Rainy Day Play

When we woke up yesterday morning, it was pouring down rain. This is a major tragedy in Kylee's book, as she love love loooooves being outside. Luckily, I was able to find a few distractions. Here's what we did:

Nations of Fun
I got a text from Christina asking if we wanted to meet them at Nations of Fun. Of course we did! So, as soon as the doc gave us the ok, we dashed straight there. As usual, Kylee had a blast. She was extra daring this time. She climbed up all on her own and even went down the slide a few times on her own.
Bugs Life was playing in the eating area. She thought that was simply awesome and was entranced long enough for me to actually sit down and eat!! woohoo! By the time we left, the rain had stopped (at least for a little bit).

Puddle Party
We walked out of NOF to find Nate, Aubree, and Brianna splashing away in big puddle. What a great idea! Kylee and Charli joined the fun.

Thanks Christina and Rikki for the pictures!

Ball Pit Bed

By the time Kylee woke up from nap, the wind had picked up, and it was raining off and on again. Instead of playing outside, I filled her crib with some of the ball pit balls from her birthday party. This didn't amuse her quite as long as I had hoped, but she loved it at least for a little while.

Buggy Bean Box

When Kylee got bored with the balls, I filled a tub (also from her birthday party) with beans and hid her plastic bugs (Easter gift from Charli) inside. She loved this! It held her attention a lot longer than the balls had. I was even able to make dinner!

Good News, Bad News

Kylee had quite the cough yesterday. So, I took her to the doctor this morning. The good news: Dr. Legako confirmed that she is flu free and gave us the OK to attend playdates. The bad news: she has another ear infection! ughh!! So, my poor baby is in pain, and I have to make the dreaded antibiotic decision again. This is her 2nd ear infection in less than 2 months (her 3rd total)! Her last ear infection was March 14, 2009. The one before that was March 14, 2008. Weird.

March For Babies

Today Kylee participated in her first charity event. Kylee, daddy, grandma, and I walked with our playgroup in the March of Dimes' March for Babies walk. March of Dimes is an amazing organization that funds research and supports community programs that help women have healthy, full term babies. I can't express how thankful I am that Kylee was born so healthy. Today I walked in celebration of her health and in hope that someday all babies will be born just as healthy.
Our play group raised over $1300 for this event, and we won an award for having the most team members. We had 12 mommies, several daddies, 2 grandmas and lots of kiddos show up for the walk. Not only was ours the biggest group, it was by far the best decorated and most spirited.
Thanks to my amazing friend, Rikki, for making all this possible. Not only did she introduce the idea to our group, she recruited walkers, captained our team, hosted a garage sale fundraiser, and collected all the money. She did all this while also raising money for another charity, teaching 2 classes at Cameron, and preparing for her husband’s deployment! She also decorated the wagon that Kylee and Charli rode in and pulled it almost the whole mile.
I am so glad Kylee and I had the opportunity to participate in this together. I hope this is just the first of many charity events. Kylee is already such a cheerful giver. She loves to pick mommy flowers and to give me the mail. She makes me open the refrigerator several times a day just so she can bring daddy a Pepsi. She (usually) willingly and enthusiastically shares her toys and snacks with her friends.She truly inspires me. I hope to use this inspiration to set a good example for her and to teach her to never loose her giving spirit.

Thanks again to Rikki and to every who sponsored us! And special thanks to Grandma for also providing the wagon and joining our walk.

I LOVE YOU!!!

Wednesday night Kylee told me "I love you!" She said it all on her own and repeated it several times! Here's how it happened: She was sitting in her highchair eating a snack. She looked up, and I smiled at her. She smiled back and .....

Kylee: "I" (pointing to her eye) "love you" (crossing her arms over her chest....sign for hug or love)
Mommy: (gasp) "Did you just say I love you?!?" (in total shock)
Kylee: "I love you!" (sounded like 'I laloo')
Mommy:" I love you too! I love you! "
Mommy: "Robert! Kylee just said 'I love you!' "
Daddy: "aww! Did you say I love you? I love you!"
Kylee: "I love you!"

This is definitely my favorite milestone!! I still can't believe she said it! So far, she hasn't said it again since. Last night Robert tried to get her to say it, but every time he said "I love you", she answered back "bug!". Go figure.

