Naya

These are some pictures grandpa took. It's hard to get pics of her with Naya!

SHE's everybody's here

Sierra now regularly piles all her stuffed animals onto her pillow to get ready for bed. "Everybody's here." "Dou zai." She says as she piles them on.

Running into friends (toys)

When Sierra sees one of her toys at someone else's house, she is so happily surprised - as if she were running into a friend she didn't expect to see (What are you doing here?!). Like at Robbie's house the other day she saw her Good Night Bear book that we read to her every night for a long time. She immediately wanted it and flipped through it and read it like we do at home, pretending to drink the milk, etc. Such a funny and cute girl. :)

Josh plays the cello. guitar. brown.

Sierra was completely attentive while Josh played songs requested by Sierra tonight on his cello for the family. She kept saying "hai yao" and suggesting songs.

When going to bed, she said "guitar" "brown". Josh said "cello". She said "cello" "brown". It looks like a guitar, especially to someone who hasn't seen real guitars other than on a flash card!

Gray mommy

Today Grandma, Grandpa, Adam, Tobi, and Robbie came over for dinner.
While Tobi was putting Robbie in his high chair, Sierra observed aloud, "Gray mommy".

SHE's driving with Sophia

From daddy:

This was Sierra's second time visiting at Sophia's house. When we got there, Sierra was very excited to start playing with Sophia and they jumped right in to run around the living room and play with Sophia's copious number of toys. There was mostly parallel play, but occasionally a nice moment interaction where Sophia would try to show Sierra something and Sierra would copy it. For example, Sophia has a play kitchen and she would kind of move things around and Sierra would watch and then do the same. They also really enjoyed playing with this little bird toy that chirped incessantly and they would open and close it and keep taking turns. I personally was more impressed with the bi-lingual Chinese/English toys from Hong Kong. After playing for a while, Sophia's daddy set up some rows of chairs and got everyone on the special "bus ride". Later in the morning Sophia's daddy started making lunch and both Sierra and Sophia ate their fill of yummy rice porridge and noodles with chicken. The best part was when Sierra took her first bite of porridge and shouted "YUMMY" which validated all the time spent cooking. After lunch, both Sophia's daddy and I were in the kitchen briefly chatting and cleaning up. A minute or so later, I peeked out to see what the kids were doing and they were sitting on the floor across from each other sharing toys. It was one of the first very-much-not-parallel play moments I've ever seen with Sierra! (see picture above that I sneakily took) When it was time to leave, Sierra had her first crying fit and didn't want to go. I think that was a great sign of how much fun she had!

Sierra at Sophia's house

This was from July 1.

Change your clothes

Sierra loves coming in while I'm sleeping in the morning and saying "Hi Mommy!" all bright eyed. Then she crawls in bed and hugs me and says "Awww..." and "Love Mommy". Then she says "Change your clothes" and "get up" until I get up. Unless Daddy can distract her and get her out the door.

Then when I get up she likes to tell me what to wear. We walk into the closet and she sifts through my wire basket drawers and likes picking out animal t-shirts. Like "penguin" for the penguin t-shirt or "meow meow" for a cat t-shirt.

SHE's at the park with grandma grandpa and Robbie

Note she is crossing her legs at her ankles. :) She likes sitting like a little lady.

Yellow mommy

Not long after Sierra's 1st birthday, gran gran got her a Little People dollhouse. It includes a baby, mother, and father Little Person. Which we immediately started calling the baby, the mommy, and the daddy, and Sierra immediately picked up on this. She would sometimes confuse people who came over and she started talking about baby, mommy, and daddy, and they'd think she was talking about us when she was talking about the Little People. :)

This evening we went to a BBQ at Robbie's house. She really enjoyed the visit. Robbie has more toys than any other kid we know, which makes it very exciting! Not to mention grandma and grandpa - she kept saying "Gramma, lai" (grandma come) to come join her. When it was time to go, I said it was time to say bye bye and she said no. We all started talking about how everyone was tired and going to sleep and so she was OK with leaving.

