Sweet Girl

We recently joined a new playgroup, where we have met some of the sweetest moms and cutest kids.  We’re working on getting Kenna to even acknowledge when another child is talking to her, much less play with them, but there’s definitely some progress happening.  It literally pains my heart to see her be so shy, because I remember how that shyness felt when I was her age and I didn’t EVER want my kids to feel that.  But it is what it is, and we’re working on it.  This morning we went to a get together at another mom’s house, where Kenna and Kallie both had a blast playing with someone ELSE’s toys for a change!

I think she’s in awe of how many fun things this little girl and her sister have to play with, especially the dress up shoes!

SpiderBaby

Some days Kallie looks like she’s been cage fighting, and I feel so awful about it.  She has bruises and scrapes all over her poor little face and body b/c she’s just so into EVERYTHING!  Yesterday, shortly after I took this picture, I turned my back for a mere FRACTION of a second and sure enough, heard a crash and scream, followed by that kind of crying that strikes fear in your heart.  She was wedged between the couch and the coffee table, and had pulled the laptop down on top of her.  (Note:  I do need to add that, no, I did not leave her on the couch like this, she was on the floor!)  She escaped that incident pretty well, but apparently that is my lesson that I literally cannot take my eyes off of her.

She’s tired of the easy task of pulling up on the coffee table and chairs, so she has moved on to pulling up on solid surfaces that have nothing to grab onto, like the sides of the cabinets or the dishwasher.

And she’s pretty darn good at it! 

Love this little troublemaker.  🙂

Air Museum

The other day it was once again, wretchedly hot, so it occurred to us that maybe we should see how Makenna likes the Air Museum now.  It is literally a minute and a half from our house but we usually only go when we have company in town.  We had so much fun and both of the girls LOVED it!  Makenna kept teling me that she really wanted me to bring her back again, and Kallie was entertained by all the planes hanging everywhere.  I’m so glad we did it.

Kallie walked on the moon:

Look, a picture of me!!!

They have this cute little pretend 1940’s town, which is my favorite part of the museum.  I walked Makenna through it and explained everything to her about how things were done in the old days…she nodded and said “Oh…” over and over.  She was totally lost.  😉  Of course she wouldn’t touch the fruit and veggies in the little market.

Kallie was just mesmerized by everything around her and was so calm until we hit the play area.  While we spent our usual half hour or so coaxing Makenna to throw herself in there and play, Kallie tried to rip her stroller apart and lunge over the side to go play.  I’m thinking (hoping) she won’t have the same shyness issues that Makenna has.  😉

Vids Galore

Pictures don’t quite capture the girls’ personalities these days, so I’ve been taking a ton of short little videos (short b/c we STILL don’t have a video camera…isn’t that a travesty, with 2 kids??). 

(Oh, I need to mention here that if you’re having trouble with the video freezing, hit pause and watch for the little bar to load all the way before you hit play again.  Mark taught me that trick after I kept wanting to launch the laptop into the wall every time I watched a youtube video.  Thanks honey.)

Makenna has improved on her lyrics to “Peace Like A River” but still needs some work.  😉

Kallie’s favorite new game is “Where’s (Insert Name Here)????”  She is so animated and gives this shocked, wide-eyed look whenever you ask her where Daddy is, where Kenna is, etc, and then she looks all over for them.  We must play it a million times a day.  The best is when you ask where Daddy is and she looks at the front door (for him coming home from work).  She makes the same face and noises when she wants your attention.  Love it.

On this one you can see all 4 of her teeth well, including her new, widely spaced top teeth, haha!

And she loves throwing things on the floor and watching you get them.  Makenna’s a good sport about playing this one with her.

Sorry for the dirty face in all of those.  You don’t notice these things when they’re being so cute!  🙂

The Avoidance of Naptime

Every afternoon at 1:00 you will see the same scene play out in our house:  I go into Kallie’s room to feed her and put her down for a nap.  After approximately a minute and a half, Makenna bursts through the door and starts doing headstands and somersaults on the floor.  Kallie, after drinking only a quarter of her bottle, will spring up and lunge for the floor, where they both begin bouncing around and wrestling like wild banshees.  They continue doing acrobatics as I sit and stare at them dreamily, wanting to savor every second of this time where they are so fun and playful and love each other so much.  It really is one of my most favorite times of the day.  Today I caught just a little snippet of them playing and stalling:

And now I shall sign off because Makenna just said to me ever so sweetly, “Mommy, you sure are letting me watch a lot of tv today!”

