Family

I realized that I had a bunch of pictures of Cosette with family members, and I thought it would be fun to post them.

With Great-Grandpa Bond on New Years Day

Having fun with Aunt Katie

Decorating Valentine's cookies with Grandma

Reading a story with cousin Adriana

Posing with Uncle Ken when he visited in April

And then this last photo was taken on Friday when my sister-in-law Rachel and nephew Kenny stayed with us.  Rachel came out for her friend's wedding, and here they are all dressed up for the reception that night.

Cute Cosette Moments

Our little girl is tons of fun.  I thought I'd post some pictures and cute stories from the past few months.

When you ask Cosette the name of the baby in Mommy's tummy, she insists that her sister's name is "Buh-buh-buh."  Don't know where that came from.  And if I commit the terrible sin of referring to the baby by another name, she gets very offended and corrects me.

Here is an example of her silliness and acrobatic skills:

We bought a membership to our local aquarium, and Cosette really loves it.  The first time we went, her favorite place was a tiny unfinished crawl space.  If you look closely at the top of the picture, you can see there's a circle for the kids to stand up and be inside of an exhibit, but it's not finished yet.  Cosette just loved crawling in and out and having a special place to hide with Bear.

Love how this picture turned out

One day I came home from tutoring to find that the living room had been transformed by Cosette and her babysitter Bridget.  I let Cosette keep it up for a day or two before making her take it down.  It was a pretty cool box house.

Cosette is always playing new make-believe games with Bear.  On the day I took this picture, Bear had been baby Jesus for a while, and Cosette and I took turns being Mary by wearing her hooded sweatshirt on our heads.  In this picture Bear is having a birthday party.  It's very common for him to be surrounded by a little shrine of toys, sticks, food, and other offerings.  He always gets the best of everything.  For example, on Mother's Day the picture that she drew in Nursery that was supposed to be for me went to Bear instead.  And I love it when she sets up a picnic for her animals, but the only one who has any food is Bear.

A side note about Mother's Day.  That morning I woke up when Cosette came into our bedroom.  She climbed into bed and snuggled with me, then we lay there talking, laughing and playing for 30 minutes or so before we got up to start the day.  I loved it.

Yesterday we finished planting the garden.  For a while Cosette took possession of the hoe, and it was so cute I just had to snap some pictures.

She was making vacuum noises while pushing the hoe.

And to end, here are some funny things Cosette has said:

Cosette: I'm wearing Daddy's shoes so I'm a boy. (She's wearing a dress and Jeff's church shoes.)

             (directed at Jeff) I'm a Daddy right now, so don't be Daddy - you're gonna be Mommy.

             (directed at me) And you're gonna be the little kid!

Me: I am?!?

Cosette: I'm gonna be a little Daddy who gets the porridge and eat it all around. (She's holding a bowl of play food Cheerios that she's been pretending is a bowl of porridge like in the Goldilocks story.)

Cosette: Daddy, why do you get hungry?

Me: Do you get hungry sometimes?

Cosette: Umm, no.

Me: Then why are you eating applesauce?

Cosette: Because I'm hungry.

Me: Oh, ok.

Easter

It was fun being able to have an Easter egg hunt in our own backyard.  We decided to do the egg hunt on Saturday.  It was a beautiful sunny day, perfect for a visit from the Easter bunny.

Here are a few pictures we took:

And here are some pictures of spring from around our yard.  It was fun discovering where the spring flowers were planted, because I didn't know they were there until they bloomed.

Transcript of Bedtime Conversation

Cosette often talks and sings to herself in bed at night before she falls asleep.  She was being especially chatty tonight, so I crept close to her door and recorded what she was saying.  Here's a transcript:

It was green grass.  Green was Daddy's favorite color in a minute when he turned into orange color.  He be orange favorite color.  [Gasp]  That would not ... that would be sad!  Mmm hmm.  He would not be sad.  I wouldn't be sad.  Ok.  I'm not sad right now.  I'm talking ... loud.  Yeah, yeah.
[Pause]
Now I'm sleepy.  Aaah, mmm [kind of a yawning sound].  I'm sleepy.  I'm sleeping on the car bed.  The bed would turn into brown.  Hmm, it's underwear.  That would be sad.  It would turn brown, and that would be sad.  Ok.  I'm done talking about brown.
(We started potty training today, and we had a conversation about how her underwear would turn brown if she pooped in it, and that would be a sad thing to happen - trying to reinforce how the potty was a better place for poop to go.)
Ring ring ring.  Hello!  Goodbye.  See, it's a phone call.  When Mommy gets a phone call, she talks on the phone to people.  Yeah.  Is that what Mommy do'd?  Yeah!
[Pause]
Umm.  Now I'm sleepy now.
[She then proceeds to hum Twinkle Twinkle Little Star]

So entertaining.

