Night Night Blanket

We almost had a tragedy last night, but my big girl pulled through! She has her "night night" blankie that she has slept with every night since she was about 1 year old. It is a Taggie blanket, and I think that she rubs the tags as she falls asleep. It was always my intention to leave the blanket upstairs in her room, but as time has gone by, it has of course, made its way downstairs most days. Every now and then, when it's time for bed, we have to spend a little time looking for it. I have found it behind the couch, in the bathroom, under the bed, in the stroller, and in the trash can. But last night the unthinkable happened...we couldn't find it! I didn't want to drag out the search because I was trying not to make a big deal out of it. I found another blanket that had a silky ribbon on the edges, and I convinced her that it was way better than the normal blanket. Amazingly enough, she was fine! I guess sometimes I don't give her credit for how resilient she can be!
By the way, I found it today. In the closet on the shelf where there are some other baby blankets. She said she put it there "because Kacy was trying to grab it." :)

Beach Fun

My good friend, Heather went to the beach with us the other day. It's fun to have the beach so close to where we live. Even though it's "just Galveston", it is still a fun time whenever we go. Last time we went there were not that many waves, but this time they were pretty big. Once we got our stuff set up, we took off for the water. We were walking out there, and Adilyn was not scared of the waves at all, brave girl! All of a sudden, the water got deeper and the waves got bigger. We were both holding a kid and getting smacked with the waves, so we learned our lesson and went to the shallower water. Kacy did not like getting pushed around by the waves at first, but she finally got used to it. Adilyn loved every part of it, but strangely enough her favorite part was trying to get our umbrella to stick in the sand. She kept piling up the sand around it, making sure it was steady. We had a great time!

Laughter is Good for the Soul

I am going to try to keep better track of the cute things that Adilyn says. That way when I am tired or I have had a bad day, I can pull this up to put a smile on my face.

Today, she came over to me with a disgusted look on her face. She held out her hands and said, "Ewwww, I have hair hands." I thought she meant that she had dog hair on her hands thanks to Zoe and Willow as usual. When I looked at them, they were covered with Barbie doll hair! She had been brushing their hair, and a lot of it had come out.

She tripped and bumped her cheek on a table at school yesterday. When I asked her what happened, this is the conversation that followed -

Me: "What happened to your face?"

A: "I hurt it with a sharp knife."

Me: "Really, I think that might be a made up story."

A: "No, it happened."

We were watching "So You Think You Can Dance" and a guy and girl came out to do a ballet routine from the Don Quixote production. She said, "Look, Mama, that's her prince." (She is very into the prince and princess thing these days. He was dressed a little like a prince - a prince in white tights!)

Kacy's Ears

Poor Kacy has had a lot of ear infections in her one year of life, but I didn't realize how many until our last doctor's appointment. When we went to our pediatrician on Monday, she told me that this was her 6th ear infection since January. She has had one every month since January, except for in February. It sure seemed like every time we went to the doctor, we left with the prescription for Amoxicillin, but wow! Poor girl! We have an appointment with an ENT next Wednesday, so I hope he will help us get Kacy better! This is a picture of her looking so pitiful...

I a Big Girl, I do it By Myself

This summer Adilyn has really gotten much more independent, which is really great to watch, but it also pretty funny at times. I try to let her do as much as possible on her own, especially when we are not in too much of a hurry. Her favorite saying is, "No, Mama, I a big girl; I can do it by myself." Some other things she likes to say..."I be done in just a minute," and "I almost done." Those usually means that she is just stalling, though. The things that she has mastered lately - dressing and undressing herself, putting on her shoes, opening (and locking) doors, turning off lights, climbing in the car seat, getting her own water from the fridge, and dressing her baby dolls. Now, there are some problems with those skills. For example, the clothes are ususally inside out, and the shoes are usually on the wrong feet. I really don't understand how 90% of the time her shoes are on the wrong feet when she has a 50/50 shot of getting it right the first time! :)

She is so funny, and she seriously makes me laugh throughout the day! Her understanding of her getting older is a little confused. She keeps talking about how she can do it now "when I older", but she also talks about how she can play with Kacy's toys "when I younger again." When we are shopping for clothes, she always says, "Is this my age?" She means "size" :)

New Haircut

This is actually a post about me! I think this might be a first! I really needed a haircut, so I was thinking about how I was going to get it cut the night before. I was originally just going to get a trim, but then I realized that all I ever really do is put it in a ponytail; I might as well chop it all off. As I was playing on the computer that night, I looked into hair donation. Locks of Love requires 10 inches, so I had Cory measure my ponytail...he said that it was a little less than 9 inches. I got bummed because I was so close. Then, I found Pantene Beautiful Lengths, which makes wigs for adult women with cancer. They only required 8 inches! It was decided - I would chop it all off! When I got to the stylist, I was hoping that I would be able to keep a short version of my same hairstyle. No such luck. She had to cut it right at the hairline. I told her just to do it! It will always grow back, right? Isn't it funny how we get so attached to our hair? Even if you are someone like me, who never colors it, rarely fixes it, and doesn't generally care what I look like - when you are staring in the mirror as a stylist chops 9 inches of ponytail after ponytail is rough! I got through it, and I really liked it when she fixed it, of course! Now, I have tried a few things, and have remembered very quickly why I don't like short hair on me. The right side of my hair flips out, and the left side doesn't. Not too big of a deal, but it drives me crazy! The other reason I don't like it is because when it's a super lazy hair day or when nothing seems to look good, the ponytail is your bestfriend. With short hair, it's like your bestfriend, old reliable, the ponytail, has moved away for 6 months or so...

