Memorial Day fun

We had a fun day at home and at our friends' house today. We started out playing with Kayleigh's new toys. Erik bought a bike trailer for himself and took Kayleigh and Brian on some rides around the neighborhood. Kayleigh got a plane launcher that is like her friend Jack's. We played with it outside and I successfully launched it onto our roof. Luckily, Erik was home today and could climb up and get it for me. She got a bubble blowing lawn mower, and she followed Erik around while he mowed out front. I took a bunch of pictures of it, but of course Erik didn't take any pictures of me mowing the lawn for my first time EVER.
When we came inside before lunch, we played "Old Maid" and "Go Fish" that she got from Jim and Shirley. After lunch was nap time, but after nap time it was time to go to the Giunipero's house for dinner and swimming! Emma used to teach swimming lessons and wants to help Kayleigh learn to swim. Kayleigh LOVED swimming with Emma. She isn't ready to swim on her own, but she was getting better at putting her face in the water. Brian, on the other hand, will NOT be his generation's Michael Phelps! This was his second time in the water, and it was his second time crying hysterically to get out. Since I can't torture him like that, we let him hang out on the deck with the big boys.
Kayleigh also had a good time with the Giuniperos' new dog, Scout. He is a tiny Yorkie puppy, and I think he likes Kayleigh because she's not huge like all of us adults that were there. He would follow her outside, and she went out with him each time that he left to try to go potty in the yard.
In case you can't tell, today was a great day. We are all exhausted, and unfortunately although it's almost 9:30, Kayleigh is just going down to bed. It's another late night for her, but we can take it easy for a few days this week. Tomorrow I want to get her signed up for dance lessons, and Wednesday is Story Time at the library, and Emma wants to try to get Kayleigh in the pool again for another lesson. I'm not sure what we'll do Thursday, but Erik is off on Friday, so we'll do more fun stuff with him. We are definitely getting spoiled with our extra Daddy time this week.
I have a lot of pictures in the slideshow today, but I took a ton, so I promise this is just a taste. :)

Kayleigh is THREE!!

It has been a great day for Kayleigh. We got her up and let her open her present from Mia and Nathan before going to church, as well as her birthday cards from my parents, Valerie and Matt, and Granny. She wore her cute "Birthday Girl" t-shirt from Jenna to church, and I sent some cookies with her to celebrate with her friends. After eating lunch, she opened the rest of the presents from us and then pretended to take nap. :) When she was calling for us to take her to the bathroom at 3:30, we knew that she would be up for the rest of the day.
The Eikeland and Spickard families came over for dinner tonight. We grilled hamburgers, hot dogs and chicken. The hamburgers were WalMart brand, and I don't think I would recommend them. Sorry to our guinea pigs! Kayleigh couldn't wait to open her gifts, and kept trying to get to them before it was time. Once again, she made out like a bandit! Everyone is so good at buying gifts! I do think it's fun for the Eikelands to buy for her because she's the only girl on that side of the family.
Kayleigh didn't take a nap today and didn't get into bed until 9:45, so hopefully she will sleep in tomorrow! Maybe her sleepiness will rub off on Brian...a mom can hope, can't she???

And, of course, the Mumble picture:

Brian is 8 months old!

Brian is still such a sweet little baby! I am enjoying my time at home with him and Kayleigh, and I can't believe how quickly Brian's first year has gone! As you have seen in my last post, Brian's best new trick of the month is giving kisses! He has turned in to quite the Mommy's boy this month, too. I love it and hate it at the same time. I love that he wants to be with me, but sometimes it can be a little unbearable as I need to use both hands, or do something other than play with him. He has also started reaching for people when he wants them. He started to reach for me first (score one for me!), but will now reach for Erik, and occasionally someone else

Baby kisses

Enjoy!

Story time!

