photo challenge, second installment.

day 8: a guilty pleasure. 

day 9: lips.

day 10: something i wore today.

day 11: street shot.

day 12: far away.

(i know it's semi-cheating, but it was one of those days/weeks where i really never got far away from anything, especially the house and tiny baby bums. give me points for being clever?)
 

day 13: up close.

day 14: faceless self portrait.

day 15: a daily routine. 

day 16: movement. 

life with a two-year-old.

just some little things i want to remember about ellie at this age.

i love ellie's imagination. she makes me laugh so hard, especially when she plays with her food (which is always). usually her food/utensils are a family, the tallest object being daddy and so on down the line. she makes them hug and kiss while she sings "we love dada, yes siree! we love mama, yes siree! we love poppy, yes siree!" i guess she must be pretty happy, because she never pretends to yell or fight. she slid a penne noodle on her fork handle and said that she was putting "jammies" on the fork. that's not even as good as the incident at ikea, when she pulled her straw out of her juice box and yelled "come back here! i'm naked!" get it? the straw is naked because the juice box ran away... oh man.


she's super girly. she wants to wear a "pretty dress" all the time. if she is wearing pants or even pajamas, we have to put the tutu over it so that she has a pretty dress on. she loves sparkly and shiny things. i swear, i do not make her do this. i may enable her but i do not encourage her. she will ask to wear tights or sparkly shoes. we looked at a shimmery dress at the store the other day and she will not stop talking about it. i find her digging in my bag, looking for "makeups"and "mastick" (chapstick). for all her girliness, though, she loves to play with dinosaurs and trucks and she's not afraid to get dirty.

she loves to dance. she will grab our hands and say, "stand up! let's dance!"she will wake up in the morning and ask if we can watch the nutcracker and she will sing the music, "duh duh duh duuuh duh-duh!" she loves to sing, too. lately she's been singing "the rainbow connection." it's the best. her versions: "wainbows are visions, da only delusions" "da lubbers, da screamers and meeeeee!"

she loves her friends and nursery. she will ask me where her friends are (by name) all week long, when we are at the store or when she's going to bed or when she first wakes up. she remembers when it is sunday and she is so excited to go to church... except sacrament meeting. "i don't want to go to sacrament meeting!" she just wants to play. when people come to our house she screams and cries when they leave.

she's very good with her words and has an excellent vocabulary. i can't believe i was ever worried that she wouldn't talk. now she won't stop talking! she's getting smart, too, and sassy. lately she'll try to get out of bed by asking to "nuggle with dada." let's just say that it works often, especially because she isn't usually a snuggler. she'll do anything to get out of bed. a few nights ago she said, "i don't want to go to bed! i want to eat breakfast!" as if we could just forget about the night and go straight into the next day.

she's a parrot but she always seems to choose the sweetest things to copy. she says things like, "good morning! did you wake up?" and "congratulations! you did it!"i especially love when she talks to her sister: "poppy! you are sooooo beautiful. you're a very smart girl." she definitely loves her sister. she even asked why poppy didn't get a birthday cake, too.

some recent ellie quotes:

"oh my goodness, we goin' to mcdonalds! we goin' to mcdonalds hooray!" (she didn't even eat anything, she just played.)

"polka dots? hooray! i love polka dots!" (her polka dot dress.)

"oh my goodness, it's pink!" (about her birthday cake.)

"awww, i love blockses!"(when opening her blocks.)

puts her hands on her cheeks and "i can't ba-weave-it!

when opening her rapunzel doll: (in a reverenced tone) "ohhhh, she's soooo beauuuutiful."

she counts to ten (or higher), she recognizes several letters and she knows her colors. she's challenging and stubborn and way too smart, but she's also funny and surprising and loving and wonderful.


i couldn't ask for a better girl.


p.s. - miss poppy is officially three months old!

two years old.

