3 years

The Vitals:

39 inches tall

32 pounds

She wears 3T most everything, but pants are a struggle. Now that she's not wearing diapers, there's nothing holding her pants up, so the great buttless wonder goes around showing her tiny crack off. Because pants are dumb. Mostly she wears leggings, but needs a 2T waist and 3T length. I know she is not alone in this. 

Highlights:

I made a video, because I can't begin to sum up an entire year in a few sentences. Well, I can begin, but the video is better.

She likes:

Octonauts, Daniel Tiger, playing with baby dolls, kitchen things, fixing things, using tools, doing "her job" which is whatever she wants to be doing at the moment, checking the mail, doing it "by MYSELF, Mama!" and being a "big helper." 

She loves pasta in all forms: pad thai, chinese noodles, mac and cheese, spaghetti, whatever. If it's got pasta in it, she'll probably eat it. 

Cheese, grapes, blueberry yogurt, peanut butter, pancakes, apple juice, whatever you're drinking.

Playing outside, chasing the dog, throwing balls, jumping in puddles, kicking dirt, scooping dirt, throwing dirt, moving dirt around the yard with her "shuggle" and bucket.
Her blanket (which thankfully isn't just one blanket, but any of the muslin style blankets)
(The tooth fairy came and took her paci away, so that's one mile stone down!)

Eleanor is just so talkative, and sometimes she says the greatest things.
She calls the Grinch "the Christmas Grump" and the Octonauts live in the "Octoport" not the Octopod and she loves to sound the "Octoalerp." Fs still sounds like S or B, which means Tinkerbell (Kinkerbell) is a "bairy" and she giggles like a maniac when the dog is "snissing" her. I cannot even replicate the way she says vinegar or velvet, but it's hilarious. V is sometimes b, sometimes z. She wants to turn on the tz, and uses "her" instead of "she." She has not mastered the R sound, but it does help with the fs, because she loves "fwied wice" when we have "shiny food."  When you take a picture, she says "tease!" Her favorite song is The Wheels on the Bus, but she also likes to sing "Tinkle Tinkle Little Star" and the theme to Kung Fu Panda, complete with drum noises and "sweet!" at the end. She loves "Closing Time" by Semisonic, but thinks it's about her being born... because we watched YouTube video together where Dan, from Semisonic talks about writing that sing about his baby being born. (For the record, John Mayer's Daughters was playing when she was born. I had no say in that, but it's kind of neat.)

I've gotten her addicted to kpop. She asks for "her G Dwagon," which, as far as I can tell, is everything from 2009 to the present. Any earlier than that, and he's MY G Dragon. She also loves her TOP, and will tell you that Taeyang is a "mad boy" and he's cold, because he's not wearing a shirt. Oh, and it's not MY BTS anymore, it's HER BTS, thank you very much. She asks for the "nega chay challaga" song, and "wa wa geejeebay!" which just makes me giggle. 

She will tell you, unprompted, that she loves you, that you're awesome, and which things are not her favorite. Things are frequently "almost done" as a stalling technique. If you ask her how she's doing, she'll say, "I doing great!" She loves to be a "big helper" especially in the kitchen.
When I ask her to lay down, sometimes she asks to "lay up" and loves to climb into my lap during her bedtime book, which she will then insist she read back to you, with surprising accuracy.

She dislikes:
raw vegetables, except tomatoes
being told what to do

I like:
Getting to braid her hair.
All her adorable outfits.
The way she loves things--full of enthusiasm and joy and no reservations
Holding her hand, painting her tiny nails & toes.

She pushes all my buttons sometimes with her independence and her defiance and her need to be the boss. Gee, I wonder where she gets that from. She also melts my heart with the way she clings to my neck at bed time, saying, "Mama, I neeeeeeed you."

Yeah, she's pretty much the best thing. I think I'll keep her.

March Pinterest Roundup

Seriously, I'm amazed at the motivational power of a calendar. I'm really pleased that I've stuck with this for 3 whole months. Woohoo!

Nacho Pot Pie

This was on the calendar to be made the last week of February, but I pinned it for J and he was in Canada, so, I postponed. It was good, but I really need a shallower dish next time. The ratio of cheese/chips/messy stuff was off. Anyway, health food it isn't, but everyone ate it, so hooray! I think for once I actually followed the real recipe without going crazy off-book. Oh, I didn't put in the scallions, because I had a cranky teething toddler attatched to me. And I left out the carrots, because carrots don't belong on nachos. And I made my own taco seasoning, because I thought we already had some at home, but turns out it was chili seasoning. I also didn't really use the name brands listed, but it's a recipe from Betty Crocker, so you know, grain of salt. 

Broccoli Cheese Soup

This was a mid-week whim. I didn't really want to cook, but we had some broccoli in the freezer, and I always have cheese. I substituted skim milk, because that's what I had, and whipping cream because, again, that's what was in the fridge. It was pretty decent. Though I will note that the recipe calls for simmering for 20-30 minutes. I recommend you do that. Don't leave it on medium high because you have to break up a temper tantrum and forget that the soup isn't actually simmering. I didn't scorch anything, but it was sort of browned broccoli soup at that point. Oh well, tasted good. Made enough for left overs. Win/win!

Chicken Pot Pie Crescent Braid

I'm so bad at following directions, and this was STILL delicious. And my husband, who is notoriously anti-pot pie (which is why I wanted to try the nacho pot pie, to convert him) liked it. Asked me to make it again. HAHA! He thinks regular pot pies have too much crust, because I insist on full-crust pies. Crust on top AND bottom. Like a pie. Not like the Dutch thing that is crustless, and sort of just chicken and dumplings. He would probably love that. He's not anti-crust, just has very firm rules abour crust-to-stuff ratios. He doesn't like calzones for the same reason. I don't even know. I'm firmly a carbnivore, so more crust for me! Back to the recipe, which calls for "seamless crescent roll dough" which is a thing I don't even know how to find, and I didn't read the recipe closely enough to see the seamless part, so I just bought the regular kind. Which worked out ok, but I had to use two cans of it, and it wasn't so much "braided" as... well, kind of flopped together to look vaguely decorative. And I used the remainder of the chive & onion cream cheese from the other pasta bake thingy, which was delicious, and the substitution totally rocked. So, you know, use onion cream cheese. It's better. Baking it all on parchment paper was also the best thing ever, because easy clean up is everybody's favorite thing!

Not pictured, Apple Cider beef stew. Defintely a win. I'm not really a stew fan, but this was good. It tasted just like my mom's stew, only with a little sweet kick from the apples.

Brown sugar garlic chicken. This was quite tasty, but I would like there to me more sauce on the chickeny parts, so I'll double the recipe next time. But I actually followed the recipe, guys! 

Cheesy Taco Soup

Exactly as advertised. It was pretty easy to assemble. Everyone ate it. I'm happy. More recipe following. It's like I'm learning.

Actually, I am learning. I've learned to make cream sauce/cheese sauce from scratch that doesn't suck, so go me!