Journal: Potty, Imitation, "Moe", Stage

August 30
Since Jayda is showing that she is aware of her messy diapers(see Aug 16 journal), we wondered if she might be ready to start potty training.  A friend offered to let us have her potty, so we put it in the bathroom.  Jayda loves to sit on it, but doesn't really understand what she is supposed to do, so she'll just sit there looking up at us excitedly from her toilet.   We might be a bit early for this, but it's still really cute.  

August 31
As evidence of Jayda imitating everything she sees in us, we have two stories today.  Pam has a little habit of twirling her fingers through her hair.  Jayda has seen this, and after trying it in her own hair, which is too short to be much fun, she likes to twirl her fingers through Pam's hair.   Also, the other day I (Jordan) had a bit of a stuffy nose and no tissues nearby, so I did what is know in some circles as a "snot-rocket" or "farmer's blow".  A minute later, I saw Jayda trying to do the same thing.  I guess if I want her to be a proper lady, I'll need to watch my behavior around her.

Sept. 1
Every day now, Jayda surprises us with a new word she has learned.  Today, it was "more".  She was sitting at the dinner table, having finished her plate.  Usually she will just scream or grunt to get our attention, but today she just kept saying "moe" until we brought her more food. 

Sept. 2
For the past couple of weeks, we have had a lot of new people moving into our ward with the start of the school year.  Since we are usually late, the only seats left when we get there are the two rows vacated by the deacons after passing the sacrament.  Unfortunately, they are right by the ramp up to the stand, and Jayda loves climbing up there and running around.  She's learned that I'll grab her if she goes too far up the ramp, so now she goes one or two steps up the ramp and turns around and looks at me.  Then she waits until I happen to look away, and she makes a break for it, requiring me to chase her up the stage while trying not to distract from the speaker. 

Journals: shoes, Onnie House, meemee, story time, Uncle Doggie

August 29th "The Shoes"

Today at the thrift store Jayda came across these pink dazzling shoes.  She was in love with them at first sight.  She wore them around the store admiring them as she walked.  When it came time to leave the store I tried to take them from her to put them back, but she threw a tantrum, screaming and throwing her arms around.  I gave in and bought them for a quarter, and now she refuses to wear any other shoes, even though she can barely walk in them because they are so big.

August 28th
Today Jayda walked her mini stroller from our house to her friend Annie's house, which is a few buildings down from ours.  All the buildings look the same so each building we passed she turned to face and yelled "Onnie house".  I would tell her that was the wrong one, so she would push her stroller to the next building and yell "Onnie house!" and so on until we reached the right building.

Bonus entry: Jayda only gets her binky, which she calls "Meemee", at bed time.  During the day, she isn't really interested in it; in fact when our friends have tried giving it to her when they are babysitting, she gets upset because she thinks it means she has to go to bed.  Usually when she wakes up in the morning and we go in to get her, she stands up, says "Meemee" and hands it to us to put on the shelf by her bed.  But some mornings, she hasn't quite gotten enough "Meemee time" because she climbs into our arms first and sucks enthusiastically on the binky for a couple of seconds before handing it over. 

August 27th
Bed time stories with Dada.
Jordan usually takes care of putting Jayda in bed.  The bed time ritual starts out with stories, then leads to lights out and some singing of songs.  Jayda prefers that Daddy puts her to sleep, because he is so good at reading/telling stories. One of the usual books is "The Belly Button Book" about, well, belly buttons.  Every night now, as soon as she sees the book come out, she pulls up Jordan's shirt and starts playing with his belly button.  Tonight, he squeezed it shut with his hands as if his navel was biting her finger.  She thought it was so funny, and now she loves to dig into everyone's bellybutton, hoping to get a bite from it. 

August 26th
Today during our usual Sunday skype meeting with Jordan's parents, Jayda met "soon to be" Uncle Morgan.  She smiled at him, then pointed her finger at his face and said "doggie"  Maybe it was Morgan's facial hair or just simply the fact that Jayda loves saying the word doggie.  Either way I'm thinking he should now be known as Uncle Doggie.

Just a cute pic of Jayda descending the stair while trying to hold on to her balloons.  It was fun to watch her struggle with the balloons at each step.

Journal, at the farm

Today, Pam was recovering from knee surgery, so I took Jayda to the petting farm at Domino's Farm.  She loved the ducks and chickens, but was terrified of any mammals, including pigs, goats, cows, and horses. 