On the way home:
S: Grandma
Me: Grandma's going to sleep
S: Grandpa
Me: Grandpa's going to sleep
S: Robbie
Me: Robbie's tired and going to sleep
S: mommy
Me: Mommy's right here
S: Other mommy. Yellow mommy.
Me: Oh! Robbie's mommy! That's Tobi!
Me: Josh, was Tobi wearing a yellow shirt?
Josh: I don't know. Let me call my dad. (Calls dad on cell phone and confirms it was yellow.)
Me: Whoa she was even more observant than her daddy!

The rest of the evening she kept referring to Tobi as "yellow mommy". :)

At dinner, while seated, she went through the roster of people around her: Grandma, Grandpa, mommy (looking at Tobi)...

Tobi said "Wait, your mommy is over there!" pointing at me. I explained she was saying she is a mommy, not Mommy. :)

She also kept saying "Gramma".

Thursday night, Robbie, Adam, and Tobi came over for pizza and cake for Grandma's birthday. Josh asked Sierra:
Josh: What color is Tobi's shirt?
S: Yellow [I think that was the color]
Josh: What color is Robbie's bib?
S: Green
Josh: What color are Grandma's shoes?
Grandma: Can she tell? [they were a very dark blue, almost black]
Grandma: Sierra, can you tell me what color my shoes are?
Josh: Are they orange?
S: No
Josh: Are they dark blue?
S: Yeah
Tobi: Robbie, what does the cat say?
S: Meow

Speaking of which, Sierra says "yeah", "OK", or "hao" (not yes) when she answers your question. It's funny how she picks up on how we say things.

She had a lot of fun today when Grandma and Grandpa had her repeat back words to them. E.g., "Can you say X?" and Ra-ra trying to say X. "Hai yao!" Sierra kept saying, wanting more.

SHE's at Elman Family BBQ

Note Tobi is wearing yellow.

SHE's at the farm with Grandma and Grandpa

Chinglish

Sierra knows that there are 2 languages – Chinese and English. She'll sometimes say "Chinese!" when she speaks Chinese and I don't understand. Sometimes, when she is asking for something from me, if the Chinese word doesn’t work, she blurts out the English word. One example this morning is when grandma was feeding her lunch and she didn’t have her bib on. She said “meiyou wei dou dou”. When grandma didn’t follow, she said “wei dou dou off!”.

She also mixes the 2 languages. One great example: She hates changing her clothes. So whenever we bring her some shirt or pants or romper to change to, she immediately insists “hai yao pink!” (if she’s wearing pink, or whatever the color she is wearing). At first I thought it was bc she genuinely liked the pink shirt, but quickly realized she just doesn’t want to change her clothes. :)

Everybody's here

As Sierra gets ready to fall asleep, she puts all her stuffed animals on her pillow repeatedly saying "everybody's here" and "dou zai" and then listing who is here: "you mommy" (there's mommy), "you gran gran", "you daddy", etc.

Tonight I finally remembered to record it.

SHE's Happy Birthday Grandma

SHE has an owl hat

Happy birthday, Grandma!

Naya is really, really, really cute

Sierra has really taken to Naya lately. She's always loved Naya, but she really does now and really expresses it.

She goes to her and hugs her and buries her face in her fur and kisses her. She'll coo at her "Ohhhhhhhh" and say things like "so cute", "really, really really, really cute", "Ai Naya", and "Love Naya". :)

The Little Gym

Ra-ra points and says "zai zheli" to the teacher snapping this photo, who has no idea what she is talking about. Note gran gran in the background.

Here's a picture they took of her at the Little Gym trial class, her first class in the Beasts age group, which she barely falls into. She originally trialed the age group below that, but many of the kids were crawling. They rapidly went from activity to activity and she would cry when they finished each activity, wanting to do more. Another parent even took notice and said "can't the little girl just play with the ball just because ball time is over?" and the teacher insisted no. Anyway, this time, she was a little young for the age group, which extends to age 2.5 (e.g., some kids could jump and she can't do that yet), but she really enjoyed it a lot more (class was smaller, teacher was better. I also wonder if they spent more time on each activity since the older kids have longer attentions spans, transitioned better between activities, and/or she knew to expect it this time). So she has gone to 4 Beast classes so far.

She met Sophia and her dad in one of the classes. Sophia is 2.5 and really took to Sierra. She held her hand as they walked around class. (I wasn't here for this, but gran gran (and sometimes Liling accompanies) take her to class.) Sophia has come over for a couple of playdates already.

