Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Movement


Sara Beth cracks me up.  The family was eating dinner at the table, and somehow the topic of zombies crept into the conversation.  Now, Sara Beth has never seen a zombie movie before, and I think it was the first time she had ever heard the word, but for some reason, she decided to say "Grrrrrraaaaarrrrrgggg!!!!" and grabbed my hand and proceeded to try to take a bite out of it.  Fortunately, Heather was quick with the camera to capture the moment.

This past week, Sara Beth has been struggling with her sleep schedule.  She doesn't want to sleep during her nap time, and last night, she decided that 4 hours of sleep should be enough for anyone, and was wide awake starting at midnight.  She played in her room until falling back to sleep about 2am.   Because of this, she is rather tired at what usually is her wake time.  This means that we can capture rare photos of her lying still while not in bed ( a very rare occurrence before this week). 

We went to the arboretum yesterday.  Sara Beth had a great time running around.  If it wasn't for the fact that it was so sunny outside, quite a few of the pictures would be blurry as she ran from flower to flower to Mommy to Daddy and so forth.  In the below picture, she has an apprehensive look on her face as I tell her to stand still for the camera. As soon as I snapped the picture, she scurried off.

I captured the following action shots of her running back and forth from one waterfall to the other since she kept taking the same route, so, just like a big game hunter on the African savanna, I setup my position and waited for my target to come into view.



Whenever either Heather or I held Sara Beth for a combined photo, you can see the wheels in her mind turning as she plans where she is going to run to next as soon as we let her get down.


Action shots did work a little better.  We framed this picture similar to the one we took back in November 2008.  She was a lot smaller back then.

The only other time she slowed down was to look at the animals, either the metal statues, or the squirrels, or the fish in the coy ponds. 


When we went to a friends Hawaiian themed birthday party.  Sara Beth liked all the leis, and collected a couple to match her other necklaces.  


When the party was over, Sara Beth eagerly tried to help clean up.  She had great fun helping carry the cooler back into the house, even though it probably weighed about 15 pounds.

And finally, we have her relaxing on the slide, sitting still for a moment.  As soon as I took the picture, she slid down the slide and into my arms.  She then hopped right back out and proceeded to climb up the ladder to slide down again.

Monday, April 19, 2010

Sing along

In a previous post, I mentioned that Sara Beth has begun to warm up her singing voice. Not only will she repeat the Happy Birthday song, she will now sing along with the CD we play for her in the car, and also will try to make a chorus out of her bed time songs, however she doesn't have all the words down yet.  When I sing "I'll be", she repeats "Ha-ppy" with a pronunciation that make the two sound similar.   

Sara Beth and her friend Adriana love to play.  Sara Beth will remind me to mention "Nana" in her night time prayers.  Below is a picture of them this past week playing dress-up together.  They were both running on the tile floor making good clip clop noises laughing the whole time.


Every time Heather goes near a closet door, Sara Beth asks to go in, whether it is the gift closet, the hall closet, or the pantry.  But more than any other, Sara Beth likes our bedroom closet.  And this is why: shoes, clothes, and small excersize balls.  To her, they are all her personal play things.  She never picks matching shoes.

As a treat, some Saturdays, we will go down to the donut shop and pick out something good to eat for breakfast.  Sara Beth looks in the windowed display and pointed at the pink sprinkled one.  She eats only the part that has frosting on it and will leave the unsugared dough uneaten.

Sara Beth loves her Bible stories when she goes to bed at night.  Sometimes we read to her, other times, she wants to read by herself.  Reading by herself consists of flipping the pages and pointing out the trees, and clouds, and any animal she recognizes.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Long week

It has been a rather hectic week here so I am going to let the pictures do most of the talking for me this entry.  Sara Beth was rather angstey last week, throwing fits at the slightest provocation.   We suspected it was teething related, but it seemed so severe that we were considering taking her to the doctor to see if something was wrong.  Fortunately, she seems to have recovered as she was back to her care-free self today.  

Even when full of angst, Sara Beth still wanted to be helpful.  Here she is in her Cinderella pose as she wipes some water off the floor.


Sara Beth and her friend Adriana played together last Friday.  Both are eating a peanut butter and honey sandwich for lunch, but if you look closely, you will see one is eating daintily and the other has food strewn across her face and the table.  Guess which one is my daughter? 

Heather enjoys to drink tea in the mornings.  One morning, Sara Beth requested to drink some tea as well.  When her little toy tea cup wasn't enough, she asked Heather for her glass. Heather was happy to oblige after drinking most of the liquid in the cup. 

And of course, she needed to share some with her doll, Emma Rose.  Sara Beth makes slurping noises for her dolls when she "feeds" them.

We went to the farmer's market in downtown Dallas and got some giant carrots.  Sara Beth will ask for one, but they need to be sliced to a size that is smaller than her mouth to make them more edible.

Who doesn't like to blow bubbles in the backyard on a nice spring day?

Heather wanted to play with some software that does green-screen photo stuff ( Begin blatant sales pitch: You too can buy it here at my store: Studio Tamer. End sales pitch).  Anyways, Heather asked Sara Beth to stand in front of the green screen to show everyone how cute she is.  This is the pose that Sara Beth struck to fulfill Heather's request.


And with that, Heather came up with this.  I think it looks like one of the daisies is about to eat Sara Beth, but it is a cute picture nonetheless.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

One two three five

Heather has started to work with Sara Beth on her numbers and letters.  Sara Beth loves to practice them.  I can start to count to ten, and she will either repeat the number I just said, or give the next one in the sequence.  She has also started pointing out the letters she sees around town.  While driving back from Sam's club, Sara Beth was in her car seat naked (note to self: restock the emergency diaper stash in the car) and at a stop light, she said "S" and pointed.  It turns out the semi truck next to us belonged to some company that started with that letter.  We now have to keep our eyes pealed, as if she points out a letter, and we do not confirm and acknowledge its presence, then she will begin to repeat herself and become agitated until we do confirm her find.

Everyday, Sara Beth develops her exploring abilities.  Typically, this ends in a mess. This past week, she grabbed Heather's makeup and began to apply foundation it to her face.


While I cleaned up in the kitchen, Sara Beth decided that her car needed a new paint job.  And while she was at it, she wanted some tatoos.  Five minutes later, I come into this scene in the playroom.

I helped her wash her car off, and then explained to her that the markers were for the art easel only.  She accepted that with some trepidation, but when she finished her latest creation, I took a picture and praised her efforts in an attempt to convince her that art within designated boundaries is so much better.



The day before, she watched as Heather and I washed the van.  Once we were done with the buckets, Sara Beth began to walk around the front yard with the buckets and their sloshing contents.  I had the overwelming urge to hum Dukas' "The Sorcerer's Apprentice."  As an asside, while writing this post, I decided to find the song to listen to in the background and found that Jerry Bruckheimer is making a full length live action movie based on the story that will come out on my birthday.  The trailer for it didn't have any classical music in it; I think I'll pass on watching it.


This past Sunday was the first Easter that Sara Beth has been old enough to appreciate.  We gave her an Easter Basket with some coloring books, a book with Bible stories in it, and some plastic eggs with candy in it.  I think Sara Beth got a little too much sugar that afternoon.


And of course, is any little girl's Easter really complete without an Easter Dress?  Of course not.