Portraits slideshow

I found a way to share a slideshow of the family portrait session we had taken a week and a half ago. I love how the pictures turned out but they charge too much for the digital rights.
SLIDESHOW LINK

I'm not sure how long that link will work but I think it'll work for 90 days from the session. And I think it uses javascript, so some browsers might have difficulty viewing it depending on settings.

Merry Christmas!

From our family to yours, have a Merry Christmas!

Rose Petal Cottage

Here is Sasha in her Rose Petal Cottage while her dad was assembling it.
My husband is amazing when it comes to assembling stuff, and it took him barely 15-20 minutes to assemble the house AND all the additional toy sets that came with it. I think I read somewhere that it takes like an hour to assemble. This included the stove, sink, washing machine, table and chairs, and the whole house.
A special "thank you" to Mike, my husband's relative, for the Rose Petal Cottage set. It was his gift to Sasha. She LOVES this little house set.
She spent the whole evening in it. It has doors, so Sasha was in and out of the doors all night. She loves to point out the windows. She pretended to cook us some oatmeal, she took off her sweater and "washed" it in the washing machine. She is constantly rearranging her furniture just-so. She constantly (yet forcefully) invites her big sister to come in the house then kicks her out again.
Definitely her favorite present.
I didn't realize that I didn't take a picture of the full set all assembled, mostly because Sasha started playing with it all even before assembly was completed.

Opening Xmas Presents!

Playing with her new "My Little Pony" while opening gifts.
Reading a book that came with one of her presents.
Sasha wanted to stop and play with each and every gift as she opened them, so opening presents took her a while. She got some really great presents this year!
-A wooden puzzle with airplane, helicopter, firetruck, car, boat, train, and ambulance pieces that make noises.
-A My Little Pony
-A wooden doll dress up set
-A Rose Petal Cottage playhouse
-A Rose Petal Kitchen Sink
-A Rose Petal washing machine
-A Rose Petal table and chair set
-A Rose Petal stove
Basically, the full Rose Petal Cottage set. She actually got two Rose Petal Cottages, because I ordered one from Amazon.com before I learned that someone (Thanks Mike!!!) had also got one for her as a gift. I couldn't cancel the order in time, but that's okay. We can take one back and she can pick something else out. Great minds think alike :)

Ready for Christmas

Sasha is ready for Christmas!
She has a pile of gift-wrapped presents in the living room (Thanks Mike!), and those presents have her full attention. My husband wanted us to put the presents out to steadily pique her interest, and his tactic has definitely succeeded.
She likes to pick the presents up and shake them. She grabbed one present and was walking around the house with it. I asked her what was in it. She had a look of deep thought cross her face. She shook the present, listened to it, thought some more, then knowingly announced "It's candy!". She nodded to herself and continued to walk around with the present again.

We've been talking to Sasha about Christmas, and Santa and presents. She seems to understand somewhat. The other day I asked her if she wanted presents and she nodded and said "Mmmm-hmm", which means yes. I then asked her what she wanted to have inside her presents. She thought for a few seconds and said, "A house please". She's been in a house playing mood lately.

Portraits

Thumbnails only from the family portrait session the other day.


And yes, that is a wrench in Sasha's hands. The photographer had a toy wrench among her props. Once Sasha saw that, she grabbed it and wouldn't let it go.

Fun and games

Sasha has been so fun to be around lately. I can't keep up.
Her pretend play cracks me up. Yesterday, she renamed us all. She now insists we call her "Wow Wow Wubbzy", her favorite tv show character. My husband she calls "Fix-it", which is what she calls the "Widget" character from Wow Wow Wubbzy. Her Mom (that's me!) is now Walden, and Cassie is renamed "Daisy", also from the same show.

She is always in my closet, pretending that it is her house. It's a nice little hiding spot for her.
She's been more affectionate than usual with me. Lately, she gave most of her affection to my husband but she seems to be making up for that with extra hugs, kisses, and snuggles. It warms my heart to see her charge at me from across the house to hug me as she yells "I GOT YOU!".
Her vocabulary is really growing! Full sentences and she's constantly amazing me with new phrases.

