So tonight I am being bad indulging on a tuxedo cheesecake which I am sure i will pay for later since it is so rich.  It is just Quinn and me so I thought I could get away with it.  Anyway, whenever I am eating food that Tyler want to sample, he will say “try some?” very quickly and quietly.  It almost sounds more like “tri sum?”   So tonight I am being fairly obvious that I am eating something forbidden and she comes up to me with this grin on her face and fork in her hand and says, you guessed it, “try sum?”

Oh and she got a hold of the croissant that we were supposed to share and would NOT let me touch it.  She would feed me little bits, but it was HERS to hold.  Okay, she needs my attention…

Wow, so I started our Christmas letter tonight.  Before you give me crap about that fact - for the first time EVER last year, I did not finish all of my Christmas cards.  I will NOT repeat this feat, so I am starting early this year, so I can have them done with plenty of time to spare.

Where was I?  Oh yes, the challenge.  How to condense one year of a toddler’s life into a paragraph or two?  The developmental milestones, the personality traits, the stories, the adventures  - there is just too much stuff.   I want those two paragraphs to be full of rich color and detail, so folks can really get a sense for who my kids are.  I don’t want to be trite.

I haven’t had this much trouble in the past.  Here is my challenge and I plan to get it done in a week.  ANd little does my hubby know, but he is responsible for 1/4 of it!  :-p

There is just so much about her I haven’t shared. So much I observe about her and then forget to mention. Maybe I am still keeping her to myself as I did when she was a baby? But oh, she has such a personality. Observer and imitator to the hilt. As she was getting down from her chair the other day, she grabbed her bowl as if ready to take it to the sink like her brother does. She wants to do everything that I do. She likes to feed Chris and I. She loves to share her discoveries. She repeats everything we say. Her most used words are “down”, when she needs to get down from some where, and “hand” when she needs a hand to do something. She says “push”, “button”, “bike” (oh, how she covets Tyler’s tricycle), “bus”, “bird”, “plane”, “walk”,”book”, “read book”, “gu-night”, and my personal favorite “nack” (for snack).

When she can’t touch something or has to leave it (a cactus or a plant or whatever she has found), she will lean near to it and “kiss” it. Sometimes she will blow a kiss too. She says “hi” to nearly all those who passby. She loves to carry anything with a handle and dole out whatever is inside. She loves to empty and then fill back up. There is a sense of process and order in what she does.

She loves trying to put clothes over her head. She can takes her bibs off by herself. For sometimes now she loves putting socks on her hand. She loves the mini-mitts we have for the kids’ playkitchen and will put those on and wear them around the house. You can only imagine her jubilation when I brought Tyler’s gloves out for the colder weather and her great-aunt sent more for him. She is asleep right now with a red glove on one hand if that tells you anything.

She is a climber following Tyler up anywhere he goes on the playground and doing a pretty good job although I still have my hands an inch from her body. She will stand at 5 foot drops at the playground and put her foot out. I can’t tell if she is testing the waters or really wanting to give it a go. I am not at a point where I am willing to chance her decision.

She is feisty and the “no-noooo’s” are starting to come more frequently. When she doesn’t get what she wants it is an immediate drop the to floor tantrum. Her scream rivals that of her brothers and I can’t help but wonder if she picked up some tips from him over the year. She is not one easily redirected either. Her father blessed her with focus, determination and stubborness - the triumvirate of attributes you don’t want to your two year-old to have in spades. She excepts no substitutions.

However, I am blessed that like Tyler, she is an outdoor child. For all three of us the outdoors provides peace and balace. I also love the items that my children have in common - for instance the same way they both say “thank you” - it is this small, quick, but uber giddy “tink you”. She says it all the time and it is so cute. I also love her “cuse me”.

Most of all she has a smile that will melt you. She loves to smile and can charm the pants off of you. It is hard to tell her no when she is wearing that winning smile.

She is such a warm, fiery spirit and as her personality unfolds, I see how beautifully it blends and balances with our family. Here she is working on her spoon skills..

I am making Tyler a farm rug.  This thing is HUGE and laughably, I thought I could “knock it out” in a month!  Ha!!  It has not been two months and I have only about 1/4 completed.  I am loving working on it though and steal time whereever I can.  I had  hoped to have it done by Christmas, but we will see.  I have a few animals almost ready -a pig, a horse and a donkey to go with it.  I am using a different book for the animals.  I do plan to make the barnyard and other buildings as well.

