18 Months!!

My sweet little goose is officially 1.5 years old. She is such a little grown up! She has so much spunk and attitude! She is definitely my little girl! 

She recently got a free chunky Melissa & Doug puzzle that she took to immediately, and got all the right on the second time!! So we decided to get her a few others! She's so smart and has gotten all of them down! She loves her puzzles!

We also recently (while cleaning out space to make her big girl room) found some presents that she got from my Canadian family this past Christmas. She then decided to get naked and wear nothing but what you see in this picture. Haha! Too cute!

Daddy is very happy too because before she was born, Daddy made some wooden cars, and trucks, some with trailers. He was a little bummed thinking that they would just go to waste. He'd given away some to cousins, but felt that maybe they didn't like them the way he'd hoped. Even better though, Sophia loves them! She asks us to take them off of the shelf for her to play with all the time!

We celebrated Fourth of July this month! We started by going for a little lunch at the Pocock house. Below, Daddy is teaching Sophia croquet. 

(4th of July family shot)

Later, we went to the McDaniel house, where Sophia swam for a little bit!

Then we went to our local park to watch the fireworks and check out the little festival that they had.

(being goofy)

We also took a field trip with Grandma and Papa to one of my favorite places, Lukas Nursery. 

(wearing a pup's costume)

Also, in cleaning out room to make Sophia's big girl room, we found my tiara from our wedding. Sophia has decided that it's one of her favorite new pieces. She loves being a princess!

(find the baby!)

We also began cloth diapering. Unfortunately, the ones we like aren't terribly cheap. We've currently got three, so we only get to partially cloth diaper, but we ordered more, and 6 should be arriving tomorrow! 

She's so smart too! This is a name puzzle that her Granddaddy made her for Christmas this past year. Notice that she took out the "S" from the puzzle and replaced it with the "S" that looks completely different from her magnets! This was completely unprompted. At first, I hadn't noticed. When I did, I had to make sure that Daddy hadn't done it. So proud!

(my little princess)

Also in following the footsteps of her mother (and Grandma), my little goose LOVES her some black olives! She even likes to put them on her fingers and eat them off!

Below you can see Sophia's friend (lizard), Bob, who comes to visit most nights, and makes Sophia ecstatic! She runs around yelling "Bob! Bob! Bob!" She gets sooo happy!

One stand out of this month is that we got to join my family in Bradenton for a few days for a mini vacation. It was exactly what we all needed! We stayed in a house just minutes from Anna Maria Island, and the weather was just beautiful!

(eating her first chicken nugget)

We went to Holmes Beach and Coquina Beach on Anna Maria Island. 

(at the beach with auntie)

Swam in the pool at the house...

...and swam and swam.

While on the trip, my goose showed her OCD tendencies off by taking these super cute chairs that were on one of the TWO screened in porches, and lined them up perfectly lined and spaced, admired her work, then carried them back to the table and put them back where they'd begun. She's the queen of separating and organizing. 

We checked out a few of the local tourist shops. Then we had a rasta photoshoot.

This is the cute little turtle shirt that Sophia got! There is a little flap where the mouth is, and when you flip it up, it's tongue sticks out. 

We even got to go on a pontoon boat for four hours! Sophia did amazing! She was soooo good, and didn't fight with her life vest at all! 

Finally, to end the month, we celebrated her half-birthday with a yummy cupcake from Sweets by Holly, and Mommy got her three new cups, a new princess carriage nightlight for her big girl room, Sofia the First stickers, and pretty pink nail polish!

She now says close to 25-30 words. She LOVES to sing and tell stories. Her favorites are Little Bunny Foo Foo and The Three Little Pigs. She also still loves to tumble and climb. Next month, she will be trying out her first tumbling class. So hopefully that goes well and will be something that she can do each week to both exert some energy, have fun, and socialize with other kids. She's also growing and growing and growing. I've not got to move her up to 24 month and 2T pjs because she's so tall. I haven't got a measurement but I'll work on it. She's still only 20.6 lbs. And now her foot is in a size 6. It's crazy! 

Happy 4th Of July!

Wishing everyone a Happy 4th of July from the Pocock Family!

