Big Girl Bed

Last night was Amanda's first night in her big girl bed!  She was quite proud of herself!  We were quite pleased that she went to bed without a fuss and stayed in her bed all night!  What a good little girl.


And, because she is such a little cheese-ball, here is a picture I snapped this morning at her request!  She pulls the silliest faces when you ask her to smile!

Easter Weekend

We had a very fun/busy Easter weekend!  We started Friday by dying eggs with cousin Elsie and the girls LOVED it!  Amanda loved watching the eggs turn colors.  I let her pretty much just go with it, so she ended up with hands that looked a little sickly because of the yellow dye, but it was worth it! 

Friday night, we were able to go out to dinner with Grandma and Grandpa Grant, and Doug, Lindsay, and Elsie.  The girls really had fun together!

Saturday afternoon we headed out to Baby Animal Days at This is the Place State Park.  I had never been there, so it was a fun outing.  It got a little chilly, but we survived!  Amanda absolutely loved all the chicks, and she was even daring enough to ride a horse!  She was quite nervous at first, but she ended up riding three times at her request, so I think she enjoyed it!

This next picture makes me laugh just because she looks so serious!  We were waiting for the train (or "choo-choo" as Amanda calls them) and she was keeping her hands warm in her pockets.  Amanda actually really loves trains, but she just looks so serious in pictures sometimes!  What a silly girl!

That night we were able to visit with Katie and Erik and we had a good time!  Amanda had a lot of fun with them! 

Last of all, Easter weekend would not be complete without Easter baskets and an Easter egg hunt!  We also had our Stake Conference which was really nice, but Amanda was quite bugged that she didn't get to go to nursery!

Amanda really got into the Easter Egg hunt this year!  She was running around like crazy searching for her eggs!

We hope you all had a great Easter weekend too!  :)  Happy Easter!

Slides!

Amanda absolutely LOVES slides!  She talks about them all the time and differentiates between all the slides she knows by their color!  There was the big blue "dada" slide at the pool, the little yellow "Manda" slide at the pool, the pink slide at my Dr.'s office, and the yellow slides at the elementary school by our house. 

Last Saturday it was finally nice enough outside to walk to the elementary school and play as a family.  We had a great time!  Sadie came along too and loved running after her ball.  Amanda of course had fun at the slide and got quite brave when it came to climbing on the playground equipment! 

She started climbing up all by herself before we even realized what she was doing!  I'm glad we didn't end up with a little broken arm!  She was quite proud of her accomplishment!

"Bunnies"

I spent quite a bit of time growing up with my hair in pig-tails.  I have been trying to do different things with Amanda's hair lately, and tried pig-tails one day.  Well, Amanda LOVED them and now requests to have them when I do her hair.  The funny thing is that she doesn't call them pig-tails... they are her "bunnies."  I guess she has seen a lot of bunnies lately at the grocery store and places because of Easter and has decided that her pig-tails look more like bunny ears!  She really really thinks they are wonderful.  Last night I started to take them out when we were getting ready for bed, and she started panicking saying, "No bunnies out!"  So I left them in.  We had to fix them immediately this morning at her request!  She is such a funny little girl!

Long Hair Woes

Amanda has always had longer hair for her age.  She is great about letting me do her hair, probably because I have been doing it since she was about 5 months old to keep it out of her face! 

Anyway, we had a little mishap in the hair department today that I thought was quite out of the ordinary.  We were driving to my doctor's appointment (baby girl #2 looks great by the way) when Amanda started crying in the back-seat and saying that her hand was stuck.  I was wondering how she managed to get her hand stuck in anything back there, but I couldn't stop at that exact moment.  I adjusted the rear-view mirror so I could figure out what was wrong and realized she had been twirling her hair like she does, but got a little carried away.   She had twirled her hair into a knot with her finger caught in the middle of it.  I felt bad because even though my little girl was quite sad in the back-seat I couldn't help laughing!  I just thought the fact that she got her own finger caught in her hair quite funny! 

We were almost to the doctor's office by this point, so I figured we could take care of it in the parking lot.  When I finally got to help her out of her mess, it was quite difficult.  I actually started to wonder if I had anything I could use to cut the hair to get her finger out, and then I thought that I actually might have to carry her in to the office and have someone inside get some scissors to help us out.  Luckily I was able to finally slide her little finger out, but there was quite the indentation and the tip was blue!  This is definitely one of those things you don't expect to have to deal with as a parent, but with kids, you never know!

Sundays

We have church at 1:00pm this year, and let me tell ya, it is pretty hard on our two year old!  She is still very well behaved at sacrament meeting and nursery, but church falls right during nap time and she is quite tired when we get home.  I usually try and just keep her up so she will go to sleep that night, but it doesn't always work.  This last Sunday was a perfect example.  She was playing a little bit when we got home from church and the next thing we knew, she was fast asleep on the floor, still in all her church clothes!   She must have been REALLY tired, because she NEVER just falls asleep like that!  She slept for about an hour and a half and still went to sleep that night, so I guess it worked out fine. 

