Kacy is growing up

I knew that my sweet little Kacy was growing up when she grew out of her Pampers Swaddlers. There is just something about those soft little baby diapers that will always take me right back to those newborn days. I can't believe how quickly her baby days are going by. I am not completely convinced that we are done having kids, but I am trying to enjoy each moment as if it's my last baby experience.
Here are a few things about my little one. First of all, she is not quite the laidback girl that she was as a newborn. She throws a fit when I take anything out of her hands. When she is tired of Adilyn being in her face she screams, which then starts Adilyn crying. She loves to eat. I don't think the girl has ever turned anything down. She loves everything from peas to acorn squash to peaches. I guess she gets that from her daddy. Although she is definitely strong enough, she is completely uninterested in crawling. She can pull up and stand on things, but she won't crawl. Part of me wants her to be able to crawl so she can entertain herself a little better, but another part doesn't want to have to start chasing her! :) Her little hands are always moving, and she loves to touch everything. She is getting really good at using picking up food, and she has her "pincher grasp" down. The funniest things make her laugh. We spent 30 minutes laughing hysterically about a bowl on my head - it's the simple things in life. She fights taking her naps, and sometimes we resort to driving her around in a the car for a quick cat nap. She is sleeping around ten to twelve hours a night, and has just recently been going to bed around 8:30 instead of 10:00pm. She still has the sweetest smile, and it makes me so happy that I have her light up my life, daily.

A Gift of Mulch and Other School Stories

Sometime last week when I picked Adilyn up from school she had mulch everywhere, in her hair, in her panties, in her pockets, etc. (They have mulch on their playground at school.) I made a big deal about her mulch collection, and we laughed each time we found a piece somewhere silly. She told me that they had a mulch party, and that everyone was throwing mulch. It sounded pretty funny to me. Anyway, since then everyday when I pick her up, I give her a hug, and she says, "Mama, look." She opens her pocket on her jacket and shows me mulch with a sneaky smile. When we get home, she gives me the mulch, as if it's a special gift.



Adilyn's favorite little school friend is Abby. She talks about her all the time. I often wonder if Abby ever talks about Adilyn. :) Anyway, she has accidentally called me Abby a few times when we are talking. Every time she does it, she laughs hysterically and says, "Mama, you not Abby." I laugh too, so now I'm pretty sure she is doing it on purpose. Silly girl!

It was show and tell with the letter "U" the other day, so I had Adilyn take an umbrella. Her teacher told me when they got all the items out, one of the kids said, "That's silly, it's not raining outside."

After her Valentine's Day party, we emptied out her little mailbox and looked at everything she had gotten. I don't know how they distributed the Valentines, but she remembered which Valentines were from who. It was really cute how she went through each one and would tell me who gave it to her.

Even though it's hard to be a working mom sometimes, when I think of all the experiences she has at school, it makes it a little easier. There are many days when I would rather just sleep in and have easy mornings, but if we did that every day, we would never have all these little school memories. :)

Cold Weather = Inventive Activities

Before I begin, I know that it is not nearly as cold here as it is in many parts of the country, but it has still been cold enough this winter to be stuck inside more than I would like to be! I remember in my life before kids cold days were no big deal. I used to love being curled up on the couch watching crappy tv shows and reading books. Now, after a couple days of being stuck in the house means stir-crazy kids and dogs and parents! Here are a few things that we have done to entertain ourselves this winter.

Here is Adilyn teaching Kacy to play "peek-a-boo". Kacy liked it at first, but then (as usual) Adilyn got a little rough with her. Kacy is able to sit up now, but she's still pretty wobbly. It's hard to tell in the picture, but Adilyn had on three shirts. I wanted her to try on some clothes I bought her, and she insisted on putting them all on top of each other. Needless to say, on shirt number 4, she said, "It's too tight!"

Nearly naked indoor painting....it's the only way to be truly "free" to create masterpieces!

"Swimming" in the sink - this actually was a result of her peeing on the kitchen floor. She gets so into stuff that she still forgets to stop and go to the bathroom. She played in there forever, cleaning dishes, stirring things, and filling cups with water.

She was "painting her eyes". I very rarely wear any make-up these days, but the other night Cory and I were going on a very rare date. As I was putting on eyeshadow, Adilyn was watching me. She said, "Mama, why are you painting your eyes?" Of course, she had to then get ready for her date, too. Her date was staying at home with the babysitter, but she still wanted to look pretty. You can't really tell, but it ended up looking like she had a black eye!