So far all is good although my constant folding of the rug has left some creases and bunched rows that will have to be stretched out.  Also, my hubby jokes that my pond is actually a whirlpool as it doesn’t lay flat and I will need to use weights or something to get it to flatten out a bit.  All finishing touches though.

Tyler watches me make it and knows what is going on.  Has asked me today how we are going to connect the road?  I told him I was going to knit a bridge..oh,and he calls this “my knitting”.   Anyway, we got some paper and he was trying to help me make a bridge for it. 

I am really excited about this project and the possibilities are so endless.  In the fall we can make little scarecrows and pumkins for it.  I am going to find some mini tools for  it.  Oh, and there is a whole farm family you can knit to go with it - I am going to attempt to make those too.  Click on the images to see the larger pictures -  you can see all the little details so much better.

Last Thursday, the day after Halloween, was a good day and I felt like crap for most of it.  What I did successfully that day was continue to stay closely attuned to how I was feeling as well as how my kids were doing.  I had originally planned to head out to McKinney Roughs for a hike with the kids.  After they woke up, I was even more certain this was a good plan.   Tyler was in a good mood, but everywhere we went in the house, he just layed down.  Halloween had been very eventful for him and he had gone to bed later than usual.  I figured the 30 minute drive would allow us all some time to chill and relax.    I also figured being outdoors would be a great place to recharge ourselves and soak up the morning goodness of nature, noises, breezes and quiet.

I love, love, love McKinney Roughs.  It is another new favorite place.  I could go there every week - there is so much to see and the kids enjoy it so much.

Then they have tons and tons of trails! They have the neatest demonstration trail and by the end of it, I wanted to build a whole natural habitat in the backyard complete with pond of course!   Lots of great ideas for Central Texas gardens.  And the trails themselvs are lovely and well marked. 

Not too far into the Ridge trail, there is a little viewing area with a bench. As I said, I was feeling like crap, so I just laid down on my back on the ground.   Tyler, also tired, sat in between my legs drawing on the ground with a stick.  Quinn came and sat on my chest to play a game she and Tyler love.  They bounce up and down and I go, “uh!”  Daddy invented this game and both kids adore it…my body not so much always, but Quinn is still a featherweight thank goodness!

Then we heard “the noise”. I have no idea why, but this sound spooked Tyler. I don’t know if it was all the Halloween stories or what, but he was nervous. Quinn heard it too.  It sounded like a mix between a cricket and a bird.  We decided to head back to the nature center where they had a bookstore and see if we could get a book about animal sounds. 

Once we got back there, Tyler told the woman at the desk that, “I heard a strange sound and it made me nervous, so we need a book to find out what it is.”   Well, after she fell off her chair from hearing my not yet 3 yr old explain all that, she pointed us to a woman who knew just what we needed.  (she really was surprised, so much so, that when I ran into her in the bathroom later, she asked me if Tyler would come to the front desk and chat with another woman there.)Sure enough, we got a fantastic book with 100 different animals: birds, reptiles, carnivores, insects,etc.  The book has pictures and other information and the CD that came with it had all the noises.  After Quinn went down for her nap, Tyelr and I snuggled up and listened to all the sounds.  We figured out that we heard a Cope’s Gray Treefrog.  He also said he wasn’t nervous now that he knew what it was.

My favorite part about the book?  Now when we are outside - he LISTENS and wants to find out what he heard.  Just the other evening we decided that we have Scissor Grinder Cicadas in our neighborhood/backyard.  I am also looking forward to learning the songs of the birds that live in our area.

I was proud of myself for feeling what I was feelind and going with it.  It allowed me to meet my needs and that of my kids and end up having a pretty spectacular day.  Here are some final pics of Quinn, cuz well, she is such a cutie!

This morning Tyler was lying on his bed and I was trying to get him dressed.  He brings his knees up and makes himself into a ball and then puts a pillow over him so only his feet are sticking out.  He then announces, “I’m a box turtle, Mommy!”   He was enjoying being a turtle which gave me enough time to catch his Daddy and call him into the room so he could check out our new turtle.

He is such a silly boo….