Very First Horse Show!

Father's Day was Jazzy's first ever horse show!  She competed in lead line and tied for 2nd place!  Her pony Tater Tot is just too cute.  They love each other.  Tater Tot gets spoiled with lots of cookies and carrots every time we go for a ride.  Jazzy got lots of compliments on how cute she looks riding with her little pigtails and breeches.  Her next show is in July so we have lots of time to practice.  She is very proud of her red ribbon.  She took it to Mom-mom's house and over to see G-dad (great-grandfather).

Potty Training....

I've buckled down and decided its now or never with the potty this week.  Its pretty bad when Jazz walks up to you and says change me... clearly she's ready.

Yesterday was fairly successful.  More successful than our past attempts at potty training.  She did excellent all morning then lost focus by dinner time.  She gets rewarded with "stickers" on her magnetic potty chart and high fives with who ever is around.  She loves to flush the big potty when she's done so that seems like a reward as well.  I had to make a trip to Michael's for some bow making supplies and put her in panties for the trip.  She made it to the store, shopped around, and back home with ZERO ACCIDENTS!  Granted the store is 2 mins down the road, but we were easily gone for 20 mins or so finding what I need and shopping for little kids crafts to keep her busy on the rainy days to come.

Today Jazz has realized she's in complete control....  It could be worse.  She was upset that she pee'd in the bed last night, but I told her it was ok (she wore a diaper for the night) and she used the potty right away.  We made a Walmart trip for her to pick out some new big girl panties.  She picked out Rapunzel (from Tangled), Littlest Pet Shop, Tinkerbelle, and Spongebob.  She was torn between Spongebob and Dora.  The Tinkerbelle and Spongebob panties were mis-marked and were a size too big so they got returned (I didn't open them, just realized the lack of the letter T after we got home).  Walmart was out of the right size Tinkerbelle panties but Daddy found Minnie Mouse and a pack that had Dora AND Spongebob along with some other favorites from Nickelodeon.  Once she decided she wanted Spongebob panties instead of the Rapunzel ones she put on, she peed her panties so we'd have to change.

She has filled her chart with stickers for both days so far.  Mom-mom promised to get her a slide if she starts using the potty all the time and Jazzy reminds me everyday, several times a day.  Each afternoon she asks to go to Mom-mom's house to get her slide and I remind her the entire chart has to get filled with stickers first.  She checks the chart a few times a day to see how far she has to go.

Happy Easter! with kittens!

Jazzy and Jeff have been begging for kittens for what seems like forever.  Every time we needed something from Petsmart, we looked at the cats up for adoption.  The cats at our Petsmart are from a local rescue group.  For quite a while they were all older cats who either didn't like other cats, or don't do well with dogs or young children.  The week before Easter, they had 3 orange kittens!  They were only 4 months old and very playful.  After playing with them for a few minutes, we were all hooked.  The hard decision was which one to take home. We all wanted to just take home all 3, but decided to get the little girl kitten because her markings were just so cool looking and she was more of a lap cat, and the dark orange little boy kitten because he played so well with Jazzy and was extremely playful.  We picked up the kittens the next morning and brought them home.  Princess Cupcake is more timid and hides from Jazzy a lot during the day.  She would much rather just sit quietly on someone's lap undisturbed or nap under the couch.  Chaos is out and active all morning, hides to nap in the afternoon, and comes back out for more destruction in the evening and all night.  He got his name honestly.  Within five minutes of being let loose in the house, he climbed the curtains to the top and knocked everything over on his crazy run through the house.

Jazzy LOVES her kittens.  She carries Chaos around and gives them both kisses and hugs.  It was the best Easter gift ever.

A Princess Afternoon

Last week we had a Disney Princess movie marathon.  We watched Princess and the Frog, Sleeping Beauty, and Beauty and the Beast.  To make it even more fun, I did Jazzy's nails and hair and she put on her princess dress.

Jazzy had a good time playing princess for the afternoon.

A taste of Summer

It hit 80 degrees the other day (some places recorded up to 85) so I took Jazzy and Vally out to play in the yard for most of the day.  First we tried to plant the rest of our seeds for the veggie garden.

That went ok for two of those seed pots.  Then Jazzy got other ideas (and spilled the carrots all over the carport)

Vally got to spend the afternoon off her tie out roaming around the yard and playing an endless game of fetch.

Jazzy decided it was her turn to play fetch with the tiring dog.