"one day when she was two years old she was playing in a garden, and she plucked another flower and ran with it to her mother. i suppose she must have looked rather delightful, for mrs. darling put her hand to her heart and cried, 'oh, why can't you remain like this for ever!' this was all that passed between them on the subject, but henceforth wendy knew that she must grow up. you always know after you are two."

- the adventures of peter pan, j.m. barrie

i know it is dramatic, but i can't get this little quote out of my head. 

she turned two yesterday. she's well on her way to growing up, and soon she will know it, too. 

i'll miss my baby, but i love this smart, funny, darling kid of mine.

(more on life with a two-year-old coming soon.)
(bottom pictures from jekyll island. more of them are also coming soon.) 

tummy bug.

daddy had it two weeks ago. ellie got it sunday. it waited until midnight on valentine's day to hit me, so unfortunately i spent all night reliving our delicious dinner. i think poppy has it right now, seeing as i am in another room and i can hear her pooping. poor babies. poor us.

we've all had the stomach bug, and i'm trying to scrub it out of our house and also clean up the gigantic mess that happened while i was stuck on the couch for 24 hours.

we'll get back to updates and pictures (i have so many beach and visit pictures!!) and the photo challenge soon. in the meantime, enjoy some pictures i got trying for day 16 (movement):

photo challenge, week one.

a friend of mine, mrs. jolley (who's blog is, unfortunately, going private - but she has a stunning photography blog), set up a photo challenge for february. so far the best part about it has been that i have been taking more pictures in general. most of my favorites have nothing to do with the challenge, really.

presenting one week from the fowler perspective:

day one: self portrait. 

day two: the weather today.

day three: something i ate. 

day four: sunlight.

day five: from high.

day six: from low.

day seven: someone you know.

thank you notes.

thank you, other adults interacting with my daughter,

for teaching her funny phrases that she definitely didn't get from me. for instance: "somebody's hungry" and "oh my goodness! i pooped!" (okay, that last one might have been from me but i'm not sure.)


thank you, magic jack,

for being cheap long distance but an unreliable number for people leaving messages. i just got a two minute long message and the only parts that i could hear were "everything looked fine except..." and "call us back at (crackle crackle) if you have any questions." luckily i figured out it was from the vet.

 
thank you, disney, 

for teaching my daughter all sorts of phrases from the movie tangled. i don't love when she hits me with her frying pan and says "how did you find me? what do you want with my hair? who else knows my location?" i do love when she brushes my hair and sings "flower gleam and glow, let your power shine..."


thank you, pinterest,

for putting all sorts of ideas in my head for things i can't actually do because a) i don't have a proper oven, b) i have no time or place away from little people to do any sort of leisurely crafting and c) i don't have the resources. ugh. but thanks for letting me pretend to have style and let me see some really neat/nerdy stuff.

(p.s. - i know i'm not the only one who sees something and wants to pin it just because it is really yucky or lame looking, but i don't want to seem rude.)

(p.p.s. - i am learning to bake in the countertop oven. i've been successful with cookies and banana bread but no matter how hard you try you just can't fit something like a sheet cake in there.)


thank you, husband,

for teaching my daughter that my name is bradie. it is so weird to hear her call me that. at least it might come in handy if she gets lost?


thank you, npr,

for making me feel like i'm doing something to keep my adult brain from melting. also, you make me feel like i'm more balanced when i listen to you after watching gossip girl.


thank you, God, 

for my poppy's adorable, squishable, kissable cheeks. oh man, they are so great.
and for giving me the best/most challenging job ever.
and for believing that i'm up for the challenge.

two months!

well, more like two and a half but we just had the appointment monday.
the curse of the neglected second child strikes again.

oh, pretty poppy.

i can't believe we've had her for two months. 

i can't believe it has only been two months.

the "pre-smile scrunch" face

she's a big girl, in the 95th percentile for weight at 13 lbs 6 oz and in the 75th percentile for height. she has been wearing 3 month size clothes for over a month now. she's already in size 2 diapers.