Rice Krispies (Ahkippy)

Tonight I told Josh that Rice Krispies deserve their own blog post.

Although her pronunciation has much improved for many words, she still says "ahkippy" for her beloved rice krispies. Or occasionally, "grippy" for krispies.

And let me just say beloved is an understatement. The girl LOVES her rice krispies. Just about everytime you ask her what she wants to eat, she says rice krispies. Tonight (and I hope this doesn't become a habit) she was trying to go to sleep and then suddenly said "hungry" and she wanted rice krispies. I sent Josh down to get rice krispies. She took one look at the bowl of dry rice krispies and said "dou nai nai" -- she wanted it in soy milk.
So Josh went down and got some soy milk and she had a little bedtime snack.

SHE's transfixed by Ba Luo Bo on YouTube

SHE's in a dragon parade

What's your name?

At the Little gym today:

"What's your name?"

"Ra-ra" (very softly)

Sierra is very quiet in public like mommy. :)

Learning Two Languages

I am always amazed at how quickly Sierra is learning two languages. Yesterday morning she was looking at a new BabyBug book which Grandma had subscribed her to. She said "Mommy mai de" which means "Mommy bought it" in English. I said "No, Grandma mai de". A few minutes later, I then asked her "Who bought you the book?" and she said "Grandma". Bilingual!

(This was a guest post from daddy.)

Mommy has a whole building?

Xiao xing xing

Tonight before falling asleep, we played the swimming pool game again. At one point, I asked her to sing Twinkle twinkle. She proceeded to sing it, but I couldn't make out the words. And then I realized she was singing it in Chinese! I listened carefully and heard the last two words of each line "xiao xing xing" (little star) and realized that yes, it must be chinese! It was much more clear than her english and I was surprised she could do it considering gran only sings that song to her in English (don't ask why but Gran speaks to her in Chinese and sings to her in English). But Liling does both speak and sing only in Chinese.

Clover, close the window!

She always wants the window (curtains) closed for her nap and bedtime. As I was preparing for her nap, she kept saying "close the window", which I had not gotten to yet. Finally she said, "Clover, close the window!" hahaha.

This reminds me of how she called gran "mudder" the other day after she heard me calling her mudder.

Sierra, by the way, does know all of our names if you ask: Josh is daddy, Clover is mommy, Katty is gran gran, Liling is Ayi, and Sierra is Ra-ra. Examples: "Who's Josh?" and she says "daddy." "Who's Sierra?" "Ra-ra."

Jirries

I'm so glad that she finally started liking cherries ("jirries" - I love the way she says this! :) ) last week. She was at Whole foods and had a rainier cherry sample and then ate 4 of them!

Humming and dancing

This morning she (as usual) burst into my room saying "Hi Mommy!" at (what felt like) the crack of dawn. But she was so exhuberant that how can you tell her to leave? :) Anyway, Josh flopped in bed and we lay there tired while Sierra danced around the room to the crib aquarium music box toy that she loves. It has a version of twinkle twinkle little star (her favorite song lately). She started by humming (the first time I've heard this!) saying "ah, ah, ah, ah..." and you could totally hear the tune. :) And then she started her ra ra dance - stomping her feet and bopping around the room. Josh and I were lying there quietly. I started to clap my hands but then Josh said to be quiet. It's true that she dances (and definitely sings) more when she thinks no one is watching.

Swimming pool game and dam of stuffed animals

This is the 2nd night in a row, so I have to mention this.
She started going through her stuffed animals one by one and stacking them up at the head of her bed into a small wall, saying "[animal] back" for each one. Then she lay down with her body against them. Nice. So instead of her saying "[animal] back" and then us placing that animal against her back, until a whole bunch of animals are piled on her back, she made her own dam of stuffed animals.
Then tonight she said "swimming pool!" (in reference to the swimming pool Q&A game that we played last night). It went like this... (me followed by her):

"Was there a rainbow in the swimming pool?"
"yeah"
"Was there a fish in the swimming pool?"
"yeah"
"Was there a shark in the swimming pool?"
"yeah"
"Was Sophia in the swimming pool?"
"nooooo"
"Was Daddy in the swimming pool?"
"nooooo"
"Does the swimming pool have a belly button?"
"hahaha noooooo"
"Was there an elephant in the swimming pool?"
"hahaha noooooo"
"What else was in the swimming pool?"
"merry go round hahaha"
"What else was in the swimming pool?"
"rice krispies hahaha"
Tonight Josh was laughing at how she started answering "aaaaah!" (crazy scream) to all his silly questions about what was in the pool.
The little jokester!