After 2 hours of nice outside time in the sun, Vally was finally tired enough to just lay down by my chair and Jazzy made pretty pictures on any surface possible with sidewalk chalk

Dance Jazzy Style

Today I had my napster radio playing while cleaning up the house.  One song really got Jazzy's attention, My First Kiss (it has Ke$ha in it).  She started dancing around the living room and then decided she needed a stage. My laundry basket became said stage.  By the end of the song, Jazzy was singing along and dancing away.  For the rest of the day I've been randomly demanded to turn on her dancing music.

Truck failure = impromptu horsing around

A week or so ago my truck truck decided to die on the way to go see Radar.  We managed to get to the barn some how leaking fluids like crazy.  We then had an hour at the barn while we waited for rescue.  Jazz played on the swing set while I lunged Radar to get her exercise in.  Then we groomed the dirty horse until she was clean (or as clean as a horse turned out for 2 years can get) and then hopped on for a bareback ride.  Jazzy enjoyed her ride (4 walking steps forward) and then meticulously groomed every inch within reach.

Springtime in February!

This weekend we saw temperatures up in the 70s!  highly unusual for this time of year but just had to take advantage of it.  We spent time outside blowing bubbles and kicking the ball around.  I also took the nice weather as an opportunity to go ride.  (Em was sooo goood!)
Here's a few photos of our outdoor adventures.

The Big Girl Bed

Jeff and I caught Jazzy climbing on her rocking chair and leaning over into the crib to get her bunny, blankie, and paci out of it.  I said its probably time to start converting it into a toddler bed.  Jeff took that as lets do it right now.  We took the rails off and made it a big girl bed complete with new Tinkerbelle sheets.  (well half of her new sheets since everything but the fitted sheet is missing. darn movers!!!)  There was a lot of jumping up and down on the bed at first.  When it was bedtime, Jazzy laid in her bed, I covered her up in her blankets, and we read a book.  I said goodnight and walked out of her room.  No crying, and no attempts to come with me.  I then went upstairs to play rockband with Heather and Andrew leaving Jeff to deal with what I was sure going to be a long battle.  To both of our surprise, Jazzy stayed in bed all night with no fuss.  She called for Daddy when she woke up to come get her.  That was way too easy.  We'll see how long she goes with it before we have battles over staying in bed..

The death of Melvin...and the kitty adventures of upstairs

Melvin is my sister's pet tortoise that she keeps with her at school.  Jazzy got to play with him a lot (as in look at him and scream "TURTLE!") over Christmas break while we were waiting for our stuff to get here from England.  Yesterday, we found Jazzy's stuffed turtle that looks a lot like Melvin.  I mentioned the similarity and Jazzy's response was "no, he's dead".  Where does she get these things??
Our neighbours upstairs have 2 cats, Killer and Exxon.  Exxon is a bit shy still (he was rescued from life in a dumpster at the Exxon station) but Killer will love up to anyone.  Jazzy's new afternoon activity is to go upstairs when "Aunt" Heather comes home and feed Killer a bag of kitty treats.  By the end of the week, Killer will probably come running when she hears Jazzy come in.  (that cat will do anything if it involves food)  Exxon occasionally makes a brief appearance, but instincts tell him to run away from toddlers.

Moving in

The boxes have finally arrived from England!  7 crates worth of stuff has been unloaded into our apartment.  Jeff and I spent all weekend unpacking and making trips to Lowes for things that we slowly found broken in the apartment (bathroom tub was missing a stopper, one of the cabinets pull out shelves didn't pull out any more, the toilet paper holder was missing a piece, etc.)  Sunday evening we picked up Jazzy from "mom mom"'s house and brought her back to the apartment.  To her it was like Christmas all over again.  Her room is totally unpacked complete with a good chunk of her toys in a toy box.  It was instantly dumped all over the floor and played with for hours (never mind it was bedtime by the time we got back to the house).  Now I have lots of "help" unpacking.  Her help usually involves dumping out all the toys I just put in their place and demanding a movie and snack.  She also instructs me on which box I am to open next and where I'm allowed to put it while I unpack it.  Jazzy hasn't napped since we've been at the apartment.  I guess she's afraid to miss anything.  She spends 30 minutes in her room, in bed, for "quiet time" at a minimum.  Quiet time isn't usually quiet either.  It involves a lot of kicking the wall and singing to all her stuffed animals.