My superstar!

What a bummer of a month, January is, huh?  Without fail, I am always very sick during the month of January.  This year, it was both T and I that were knocked down by whatever infection was going around.  Hers lasted a week (thanks to antibiotics), mine lasted almost two weeks!  Add to that writing up my thesis, having a committee meeting, and trying to graduate!  Phew!  I am worn out!  But the end is in sight.  I really, really do have some cool posts, tutorials, and reviews planned.  I just need to get to them!  Plus, I'll be sending a HUGE thank you to some lovely ladies for the surprise I got in the mail the other day - so stick with me, OK?

Today, though, I wanted to share what an awesome little lady we have in our house!  Miss T is growing up so fast and I'm so impressed by what she is doing every single day!  She's singing her ABCs, counting to 14 (although she always skips 10!), and potty training has been going so well!  In fact, we met a huge potty training milestone this weekend!  She used a big potty at a store!  Woohoo!  Bad mommy that I am, I even forgot her potty insert seat and had to balance her on the edge and she still did it and had no accidents the whole time we were out!  I'm so proud of my little girl!  On top of that, she did pees and poops on the potty at church yesterday!  She's also staying dry through naptime more often too!  Woohoo!

As I've said before, a lot of the credit goes to our amazing daycare!  But if you're interested, here was our strategy.  We basically went cold turkey from diapers to underwear (except for nap and bedtime), and didn't turn back.  If we went out, she still wore underwear, we just brought extra clothes and were prepared for accidents (although, we haven't had any outside of the house yet!).  Accidents were expected and viewed as learning opportunities.  "Uh-oh T, looks like we had an accident.  That's okay, we'll get cleaned up, but it's a yucky feeling right?  Let's try to go pees on the potty next time and keep our underwear dry, ok?"  We didn't do any sort of reward system, but tons of praise and being super excited for when she was successful.  We also got undies that she really liked, Hello Kitty, Elmo and Zoe, etc.  Just about every hour we would say "T, let's go pees on the potty".  Sometimes she wanted to and sometimes she didn't, we never forced her.  While on the potty, we supplied books, crayons, stickers, to keep her entertained.  Sometimes I even sang to her.

For now, we're only focusing on the awake times and not sleeping times.  Our house is difficult in that for her to get to the bathroom, she needs to go down and then back up some stairs.  Plus, she's still in a crib, and we're in no rush to change that!  I'm so proud of my little peanut!

On a mommy and T breakfast date at my new favorite Dunkin Donuts!

ahhhh... vacation...

So... Did you miss me?

Well, we're back.

Can't say that I'm too pleased.

We spent a week in Corrolla, NC. (If you're pronouncing it like a small car, you're saying it wrong, it's more like "Holla!")  What a week it was!  Pool swimming, wave riding, body surfing, sunning, sand castle building.  The best part was just being together every day for a whole week!  No meetings, no work, no annoying errands.  Just wake up, play, nap, play some more and then sleep. And that wasn't just Miss T's schedule!

Speaking of schedules, Miss T made the conversion to a one-nap day.  It was actually pretty painless.  She was fighting the second nap all the week before and so we just went with it.  Turns out, she'd much rather take one 3-hour nap in the afternoon, than 2 2-hour naps.  So we've switched and it seems to be working out pretty well, so far.

Other milestones:
Miss T is getting 8 more teeth at the moment.  yep, she already has 8 and now she's getting 8 more, 4 of them being molars!  Yikes!
Miss T is taking up to 20-ish steps when going between me and B, but has yet to get up the courage to just walk to where she wants to go.  Any day now...
Miss T is picking up signing!  She knows milk and more (even tries to say more!) and we're working in thank you and hungry.

I have some milestones too! 
-Right before our vacation, I was approved to defend my thesis in 6 months!  Yay!  We are expecting early December for a defense date!  Woohoo!
-Still no progress on the day care search.  I'm working on it, I promise.  I just hate this task sooo much!

So I just wanted to let you know we were still here, still kicking!  I'll have more to post very soon.  Lots of things to share!  In the meantime, here are a couple of my favorite pictures from the OBX!

 Seriously, does it get any cuter than this?!

 Giving the beach kisses goodbye. :(  This was our last morning here on our way home.

 Our official one year milestone picture!  We took one like this at 6 months too. 

I plan to have one like this to mark how much she has grown over the years compared to us. 

Thanks to my cousin Becky for the inspiration!

 Oh Druha.  Doing what you do best! 

Looking sad even though you might be the most loved dog in the world!

 Making friends on the beach. 

Miss T seems to be saying, "This is my dog, Druha.  Isn't he the best?!"

Our first day in OBX.  A very nice lady offered to take this picture

of my beautiful family as we went to the beach for the first time this summer.