Do You See What I See?

Ok, we're going to have a little guessing game...I got this idea from my friend Lara...she did a little guessing game for a picture of what turned out to be wet toilet paper Brax had put in the tub. She had several guesses-but her blog is a lot more out there than mine so no worries, I'm not expecting a ton of guesses. :) I know there will only be like 4 guesses (if my sisters listen to me and post a guess as I've instructed them to in email) :) but that's fine-it's just for fun! I want those of you who read this to take a stab at what the picture below is. Just post a comment by clicking on the 'comment' link. Whoever guesses correctly will win!!! Hmm...what will you win? Well-nothing but it's always fun to win! Ok, ok, I'll mail you a brand new purse! For real, I will! Of course it's an Old Navy purse that I bought years ago for 50cents and haven't been able to sell on ebay but it's NEW! :) So...here's the picture.

Don't guess "ponytail holders" of course they are ponytail holders. It took her a good five minutes as she arranged them carefully, saying out loud what each one was. That's all the info I'm gonna give ya...make a guess and in a few days I'll let you all know what it is. :) Neena...no guessing, being here disqualifies you. And Lynn...I'm really counting on you to get it right after all of our clouds/Christmas lights visions.

She's so imaginative. We love watching & listening to her play and imagine and create. This post shows a few of her recent creative moments...one that I haven't caught on film yet but is definitely one of my favorites is when she rides the purple pool noodle through the house as the purple dinosaur that it clearly is! :) Today in the car she said it was a purple elephant so the dinosaur may be extinct.

Now you might be thinking-well that's just sidewalk chalk. But no...it is so much more!!! You see, the foam that was in the bottom of the sidewalk chalk bucket is C's skateboard and the two pieces of chalk that are lined up to her right in the 2nd picture-well those are mommy's roller skates and the two that are horizontal, those are dadda's roller skates. The two that are also vertical but not close to each other (one has rolled into the group of chalk that are lined up)...those two are C's roller skates. The reason they aren't with ours is b/c she had been "skating" on them while I tutored & talked to her Grandma B on the phone while proudly watching her skate. :) She is pointing in the picture telling me over and over which ones belonged to each of us.

I'm sure it's easy to imagine what she's holding...it's a play-doh microphone that she made. She used her play-doh rolling pin & a wad of play-doh for the top, then started singing and talking into it to the line of bears lined up neatly on her left. You can only see their backs. I was busy making the bears and noticed her talking directly to someone besides me...looked up to see this. :) lol She cracks me up! There's also a 'lining up' theme to her playing recently-everything must be in order...she gets that from her dad for sure, those of you who know me or have lived with me know I couldn't care less if things are lined up. It's part of my "playful" personality compared to his "perfect" personality. (I am getting these terms from my personality class at church that I took...it's not at all saying that he thinks he's perfect. :) Just means he likes to organize anything and everything...literally. :) We're not sure what C's personality is just yet...D is peaceful/perfect I'm peaceful/playful...she's definitely peaceful (most days-now that's she's 2 & 1/2 we have had our moments) and she loves to play but she also loves for things to be in order so time will tell-doesn't really matter-we adore her. :)

"What is she standing on in this picture?" - you might ask?? A Dora Charades game? Nope...it's a MOUNTAIN and is VERY exciting! She loves to be "big" as she rises above all else on the mountains in our house...aka puzzle boxes, games...the bathroom scale. :) Fun times. I'm going to try to start posting pictures of what our girl is imagining on Sundays, lest I forget. :) We'll call it Imagination Sundays.

Umm...you might notice that she is "imagining" often in her jammies...yeah, she likes to stall at night. Have one last stand on the mountain, arrange ponytail holders one last time...that was tonight. We had a little conversation actually about stalling tonight. She was in bed-we were headed out the door, it went like this...

C: Momma...I need water.
Me: Ok (giving her a quick sip from the cup that is in her room)
C: Momma...I need a Kleenex
Me: Ok (taking a kleenex out of her crib, pretending to get it out of the cradle and handing it back to her as if it's a new one...she doesn't "use" them-just sleeps with one for some reason...we ran out of kleenex so now we just 'recycle.')
Yeah, we're one up on her...everything she's in the habit of asking for, we just keep right there so her stalling doesn't really work. Who knows why she always asks for a Kleenex but she sure does.
C: Momma...
Me: C, stop saying momma, you don't need anything you're just stalling now.
C: No, I'm talking!
Me: No, you're stalling...
C: ooooohhhhhh (all drawn out in a tone as if she didn't know she was stalling. lol :)

(Now, to her credit, we have been working with her to "talk" to us as opposed to fake crying/screaming. She's done very well...oh how I hate to type those words! For real, every time I blog about how well she's going down we inevitably go through several "trying" nights right after I publish that blog. Ugh...hope that doesn't happen this time but anyway, she truly has started communicating much better with us when she needs something at night. We often will hear, "momma...I neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed somesting" or "I stuck!" or "I got burrrrr-urrps." :) Love it. In fact, the things she says over the monitor are so enjoyable to D & I that I'm going to start posting videos of the monitor on Mondays...we'll call it, Monitor Mondays. :)