.: Not a baby anymore

She acts so much like a little girl now. She talks so much, has her little opinions, knows what she wants to eat/watch/play with. I guess its good that she's become such a little lady. That way I can get used to the idea that she is gonna be a big sister.

Lately her sleep has been pretty consistent. Bedtime from 7:30pm-7am. Naptime from 11am-1pm. Sometimes she'll nap a whole hour extra but its random. You never know when that will happen. Usually it will happen on the days that I actually NEED her to get up earlier! = D

We aren't actively persuing potty-training but she will let us know if she has already gone potty. So that's a step in the right direction. It means she's aware of her bodily functions. Sometimes she will ask to sit on the potty and we'll put her on the big potty with her little tiny seat fixed on top. Other times, if Mommy is using the big potty then she will sit on her potty chair and pretend to go along with me. And of course every time, she has to have her own toilet paper to wipe.

She has been a little more brave with trying new foods. Though there is no predicting what she might be willing to try. Sometimes she surprises us. She has tried and seems to like - chili cheese Fritos, Lunchables, cream cheese wontons, and frosted mini wheats. By far, her favorite foods right now are watermelon (manamelon) and waffles (awfuls) with syrup (sup).

I love, love, love to listen to her sing. Especially in the car. She knows I love it and I'll turn around to watch her and tell her how beautiful her singing is. She'll just smile and continue to sing along in a soft angelic voice, making up her own words to whatever song is playing in the car. Songs that she really does seem to "know" (though not necessarily all the words) are: ABCs, Old Macdonald, Twinkle Twinkle, and Itsy Bitsy Spider.

She can count to 4. And if she sees the numbers 2 or 3 on tv or in a book, she can tell you what they are.

She can say and point out most of the basic colors - blue, green, yellow, red, pink, purple and orange. Though sometimes she confuses red and orange.

She wants to dance ALL day long (pretty exhausting for Mommy and Daddy because she especially wants us to dance with her). She's started to add ballet-like arm movements to her dancing which is precious. But at the same time, hilarious because she always gets Daddy to practice ballet with her. I wonder if I could ever convince him to let me video tape that.

One thing that has surprised us is that she can put dvds back in the proper case. She just knows which one goes where. I was especially surprised when she put one of MY dvds back. Her own, sure. She watches her Baby Einstein dvds enough that I'm not too shocked she can tell them apart. But one afternoon I was watching Return to Me during her nap. When she woke up, she caught the tail end of it. After it was over, I took it out of the dvd player and she immediately grabbed it from my hand, found the right case (amongst our collection of literally hundreds of cases) and put it back in. I can only assume she recognized the characters when she saw them and remembered the picture of them on the box?

She loves to ride Mommy like a horsey (or a sorsey as she calls them). Especially if we can't find her juice or milk. If we lost it, then she has to climb on my back and she holds on tight and I crawl around as we both call out "Miiiiiiilk" or "Juuuuuuice" until we find it. Once we find it, she slides off my back and runs for her cup. Should I feel degraded? LOL!

We took a short day trip to the Santa Ana zoo. Its pitifully small and has barely any animals. But they do have a cute little farm and farm animals are McKenna's favorite. She can tell you the sound that every animal there makes. And she had quite a lengthy conversation with the ducks, the sheep and the pigs. The ducks were particularly funny. She would lie on her belly and look down at the ducks, they would look up at her. They'd quack, she'd quack back. I'm not sure what the discussion was about but it seemed to be a friendly one. They may have made plans for an afternoon tea party. I'm not sure. I guess I'll find out if a flock of ducks show up next weekend.

And she does seem very interested in the idea of a baby. We've been practicing saying the names. She pronounces Kyla as "Eye-la" and Caleb as "Ah-buck". LOL, we're getting there.

Here are a few pics. I forgot to post the first 3 last time. For Valentine's day, she and I made a card for Daddy and she baked him some cookies all by herself.

Making the card (getting a little bored at that point I think):