Kennedi: 15-months

I can't believe this girl is 15-months-old. It's not fair! It's true when they say that time flies. It's so weird that she will go to nursery in a few months. I don't like it! With Mckinlie I was ready for her to go & I felt that she was ready, but with kennedi it is totally different. I'm sure that has to do with her being much smaller than her sister at that age, and the fact that I had a newborn when kinlie started nursery. 

She just started walking in the past month or so & is now running. If she's moving, she's running. She toddles all around the house following her sister & it's the cutest thing. Kenna is very active and she's always getting into something. It makes her sister so mad that she spends forever cleaning up her toys & then Kenna toddles in and it's like a tornado came through. 

Kennedi is so loving. When I'm busy doing something, she will stop what she's doing from time-to-time to come find me. She'll proudly shout, "hi" and give me a hug before she runs off to get into something else. I'm so glad that she's still cuddly. She loves to be carried around and would be thrilled if she could hang on my hip all day. 

She LOVES to "help" me do laundry. As soon as she hears the door open, I can count on her coming around the corner in the next few seconds. 

Kennedi loves her sister and most of the time the feeling is mutual. She used to let kinlie push her around but just recently has started fighting back. They screech, fight over toys & swat at each other. It's bad, but I totally think it's cute. I secretly laugh & giggle. They really are the best of friends though. They've started playing well together and can't function without each other. I'm so glad that they have each other and get to grow-up together. It's so nice that they are getting to be in the same "stage". 

They get into lots of trouble together. When I hear the bedroom door close, I know I'm in for it. They enjoy "painting" each other with diaper cream. They always find the cream when I thought I've hidden it well and out of their reach. 

We love her and are so glad that she was sent to our family. We are excited to see you grow, Kennedi Grace! 

She knows how to Party

For her 2nd birthday, we decided to do an Elmo theme. She doesn't watch Sesame Street but she got an elmo toy randomly for Christmas and loves him because of that.

We had two parties for her; One on Saturday and one today. I didn't get great pictures for her first party, but got some during the second. We are so worn out from the party prep but it was so worth it because she loved every second of it. It was all for her & we loved seeing her enjoy it.

 She started her morning with breakfast in my bed & watching Barney. She was in heaven.

                                     This was her reaction to coming out and seeing her Elmo party set-up.

 Apparently we planned the party on a bad weekend because all but 1 cousin were unable to come. Mckinlie was so excited for Bella to get there & they had way too much fun together.

 I thought that she would be scared to have everyone looking at her & singing to her, but boy was I WRONG! She was soaking it all in & loved having all eyes on her.

She got a dog from Gampa & Gamma that she is in love with. It walks on a leash and will stop & dance. 

It was a fun fun party and we are so glad that she loved it and had fun on the day all about her. Heaven knows that child loves attention!

It was a busy weekend, so we bought some pizza to bake on Sunday after the party and had a pizza & movie night with her. She was exhausted. I set her up on the floor and put Kennedi down on the floor. When I came back I did a double-take & Kennedi had a breadstick in her hand and was gumming it and attacking it like crazy. I guess Mckinlie felt bad for her and gave her a little food. Yikes!

It was a fun day for our sweet Mckinlie & we are so excited for her 2's. 

Thanks to everyone that took the time to come and celebrate with her. She is a lucky girl! 

Mckinlie turns 2 !

Today our baby turned 2. It's so crazy to think that she is that old. It's not possible! We love her at this stage and it is so much fun-minus the tantrums. She is so fun, silly, crazy, energetic, creative, smart & loving.

Mckinlie at 2:

(Her 2-Year well-check isn't until the end of this month so I'll have to add stats later)

Weight:
Height:


* Loves food of any & all kinds. Her favorites are steamed broccoli (trees), peas, black beans, strawberries (steebies), and candy (canee-not that she gets much of it). These are odd things for a toddler to like, but she loves them and asks for them on a daily basis. One day she was watching a movie with some goldfish and refused them so that she could ask for peas. I put some in a baggie and she ate them out of the bag during her movie. Crazy kid, but I will take it! She also has to smell everything before she eats it.


*Is obsessed with babies. She has quite a few dolls and loves to swaddle them and take care of them. She is an awesome helper and will make a great mom. I'll be getting Kennedi in her carseat and ready to go & Mckinlie will come in with her baby in her carseat and all bundled up. So cute!


*She is a great sleeper! She still is taking one nap a day and needs it. I've tried to cut that nap out and it just doesn't work. It's usually at least 2 hours and if I let her, she will nap for 3 or 4 hours. When Kennedi doesn't wake her up, she will sleep in until 9 or 10 some mornings. She even has an early bedtime of 7 and still will sleep that late. I'm not complaining.


* Mckinlie is an awesome big sister. Kennedi is a lucky girl. I have to watch them carefully because Mckinlie likes to feed Kennedi her food all the time. She always comes out in the morning and first thing she wants to do, is find her sister and say hi to her. She loves to rock her, and give her a binky when the baby is crying.