Adilyn - Short Stories

*I was running the bath water, and I was telling Adilyn to come in to the bathroom. She says, "Hold on, Mommy, I am getting ready." She comes in with Kacy's onesie on her head and Kacy's socks on her feet (nothing in between). When I asked her what in the heck she was getting ready for, she answered, "Running. This is my running hat and my running socks." I hope she never goes running in an outfit like that!!!

*She kept telling me that she wanted to "glue Kacy". Not sure if she wanted to glue something to Kacy or glue Kacy to something. Either way, it was a no go!

*Every morning when I wake her up, she wakes up with something on her mind. Her are a few of her early morning quotes. "Allie Barber stole my cookie." (that's a friend of hers from school) "There's a bug on my wall.", "Where's Kacy?", "I wanna watch Mickey.", "It's too sunny. I need my sunglasses." (the lights were too bright for her)

*When I pick her up from school, we always have to wait for them to get Kacy ready. She wants to know who's mommy and who's daddy is who. She tries to remember who goes with who, and she gets really proud of herself when she is right.

*One of her favorite books is "Chicka Boom", which has the alphabet in it. I am trying to teach her her letters. I was outlining them with my finger - to emphasize them. She started to outline them too, but she licks her fingers before she outlines it for some reason. I asked her why and she said, "Cause it's slippery."

*Today when I picked her up from school, she said, "Mama, I sad." I asked her why she was sad, and she replied, "Because Daddy left me." I explained that he didn't leave her, he just went to work in California. Then she responded, "Okay, I happy now."

*She likes making up her own words and yelling them out loud. "Shamalooey!", "Poohnie Noonie!", "Moolytooly", etc. When I asked her what she is saying, she says, "I don't know." and smiles.

*Any time anyone tells her that she's cute, she puts her head on her shoulder for her "cute" face.

Christmas 2009

Christmas was so much fun this year! I remember Adilyn's first Christmas, and how I was so disappointed that she wasn't opening any presents. She was only 6 months old, so I don't know what I expected, but it was a let down. Last year, she got a little more into it, but this year was a totally different story. She was so excited to open the presents, so excited in fact, that she opened everybody's presents. She just picked a present from under the tree opened it, then decided who it belonged to. Poor Kacy, she just had toys and wrapping paper all around her...she was just left to fend for herself.







Let me back up a little bit first...

Adilyn finally sat with Santa this year. Of course, that only happened after Kacy sat with him and survived. She got into all the decorations and lights everywhere. Any time we saw a Santa, she would yell out, "Santa!"

Whenever I asked her what she wanted for Christmas, she would always respond, "Ummm, a choo choo!" I didn't really think she wanted a train, but she stuck with it. I never got around to getting one, and I thought she would drop it. On Christmas Eve morning, I asked her again if there was anything that she hoped Santa would bring her, again with the choo choo response. Well, crap, I hadn't ever gotten the choo choo, but I couldn't have Santa let her down on the very first year that she understood the concept of Santa! It would ruin her for years to come, I'm sure...So, I sucked it up, and I went to Walmart. Yes, Walmart on Christmas Eve is exactly what you would expect from Walmart on Christmas Eve. It took me over an hour just to get a stupid train and a few groceries! I had to wait in line just to get down the aisle. Never again!!!

Christmas Eve, we decorated cookies for Santa. I also told her the story of Santa Mouse (Santa's littlest helper). Santa Mouse likes cheese, and the reindeer drink Coke, so we left cookies, milk, cheese, and Coke to make everyone happy. Adilyn ate so much icing as we were decorating that I thought she was going to make herself sick!
Ashley came into to town to surprise everyone, so she came over to spend the night on Christmas Eve. I still had a lot of presents to wrap, and Kacy was not tired, so Cory, Kacy, Ashley, and I stayed up until almost 2am wrapping and getting things together. Luckily Ashley was there to help keep Kacy entertained. I guess Kacy was excited about Santa coming, too!

