Feathered Friends Festival

We biked over to the Riparian Preserve for the Feathered Friends Event. There were lots of unique animals for Liberty to see: alpaca llama, parrots, anaconda, snakes, turtles, owl, falcon, armadillo, capybara (largest rodent), fennec fox, and some kangaroo-like animal I forgot the name of...

Liberty got to pet them all - with the exception of the owl, falcon and anaconda. We brought a picnic lunch and enjoyed the beautiful spring day together. She especially can't stop talking about getting to hold the baby tortoises.

First Trip to the DENTIST!

Liberty was very excited to see Dr. Patrick (our awesome dentist) for the first time. All week long we had been talking about brushing, flossing, saying AAHHH, opening wide, buzzing sounds, tipping back in a special chair, tickling your teeth, what color mask Dr. Patrick would have, how mommy would get her teeth cleaned too, etc etc etc.

I think the narrative helped - because when we got there and they asked if mommy or Liberty should go first - Liberty said "My turn please"! Plus, I neglected to mention the FISH TANK so that was a cool surprise. She let them look at her teeth, count them, but wasn't fond of the electric cleaner (even though she likes my sonicare) so we will save that for her next appointment. It was a good experience. She even told Dr. Patrick he could come to her "Elmo Birthday Party" and "Eat Elmo Cake".

Pictures of her in the waiting room with her bag of 10 dogs who had to come along.

From 2012_3_21 - Dentist

From 2012_3_21 - Dentist

SAY CHEESE!

From 2012_3_21 - Dentist

Train Playdate and Random Pictures

We met up with my friend Chelsea and her kids Ella and Jack for a play-date at Desert Breeze Park and got unlimited passes for the Train Ride and Carousel. Oh happy day.

Also, there are some random pictures of Liberty after a nap and bonding with her "new dog toys" (she has earned 10 dogs for pooping on the potty and she insists we take them everywhere).

"Horse Song Again!"

Liberty is very into this particular song at the moment...

From Videos of Liberty Dancing to Kindermusik

The Rest of February

What a funny month. We've been prepping for a yard sale, spending money like drunken sailors (dang cheetah surgery and storage shed!) and organizing/editing the house. In addition to these chores we had some wonderful things happen in February - my best friend since 5th grade came to visit! Molly lives in Colorado now and the last time I saw her Liberty was tiny (3 months?) so it was so nice to catch up with her and hear about her bun in the oven due Aug. 22nd. And if Molly & Josh don't find out the gender of their baby they better just call me and LIE about it because I am going crazy with the thought that they won't find out! It was great to have Molly hang out. We did Joe's FarmGrill, Trader Joe's, Liberty Market, cooked out, The PHX Zoo, Liberty's music class...etc. Don't know why I only got 1 picture of Molly and Libs at the Zoo. Feb. hasn't been a very picture-taking month for me I guess. But Molly did help put together a new picnic table for Liberty that Liberty is quite obsessed with. The picture is of our dinner that her puppy dogs had to join us for. She gets a new dog each time she poops in the potty which is is very proud of.

Happy Valentine's Day!

We celebrated Valentine's Day all month long it felt like - so many crafts and so many sweets. But on Valentine's Day we went to the Museum of Youth's special event (can't believe it was all free!). They had face painting, parrots!, cookie decorating, a complimentary breakfast, valentine crafts, storytime, a helicopter in the parking lot and of course all the activities at the museum. We didn't even make it to half the events but Liberty did enjoy sitting very still to have her cheek painted (out of alllll the choices she picked a hummingbird which I thought was so cute). She also can't stop talking about the "purple parrot, sit arm" (that sat on her arm). We also had a lunch date with our Valentine, Cameron, at Pita Jungle. Liberty is very attached to the puppy dog stuffed animal Poppa and Jo got her and her "Puppy dog movie" aka LADY AND THE TRAMP that my mom & dad got her. I truly love this holiday - it's so nice to celebrate those you love.