“I will NEVER dress my kids alike”

Ha.  Save yourself the embarrassment later on and just don’t utter that phrase until:

#1: You have 2 girls that are somewhat close in age,

and

#2: You can go into any local Target and NOT fill your cart with one of everything in a size 12 months and a size 4T, all the while exclaiming that “Oh my gosh, this is THE cutest thing I have EVER seen!!”

If you fit both of those critera, you can safely say that you won’t dress your kids alike.  More than likely though, you will end up like me: a former naysayer-turned-compulsive-matching-clothes-buyer.  While the girls really only have a few outfits that match, I find myself having the struggle of the century every time I pass the babies/toddlers section at any store.  But today I came to a realization when I bought Makenna her very first clothes in a size 5T.  This is the very last size that I will be able to dress them alike in.  I’m trying not to hyperventilate when I think about that fact.  So I’m thinking that the best way to deal with my grief is to give in and just go nuts for the next year, or probably more like 6 months with the way Makenna is growing like a weed.  Carpe diem, am I right?  🙂

The shirts they are pictured in above are entirely too small.  I’m gonna get right on that. 

The Age of Craigslist

In an effort to create a path for walking through our garage, we’ve sold several things on Craigslist in the past few weeks.  (Note:  it didn’t work, I still have to turn sideways with the girls to get through the garage.)  I’m not sure if Makenna has picked up on what’s going on, but you be the judge:

Driving through our neighborhood, you’ll see a lot of yards with toys strewn all over the place.  We passed a particularly messy yard this morning and Makenna commented that there was a lot of stuff in that yard.  I said, “Yeah, they sure need to pick all those toys up, huh?” 

“No Mommy,” she laughed.  “They’re just trying to sell them!”

The Girls Hit the Park

Today the heat seemed more like “Ah-I’m-Melting” rather than “My-Flesh-Is-Burning-Off-My-Body”, so I decided it was a good day to venture off to the park with both girls on my own.  So glad I did it!

Kallie L-O-O-O-O-VED the swings!

I wasn’t trying to be partial to Kallie, but didn’t get any pics of Makenna this time.  Although she is in the background of this one, clearly thinking, “Kallie gets to play with everything fun.  Mommy never lets ME play with the clicker…” 

Turn up the volume on this one to hear Kallie laughing and Kenna cooing to her, but please immediately hit the mute button when you hear my dorky laugh…I was a little excited.  😉

Kallie doing her two favorite things:  standing at the computer and looking at pictures of herself and Makenna:

Kenna looking like a cutie pie:

Yummy freshly bathed babies:

You made it, Kylie!  😉

Kallie checking out Kenna getting washed up:

Kallie continues to be all over the place.  I realized today that I’m going to have to take all the safety precautions with her that I really didn’t have to worry about with Makenna.  First on the agenda:  figuring out how to bolt the dresser to the wall.  She has taken to trying to climb up the drawers, and I’ve heard enough horror stories about that.  I’m also wondering if it’s possible to somehow discipline an 8 month old??  She’s throwing tantrums already and it’s throwing me for a loop!  I do love this girl though…she’s such a little spitfire.  😉 

A Night at Our House

I just thought I’d give an update on Kallie’s sleep patterns for those of you who have asked.  Well, I feel safe saying that she is pretty predictable about only getting up once a night…BUT, that one waking per night stretches on for hours at a time.  This girl just decides that 1 or 2 a.m. is GOING to be her waking time for the day, and that’s that.  It’s not so horrible at the time b/c she’s really sweet and pleasant in her crib (while doing all sorts of gymnastics).  It’s just that I seem to have a strange disorder that doesn’t allow me to sleep unless every other member of my family is sleeping as well, so I’m awake that entire time.  And then of course she’s exhausted all day long, and it’s just a vicious circle. 

Anyway, I decided to grab the video camera this morning at 3:30 to capture these memories, since she’s just so darn cute in her bed, as frustrating as the whole thing is.  She spends most of the time she’s awake rocking on all fours, standing at the side of her crib yelling out for us, or kicking her mattress repeatedly, which can be heard across the entire house.  Every time her body tries to give out from pure exhaustion, she fights even harder!  Sigh…anyway, here’s just a little tidbit of her antics (she had been up a good hour and a half when I took this video, and continued for another hour after)…you’ll notice I switch to a view of Makenna, who ‘s just sleeping away, cool as a cucumber.  😉