Gardening Update:

Welp, I'm a little bummed out. I ended up having to finally pull two of my tomato plants that died, and the other 6 are on their way out too. This crappy stormy weather has just destroyed a lot of my wonderful garden :( I'm tempted to try and make some sort of cover for them. On a more positive note though. I DID get enough tomatoes from those plants to make at least 5 or 6 two to three person meals and 3 salads. So I'm pretty excited about that. I'm just sad to see it end. I have maybe 10 more tomatoes left on the plants, and after those are done, I feel fairly confident that I will have to pull those plants as well. 

My basil is still doing great, thankfully, but I need to trim it back. Unfortunately, with all of the rain, I haven't had time to get out there and work on it, which also is the reason there are so many stupid weeds in there now.

My green pepper just sprouted two more peppers and is look lively as ever, which is great. So are the other bell pepper plants that are in the side garden, and the two habanero plants as well. Neither of the others have produce yet, but the plants are in great health. 

I ended up pulling the broccoli, lettuce plants, and greek basil. The first two, because they are winter veggies, and I didn't know that when I put them in. The third because I don't use them and had gotten the wrong thing. 

In the other side garden, my grape tomato plant has sprouted two tomatoes! Yay! So that's sort of promising I hope. My red bell pepper over there is still holding up, but no produce yet. My celery is basically dead (again, another winter veggie). My yellow squash plant looks great, and one of my two strawberries looks great. The other is getting beaten to snot by the rain water coming off of the roof. My pineapple, it's hard to tell. 

In the back, my watermelon is basically dead. So is my cantaloupe, which HAD been thriving and looking wonderful, but then David moved it to make room for new plants, and it apparently was not happy. Same goes for the zucchini. My green bell pepper plant though seems to be liking it back there and has three bell peppers! Yay! The scotch bonnet plant is doing wonderful and has a TON of peppers on it. Unfortunately, I don't know if it's because of the rain or what, but none of them have ripened yet. So I'll have to keep a close eye on that one. 

I spent part of tonight going through my list of what I want to try growing for fall/winter. What I currently have it as (subject to change) are romaine lettuce, collard greens, broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, garlic, cabbage, celery, strawberries, pumpkin, and spaghetti squash. So we shall see. 

I also currently have a few different seeds that I'm going to try and get planted tomorrow evening: cherries, red & yellow bell peppers, watermelon and there was something else but I can't remember what it was. 

All in all, I'm pretty happy with this being my first time gardening. It's got me really wanting to do homesteading. I keep looking around the yard trying to figure out other places that I can put a veggie garden that wouldn't take away from the "yard" and possibly upset my inlaws. I'm thinking I'm going to try to section off a piece of the back yard from the dogs (if I can save up some $ for small garden fencing) and have an area that I can do more veggie gardening, as well as use the swing that we have, and have a place for Sophia to play that is fenced in, instead of chasing her around the front yard. So we'll have to see how that goes as well. But that's all for now. Goodnight!

17 Months!

Yikes! My big girl is 17 months going on 20! She's got so much sass, it's crazy!
This month we celebrated Daddy's second Father's Day, did a day at the pool with Aunt Carrie, and went to Seaworld! We did lots of arts and crafts, playing outside (in between nasty storms) and learning new tricks!


(Someone broke into mommy's spare yarn stash)

I don't have her current height and weight* but I imagine that she has finally passed 21 lbs. and will hopefully be able to get her weight one of these days. *Edit: I bought a digital scale so that we can stop having to use my in laws' whenever we're there, and she weighs 20.5 lbs. She still fits into her size 5 sandles, but her size 5 tennis shoes are starting to get a little bit snug. She can wear a pair of 5.5 tennis shoes that one of my friends gave her. She has outgrown most of her 18 month footy pajamas and now wears mostly footless. Her tummy is still tiny though and still fits the 12 months pants/shorts. And she has 11 teeth!

Random Conversation With Sophia:

Daddy (acting like a bull about to attack Sophia)

Sophia throws her baby doll towards daddy and steps back

Daddy: Did you just sacrifice your baby to the bull?

Sophia (matter of factly): Yep!