Daddy's Shower

For some reason, Robert always turns on his shower about 5 minutes before he gets in. Tonight was no exception. As soon as he finished his workout, he went straight to the bedroom bathroom to turn on the shower. Kylee followed him. I followed her, but then left the room for a minute to answer my phone. When I returned, Robert was posing in front the mirror, and Kylee (unbeknown to daddy) was standing in his shower, fully clothed, having a blast. I yelled at Robert to watch her while I ran back to get the camera. When I returned again, this is what I found:

Apparently, daddy couldn't wait to take a shower (didn't want to be late for work) but didn't have the heart make his little princess cry. So, daddy and Kylee took a shower together - she in her gym clothes and he in his swimsuit (He didn't want her to see or touch anything she shouldn't).

Conclusions

This afternoon we went to Mia's 2nd Birthday party at LOL. We love Mia. We love her mom, Traci. We loved the party music (super fun!) and loved the cute, yummy cake balls. It was great to see all of the other mommies and their kiddos. Kylee had a lot fun. All that being said (and 100% true), I did NOT have the best time at the party.
Kylee pulled out her pony tail holder soon after we got to the party and absolutely refused to keep her bow in her hair. Ok... so, not a national crisis, but a tragedy none the less.
Once the birthday festivities ended, the kids were given $5 game cards. That's when the real stress came. I showed Kylee how to swipe the game card into the machines. She loved that and really liked pushing the buttons. Unfortunately, what she liked even more was running from me. That, of course, is a major no-no (especially in a place that crowded with no security system). I tried to keep hold of her finger, but she managed to escape several times. So, I gathered up our stuff as quickly as I could, gave all of our tickets to a friend, and left (exhausted, starving, and with a major head ache).
On the car ride home, I came to several conclusions:
1) When in doubt, bring the stroller.
2) It is time to buy Kylee a leash, even if that makes me look like a bad parent.
3) It is time for me to finally finish reading the parenting book I started months ago and to review any notes I've ever taken about parenting and/or toddlers.
4) We will not be going back to LOL, at least not for a loooooong time.

Time Flies

I can't believe how fast time flies. Kylee is getting so big, so fast. This week I went thru some of her old clothes to get ready for our playgroup garage sale. It was hard not to get emotional. I can't believe she was ever too small for preemie clothes. Its amazing how much she's grown in just a little over a year. I hate that she's growing up so fast, but on the bright side, it is fun to watch her grow and develop into her own little person. Every time she does something new, even if its something small, I get so excited. I get so impressed by what she can do (even if its just normal toddler stuff).
This morning while she had breakfast, we actually had a conversation. She (obviously) can't actually narrate a story, but she is able to recall and, in her own way, retell events. Here is how our conversation went:

Mommy: "When you get finished, we are going to go to Charli's house."
Kylee: "Charli!! Get! Get ya!" (tickling her tummy)
Mommy: "Charli likes to get you. Doesn't she? You guys have so much fun!"
Kylee: "hug....uh-oh!"
Mommy: "Oh yeah... you guys had an uh-oh yesterday, didn't you?"
Kylee: "Bonk!" (taps her head)

Yesterday while we were at Charli's, Kylee and Charli were playing the "get you" game (chasing/tickling each other). Charli decided to give Kylee hug but was a little over zealous, resulting in an uh-oh. The girls both fell down and bonked their heads on the wall.

Cooking with Kylee

Monday night Kylee and I did our first cooking project together. We made blueberry pancakes to take to our playdate brunch on Tuesday. I used Alycia's trick and mixed in some infant cereal for extra iron. Kylee seemed to enjoy the whole process. Her favorite part was stirring the batter. When the batter was ready, I let her watch me cook one pancake. It looked pretty darn good for my first pancake (I usually just by the frozen Eggo pancakes). It wasn't a perfect circle, but it was definitely recognizable as a pancake. It must have tasted pretty good too. After taking her first bite, Kylee said "yummy pancake!" She then proceeded to eat the whole thing! yay! success! I decided to put the rest of the batter in the frig and wait until she went to sleep to cook the rest (Since I'm so clumsy, I get nervous about having her anywhere near a stove). Unfortunately, without her supervision, my cooking skills went to squat. EVERY pancake I made (or rather attempted to make) turned out super crispy on the outside and all goo on the inside. I ended up having to bring string cheese to the party. My lack of domestic skills is really quite astounding. I guess I should have taken home ec.

