk her out of her nonsense of loving the world of humans and he says "come with me, I will fix you a nice warm cup of...(he then gets cut off)" Warm??? Warm cup of what? And how is Sebastian going to get something warmed up when you are in deep ocean water?

Speaking of Sebastian - I don't think there are any crabs whose heads are actually outside of their shells. I did a quick google image search and I just don't see any real life crabs that have the anatomy of Sebastian.

Max the dog puzzles me. Why do all the other animals talk, but Max the dog cannot talk? Poor dog.

I'm a little annoyed that Grimsby doesn't seem frantically worried that Eric might have died in the shipwreck (where Ariel saves him). He seems like he was walking the beach absolutely expecting to find a surviving Eric. I feel he should have been much more concerned.

During the song Kiss the Girl, I actually think they might kiss. Every. Single. Time. My brain knows that they don't, but my heart seriously thinks that maybe this time Eric will man up and go for it.

And in the end, no matter how many times I watch it, I will get choked up at the end. I've noticed a few weird bits about it, but for the most part I still love this movie - it is definitely in a tying position for my favorite 3 disney movies of all time. Which coincidentally are also Noelle's at the moment. Nemo, Little Mermaid, and Frozen. She has impeccable taste.

And "Part of Your World" update...

Noelle now tries to rein-act Ariel as she is singing it ("flipping" around, lying in the sand, arm movements, etc)

She says "feet" with Ariel...she says "sure" in the "Sure, she's got everything" part. And she also sings "burn" with Ariel when she wonders what a fire is.

And if Noelle is upset in the car but I don't have the song with me, I can just sing it from memory and she is satisfied. Therefore, I AM the Little Mermaid :)

Part of Your World

I HAD to blog post about this today. I have been chuckling to myself since these things happened, and telling Josh and my mom just isn't enough!!

So I was wanting to get a couple more CD's in my car. I was tired of the radio and connecting my phone to the auxiliary connect just felt like too much work. So I whipped out the old cd cases to see what I could put into my car. I haven't bought new cd's in ages (thanks iTunes) - but I discovered many of my old "mix" cd's that I would make. I hated writing out all the songs on the cd's so I would just say "May Mix 2003" or "February Mix 2007."

This afternoon during an errand I took "May Mix 2010 - Fun CD" and put it into the player. Fun CD sounded promising. I was enjoying the randomness of whatever I felt like listening to back in May 2010 and then track 7 came on. And Noelle got really excited. If you read the title, I bet you have guessed what it is!

Yes.

Part of Your World - courtesy of the one and only Ariel.

Well that came on and Noelle got a big smile and said "Ariel! Ariel!" She then zoned out and enjoyed the rest of the song...I imagine she was thinking about the movie and replaying it in her mind...well, that's what I used to do in the car when listening to the Little Mermaid soundtrack.

Right after the full version of Part of Your World came the Reprise of Part of Your World. We enjoyed both. And then Michael Buble's Save the Last Dance came on, and Noelle did not want to be a part of his world - ya know what I mean?

So back to Part of Your World we went...and again....and again...and again...

Here's video proof...pardon the two different video angles:

Then we got home that evening. And she started playing with her Disney Princess little people castle.

And this happened:

I'm dying of cuteness over here!! I think this would officially make it the first song that Noelle has really really tried to sing. GAH! I'm in love :)

Now, I am thrilled about all of this. I love the Little Mermaid and it was totally my dream that Noelle would love it too. It's a little bit of a careful what you wish for moment...because now I can't listen to anything else in my car. At least I love it too and I sing along with everything I've got!

In the words of Ariel..."I don't know when, I don't know how...but I know something's starting right now...."

What fun new things happen every day during the 2's!!

2 Year & Family Photo Shoot

I haven't gotten to post the awesome pictures that Gary took for us in honor of Noelle's 2nd birthday. She was not easy to photograph at this age, but you can't tell because G is so talented!! (www.garywatkinsphotography.com)

I am so glad we took these though, as Noelle changes so quickly, and honestly we are too lazy to break out the fancy camera all the time. We end up just using our iphones for most of the year, and MAYBE 3 times a year we break out the big guns. I did it much more when Noelle was small and was changing SUPER fast, but now...meh.

So I hope you enjoy these photos as much as we do. I'll try to do my usual photo commentary in the captions for extra tid-bits of what was happening in some of the photos.

She cracks me up. She was loving her new ballerina slippers from CC - and she is just obsessed with shoes lately. First thing in the morning after I get her out of the crib...Shoes?

She was probably playing on the iPad and G managed to make a noise to get her attention.

Clearly saying something, but so very cute at it!

She loves when Josh is silly with her, and just giggles her head off

This was when Josh was playing with the blower while G was taking photos. She made it into a very cute game.

Tousled blown hair look :)

These photos in the weird vine/tree are amazing...and you can see here in the bottom left corner my head. That is because I am totally holding her up in these photos. It was uncomfortable but she thought it was hilarious and therefore we got amazing photos!

Being in a tree is very fun.

Looking so grown up here!

This one looks a little mischievous!

We got these photos so quickly b/c she was starting to get antsy - but thanks to Dada making her laugh they came out fantastically!

Ugh. Love her.

When she is in the right mood, she will give you kisses OVER and OVER again!

We got to capture her just running around. She is very into shadows lately and on occasion will give her shadow a high five!

That face.

She loves to pretend she is thinking about something....

And then pretend that she thought of it and is excited! So cute! Josh taught her that game.

We managed to get a good family shot - G was so good at getting it quickly, because Noelle did not want to sit for long!

Our other family shot, after we looked for Nemo in the pond.

Noelle refused to take another family shot, so Josh and I decided to pose without her. So glad we got this one :)

Then G got this one...I love the lighting. It's my glamour shot, lol.

After our photo shoot we went to a Vietnamese restaurant and G took a few more photos while we waited for our food. The table had an awesome reflection and Noelle was full on posing for the camera sometimes.

She's just the best. I'm telling you...I am not biased!

She looks really grown up in this one...before I know it she is going to be 18.