I am saying that for two reasons: 1.) Kayleigh went to Story Time at the library, and 2.) I have some good stories to tell about her today.
On to the stories!
--This morning Kayleigh said to Brian, "I have lots of plans for things I'm going to do with you when you get bigger." It sounds sinister in print, but she was saying it very happily. She wants to brush his teeth, teach him how to walk and several other things.
--Today is the day that we go to Story Time. Kayleigh was very excited about going because her birthday is Sunday (what?!) and that means that they will sing "Happy Birthday" to her. She has been looking forward to it for a couple of weeks now.
--On the way to the library, I started to sing "Happy Birthday" to her. She said, "You can't sing that now!" Later she changed her mind and said, "We can practice." So we sang her song!
--At the library she told the leader that her birthday was coming up and he gave her a special birthday sticker to wear. When it was time for everyone to sing, she was singing along saying, "Happy birthday to me! Happy birthday to me!" and pointing to herself. What a ham! People were cracking up!
--She got 3 stickers at the library, which is extra fun. Usually she gets two because she gets one at the end of Story Time and one from the ladies at the front desk when I check out books. The third one today was the birthday one, in case you forgot already.
--I was trying to take Kayleigh's picture with all of her stickers before we went outside to play with Jack this afternoon. She didn't like all of the pictures and said, "You can't take so many pictures of me!"
--This didn't happen today, but it's a Kayleigh story, so I'll go ahead and tell it. On Sunday we went out to eat. Our (hers and my) new thing is letting her try to do all of her buckles of her carseat on her own. I've told her that she can have 3 minutes to try to get herself buckled before I come back and help. Usually it's plenty of time, which was the problem on Sunday. Erik thought it was too much waiting and was trying to hurry her up. She said to me, "Mom, you need to sing him the patience song." LOVE IT!

Nail polish

I let Kayleigh paint my finger- and toenails tonight. Or, I should said that I let her paint my fingers and toes. You can see what I mean in the pictures. Here is the end result...

Daddy/daughter night

Erik had some late nights this past week, and last night told Kayleigh that they could sleep in a tent and watch a movie. She talked about it all day today! Erik and I set up the tent and blew up a mattress. Kayleigh got her bear and Lily the frog in the tent to sleep with them. (Lily even has her own pillow!) They are watching the movie "Horton Hears a Who". I'm not sure how it's going, but I'm not hearing a lot of extra talking, so it must be going well. I'm going to enjoy my night off by catching up on a little tv and reading my book. Aaaahhh!! I think they should have date nights more often!!

This week in pictures and video

I left Kayleigh alone by the computer, and when she called me this is what she had done to her fingernails. She had also gotten a little marker on the computer, but I had left her alone with markers within reach, so it was hard to get mad at her.

Kayleigh's friend, Jack, has been out of town this week, and she has been very lonely riding in her jeep by herself. She asked me yesterday if Brian could ride with her. I let him, and he did a good job sitting up there with her. We went around the block and Kayleigh pretty much stayed on the road. Brian probably had a head ache by the end of the trip because Kayleigh is pretty herky-jerky with the gas pedal and his head kept hitting the back of the jeep.

Brian with his sock in his mouth. I'm not sure what else to say about this.


Check out those teeth! This was the first picture I've gotten where I was sure you could see them. (You can click on the picture to enlarge it and really check out his pearly whites)


Here you can see Kayleigh driving Brian around


Here is Brian's new way of talking. I'm not sure how to describe it, but maybe you can!