The apron she is wearing was custom/hand made by our playgroup friend, Angie. It is reversible, and I have one just like it! I asked Robert to take a picture of us in our matching aprons, but all the shots he took were from the shoulders up (and he forgot to turn on the flash). Silly daddy!

Tumblina

Kylee loves to touch Auntie Vickie's butt...... at least that's what Kylee calls it. Most the time that Vickie was here, she had her camera out taking pictures. Auntie Vickie let Kylee touch her camera and even showed her how to push the button. Kylee was beyond excited about this, as my camera is one of the few things she's not ever allowed to touch. Anytime Vickie pulled out the camera, Kylee would hold up her button-pushing finger and explain "butt!" She's said several 2 syllable words before, but no matter what I do, I can't get her to make the n sound at the end of button. I've tried every speech trick in the book, but every time it comes out as a clear, crisp "buTT!"
Monday night Auntie Vickie came with us to Tumble Time. As usual, she had her camera out taking pictures. I was a little nervous that Kylee would have all the kids yelling "butt!" by the end of gym class, but, thankfully, she was too into her tumbling to pay attention to the camera.

Footnote: Our shirts were a gift from Aunt Michelle. Thing 1 and Thing 2 are characters from the Dr. Seuss book The Cat and the Hat.

Easter 2009

Hoppy Easter!

When Kylee woke up from her nap yesterday, she spotted this rabbit in the backyard. I guess he just hopped in to say happy Easter! Neat!

Let the Good Times Roll

While we were in the city yesterday we took Kylee to what turned out to be her favorite place ever, Chuck-E-Cheese. They have a play area just for toddlers. It has a pretty neat climber with slide, a couple video games, and several tot sized rides. Kylee's favorite was Clifford. She rode it over and over. Every time it stopped she shouted "All done!" and clapped. Then she immediately asked for more. Each time it would start again, she literally squealed in delight.

Kylee loved the music and danced the entire time we were there, even while eating her pizza. I wasn't sure if she would love the giant, singing puppets or be terrified of them. She loved them! When she spotted Chuck she ran to the stage and stared at him for a minute in awe. Then she climbed up on stage with him, danced around, and tried to shake his hand!

She's too young to get the concept of video games, but enjoyed pushing the buttons and LOVED putting the "pennies" in the machines. She also loved all the people there and made sure she said "hi" to everyone she saw. The employees apparently loved her too. Daddy won her 473 tickets, but the machine counter broke, and our ticket receipt just said 1. So, one of the employees hand wrote us a receipt and bumped the total up to 600 tickets! We took the receipt the prize counter and let her pick out some toys. Although the receipt said 600, the girl working the counter gave her 910 tickets worth of goodies "just because she's so cute!"

Since we only made it through the back half of the zoo Tuesday, we also took Kylee on a quick trip back to zoo. The main plan was to go to the Explorekeet Adventure so that she could feed the parrots up close (the parrots were her favorite at The Little River Zoo). Unfortunately, Explorekeet is being moved to the children's zoo and is closed until 2010. Boo! We were very disappointed but still had fun. Kylee's favorite this time around was the Meerkats. She kept trying to get daddy to put her in the pen with them.

I'll try to upload the rest of the Chuck-E-Cheese pictures and pics from both zoo trips the photo album sometime this week.

Wildlife Refuge

Yesterday was a great day! Auntie Vickie took us out to the Wichita Wildlife Refuge. Our new playgroup friends, Alycia and Carrie, came along too. First we went to the visitors center. It's not very big, but it has quite a bit for kids to touch and explore. Kylee and Carrie seemed to really enjoy it. Two of the building walls are made of glass, and there was a herd of bison just a few yards away. Kylee was so excited to see the "buffalo" (more excited than she was to see any of the animals at the zoo).

After that we stopped at Meers, and Vickie bought us all lunch. We got the food to go and took it to a scenic spot near Sunset for a picnic. The weather was perfect! Kylee didn't eat much of her lunch (the least healthy lunch she's ever had) before a butterfly flew by and caught her attention. From then on, she was too busy bug hunting to eat. She had so much fun exploring and was absolutely ecstatic about all the bugs, rocks, and sticks she found. She also found her perfect climbing tree. She was in heaven!!

Kylee and Carrie both fell asleep on the way back (woohoo!), and Kylee ended up taking a pretty good nap. When she woke up, she kept asking for Aunt. So, grandma and Aunt Michelle picked us up and took us to Branding Iron with them. Yum!