Cosette turns 3

Our little girl is now 3 years old!  I can't believe how big she's getting.

Here she is opening a present from Mom and Dad, some new furniture for her doll house.

Grandma made a felt playhouse that goes over a cardboard table.  I only took a picture of two sides, but it is really cool.  One side has a flap door and a mailbox that opens and shuts with velcro.  Cosette loves playing a game we call "special delivery," where she's sitting inside the playhouse and I open the mailbox and hand her a toy, saying "special delivery" while I do it.  Two of the sides have windows with a mesh material in them so you can see through it.  Then Cosette can put flowers in the flower box on the windowsill, pick spinach, corn and carrots from the garden, and pick peaches from the peach tree and put them in a little basket.

Her birthday was on a Saturday this year, so we decided to have a birthday party with her two friends Elsie Crawford and Emily Anderson.  The party had a rainbow theme (thanks for the idea, Suzanne).
Grandma made this fun birthday cake with M'n'ms.  It was strawberry flavored and tasted REALLY good.

We did a few simple games, and the girls got to pick different colored prizes to go in their gift bags.  I bought some taffy, flavored tootsie rolls, bouncy balls, and necklaces at the dollar store.

As we waited for people to arrive the girls decorated gift bags and colored their own rainbow (half a paper plate).

Emily and Elsie did a lot of "helping" when it came to opening presents.  These three girls are really cute together.

Wearing a rainbow outfit she got from Grandma and Grandpa.  I tried to get her to wear it to the party, but she decided not to.

Lots of Questions

Cosette has entered the phase of asking a lot of questions, and I find myself ill-equipped to answer many of them.  How do you explain basic concepts?  Here is a list of things that Cosette frequently asks (insert the following words and phrases into the question "What does _____ mean?"):

• yes
• no
• I don't know
• boom
• awesome
• food
• all gone
• near
• got it
• goodnight
• hello
• goodbye

Here is an example of a typical conversation when she's asking her questions:

Mom: Cosette, no you can't climb on the table.

Cosette: What does no mean?

Mom: It means you can't do it.

Cosette: What does do it mean?

Mom: It means you can't climb on the table.

Cosette: What does can't mean?

Mom: It means no.

Cosette: What does no mean?

Mom: Cosette, you know what no means.

Sometimes it's cute, and other times it gets really frustrating.  Sometimes I try turning the question back on her:

Mom: Cosette, what do you think it means?

Cosette: I don't think.

What do you do with that?  I always thought that when my child got into this phase, I would be trying to explain obscure concepts like "Why is the sky blue?"  But she just wants me to define everything, and then she's never satisfied with the answer.  Funny girl.

Cute Things Cosette Says

I wanted to post a few cute things that Cosette has been saying lately.  Enjoy!

Mom: Cosette, was your smoothie yummy?
Cosette: No, it wasn't yummy.  It was drinky!

Cosette often mispronounces words, which is really cute.  One of her favorite TV shows is Daniel Tiger, and she often sings the theme song while she's playing.  One of the lines from the song says "a land of make believe."  Cosette sings "a land of make de-weave."  Precious!
She also calls breakfast "breaf-kast" and chocolate is "chalk-wet."

Mom: Cosette, you are so cute.
Cosette: What is mommy?
Mom: Daddy, what is mommy?
Dad: Mommy is ... cute and goofy.
Mom: Goofy!?!  Mommy is goofy?  Cosette, what is Daddy?
Cosette: Daddy is ... caboose.  (laughter)

Cosette: I'm washing it to get dirty (referring to a plastic Hello Kitty ring that she was rinsing off in the sink).

One day Cosette was saying the prayer before dinner, and she started to end it without blessing the food.  So in the middle of "...in the name of Jesus Christ..." I interrupted her and whispered "and bless the food."  She repeated after me and then finished the prayer.  Now when she says a prayer, even when it's a bedtime prayer with no food at all, at the end she'll say "...in the name of Jesus ... and bless the food ... name of Jesus Christ, amen."