I have to say the swimming pool game started when we were recollecting together what was in the swimming pool the other day and she amazingly remembered what was in it. The swimming pool has all kinds of sea themed cartoons drawn all over it, plus a blow up rainbow tunnel, whale slide, and shark ride-on.

Walks upstairs by herself

I wanted to note that Ra ra can walk up the stairs by herself now (though we spot her!)

Sierra likes to dance

Guest post from Josh: Sierra loves making up fun dance steps. But it's hard to catch on video because anytime you take out the camera, she wants to see the video before you actually get to capture anything. Every once in a while, especially with my iPhone, we actually can sneak in a good video (though see how she notices about halfway through)

New swimming pool

Last Sunday July 3, we set up her wading pool. It was a hot day. (A few days before that, I had set up her sand and water table. Well Josh had assembled it 2 weeks before that, but it leaked, so Liling and I took out the 2 legs on the water side and screwed them back in while putting pressure on it, which caused the rubber seals to be tighter... Anyway...) She spent Sunday morning, playing with the sandbox (she loves sand) and then in the afternoon, Josh went to the army/navy surplus down the street and got a pump and set up the pool, which has all these sprinklers on it. She was interested in it and walked around in it calmly taking it in. I thought it was cold but she didn't seem to mind. She sat down on the blow-up shark ride-on on her own and wandered around it. Maybe 30 minutes later, it was getting late so I brought her in for her bath. Seemed like no big deal since she did not *appear* to be outwardly that impressed by the pool. Oh boy was I wrong. The biggest fit ever. "Hai yao swimming pool!" she protested again and again and through the whole bath, which she refused to sit down for.

The rest of the evening (and from then on), we made it a rule not to use the words "swimming pool" or "pool". Just p-o-o-l.

Conclusion: She liked the pool!

Little Lady

Ever since she was a baby (or at least as long as I can remember), she does this very lady like thing where when she sits, she doesn't just dangle her legs, she crosses them at her ankles. She obviously finds it comfortable and very natural. For example, today she fell asleep in the car that way. I need to remember to get a picture one of these days.

Where are the pictures and videos?

Sierra,

One day if you ask why there aren't many pictures and videos of you these days, it's because everytime I take out the camera or Flip video camera, you immediately come over and want to look at the picture! If I tell you to "smile for the camera", you smile and then run to the camera to look at the picture before I get a chance to take the picture.

The one way we are able to get photos and videos of you is with daddy's iphone. It's bc daddy uses his iphone all the time. It's like an appendage of his body. So much so that you don't even notice him with it!

Facebook post

Josh Elman

On Sunday night, when I picked Sierra up around bedtime she put her head on my shoulder and said "Daddy, I love you". Made my weekend. eh, my year-to-date.
July 5 at 1:53pm ·LikeUnlike ·

Kimberly Matulef, Linda L Elman, Razab Quasem Chowdhury and 13 others like this..

Daisy Huang Awwww!!
July 5 at 2:03pm · LikeUnlike.

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SHE's on her first hike

Well, her first hike where she walked most of it. We've taken her on "hikes" in her stroller when she was younger.

This morning, Josh said, "Sierra, do you want to see the Big Trees today?" "Big trees!" said Sierra. And we were off (to Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park, one of my favorites for shade and a beautiful creek/river that runs through it). It was a 45 minute drive. When we were almost there, she suddenly said "Big trees!" Haha. She remembered.