she sleeps like a dream, most of the day and sometimes all night - and not just newborn "all night," like, eight hour stretches some nights. her cheeks are incredible. i honestly kiss her at least a hundred times a day just to feel those fat cheeks squish. i also kiss her to make her smile, but it isn't hard to make her smile. talk to her, kiss her, change her diaper, poke her nose, just look at her and she gives a big grin. she's so happy and mellow.

she's pretty good at sucking her thumb and i love it. she'll wiggle and make a couple of squeaks and then she finds it and, after a few sloppy noises she's off to dreamland (sometimes she smiles in her sleep, too). when she is awake, she wiggles like crazy. she loves to be standing up and she sits in the bumbo and watches everyone. she gets lonely when it is quiet or she can't see anybody. she even has a hard time sleeping if it is too quiet. she's not too into tummy time, she either falls asleep or screeches at me. 

she makes a lot of noise, much more than ellie ever did. she coos and talks to me and has conversations. she almost laughs sometimes when she smiles. she makes little baby pterodactyl or raptor noises. she moans and grunts and makes all sorts of fuss. i especially like when she gets upset and goes "uhhhGEE! GEE!" and the other night she even talked in her sleep. it sounded like words - husband and i both looked at each other because we couldn't believe it was her.

she had terrible baby acne. it's finally almost gone.

she loves: 

hugs 

kisses 

milk

snuggles

her rocker

her thumbs

wearing jammies

her big sister

smiling

burps

toots

watching everyone dance

being part of the action

falling asleep in the middle of the action

anybody and everybody

naps

she dislikes:

wet diapers

stuffy noses

shots

 maybe my brown-eyed-girl? and check out the head fuzz. and the cheeeeeeeeeeeks.

i can't wait to see what she does next. she's the dreamiest little baby and i am not ashamed to say that i feel like eating her up all day, every day. i just want to hug her guts out. how could you not?

miss penelope, we love you.

a weekend away.

and somehow that amounts to two weeks away from blogging. whoops.

are you ready for a ton of pictures?

we spent the weekend before last on an island.
my parents came to visit from utah and we headed to jekyll island for a couple of nights.
i know. it was pretty much that awesome.

it was fun, the weather was beautiful and i thoroughly enjoyed hearing my daughter ask, "we go to the ocean?" and being able to respond "yes!" because it was right across the street. i don't think i got any pictures of her actually smiling at the camera because she was totally entranced with the ocean.

then again, she kept saying "we goin to da parking wot!!" over and over, as if the parking lot was some really exciting destination. i guess anything can be fun when you're almost 2.

we walked around on the island, visited driftwood beach, picked up shells, wrote in the sand, put our feet in the ocean and saw plenty of old people. 

i'm not exactly much of a beach person. i mean, i can't really imagine myself living on some tropical beach. this beach, however, i could definitely wake up to this beach every morning.

the beach was made even better by the fact that we were spending time with granma and granpa. aren't they some young looking grandparents? someone thought that ellie was my dad's daughter when husband and i were off on a walk. it's a compliment, i say.

it was even enough fun to make us forget that ellie screamed and refused to sleep the entire first night. ("i dohn wahnnnn to go to sweeeeeeep! no, i dohn wahnnnn to go to sweep anymoh!")

poppy was packed around and basically slept while being hugged the entire time. oh, and in the hotel she slept for more than eight hours straight - all the while ellie was screaming away.

now we're home and when ellie asks if we can go to the ocean, i have to say no.
and that makes me sad.
don't even get me started on what it is like when she asks "where's granma? where's granpa?"

 (sorry ladies, he's taken. and you can't have the baby, either.)

hopefully we'll get back there soon.
and they'll get back here soon.



more pictures from granma and granpa's visit soon, including pictures that prove i was actually there because i'm in them... when i get them. we did some more awesome stuff, including a trip to the place where cabbage patch kids are born. seriously!