Happy Birthday!

Good Morning, Laura! How old are you?

Salami sandwhich for lunch. Eat up girl.

Let's get ready for your big day.

Birthday party at daycare!

Make a wish!



Back home for presents.

Hmmmm. I wonder what this could be....

Ooooohhhh...

Aaaaaahhhhh....

Woooowwwww...

Look out Venus.

In Laura fashion, the birthday actually started at 2am when she woke up because of a fever. After some motrin, tylenol and 3 frozen ice pops, back to bed. I was planning to send her to daycare but ended up keeping her for the day. She didn't wake up till almost 10am. I ended up doing all the errands (balloons, decorated, etc) with her and then took her to daycare at 2:30pm for her party. She had a good time.
I brought her back home for her presents (it's just not right to open tons of presents in front of other 2 to 3 year olds due to the 'mine,mine,mine' mentality). She was exhausted since she had not napped and was in theory sick. Overall a good birthday with the only downside of not seeing her friend Thomas. At one point she said "I want Omi" two times in a row.
She must have sang the happy birthday song at least 10 times today! Happy birthday, sweetheart!

Labor Day. Sept 4th.

Love is in the air.
Another trip to the Franklin Zoo. A last minute trip to get the kids tired out.
Laura's face says "pucker up, Thomas!"

Smoooooch.





Is that a wild animal on the loose? YES IT IS!

















They played on this thing for a good 1/2 hour and we didn't even put any money in it!!! HAHAHAHA!

Vacation is over

Highlights of this weekend. Sorry, no photos!
Labor Day weekend marks the end of my 2 week vacation. Sigh.
My sister came up to visit this weekend and Laura immediately took to her and "defected". Every word out of her mouth was "Ymo,ymo, ymo" (Aunt in Korean) and she would give a running commentary on what she was doing. "Ymo shower". "Ymo done shower". "Ymo bye bye". It was a really good visit.

The other highlight was going to Dim Sum on Sunday. I met up with friends visiting from out of town and we went to China Pearl. I had never been there before and it was really good. The place was packed too but seating was pretty quick. Laura was pretty good with eating dumplings and rice but the highlight came when we decided to get snails. She was eating it up. "More" she kept saying one after the other. The problem was that they were still in their shells so I had to dig it out with a toothpick and I wasn't giving it to her fast enough. She also had tripe and ate some of that too. TRIPE! which I am squeamish about! I have to admit that they did do a really good job and they were pretty tasty without the funky aftertaste.

Back to work, back to reality. Sigh....

Tampa trip

At the hotel pool

Laura's most adored toy of all time: BALLOON (with emphasis on the first syllable)

Fast friends: Janise and Laura

Laura afraid of the carousel

Laura playing with the "big kids"

Overall and uneventful trip but great to spend some time with the family and friends. Laura had a great time with all the kids to play with which she doesn't really have in Boston.

WE ALL SCREAM FOR ICE CREAM!



Here is Laura sleeping with her new friend, Ernie.


Thomas and Laura being bad throwing mulch all over the place.


Piggyback


Thelma & Louise


Well, 22 months has not been that eventful. Besides some small trips to the Aquarium and Buttonwood, the days have been melding together.
Laura's understanding has increased dramatically to the point that she tries to interrupt conversation if she understands something from it.
Additionally, she is obsessed with injury. If she had her way, she would have a permanent bandaid on her knee. She had a small scrape on it months ago and she constantly says "Ow", "boo boo", "hurt", "bandaid" and will kiss it over and over again. When she got her Ernie doll, I pulled a piece of string from his foot and she wanted me to put a bandaid on it (which I did, reluctantly) and then she kept kissing it and wanting him to feel better. Oy, I hope this child doesn't decide a future in medicine!

On Sunday, I tried a potty experiment. I put underwear on her instead of a diaper and kept reminding her to use the potty. She was in her pajama top and underwear most of the day. She was very good with no accidents. I ended up putting a diaper on when she took a nap so she went through just 1 diaper the whole day and night. Phew! I'm still so reluctant to take away the diaper b/c of my complete aversion of cleaning up pee!

Buttonwood Zoo

August 5th. Sunny gorgeous day, a bit hot.
Being single parents for the weekend, 'Omi' and Laura got to visit the Buttonwood Zoo. It's a small zoo in New Bedford, MA which is very cute, very clean and perfect for small children.

Thomas being a "bad boy" in a HUGE puddle.

Sad elephant
Laura with otter


This was a huge stuffed bear at the eatery. Both kids were scared of the bear and would only wave to it from a distance.

Billy goats


Large Beaver

Laura is turning into such a girly girl. She likes having barrettes in her hair and her fingernails and toenails painted. She only starts acting tomboyish when she is around Thomas.

Laura loves to paint and color. Favorite color is green. She always picks the green crayon, paint, marker or paper. She's also very clean. She doesn't get it messy around the table and if it gets on her hands, she wants to have it wiped off.

This was a playdate with Thomas. Notice the red sock? It was falling off of Thomas' foot so she took it off and put it on her foot. Talk about mirroring.


When I picked her up from daycare, this was what she was wearing. She apparently got her pants wet so the daycare provider put on the replacement pants that I had given her (they were size 12 month!) They're like trendy capris!



New experiments with her hair.



Food:
What Laura will eat:
Spinach
Black olives
nectarines/plums
grapes
raisins
bananas
apples
salad with ranch dressing
Zucchini in tomato sauce
Chicken (sometimes)
tofu

What Laura LOVES to eat:
Tomatoes (especially grape tomatoes)
avocado
Strawberries
frozen blow pops
ICE CREAM!
candy (which she RARELY gets)
Oreo cookies (only the cream part)
French Fries (LOVES)
cole slaw
pizza
edamame

What Laura doesn't like to eat:
Broccoli (won't even touch it!)
Potatoes (mashed or baked: won't touch it)
Meats:
eggs: scrambled, egg salad (tolerates)
Pork (no only in potstickers)
ground turkey/beef (sometimes)
beef (no)

She's turning into a vegetarian