Jacksonville Zoo

We had such a good time this weekend visiting with Valerie and Matt and going to the zoo. We drove over to Jacksonville on Friday afternoon. That evening, we went to dinner with my cousin Kristen and her husband, Mark.
Saturday morning, we got up and ready to head over to the zoo. We spent the entire day there! Whew! Kayleigh sat in the stroller from the car to the entrance, and then walked the rest of the day. Wow! She was a trooper, to say the least. She was also having so much fun, and never wanted to sit in the stroller, no matter how many times we asked! Brian did really well, as well. He only ate once at lunch time, and I think was too tired then to get a good meal. He was possibly the one who was the most ready to leave at the end of the day.
Here are some highlights from our day:
**We went first to the sting rays and got to pet them. Erik grabbed food out of the water and hand fed one. Kayleigh liked watching them, but DID NOT want to touch them! She ended up petting one at the end of the day.
**I took 61 pictures of the elephants using the super fast mode on my camera. One was drinking water and then later throwing dirt on himself (herself??). I wanted to try and get some good pictures of it with the camera, but I'm not even sure with all of those pictures that I succeeded. Kayleigh said hi to the elephants for our friend, Jenna.
**We rode the train around the park, getting to look at the animals from the back side of their enclosures. We probably could have skipped this part, but I'm afraid if we had not gotten tickets, Kayleigh would have been upset.
**Kayleigh got to see some live penguins for the first time! They were so close that she could have touched them if not for the glass! You can see her smile in her reflection in the slide show.
**Kayleigh is getting braver and climbed over a rope bridge all by herself! This was in "Play Park" where the zoo was also having Water Safety Day. Kayleigh got a little stuffed penguin, a whistle and water bottle from some of the booths set up for that day.
**We got to feed the giraffes!!!!! This was my favorite part and what I looked forward to all day. I was a little disappointed that they wouldn't let you touch the giraffes, and of course I was very tempted to when the worker had his back turned.
**I have always told Kayleigh that if she does the Seminole chop (from FSU) to the gators, they would come and eat her. When we got to the alligators, she tried her luck and did the war chant at them. The funniest thing was that an alligator invariably moved in her direction whenever she would do it, so we told her to say, "chomp, chomp, chomp" at them to get them to leave her alone. That also worked, much to our surprise! :)
**Kayleigh saw the gorillas and told them, "goodnight gorilla" from her book.
**Kayleigh's favorite animal??? The goats. WHAT?!?!?! We think it's because they were one of the last animals that she saw, and she got to pet them and brush them. Oh well.
**After a long and hot day, we hit the Shaved Ice place by Valerie and Matt's house. Yum!! Cool and refreshing and just what we needed!

Brian update

Although Brian just turned 7 months old, he just had his 6 month doctor appointment. And, while I was disappointed, the doctor was happy that Brian is only 24 pounds. I had been telling people for at least a couple of weeks that Brian is 25 pounds, so I'm sorry if I lied to you! the doctor admitted that he was worried about Brian's weight at his last checkup. Brian was 22 pounds at 4 months and "just" 24 pounds at 7 months. He's still above the percentile chart, but he's at least closer to the 100% mark than he was before.
I think the craziest thing is that Brian is 27 3/4 inches long. Why is that crazy you ask? Because that means that Brian is longer than Kayleigh was when we first started measuring her on the wall. Kayleigh's first measurement is 27 1/2 inches, and she was FIFTEEN months old!!! Wow! It's hard to imagine that Kayleigh was Brian's size at twice his age and just starting to walk.
Here is a picture of the kids from this week. Kayleigh wanted Brian to sit with her on the chair, and then wanted me to take a picture of them.

Tails and Trails picture

I know that someone took Kayleigh's picture, but for whatever reason, it didn't make it to the internet. Oh well. My picture did!
I'm happy to report that when I went to the Animal Shelter's website, the dog that we almost adopted is not longer listed, so I guess she went to another good home. Whew! That is a weight off of my conscience. I'm sure she would have been a nice dog for us, but there would definitely be a lot more work having another dog around!

Tails and Trails

Erik ran a 10K this morning, and I thought it would be nice to get the kids out to cheer him on. The race was at a local park where the animal shelter is. From where we parked, we had to walk on the same road that the runners doing the 1 mile fun run were, and Kayleigh liked pretending that she was running the race as well. As we got closer to the finish line, I still couldn't get the stroller over to where I wanted to end up, so we kept on going. Then, people started to cheer for Kayleigh, which just upped her excitement level. The photographer that's usually there taking pictures of the runners was there and got Kayleigh's pictures. I figured we would go ahead and go through the finish line, because the 1 mile racers weren't wearing bib numbers, so there was no way to distinguish us from the "real" racers. I didn't know they were going to hand out medals to the kids, but they gave one to Kayleigh when she crossed the finish line. So, as it's called, we were bandit runners this morning. It was worth it, and Kayleigh was telling people that she "runned in a race".
If I can find her picture that was taken at the race online, I'll post it later.
Oh, we also almost had to adopt a dog today to make up for our transgression. There was a sweet little poodle mix that took to Kayleigh when she saw her! The dog came over to her and sat down right next to Kayleigh! Then she rolled over for Kayleigh to give her a good belly rub. It was so sweet! The lady who was holding her leash said the dog hadn't done that to anyone this morning. When we saw the dog later, there was a circle of people around. Kayleigh got in the circle, and again the dog came over and sat next to her. If we didn't already have two dogs...sigh.