Determination

My sweet Kacy has gotten ridiculously strong-willed in the last month or so! She was such a laidback baby, but my, how times have changed. Here are a few things that she is obsessed with these days.

*Walking while holding on to people's fingers. She will be sitting in my lap and start searching for my fingers to grab. Once she gets them, she

won't let go!

*Climbing up on top of ANYthing! She will walk up to something and put her leg up as high as she can possibly get it like she's going to actually be able to climb on it. When we were at my dad's, she kept trying to climb on his fireplace which was about as high as her shoulder. She's got high hopes!

*Going up and down the stairs. Every time she gets your fingers to go for a walk, she will head right for those stairs! She could go up and down those things all day long!

*Walking in and out of your lap. She will climb over one leg into the middle of your lap, then climb over the other leg, and back and forth!

I think that I am noticing a theme here! I hope that her climbing obsession will not end in too many injuries, but I am not sure that will be possible.

More obsessions that are not climbing/walking related -

*Stealing Adilyn's sippy cups (even when she has her own)

*Trying to put her hand in the toliet (if she only knew how gross that water is!)

*Knocking over the dog's water dish (why is every kid so intrigued by the dog's stuff?)

*Brushing her own hair (really just grabbing the brush and putting it on top of her head)

I just hope that her determination will lead to good things later in life because right now, it's driving me crazy! All these silly phases...

Dance Party!

I have been letting Adilyn stay up and watch "So You Think You Can Dance" with me some nights this summer. (It's a dancing competition show, for those who may not know.) Every since, she has become a dancing queen! We were shopping at Old Navy the other day, and she danced her way through the entire store. She really gets into it, and she seems to think that she is doing "different dances" each time, but it is really just the same little shake and twirl. :)

She is bowing to start and bowing as she finishes.

"Surfin' USA"

Kacy's New Tricks!

Little Kacy has been doing a lot of new things all of a sudden, but her newest milestone is taking some steps! She can go about 4 or 5 steps, and then she gets so excited that she just tips over! She be running before we know it. Kacy can also blow kisses, wave at all cars that drive by, and pull hair (mostly Adilyn's)! I thought at first she was just pulling hair on accident, but after the last couple days it is obviously on purpose. I guess she's just fighting back for the last two or three months of abuse that Adilyn has given her! The poor girl also got 4 new teeth in the last 2 weeks, which of course was fun for all of us! :) She is growing so fast!

What Adilyn does instead of napping...

She may not ever really nap anymore, but she still loves to play "night night!"

Adilyn used to be the best napper, ever! She would usually nap for 2 - 3 hours every day. One day, all of a sudden, she just never went to sleep. She stayed in her room and read her books. As the days have gone on, she would tell me that she didn't want to nap. I think it's important for all kids to have some "down time"...okay, let's be honest - it's important for me to have some much needed time to get things done and have a little quiet time, too! :) Anyway, we have changed her nap time to "rest time". She goes into her room, and she does what ever she feels like doing. It's always interesting to see what she spends her time doing. Here are some things that she has done.
*Her favorite thing is to take every single book off her bookshelf and throw them all over her room. She got really creative with them once and made "book stairs". She stacked them in different levels to make stairs.
*She got ahold of a HUGE bottle of lotion and had a "lotion party" as she called it. Lotion was absolutely everywhere! The bookshelf and the carpet up there is much softer now!
*She heard Cory and I outside working on the yard, so she opened up her blinds and stayed perched in the window with her toys the whole time.
*All the clothes were pulled out of her closet. They were organized in piles, by color. When I came up she said, "Look Mama, my clothes are like a rainbow."
*One time, she had gotten out her dress up clothes. When I came up to get her, she was pretending to be asleep, but had on a scarf, a silly hat, and a big smile on her face.

Mini Vacation #2

Our second little vacation was a short trip to Concan and the Frio River. Cory, the girls, and I all drove there to meet up with Jessica and her family for a couple nights. We rented a house that was walking distance to the Frio. Jessica has 3 kids - Jace - 5, Ella - 3, and Joel - 10 months. We were not sure how Ella and Adilyn would really get along, but they became best friends, almost immediately! They played and ran around the house and screamed and played some more! It was really cute. We hung around the house, then we went down and played in the river for a while. Cory was hoping to be able to do a little work, but unfortunately we couldn't get cell or internet service. Instead of playing at the river, he had to go up to the little store up the road to do some work. The next morning we woke up, and it was raining. The kids watched some movies and played inside, and luckily it cleared up enough to go down to the river again. Adilyn and Ella pretended to be mermaids. They were Ariel and Merliah. Jace got to be the "mermaid catcher". We watched tubers and kayakers come down the river. The kids swam around like crazy and pretended to "tube" a little. What fun!

I am so lucky to have a friend like Jessica in my life. We have been friends for over 12 years, and whenever we get together, it's like we never spent any time apart. Everything is so easy with her, and there is never any drama or anything else that is "hard". It was all made even better this time to see our sweet little girls have so much fun together! It's so hard to find friends that last a lifetime!