At the mall yesterday, my husband went into the Apple store to drool over laptops and computer stuff, while the girls and I went to pick up our family portraits. Sasha noticed he was gone and started asking me, "Where's Dad go? Where's Dad go?". Her sentence syntax amused me. But it was neat that she was able to ask a question about someone not present.
We still have plenty of times where we wish she could communicate to us what she wanted. Temper tantrums and fits are still a constant struggle in our household and we're often mystified as to what she wants. Soon though, she'll be able to tell us what she's thinking.

Getting ready for a winter storm

We're expected to get about a foot of snow tonight, and it's supposed to snow pretty much non-stop for the next 4 days. As I type this, it is snowing pretty good outside. So I do believe that Cassie will have a snow day today. I will still have to work, but otherwise we will probably be holed up in our apartment for the next few days.
Not that it's much change. This winter we've been mostly hidden away indoors anyways. Just now we don't have a choice. I do worry that we could lose power or cable or internet connectivity. That shouldn't be much fun.

These storms should keep me very busy at work as well. They're calling for extra help so I might have to work some extra hours. Our workplace is very prepared for the storms. They've purchased some groceries and even some toiletries in case we get stuck at work for a while.

Family portrait day

Good news: We got our family portrait taken today at a local photography studio. They turned out great! Tons of awesome pics. Cassie was looking great with her hair and makeup, and Sasha was as cute as a button.

Bad news: They want over $500 for digital rights to the pictures. You'll never see them online. We could only afford to purchase one picture, printed on paper. And we won't receive those for 2 weeks.

My little 2-year old is rarely dressed appropriately for pictures lately, and she was looking cute so I tried to take some pics of her. She is completely non-cooperative for a camera when mom is on the other side of the lens. The only way I got any pics was with her on her bike.
So I've got these from today:


She was not sitting still in these pics. She was riding her bike down the hallway and laughing at mom trying to take pictures. It was funny to her because I had to jump in front of her, snap the pic, then dodge her riding her bike so she didn't run me over. It's not easy keeping up with a 2 year old sometimes.

Today, she's a dog

Everyday, Sasha pretends she is a different animal. Today (at a local asian noodle restaurant), she was a dog. Sorry for the annoying mom-voice.

Little Dancer

I got a few pics off my camera. This one is at least a month old but I had to post about it.
Sasha loves two songs by Feist. There's that "1234" song, and another song called "I feel it all".
In this picture, Sasha is dancing to "I feel it all" while watching the music video on my computer monitor. In the video, Feist dances around with a big stick. Sasha ran and grabbed her toy broomstick so she could copy the dance moves properly. She's dancing in front of the computer and swinging her stick around with the music.

Then once the dancing was done, she played a bit more with her broom.
Yeah, no pants. I'm lucky to get her to keep any clothes on her at all some days.

Sasha's christmas gifts

I found a GREAT deal on Sasha's christmas present.
As I had mentioned in a previous post, Sasha's been very interested in creating little "houses" for herself. She hides herself in boxes and laundry baskets and under blankets.
So I was considering getting her a Rose Petal Cottage. It was a bit on the expensive side, at $79.99 so I had decided not to get it (money is tight). But Amazon.com has it on sale for $29.99 so now she's getting it!
Earlier today, I got her a puzzle and a wooden Melissa and Doug dress up doll. So I think I'm done with her christmas shopping.

Sasha's house

Laundry baskets and boxes make the best toys for two-year-olds. Lately, Sasha loves climbing into and out of them. She turns them upside down and hides under them, or climbs inside and lays down in them.
My husband makes little makeshift forts for Sasha out of boxes, pillows, chairs, and blankets. Sometimes they are simple little constructs, but sometimes they're quite elaborate. Sasha has a blast with them. She loves to hide inside them for extended periods of time, and pretends they are her house. "Sasha's house!". He puts a pillow and blanket inside for her to get herself all cozy too.
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Today Sasha was sitting at our computer desk, nicely drawing on a piece of paper. She kept saying "directions! directions" as she scribbled away. I found it amusing. I wonder what her directions were for :P