*This child is constantly dressing up and comes out wearing "gabs" (bags), jewelry & high heels. Her favorite thing to do is dress-up and push her baby around in the stroller. It's funny how that is just engrained in little girls from the very beginning.


*She is very loving. She is constantly giving us random hugs and kisses.


We are so lucky & are grateful that she came to our family. We are excited to see what this year brings for her and to see her grow. We love you Mckinlie Rae.


Message from Dad:

Mckinlie, you are a sweet, fun, loving, happy, smiley, silly, cute little princess. The short two years you've been around have been a lot of fun. I find myself thinking during the day about things that you do and smile. I can't imagine not having you around to enjoy life with mom and me. Keep growing healthy like you are. Keep being curious and adventurous because there is lots of fun and amazing stuff to learn about. I love how loving you are and how well you take care of sister Kenna. I love you. Happy birthday to the prettiest 2 year old in the world!

Happy Birthday to Tyler & Bella

Our family was just sick for a whole 2-weeks. It was seriously no fun & we missed a birthday party for Uncle Tyler & Cousin Bella. Mckinlie LOVES Bella & talks about her all the time.

Now that we are better, we invited them over for dinner tonight. I asked Mckinlie all day if she wanted to see Bella tonight and she said, "Yeah!" "Sure!". When the doorbell rang, she ran to get it and off they went into the bedroom. They played & screamed & ran around the entire time.

I made these yummy sandwiches that I found on Pinterest, along with some even yummier sides that we tried. I have to say that I'm pretty proud of myself. I do something off of my Pinterest boards pretty much everyday. We just got all the materials to make a giant chalkboard with moulding for the kids, I made some busy bags for Mckinlie, I made homemade cleaners and organized them into bins with a binder full of the recipes and a few other things. It really has saved my sanity while I'm stuck in the house all winter.

                                                   Happy Birthday to Tyler & Bella!

Mckinlie is Growing up!

Mckinlie has a binky still for nap-time and bedtime. She will be 2 in March, so we decided that it was time to "trade it in".
Saturday after nap, we got her excited and set-off to Build-A-Bear. We walked in & she was in heaven.
We helped her to choose a cute dog and she ran off to the different stations. She chose a heart for her bear, stuffed it, and gave it a bath. The whole time she was loving on her dog and kissing it. She was in love even when it was flat.

She had to name her dog and we were real original. We called it, "Brown Doggy".

When we got to the counter, we explained to her that she was going to give her binky to the worker and she was going to get her dog in exchange. She took it right out of her mouth and handed it to her.

She walked out of that place a happy girl. I think she loved that I was taking pictures of her the whole time, because she kept stopping and saying, "CHEESE!" and posing. Oh boy!

We went to dinner after to complete her special night. She can easily down a kids meal by herself now.

Kennedi finally woke up and got in on the action! Mckinlie says oh so often, "Oh hello Kenna!".

I was going through my pictures later that night and found this one of myself. I don't know how to use my phone's camera very well and apparently I had hit the button to turn the camera around and I had taken one of myself. How old am I again?

It was a fun night & although it is very very sad to see my baby grow-up and I will miss that cute binky face, we are entering a whole new world that will be equally as fun.

Goodbye "bean-tay" (as Mckinlie would call it) !

 

Bring it on, 2013!

New Years Eve 2012 was a BLAST! We invited Uncle Tyler & Cousin Bella to come celebrate, last minute. I saw some adorable ideas on Pinterest and threw some stuff together for the kids.

Luckily this princess let us prepare and entertained herself.

I made these cute bags that the kids get to open every hour. They didn't come until later at night, so we started the bags and activities at 9:00 so that they had time to play and run around first.

9:00 PM : They opened a craft. I bought them cute little aprons that I stamped their names on and they colored with fabric markers.

10:00 PM: The bag had all sorts of things to decorate mini cupcakes. I included candy, sprinkles, chocolate goldfish, etc. I put all the cupcake ingredients in a bowl and let them take turns stirring it. Bella wanted to make sure that the turns were very fair and equal. Mckinlie didn't want Bella to have a turn. Oh boy...hopefully Mckinlie learns that she will soon have to share..

While they decorated, I helped them fill out their "Year in Review". I interviewed them and asked them questions about what their "favorites" were this year. They also told me what they did this year, and what they want to do next year. It'll be fun to save it and read it at the end of 2013 and see how different they are.

11:00 PM: They had a movie treat bag, next. After I realized how much sugar they had eaten, I eliminated everything but the ring pops and they had that with cupcakes and watched a movie AND had a dance party.

Midnight: They wrote down their wish for the New Year and we intended to send them off on balloons. When I went to buy the balloons, their apparently was a helium shortage. So....we wrote them down on paper and kept them.


It was a fun night. Bella loved on Kennedi and helped with her a lot. It was nice having an extra set of hands, haha. Mckinlie had to copy Bella and take care of her own baby.

We are pretty excited for 2013 & what it'll bring for our family. There's some good stuff in store for us!