2-Year Pictures

Jenna will be 2 years old on Wednesday--amazing! We took her for her 2-year pictures this weekend, and here are some of our favorites...

A Few Cute Pictures

Here are a few cute pictures of Jenna during the past few weeks. I can't believe we'll celebrate Jenna's 2nd birthday this weekend (a few days early).

Classic Jenna smile!

Very interesting way to drink!

Jenna's taking after me when I was little--
sleeping with so many stuffed animals
the bed ends up being crowded!

A Friend's Birthday Party

Last weekend, Jenna went to a birthday party for one of her friends from school. It was at Gym Bugs, a really cool kid's place that has a bunch of indoor gym activities, mats, slides, etc. She had a blast! Here are a few of the pictures from her fun...

Fun in Mommy's Kitchen

Here are some pictures taken over the last few weeks of Jenna playing in the kitchen. She is getting quite creative these days! Enjoy the pics!

Our Smart Cookie

This week, Jenna really impressed us with things she said during dinner. First, she was eating a soft pretzel, and she started saying "nine, nine." We went over to see what she was talking about, and the pretzel was in the shape of a 9. She's really starting to identify her numbers well!

That same night and several times since then, she has started saying, "pay, pay" before eating. She's gotten used to praying before meals, so she now waits to eat until we've prayed. Here's a picture of how she closes her eyes--she peeks a little!

Jenna's First Bonfire

A few weekends ago, we were invited to a friend's bonfire. It was a perfect fall night, and Jenna really enjoyed the new experiences. This photo page had captions on it, but for some reason they're not exporting correctly. So I give up!

The two pictures on the left are of Jenna enjoying her first marshmallows. The first one took her about 10 minutes to eat; she carefully licked it until she decided whether she liked it. The second marshmallow took about 10 seconds to stuffed in her mouth--and another minute or so to chew it up and swallow it! She was amazed by the fire and was getting a little too comfortable with it by the end of the night. There's one picture of the three of us, but as you can tell, Jenna had better things to do!

More Fall Pictures

Here are some more pictures of Jenna playing outside in the beautiful fall weather. I think the leaves peaked this past weekend, so I made sure to take some pictures in our backyard before the leaves were gone. Jenna seemed to enjoy crunching around in them, but still didn't like sitting in them for a picture--maybe next year she will!

Bye, Bye Bobby!

Jenna reached a major milestone...just a few days before her 23-month birthday, we stopped giving her a pacifier. She started with one just a few days after birth, and it has immediately soothed her crying ever since. About 6 months or so ago, she'd started calling it a baba (where she got that name, I have no idea), and more recently she called it Bobby. Whenever the slightest thing would upset her, she immediately asked for the Bobby.

We wanted her to stop using one at the latest by the time she turned 2--but earlier if possible, but it seemed like every time we thought of breaking her of the habit, she was teething, sick, or it was another time of transition. So, we decided it was now or never. We stopped her cold turkey. She had one rough night of sobbing for him for quite a while, but overall she's done great. I told her teachers about it so they've stopped giving it to her as well and said she's been fine. So, it's been a week since Bobby soothed her, and we're calling it a success!

What a big girl she's becoming!

Beautiful Fall in East Tennessee

The fall colors are really showing this weekend; it's a bit late this year, but the weather has been unseasonably warm overall. Even though it's been a very dry fall, the leaves are still spectacular, as you can see from these pictures. Last year, we took Jenna to a nearby arboretum to get some pictures of her outside playing in the leaves. They turned out really well (see our very first post on this blog - October 2007), so I thought we'd do it again. No such luck...Jenna is now a toddler with her own mind. We were lucky to get the few we have in the scrapblog below. She was too busy exploring to stop for any pictures.

Cousins

We were all excited when we found out that Jenna's cousin Amanda was going to come spend a few nights with us while she was in Knoxville. We're glad for any chance to get to see our family, since we aren't able to go down to Louisiana very often. Jenna quickly warmed up to Amanda and enjoyed fun like reading books, playing chase, showing her toys, etc. She even knows how to say Amanda pretty well now too, even though she won't say it for a video (as usual, she's camera shy). Hopefully, they'll have many more fun memories together as cousins.