Jayda's favorite part of the petting farm was this pile of wood chips she found.

Just a picture of Jayda being cool, rocking the sunglasses and the mullet already.

Journal August 22nd & 23rd

August 23rd

Today Jayda had a great time playing peek-a-boo with Jordan.  Luckily we caught some of it on camera.  We love her laugh!

August 22nd
Today's entry is not one moment that happened today, but a learned behavior that makes me think that Jayda is even more adorable.  When I ask Jayda to give me a kiss she walks to me and leans her head forward until her forehead or cheeks are close enough for me to give her a big smooch.  Sometimes I don't even have to ask.  When Jordan is around, she comes to me for my kiss than she turns and finds him to get a kiss from him.  It is things like this that make me love motherhood.

Tuesday Journal

Today we took Jayda to the mall.  While Pam was shopping for clothes, Jayda entertained me, playing tag and running up and down the department store aisles.  It was so funny hearing Jayda laughing uncontrollably as she tried to find me around corners.  It was also funny (and a bit frustrating) how she would pull clothes off the shelves, drop them on the floor, wait for me to catch up to her to put the clothes back, and dart away to another shelf to put more clothes on the floor. 

Monday Journal

Today around bed time, Jayda was jumping and playing on our bed.  She started burying her face in the blankets and waiting for us to find her.  One time when her face was hidden, Pam and I both hid on the floor at the foot of the bed .  When she realized we weren't there anymore, she started getting a little upset.  Pam and I both jumped up at the same time to scare her.  The look on her face was so funny.  She went from frustration at being alone, to terrified at us jumping up so fast, to pure joy and laughing, all in the time it took for her to fall backward onto the bed. 

Journal for Sunday

On Sunday, Jayda went hometeaching for the first time.  Pam had to work, so I took her with me to visit our friends in the ward.  She did remarkably well, never getting fussy or causing too much of a disturbance.  I wonder if I can start sending her in my place soon?

Journal, plus pic

Today, Jayda was eating yogurt when she decided it would go better in her hair than in her mouth.  She rubbed most of the cup on her head, and the more we laughed, the more she rubbed.

Journal August 16th

Today after Jayda's bath she did her usual "run to find mommy while naked and wet to show proof that she is clean" but this time she added a funny little performance.  When she found me she wiggled her body while rubbing her hands all over her protruding belly, almost in a innocently seductive way.  It was so funny, and the more we laughed, the more she did it. 

For a second entry today, Jayda has found a funny way to let us know she needs her diaper changed.  She'll sit on the floor and start squirming back and forth, probably because it is itchy.  It reminds us of a dog doing whats in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDZ_pkAu3TQ&feature=related   When we see it, she'll immediately jump up and run to the changing table for us to change her.  Today, Jordan and I were in the kitchen talking.  To make sure we saw her, Jayda came and sat right between us, plopped her but down and started the dirty diaper scoot.  A couple of days ago, Jordan and I were lying on the floor, so Jayda came and sat on Jordan's belly to do the dirty diaper scoot.  What creative way will she think of next?

Journal

August 15th

Jayda discovered that she loves playing in the Willow trees near our house.  She thinks they make great hiding places.  I'm just glad it entertains her and keeps her out of the sun.  Jack and Jayda are so cute sitting together under this Willow tree!

Journal

August 14th
It is only 10am and I already have the moment that I want to write about.  Jayda is beginning to care about clothing. Today I was trying to figure out what she should wear, so I pulled out a few skirts and some shirts.  Jayda decided that she wanted to wear all of them, so for the morning she wore 3 skirts, one pair of pants and two shirts.  I think she was plenty warm on this cloudy rainy day.

August 13th
Jayda likes to climb into the tiny space behind the couch and side table.  She loves picking all the leaves off of the large plant that sits back there.  That plant is beginning to look very unhealthy and I'm very tired of finding pieces of leaves all around the house.

August 12th
Jayda is now 18 months old, so today was her first time in nursery all by herself.  She did wonderful, no crying or complaining.  I don't even think she even noticed that Mom and Dad weren't around.  Jordan and I actually listened in Sunday school today. Here is the first picture she colored and brought home from church.   Our baby is growing up!