She really enjoyed the "big trees" and the "clover" (actually, sorrel, which look like giant shamrocks). She loved walking through the "tunnels" formed by hollowed/burned out redwood trunks. She pointed out the "big trees" and the "small trees". It was a 0.8 mile loop, and Sierra walked over half of it. She wanted to go longer, but it was time for lunch and you don't want to be late for lunch (or naps)! On the way out, she kept saying "bye trees"

Then we had lunch at Jia Tella, a Cambodian restaurant, and sat outdoors. She had chicken and rice soup. Then a couple with dogs came in and sat at the table next to us. They said "Would it be ok to your baby to sit here? Will she be scared?" Oh no, not Sierra! Sierra then spent the entire rest of the meal exclaiming "Hi doggy!" And also "woof woof", "brown" (pointing out their color), "doggy hungry", etc. It's funny because her volume is usually not that loud in public, but I think she was so excited to have the doggies as company that she didn't notice. :) Afterwards, we of course had to pet the doggies, who were very well behaved labradoodles. She didn't want to say "bye doggy", not surprisingly, so I had to whisk her out and redirect her attention to looking for niao niao (birds), the original thing she started doing when we arrived.

We drove home and she didn't fall asleep until we were 1 block from our house! It was around 2:50pm (late nap). I gently carried her upstairs and she has been sleeping since then (other than her usual nai nai break). It's 4:45pm now.

Book circle time

Literally all books say to make reading a book to your child part of the bedtime ritual, which we have been doing. Only in our case, it has evolved into Sierra running to the bookshelf and picking out books for everyone present to read. She hands me a book. "Mommy read."* She hands Gran a book. "Gran gran read." If he is there, she hands Josh a book. "Daddy read." (Daddy usually comes home after the bedtime ritual.) Then she goes and sits down and starts to read her book. If you go and try to read it, say, over her shoulder, she pulls it away and says "Ra ra reads!" I then go through and read the book that I was assigned and then ask for another book, which she immediately provides (graciously putting aside her book for a moment before resuming). So I wonder what the books would say about this? :) It almost makes it look like our bedtime ritual is easy**: We just get her ready for bed, go to her room, and she flips through book after book while we read our own books. Then we say "oh look, it's time for bed" and turn out the lights. (The only hard part is she then screams "no, books! books!" and fusses when I put her in bed.) Josh (who said he wants to Tiger Mom her) is concerned that she doesn't hear us reading to her and thus learn. I just find it funny and cute!

Now she doesn't just do this in the evening. She does it during the day or whenever. She's very content reading to herself. Only occasionally (like when she's pooping) does she ask for me to read, I suppose because she is concentrating on doing her business. :) Speaking of which, her habit lately when she has to poop is to say "uh, uh" and then "mommy hold. books. zai zheili." and then leads the way to the books on the couch, where she stands while I hold up books one by one while she rejects them ("No" and then takes it and drops it on the floor) until there's one she wants me to read. She always wants me to do it too. Not Liling or gran.

Also, she has always and still does "read" books super fast. She just flips, flips, flips, studying each picture for just a brief second. The only time she'll stop on a page for longer is if I read to her and talk to her about multiple things on a page, but she'll often grab the page and turn it before I can finish!

When she reads aloud, it's pretty amazing. She'll go through books where there's one item pictured per page. She'll name the items on the pages, then flip, name the items, then flip, etc. until the end. Some will be in English, some in Chinese. It's so cute & amazing to watch this!

*At first I thought this meant for me to read the book to her, but no, she wants me to read the book to myself.

**After lights out, it takes 45 minutes for her to finally drift off to sleep. Not easy. (She spends the time doing all sorts of antics in bed, talking, etc.)

SHE speaks softly to us in public

When we're out together and I ask her questions, she answers in the softest voice. I always have to kneel down and put my face next to hers. It's very sweet.

SHE's on a pony

SHE is trying her new kiddie pool

Say-WAY! (Safeway)

This is how she says Safeway since that's how Liling says it with her Chinese accent.
The other day gran was mimicking "Say-WAY!" and Sierra laughed and laughed.

There are other words that Sierra says with a Chinese accent now thanks to Liling and Gran:

Unge

I love how she says "orange". She says it as one syllable: unge.

I also loves how she says "yu" (fish in Chinese). This is one of the hardest words to pronounce in Chinese, but she says it perfectly. Shows how you have to learn a language young.