Interesting age

This past week or two, Sasha's made some great leaps in her ability to communicate. It also seems like we're seeing a lot more of her little personality come through, although it could seem that way because of her improved communication.
Her words are clearer. Her sentences are a little longer and more complicated. And she sometimes talks about random things unrelated to the situation before her.
I was a little worried that her speaking skills were a little behind. Perhaps it's because her older sister Cassie was such a precocious early talker. It's hard not to compare children. It also doesn't help sometimes that I hear about some really good talkers on an online message board about children Sasha's age that I frequently read. But I shouldn't worry. She's average as far as the milestone charts go, and I think I am probably comparing her to some really precocious kids.
We know she understands a lot of what we say. She's got a good comprehension vocabulary.
Like I said, Sasha's really talking more lately, especially when it comes to expressing what she wants or doesn't want. That child is quite opinionated!
She's also been tempermental. She seems more prone to tantrums and more likely to throw herself to the floor in little fits for trivial things.

She seems to be testing us. She's getting into everything that she's not supposed to, then gets mad when we shoo her away or take contraband items away from her. As parents, we now sound like broken records: Sasha! No Sasha. Don't touch that. Get down from there. Now. Sasha get down. Sasha no!
I guess this is the terrible twos.

Snowy walk

Earlier this week, it snowed outside. Actually, it's been snowing almost all week. But after the first snow this week, a cold spell hit the area, with frigid temperatures in the single digits (Fahrenheit).
Fortunately, before the frigid temperatures came our way, I was able to take Sasha outside for a little explore and a walk to the local 7-Eleven. It happened on Tuesday. It was a nice and warm 34F degrees, and the snow had started to melt a little. There was still plenty of snow for Sasha to inspect. I re-introduced Sasha to SNOW. I let her touch it and try to play with it, but she didn't like how it made her hands cold and wet so she wasn't interested in it for long, other than to remark on occasionally and to let me know that it was white.
The walk was fun for us. The local 7-Eleven was only about a block and a half away. I had to explain to Sasha about streets and sidewalks and cars. And how to be careful of those cars, especially when crossing the streets. For now, Mom or Dad have to carry Sasha when crossing the street.
We made it to the store. Sasha's been a little ice cream fiend lately, so I figured I'd let her buy two cartons of Ben & Jerry's ice cream. She proudly carried her ice cream to the cashier's counter and purchased it. She also carried that bag of ice cream the whole way back home.

I'm glad we were able to get her outside, if even for a day, before the cold snap. We're now stuck indoors until it gets warmer and stops snowing so much.

So much fun!

Here's one of Sasha's phrases. I have no idea where she picked it up!
"SO MUCH FUN!"
She says it when she's having fun. It cracks me up. Like she'll be jumping on the bed yelling "SO MUCH FUN! SO MUCH FUN!".

When Sasha plays ball, she kicks the ball around the house and chases it yelling, "I DID IT! I DID IT!". Again, I don't know where she got that. Is she mimicking something she saw, or is she really encouraging herself?

Frog

Yesterday, I noticed Sasha was hopping around the house saying "Ribbit! Ribbit!". She's been doing that increasingly lately. I joked with her and asked her if she was a frog. She looked at me funny, thought a second, then said "uh-huh".
I didn't think much of it until a little later. I called to Sasha, by her name, as I always seem to be doing lately. She sternly responded by patting herself on the chest and saying, "NO! Frog!".
She kept this up all day. She gets upset with us if we call her Sasha. She is now Frog.
Cassie finds this very amusing.
There was a break for an hour yesterday evening, when Sasha was playing with her toy doctor set. She no longer responded to Frog nor Sasha. "No! I Doctor!" she corrected. But once she was done with her doctor set, she was back to Frog.

This is a first for Sasha. Pretend play? She's always played with her dolls in a pretend play sort of manner. She mothers them. But I think that's a bit different. That was more like mimicking than pretending. I suppose now that I think of it, Sasha first started giving her dolls voices a week or two ago.
Something interesting is happening in her little head.