August 11th
Jordan and I went to my friend's wedding in Ohio, so Jayda spent the afternoon and evening with her boyfriends (Jack and Ethan).  They had a great time going shopping, taking a bath, reading books and running around the house giggling.

Journal

Jayda loves bath time, but she doesn't like actually washing with soap.  She normally tolerates it, but today she really didn't want soap on her body.  When she saw me reaching for soap, she started fussing and saying, "No, no."  When she saw me put soap in my hand, she immediately dropped to her belly so that only her head was over water so that I couldn't put soap on her body.  She's getting too smart and wily.

Journal, Justin visit

Today while on their journey cross country to Philadelphia, Uncle Justin, Ayde, and Malone (the dog) came to visit.  Jayda loved seeing Uncle Justin and Ayde, but she was very uneasy about a large German shepherd taking over her balcony. We had a wonderful, but short visit.

Jayda, Justin, and Ayde at Zingerman's

Journal for August 8th

Today I learned that Jayda likes to dress up.  She went through my underwear drawer, found all the lacy panties, looped them over her head one at a time, and wore them around as necklaces for a good portion of the afternoon.

I don't have a picture of the lacy panties around her neck, but she also likes to wear my sports bras.

Journal

I think Jayda was trying to subtly hint that she is sick of one of the books I usually read to her at night.  When we sat down to read, she reached for the basket of books and grabbed one we read almost every night.  I thought that meant she wanted to read it, but instead she turned and threw it across the room and turned around and stared me in the face, as though saying "What are you going to do about it?"

Journal

Today we went to Bed, Bath and Beyond.  Jayda was playing in the curtain section, and she went to run through one of the curtains, not realizing that there was a solid wall behind it.  After a solid thud, she just looked around a bit confused, but went right back to playing.  She's a quick learner though, because she approached all the others much more cautiously.

Journal

Today Jayda pretended that my shoe was a purse.  Whenever she picks up a bag she puts the straps over her shoulder, walks towards the door, and says "bye bye, see ya".  So this time she grabbed my shoe put the foot strap over her shoulder and said "bye bye, see ya"

Journal

Jayda showed me today that she can match things up.  In one of her books she pointed to a picture of a strawberry on the left page, then I asked her to find it on the right side and she did.  We did this over and over again with pictures of trains, balls, trucks, shoes and more.  It is fun to watch her brain develop.

One Sentence Journal

So I had a great plan of starting a goal on August 1st.  Stupid me got sick, so I'm already behind.  I have wanted to make a record of some of the big and small special moments in Jayda's life, but I'm terrible at keeping a journal.  Well I got a great idea from a book titled "The Happiness Project".  I'm starting a one sentence journal where each day I will write one sentence about what happened with Jayda that day.  I will be keeping this journal on our blog, because it will be easy to keep track of the days.  I have a list of sentences from the last three days.

August 1st: Jayda helped me put her clothes away today. She brought me one piece of laundry at a time and I put it in her closet- it took forever!

August 2nd: She finally said "moo" for the first time, when she found a cow magnet on the floor.

August 3rd: We were in a hurry to get out of the house and down the stairs, but Jayda wanted to climb down the stairs by herself with her dish of pretzels.  She had one problem she needs her hands to go downstairs.  It took her 10 minutes of shifting the pretzels around before she finally shoved two hand-fulls in her month, so she could climb down without my help.

Finally, HAWAII

In May we had the opportunity to go to Kauai, Hawaii.  It was so much fun! All of Jordan's family (minus one brother) stayed in a beach house at Anini beach.  We hiked, swam, played in the sand, ate lots, snorkeled, took a helicopter ride, tried surfing, and shopped for one week.  It was so beautiful, I wish we could go back.

Poppy, claiming his beach.

We have no idea what is going on in this picture.

Jayda loved to put the sand in her hair and her mouth.  We actually found sand in her diapers a few times.

This cave was neat.

It was a very steep climb down to this beautiful beach.

Just hiking with Nanny.

It was so windy up there that I was worried about standing too

 

close to the edge. 

She did wear a swimming suit most of the time, but she was so cute in this that we couldn't stop taking pictures.

Playing with cousin, Josie.  They had so much fun together.

Kilauea light house

Our wet hair is not from swimming,  The rain soaked us.

This is the Grand canyon of the Pacific ocean, but most of what we saw was covered in clouds.

Our surfer girl in her new surfing swimsuit.