I also love how she says "hao" in response to "hao bu hao?", and "ok" in response to "ok?" She says it in a higher pitch than her normal voice and it sounds so willing and trusting. We often tell her if you do X, then you get Y and then "ok?" or "hao bu hao?" at the end. With her sweet response, you just have to to the Y! (X is often changing your diaper and Y is often reading the tractor book or guangao dan (magazines)).

Bahberry (she says it fast)

Sierra has finally come around to really liking blueberries*, which are apparently a very commonly loved toddler food). I think it was after being on a bland diet (rice, toast, applesauce) after her diarrhea that she suddenly craved more fruit. She saw blueberries in my cereal one morning and decided she wanted to one. And she's been hooked ever since.

*Of course she's always enjoyed pretend eating and feeding us pretend blueberries, which she pretends to pick from her book (the teddybear's picnic) and feed to herself and us.

Speaking of which, she also likes pretend picking apples from the little apple trees on her owl pillowcase, an activity I introduced her to. At night, she has told me more than once, "Mommy read" pointing at the pillow case. Then I point out the different colored owls "pink owl" "orange owl" etc. and the apple tree on the pillowcase. And then we pick apples as a bedtime snack. ;)

Also, she insists on "pink water" when going to sleep (water out of her pink stainless steel straw cup), which is just funny.

Sleeping progress

Sierra's sleeping has improved in the last 2-3 weeks in that she seems to be sleeping in a little longer (as in until past 6 or 6:30) more frequently.

Two possible factors:
1) Gran gran found real blackout curtains for her room. Her sleeping since that night has not included one pre 6am waking, I think. This was about 2 weeks ago.
2) 1 week ago, I bought a "Time to sleep" owl. They sell all these clocks on Amazon that are used to train your toddler to stay in bed (and not wake up the parents) until after the clock or light turns a certain color. Kim first told me about this. They apparently work wonders. However, I didn't think to try one earlier bc they are for older kids (2.5-5). For one thing, you need to know your colors. Well, it occurred to me that Sierra is mentally like an older kid. And she definitely knows her colors super well.

So I found an owl version, which is great bc she loves owls. we have been using the owl for a week now. We set it to glow green at 6:45am. When she wakes up before then, gran gran or daddy has told her to "Owl isn't green yet so we have to go back to sleep." Then when it turns green, you say, "Owl is green! We can get up now!" And miraculously, this has worked! (KNOCK ON WOOD.) And today she even slept until 8am! (past when the owl turns green and the 30 minutes owl stays green!) Amazing. I guess I will have to add to the many testimonials on Amazon if this keeps up.

Eating by herself

Ra ra has been making great strides in eating by herself. The other day I came down for her breakfast (Josh or gran usually gives her breakfast) and he poured her milk and rice krispies (which she now just calls krippy, instead of "grapey" or "ah-kippy" (for rice-krispies) previously)*. Josh poured into her little snacktrap cup soy milk and rice krispies, put a spoon in it, and put it on her tray. I said "She's going to spill it!" and he said "no she won't". And sure enough, she started scooping away and carefully putting it in her mouth, until se finished it. Then she picked it up and drank the soy milk out the bottom! Josh said he sometimes refills it again and she eats more. I have not seen this though.

*Literally EVERY MORNING, she wakes up and declares "hungry" (even if she isn't, as you find out later at breakfast. She just wants to go downstairs.) until you take her down for breakfast. When you ask what she wants for breakfast, she ALWAYS says, "krippy". Sometimes once she is downstairs she says "dan dan" for eggs.

Parmesan Cheese - What's the verdict?

So today for lunch, I finally decided to try parmesan cheese. It's so hard to introduce new foods to her since if she doesn't like it, she turns up her nose at the rest of her dinner. I was serving sauteed spinach in olive oil, chopped finely (which she promptly ate, spooning it herself mostly) spaghetti with meat sauce (I ground the meat sauce and mixed it with thin whole wheat organic pasta). I started by giving it to her without the cheese, and she was hungry and digging in. Then I told Josh to sprinkle some on her high chair table to try by itself, so he did. She looked down, picked up some with her fingers and put it in her mouth. Josh and I watched, hanging from the edge of our seats. (Well technically I was standing, but you get the idea.) She tasted it, looked up, and announced, "Yummy". Josh and I simultaneously laughed and let out a sigh of relief. Josh said "The queen approves!" So we put the cheese on the spaghetti.