From 2012_2_14 - Valentine's Day

Zoo with Grandma Jo and Grandpa Ted

For Christmas one of the gifts we gave the Wyatt grandparents was tickets to come down and do the ZOO! Liberty had a blast and keeps talking about the carousel ride and the camel's pooping. I was so happy to have the Wyatt's with us this particular weekend because it unexpectedly coincided with Cheetah Girl's surgery. Our cat had a blocked intestine (her fault for eating one of Liberty's bath foam toys) - and she had to have emergency surgery. It was really helpful to have the Wyatt's around so Cameron and I could take care of Cheetah and not drag Liberty to the Vet more than I already had!

Lots of crafting up in here

Liberty and I have been doing a lot of valentine's day crafting. I haven't taken a lot of pictures but here is a small video I took while she painted on canvas.

From 2012_2_2 - Painting for Vday

Saguaro Lake Boat Cruise

One of our gifts to Gpa for Christmas was a boat cruise out on Saguaro Lake. And look who he brought as his guests? - us! Liberty was jazzed about the boat ride but also clapped when she thought it was over (only at the HALF WAY point) so 1.5 hours right at nap time wasn't the brightest idea...but we had a good time enjoying the Arizona sights, being on the water and hangin with my dad.

Liberty at 21 months old.

just some family notes to remember our growing toddler by...



Potty training. She's been in panties since Jan 1 (diaper for nap/bedtime - although she's surprised us with waking dry and going pee right away too!). She stays dry and only pees in her potty, with the occasional accident (maybe 1-2 per week). She poops almost everyday in her panties, with the occasional miracle (maybe 1-2 per week). haha. She tells us the second she is pooping so I hope we are really close to getting that resolved soon. Otherwise she gets an A+ and was (pee) trained in the 3 day bootcamp method.

Decided to wake at night for a couple weeks in a row to snuggle. Mommy only. Not cute.

Is nuts for her pillow pet puppy which she has named HENRY (from the Daddy & Me lift the flap book where they build a doghouse for Henry) lol. This is the first item she has named.

Is taking MESSY MONSTERS art class via Gilbert Rec. Friday is our day to stain our clothes and get glitter in our eye.

Is OBSESSED with the alphabet. If I threatened to shoot Elmo in the head, or throw her ABC's overboard she would plead for mercy for the ABCs. If you ask her to identify or find any letter - she can. (capital only). She can also do the sound of about half of all the letters. Mainly thanks to this DVD from our neighbor.

Knows colors (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, brown, black, white, grey).

Can count to 3. Can identify 1,2,3,4,8,9

Thinks "going out to dinner" means going to Chipotle. She says "RICE! BEANS! MEAT! APPLE JUICE!"

Her memory is out of control. If I tell her we can go to the park when she wakes up - the first thing she tells me when I fetch her from her naps is "AWAKE! PARK. WALK." followed by other instructions such as "SHOES. ON. GO. WALK. PARK. RACE. AWAKE!" This happens with a lot of different topics. It takes both Cameron and I to swing her in a blanket like she likes to do so she'll bring me the blanket and say "SWING. DADDY. HOME. NO. WORK." Yea, when he comes home from work. Or the boat cruise with Gpa... "AWAKE! BOAT! LAKE. WATER. RUSTY" (gpa's dog).

Other favorites: House/Dance music, especially featuring Uncle Andy (see post below). Trains with Daddy only, her "Elmo Poop Movie" (Elmo in Grouchland - Cameron's least favorite movie) which she got for a rare poop success, water painting on the driveway with the neighbor girls, lollipops, petting Cheetah, brushing her teeth and Dr. Seuss/PD Eastman books.

Our Little Raver

Uncle Andy makes a cameo in a house music video and Liberty was in heaven! She wanted to watch that video over and over.
First, on the computer:



So, after we watched it on the computer we put it on the TV which she thought was a great idea:

From 2012-1-19 - Andy's music video

And I'm also posting this video especially for Poppa - she now says "THERE YA GO" (ah ga go) a lot thanks to you! Adorable. (and it cracks me up how devastated she is when the music stops due to technical difficulties)

From 2012-1-19 - Andy's music video