Making Dumplings

One night, I was making chicken & dumplings for dinner...a moment of rarity, me making a homemade dinner, but it does happen occasionally! =)

So, one of the main dumpling ingredients (when you're out of Bisquick, anyways) is flour. Well, John decided to see what Violet would do if he gave her a spoon and sat her on the counter beside the flour canister.

This is what happened...

Notice the look of concentration as she puts her spoon into the canister.


"Ohhhh, I got some flour on my spoon!"


"Did you see that daddy?! Did you see what I did?!"


"I love cooking! It's so much fun!"


Needless to say, the clean-up from that adventure was a blast! =)

Oh, and if you're wondering about the dumplings, I had altered the recipe I because I was missing an ingredient (baking powder...I had baking soda but no powder) so I searched for a new version online but I cooked them the same way as in the original one...they were a total flop! This is why I do not have a cooking show...I did try them again the next week, once I had bought baking powder and they were a success! Yum-o!

What a Ham!

So, I love just dressing Violet up in the cutest little outfits and taking her pictures. However, she has eczema so I try to keep her legs covered up to keep them from breaking out and to keep her from scratching! So, to compromise, when she wears dresses, she usually wears leggings or tights with them.

Here she is in her denim dress and red tights (which match the flowers on the dress) playing with her little monster truck (which was John's pick to try to not force gender-specific toys on her!)


"Aren't I just the cutest thing ever?!!!"


And a rarity, a picture where she's not doing her cheese-er smile!

Oh, there it is again! Seriously, what a ham!


And one of the big girl standing by the ottoman...I think she's telling me how much trouble I'm in once she starts walking, and when she gets older...she's an ornery little booger!


I'm going to try to get caught up on posts before her first birthday this weekend(!)...so there should be a few more this week! It'll probably be the most post-happy week of my blogging career!

Speaking of her birthday...one year ago yesterday was her due date! About this time last year, I was walking around humongously pregnant and wondering when the heck this little girl was going to come join our family! And now here we are, one year later...it's crazy how time flies!

Funny Faces

Lately, Violet has turned into quite the little ham. She makes all kinds of goofy faces, and she has this new cheeser-smile she does for the camera. Literally, I think in two days, I got about 10 or 15 pictures of her making this face!


So, after a few smiles later, we put the camera away and put on her pjs. Well, next thing I know, she's sitting there blowing bubbles and she has this HUGE bubble beard! Unfortunately, I didn't get a good picture of the beard, but here she is blowing bubbles.


And this was after she was done (notice all the slobber all over her jammies!), and she was just making faces at me.


Then she saw I had the camera back out and crawled over with her silly little smile. "Mommy, you taking my picture again? I'm ready!"


"Cheese!"


What a ham!

New Camera!

So, as I think I mentioned, we bought a new camera in mid-June. The first night John was sitting in the living room playing with it and Violet was in an ornery mood!

She's recently discovered our couch throw pillows, and likes to crawl over to them and lay on them. See below.


And now on with the ornery-ness...


And some more...I'm not really sure what she was doing besides being a little goofball!


And a zoomed-in picture of that little monster face!


So, another night, I decided to try to get a good picture of me with Violet. Usually I'm the one taking pictures so I'm never in them...but John had the camera so I tried to seize the opportunity. However, Violet was much more interested in playing than posing for pictures!


About 10 or 15 tries later, we both gave up.

She's looking at her daddy like, "Please daddy, tell mommy I don't want to take any more pictures today! It's almost bedtime!" =)

Mommy's Little Helper

So, lately Violet has turned into quite the little helper. I'll list a few of the ways my little girl is helping...she's getting so big and smart!

She tries to help me put her socks on in the mornings. She knows they go on her little feet, but she usually tries to put the one she's holding on the same foot I'm already putting a sock on! Of course, she also likes to put her socks in her mouth, so we have to watch her carefully. It's so funny, when she notices her socks starting to come off, she pulls it off and then stuffs it in her mouth! What a silly little girl.

Another thing she helps with is putting on her own headband. We have a couple actual headbands instead of the elastic-y ones that go all around her head. Those are the ones she'll pick up and try to put on by herself! So cute.

She also is very good at helping me & John send text messages. For example, yesterday I got a message, and I quote, "C. Fg ;);565(;:::fgddgo lhad". Not quite sure what it all means but I do see two smilies in there, one in each direction so she must have been having fun with Daddy's phone!
And boy does she like playing with our iPhones. There's an app on them called "I Hear Ewe" that has pictures of animals and when you touch one, it makes the sound of that animal. She loves it.

"Oh, mommy, thank you for giving me your phone. Now I can play my game."


"This game is sooooo fun. I just love it!"


"Which animal should I choose..." She actually flicks between the two screens picking which animal she wants to hear the sounds for.


"The rhino!"

"That was so fun, I need my own phone so I can play it all the time!"

We're probably going to be the only parents whose toddler wants an iPhone! We'll be lucky if she makes it to kindergarten before asking for her own phone!