20 Months!

Iris turned 20 months on March 25th. She is becoming such a big girl. However, as you can see, she still has trouble holding her sign for her picture. It does say 20 months though. We replaced the carpet in her room so she was much more interested in checking out her new carpet than posing for a picture.

Just when you thought Iris' room could not get any pinker we decided to go all out and put pink carpet in it as well. The carpet is SUPER cute though! It's a Disney princess carpet and has little tiaras and squiggly designs in it and the color is very subtle. Iris ran around in circles and rolled and rolled all over it. Then she started checking it out and looking at all the designs. I think she really likes it.

This isn't the greatest picture but you can see a few little tiaras in there. Iris is now saying a new word almost every day. If you say something, she'll often repeat it right back to you.

Some of her favorite words/phrases lately are:

"Mine,"

"Stop it," and

"I'm sorry" ( sounds more like "Sowey" and she says this all day long, not just when she does something bad so it's never said with much sincerity)

When I buckle her in her car seat she now says "Go, Go, Go....Beep Beep." It's very cute and makes me laugh every time she does it.

She can also say her name but it's a struggle to get her to do it. Instead she just looks at you and smiles. Hopefully by next month we'll have it mastered.

My mom has been counting with her when she climbs up or down stairs. I did not realize this until one day we were going up the stors and she started saying "1, 2,3..." I couldn't believe it so I called mom and she said she's been doing that with her lately. Now I make it part of our routine as well. She does pretty good and can count to ten if you do it with nher but often she still says "1, 2, 3" and then skips straight to "8." Perfecting that will have to be another goal for next month as well.

I wish I could say she is branching out with her eating and trying new things but she is not. The only meat she will eat is chicken but only nuggets from Chick-Fil-A and bacon. Other than that it's mainly fruit, cheese, yogurt and pasta. And not any pasta, just those processed cheese cups of pasta you put in the microwave. She also has an obsession with ice. She calls it "cold" and will stick her hand into any cup you have laying out and dig ice out of it. She has also learned how to open our ice maker. Several times I have found her standing at it with the door open eating ice.

She has been dancing a lot lately. Her favorite dance tunes seem to be from the Wiggles show. She stands in front of the TV, puts her hands in the air and starts dancing.

She does have some issues with sharing but we're working on those right now as well. It worries me because we're not sure how she's going to adjust to the new baby. I guess we'll find out soon enough. I can't believe our little baby is going to be a "Big Sister" any day now!

Easter Egg Hunt, Take 2

On Wednesday her class re-did the Easter Egg Hunt. The weather was much nicer and everyone had a lot of fun. Iris was so busy running around and collecting Easter eggs I was only able to get a few pictures of her. I think she'll be a professional egg hunter by Easter Sunday.

Easter Egg Hunt, Take 1

Monday was Iris' Easter Egg Hunt at school. I dropped Iris off at school and then got a call that the Easter Egg Hunt was cancelled due to the weather, then I got a call that it was back on. Very confusing morning to say the least. So anyway, I show back up for "The Hunt" and all the kids are ready and excited and as soon as we walk out the door the rain begins.

Yes, it is very odd to have your child trampling through a graveyard and stepping over tombstones to find Easter eggs. It was a quick hunt to say the least. Iris found 3 eggs and then we went back in because of the rain. They decided to try the EE Hunt again on Wednesday. Hopefully it will be a nicer day.

Back to the Park

Iris and I were out running some errands Saturday morning when we got a call from Lenna and Clara inviting us to join them at the park for a picnic. Of course, we could not refuse so it was back to the park we went... there were certainly no complaints from Iris... Lenna brought a nice picnic for us all to share...

You can tell from these two full little bellies that they both enjoyed the picnic...

And then it was off to chase some bubbles.

What a perfect afternoon!

Fun Filled Friday

Iris woke up this morning with a ton of energy. She was into everything and somehow managed to find this in one of my bathroom drawers and, of course, insisted on wearing it. It's actually kind of genious. I think I will let her wear this again when I feed her oatmeal or spaghetti, the two meals that she loves to rub into her hair.

Then it was off to The Little Gym to burn some more energy.... After that we took a trip to Costco, a nap and then it was such a beautiful day I decided we should go to the park...

and a little snack after playtime to tie us over until we met my sister and the kids for pizza and ice cream to celebrate Logan's birthday. Logan and her best friend, Kate, both turned 8 this weekend and opted for a "girls weekend" together instead of a party. Friday night was a sleepover at my sister's house and then the next night would be at Kate's. I didn't get any pictures at the pizza place because Mary and me were severely outnumbered with 5 kids at a pizza buffet. I don't think we were all sitting down at the table together for one minute. Someone was either running around or up getting more pizza. Here's a few pix of everyone goofing around at the ice cream parlor...

Notice Ashton actually has his balanced on his nose...

Iris didn't get left out of the festivities. She raided everyone else's ice cream cup when they went to play video games...

and therefore ended up with every color of the rainbow all over her. I soaked this shirt in Oxiclean overnight and it still has stains. I guess I'll be bleaching it tomorrow.

Egg Hunt Practice Session

Iris has an Easter Egg Hunt at school on Monday and I wasn't sure if she would know what to do. Thursday was a beautiful afternoon and Iris found the bag of eggs I had bought so I decided we should go outside and give it a practice run. She was super excited and entertained just running around with her basket...

but when I started to help her by showing her some hidden eggs she finally got the hang of it... Hopefully she'll be willing to give up the shamrock beads at the real Easter Egg Hunt...

and of course we had to stop and smell the "flowers"....

St. Patty's Day

I made Clara and Iris matching T-shirts for St. Patty's Day. Unfortunately Iris has been having some allergy/sinus issues so she looks a little puny in these pictures. Plus, I had to wake her up to get her to school so she wasn't quite with it yet. They still look super cute though! Sitting in Jesus' lap...

Shower for Baby Steele #2

My friends Lenna and Courtney hosted a Diaper Shower for me on Sunday. They served ice cream sundae's (Yummy!) with a bunch of other great food and my sister bought this beautiful cake.

Believe it or not, these are all filled with diapers. I now have a whole closet full of diapers. That is good though because so far that's about all we have for the new baby. It's very hard not knowing whether you are going to have a boy or a girl. I definitely would not have been able to do this the first time around.Thank you Lenna and Courtney! You're the Best!

Going to Nana & Papa's

Iris got sent to NC with her Nana and Papa for 2 days. Need I explain why....

All she had to say for herself was "Pretty!, Pretty!"

It's just lipstick but at first glance it looked like a crime scene. There's even more on the cabinet drawers and the bathtub. Yes, the flooring has a seagrass rug texture and it took hot water, soap and a toothbrush to get it out. I was not happy.