(Baking with grandma)

Can Also Now Identify:

giraffe

duck

turtle

monkey

crab

elephant

bird

zebra

kitty

pup 

bunny rabbit 

fish

frog

lizard

airplanes

cars

stars

moon

boats

Other Words Learned Since Last Month:

bow  

couch  

cup

yuck  

car  

blue

plop  

plane
five

She'd spent two weeks consistently letting me know when she needed a new diaper, and would grab her diaper to show me and then go stand by the bedroom door (where we change her at) and wait for me to come change her diaper. So after two weeks of that, I decided that maybe this was her way of telling me that she wants to potty train (which I didn't expect to start doing until around 2 years). So we bought a potty and on the morning of the 24th, I woke up and asked her if she wanted to try to go potty, and she said yes. I asked if she was done trying, and she shook her head no, so I told her I'd be right back and was going to get her diaper ready in the next room. I walked into the room and heard the toilet play music! She'd peed! Then I passed her wipe and she wiped! Then we went out to the living room and she nursed for a bit. After she finished nursing, I asked if she wanted to try again, and she said yes, and she peed AGAIN! Woo Hoo!!! My baby is so freaking amazing and smart! I just can't believe it! 

For Father's Day, Sophia and I went to Clay Z in Merritt Island, and she painted him a pretty coffee cup all by herself! She was so excited and had so much fun! We also got him a Seaworld funpass so that he could come with us next time!

(painting Daddy's Father's Day present)

We took a trip to Seaworld, this time with Daddy! Auntie, Dustin, and Mary came along too! It was a lot of fun! Sophia went on her first ride to see the penguins!

(Waiting for the ride to start)

(Chasing around the penguins)

(Kissing the penguins through the glass)

(Playing in the fountains in Shamu's Happy Harbor)

(Watching the Seymore & Clyde show)

(Posing with Daddy)

(Watching the seaturtles)

(Posing with Shamu!)

(My sweet girl fell on my parents' rock drive way and cut up her face :/ But she took it like a champ!)

(Drinking from her big girl cup)

 We also got to go swimming at the YMCA around the corner with Aunt Carrie! It took a little time to warm her up to it because the water splashes are loud and a little hard but she ended up loving it and not wanting to leave (despite the nasty storm coming in).

She also really learned to do some tumbling!

Doing some of her favorite tumbles...somersaults!

And she loves to sing! Her favorite song is Fall Out Boy's "My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark"

My little future pop star!

June Reads/Movies:

Books

Dead Ever After by Charlaine Harris
The Kill Order by James Dashner

The Maze Runner by James Dashner
The Scorch Trials by James Dashner 

Movies

Identity Thief
The Great and Powerful Oz

Menu Plan Monday:

Tuesday: Pork Chops & Rice

Wednesday: Pasta 

Thursday: White Bean Chicken Chili

Saturday: Open

"Family"

I frequently see people toss around the word "family" so easily. They think that blood means you are "family." I disagree. Family are the people who love you unconditionally and fight to protect you. They are people who remain in your lives through the good, the bad, and the ugly. They are there for you in your deepest pains, and are the ones helping to raise you back to greatness. "Family" are not people who use their own agendas and try to control your life. They do not only "love" you when you're doing what they think you should be doing or want you to be doing. They don't stop "loving" you when you make a mistake. They support you and help you grow from your mistakes. They don't take advantage of you. They don't abuse you (mentally, physically, sexually or otherwise). They don't call you terrible names, and spread lies about you. They don't tell you that "you'll never amount to anything" or that you're a "waste of money." Blood does not equal family. FAMILY are the people who are put in your life to love and support you and better you, to be a support system in your life. 

I have "family". They are toxic, hateful people who call themselves "Christians" but live their life on a daily basis full of hate, hypocrisy and ignorance. They have been cut out of my life for a purpose. I grew up having that kind of conditional "love" and hateful words in my life, which only made me a sadder, more depressed, insecure person. Luckily I found my REAL FAMILY. The ones who love and accept me, and helped me to grow and learn to defend myself, and protect my own FAMILY. For instance, my daughter will NEVER be put through that sort of hate in her life from the people who are in place, meant to love and protect her. I WILL PROTECT HER. Anyone who tries to get in the way of that will also be dead to me. Harsh? Perhaps. But this is what FAMILY does. They love and protect. Thank you to those that I have accepted in my life and are my family..and my friends. And thank you to the "family" that taught me exactly who I don't want to be, and for making me a better person because of it.