My 2 Year Old!

I know it is probably shocking that I am blogging again so soon, but I really can't believe that Amanda has been a part of our family for two years now.  I also can't imagine life without her!  She is such a funny little girl!  She is starting to talk quite a lot now, and I love hearing what she is thinking about life!  We had a little party with her cousin Elsie for her birthday, and I think she really enjoyed it.  They played and played!  Amanda had a hard time eating her dinner because all she really wanted was her cake!  While I was making dinner and waiting for everyone to get here, she just sat at the table and looked at her cake.  When I told her she had to wait, she dramatically put her head down on the table and cried for her cake.  She can be quite dramatic some times!  She was better when Elsie arrived!  Here are some pictures from our little party.

The following list is more for my benefit, but feel free to read if you would like.  Here are some fun facts about Little Miss Amanda.

~  She LOVES "free fries" (which are french fries) and says they are fun!  She loves talking about anything she thinks is fun.
~  She still loves her "bee bee" or blankie and likes to roll it up in a ball and throw it.  She calls it her snowball.
~  You would never know it by looking at her skinny little self, but she has a great appetite and loves to eat.  One of her favorite foods is "YoDote" or yogurt!  She also loves all kinds of fruit, fruit snacks, "toot-tees" (cookies... which she likes to dip in milk) and "treats,"  which could be anything sweet.  She also really loves "Beese"  and "Buice"  which translates to "Cheese" and "Juice"
~  She also loves ketchup and calls it "dip-dip"
~  She loves her Grandma and Grandpa Grant's bed and always wants to go lounge on it.  She also likes to watch "ball ball" (which could be any sport) with Grandpa.
~ She loves her Grandma Bulloch's "blue car!"  I think she might start calling her "Bamma Blue Car!"
~  She has always loved to dance, but has really started to groove!  She now wiggles her little bum as  much as she can.  I love to watch her dance.
~  She likes to be clean.  After eating, she makes sure she gets her hands clean.  She is obsessed with messes and likes to clean them up.  For example, when we were at the park in Hurricane, she had to brush stuff off the steps and she was going up to the slide because it was "a mess!"  She helps me dust, and now vacuum with her play vacuum.  I love it!
~  She loves Finding Nemo and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.
~  She loves her Daddy and gets excited when he comes home.  She also prefers her Daddy reading her stories and putting her to bed at night, which is nice for Mommy.
~  She still loves to snuggle with Mommy and I love it!
~  She LOVES playing with her cousins!
~  When she is saying goodbye to someone or something, she immediately follows with "see ya soon!"

She is such a cute little stinker!  It is so much fun to have her around!  :)

Fun Weekend

This weekend was so much fun!  It felt like we were going non-stop, but we had a good time!  We started Friday morning going to Hogle Zoo with cousins.  I didn't get a lot of pictures because I spent most of the time keeping track of my very busy little girl!  She didn't want to sit on the statues with her cousins either, but she now loves looking at the picture of her cousins being silly!  What cuties!

After the zoo, Amanda and I went home to finish packing to drive to Hurricane for the weekend.  We picked up Billy from work, swung through Provo and got Katie and Erik, and were on our way.  Amanda was so happy to see her "Bamma", "Bampa," and Uncle Josh!  Josh spent the whole weekend playing with us instead of his friends, which was really fun!  He is such a fun uncle/brother!

While we were in Hurricane, Katie was able to try on some wedding dresses.  When Amanda saw her in the dresses she would say, "Oh Pretty!"  She loved them.  We also got to play with Jacob and Mary's baby Rachel!  When they first arrived and my mom was holding her, Amanda firmly told her, "Bamma, No Baby!"  After a while she got used to sharing the spotlight a little bit.  Rachel was so cute!  Here she is all tuckered out with Grandma while Katie was trying on dresses.

 We were able to celebrate Amanda's birthday with my family while we were down south too, and she had a lot of fun!  She got some new books, and a toy vacuum which she loves!  My mom also had some cute cupcakes that she was obsessed with!  The rest of us tried them and thought they weren't really that wonderful, but she loved them!  This next picture cracks me up because she really was thrilled about the cupcakes, but she was tired at the same time and was not thrilled about having her picture taken!  Too funny! 

 We really enjoyed the warm weather down south, and came prepared with shorts and t-shirts.  I failed to pack any type of coat for Amanda, and Sunday got a little chilly, but Amanda still wanted to go outside.  We put one of my Mom's coats on and rolled up the sleeves.  Billy thought it looked a little "gangster" so he put her hat on sideways and snapped a picture.  Again, not too thrilled about having her picture taken!

  All in all we had a wonderful/crazy weekend!  It was so good to  be able to spend time with family, even if it was a quick trip.  It was especially fun to see Jacob, Mary, and Rachel, since we don't get to see them that often, and Jacob is on his way to Texas for training for a couple of months.  Mary is staying in Utah for that time though, so maybe we will be able to see her and Rachel a little more.