When ra-ra likes a new food, she used to say "hai yao" for more (like when I gave her zucchini bread I got from whole foods once). She later started saying "Like it!" when she was eating something. I often will say "mommy likes it" and "yummy" enthusiastically while eating something in her face (like peach) that I want her to like.

SHE's lazy Sunday

Ge ge

She has been doing this forever now, but when talking about something that has a song associated with it, she almost alway says "ge ge" requesting you to sing that song. One common example is when she sees a spider (not matter how tiny). She stops, points and says "spider" and waits for us to come look and kill it. Sometimes she says "Kill it" hahaha. Anyway, at this point, then says "ge ge" and we sing the itsy bitsy spider.

Josh and I lie there next to her bed while she falls asleep each night. It used to be Josh, but he started falling asleep and she started insisting that I be there too, so anyway I am there too. Josh has really started snoring more in the past year. I'm not sure if it's age or what. Anyway, we always know when daddy falls asleep bc he is snoring. I told her daddy's snoring and imitated it one night. Ever since then, every night as soon as she hears him snoring, she looks at me and says "noring". The first time, I said "what?" Then she imitated it (breathing loudly), which was funny and cute.

SHE likes Gran Gran's house

SHE visits Fairyland (Brave girl!)

We know Sierra is a brave girl from the slides and other moments. But she really was incredibly brave to go on the little kids ferris wheel at Fairyland by herself (no adults allowed!)

She went around once, and then I asked to take her off. I opened her door and said "all done, yay ra-ra!" and she quietly said "hai yao" and didn't want to get out. So she went 2 more rounds. During the loading process, she was stopped on top once. She stood up. Josh said "Sit down, ra-ra!" and she sat down. :) The attendant said they tend to stand up when it stops for loading. The whole time, another 3 year old girl got on and then off (I'm done mommy, she shouted after 1-2 rounds.)

When she got off, another mom remarked "What a brave girl!" since she was obviously the youngest one by far on it.

All in all, Ra ra enjoyed fairyland. She was quiet and observant the whole time like she always is in new places. I could tell she really liked the 2 donkeys. I stood her on the wooden fence while we watched them and she pointed and commented on them for awhile.

Sierra's favorites were:
1) the wonder-go-round, a small merry go round with fantastical creatures, like a dodo, from alice in wonderland. She really liked the turtle, which was more of a bench in the turtle's tummy. I can see how it is more comfortable. We rode 3 times. The first time, she saw the turtle behind her with a girl in it. They were the only 2 kids (it only had maybe 8 animals, a small merry go round). She immediately pointed at it and said "ra ra" indicating she wanted to sit there. The 2nd time, she of course went on the turtle. The 3rd time, a line had formed so we had to get in line and she did not get on the turtle, but she was perfectly fine with another creature.

2) the reading room, a small house with a room in it filled with books, a kid table and colorful chairs. Ra ra pulled out many books and flipped through them, bringing some to the table and sitting on different chairs, which were a bit too tall for her (she would point at which chair she wanted to sit in, saying the color, and I would put her in it). No one else was there. There was one older girl who came in briefly and read a book with her mom and then left. A reading room is probably the least popular attraction at an amusement park, but not for Ra-ra!

I should also mention that we were the only people in line for the choo choo train. There were 5 cars each of a different color. I asked ra-ra which color she wanted to ride. She said "purple" (no surprise here) but then the attendant said she had to load front to back so we had to wait for someone else to come to take yellow (1st car) before we could get in purple (2nd car). It was empty. Finally I said "ok let's just get in yellow. Daddy likes yellow," which she was fine with. And we had our own private train ride, with us in the first yellow car, and the purple car empty. That attendant was just ridiculous.

Then around noon, it was time to go, which Ra ra does not take well when she enjoys something! However, this time, I said "do you want to go to gran gran's house?" and she said "hai yao". She liked this idea. We got back in the car. I sat in the front, and she fell asleep. This is the 3rd time this has happened recently. Each time, she was alone in the backseat, which we do not normally do! So we think that may have something to do with it.

At gran gran's house, she enjoyed exploring and going through gran's (daisy's) old costume necklaces and rings.