We all slept in on Christmas morning until about 10am, which was awesome! When Adilyn woke up, I brought her downstairs, and she didn't want to open any presents. That surely wasn't the response that I thought she would have! I think she was tired, and once she woke up, she decided she was ready. Boy, did she get into then! Almost every present she opened, she would say, "Maybe this my choo choo?" I was so glad that I had actually gotten that stupid train for her! I think my heart would have been broken each time she said that if I didn't have one for her. The train was her last present in the "hunt", which is a tradition my mom started years ago. Man, was she excited to see that little train!
Later that day we went to Tommie's house for more family fun and great food. It was a long day, but a very fun one!

Fort Worth Christmas

We had our first Christmas celebration this weekend. We went up to Ft. Worth to celebrate with my family. Cory came back from California, and we all drove up there on Saturday. The drive went very well; we weren't sure how Kacy would do in the car because we hadn't driven anywhere since she was really little. When we had to drive to Atlanta, we got a DVD player, so after Adilyn asking us a million questions in the first hour and a half, we put that dude on to entertain her. Our first stop on the agenda was Mom's house. We got there around 1pm, and we hung out there until Brandon came over for pizza and presents. Adilyn definitely got into to the opening of the presents. Kacy just wanted to eat the paper. She actually slept through most of the present opening, but we saved her presents for her to open when she woke up.
After Mom's house, we loaded up for our next stop, Dad's. We got there, and Adilyn was wired - go figure! She was going to sleep on a pallet in Dad and Kris's bedroom. We got it all ready, and she told us that she was not tired. It was about 10pm, and she had not taken a nap. The girl was exhausted. Finally, I got her to lay down, and with the help of her magical music (the CD she has slept to every night since she was 6 months old), she fell asleep. The next morning we woke up, and everyone came over for breakfast. Luckily, everyone was able to be together except for Nina, who lives in Seattle. We had a great time. There were presents, playing outside on the new swingset, eating, and more eating. Cory's flight out to Sacramento from DFW left around 8pm, so Brandon, Kacy, and I took him to the airport.
I had planned to stay in Ft. Worth with the girls until Wednesday afternoon, but Kacy had been sick, and she needed to go in for a follow-up appointment on Wednesday morning. On Monday morning, Dad and I went to breakfast after we all slept in a little. After that, I went over to Mom's house to hang out a little with her. We stopped by Laura's (high school friend) mom's house for a visit. She is expecting her first little one in February. Adilyn had a blast over there! She has a bunch of grandkids, so her house was filled with "new" toys. I heard my mom and Adilyn cracking up in the playroom, and I glanced in there to find Mom on one scooter and Adilyn on another. They were running the scooters into the wall and acting like they were crashing. It was really cute. Then, on Tuesday, we drove back. Adilyn played with her new computer for a lot of the drive home. She kept saying, "Mama, my 'puter not working." Then she would get mad and throw her computer on the floor. Then she would change her mind and scream to get her computer back. It was a love/hate relationship...the same that we all have with our real computers. :) Finally, I realized that her computer was working, she just doesn't know her letters yet, so it wasn't moving on from that letter. Poor girl! Maybe she'll learn them soon.
It was a great time, just as it always is when we go visit Ft. Worth. I feel like I have the best family ever! I love spending time with them every chance I get!

Her Mickey Mouse lounge chair

She is searching for more presents

Smiles from Kacy!

Kacy got into the presents more than I thought she would

Laughs and fun!

Snow, in Houston???

Kacy's snow ball (ball of ice)

Growing up in Fort Worth, having family in Michigan and New England, and being able to travel a lot, I have seen a lot of snow. Well, not a lot, but enough to not make snow a complete life changing event. Still, when it snows in Houston, it is pretty exciting. It's only snowed about three times since I have lived here, so when snow was in the forecast for Friday, everyone was hyped! School was crazy, just as I expected. Katy decided to let the kids go home early, so I was excited to go get Adilyn and play her first snow. As I drove north on Fry Road, I started to realize that there was not anymore snow on the ground. At my school, there was a good two or three inches. Just 10 miles north of that...nothing. I was determined to have some snow fun, so I bundled Adilyn up in her new snow jacket, put Kacy in her full body jacket, and we went on a snow hunt! We found some snow in our neighbor's backyard that had piled up on the side of his shed. Nothing to get that excited about, but enough to make a snowball. Adilyn had a great time once we showed her that she could throw it. I wish we would have had a little more to work with, but we are in Houston...gotta roll with what ya got!