Kylee-In-A-Box

Belly Button!

Kylee has recently become completely obsessed with belly buttons. She loves finding and showing off her belly button. She lifts up her shirt, points to her button, and yells "belly button!" ( It doesn't exactly sound like "belly button", but the "B"s sound pretty good, and she gets 3 syllables in there). Anytime she came across someone new this weekend (at Cracker Barrel, the hotel, the ER, etc), she exclaimed "hi!", waived, and then showed her new friend her belly button. People seemed pretty amused by this. I think we got more "She is so cute!" compliments than ever. Several people even showed her their belly buttons! She thought that was pretty awesome and has started demanding to see my belly button about a zillion times a day. The first thing she does when she sees me in the morning is demand to see my belly button. Then she runs (literally runs) to get her belly button book....

...Kylee is so obsessed that she even has her friend, Charli, trained. Kylee will point to Charli's tummy, and Charli will lift her shirt to show Kylee her belly button. In fact, the first thing Charli did when she saw Kylee at gymnastics today was show Kylee her belly button. Silly girls!

Trip to Norman

This weekend Robert had to go to Norman for his first post-deployment drill. Since the army paid for a hotel room, Kylee and I decided to tag along and make a mini vacation out of it. Kylee did really well on the ride up. She fussed on and off and had to be distracted by books, videos, and peek-a-boo games, but she didn't start screaming and crying until we actually got into Norman (and had to wait at the longest red light EVER...twice).
Friday evening Kylee and I met some old friends at Chic-fil-a. Kylee had a great time playing on the indoor playground. She climbed all the way to the very top of playground!! Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture, because I had to rush in after her (a swarm of older kiddos showed up and just about trampled us both).
Kylee and I spent Saturday hanging out with Aprill. Saturday morning daddy came with us, and we all went to the Sam Noble Museum. We had a great time!

Saturday afternoon grandma drove up and came with us to the Little River Zoo. Kylee was super tired, as I was not able to get her down for a nap, but she seemed to a good time. She was in complete awe for the first 30 minutes or so that we were there. I think her favorites were the parrots and the kangaroo. She really got a kick out of watching the kangaroos hop. She must of liked the monkeys too, because all Sunday morning she was making her monkey sound. Our tour guide went pretty fast (I think she was about to get off work); so I didn't get a chance to stop and snap many pictures until our tour ended, and we got a few minutes to explore the barnyard area on our own.

Sunday morning Robert woke up with pain in his side. We ended up taking him to the ER at Norman Regional, where our suspicions were confirmed....daddy has his first kidney stone! Poor guy!

...Stomp Your Feet!

Kylee loves the song "If You're Happy and You Know It". She has the song on several of her CDs, and one of her toys plays it as well. Every time she hears it, she gets a big smile on her face and claps her hands. She's done this for some time now, but until today clapping was the only part of the song that she could do. She's tried to figure out the stomp a few times, but it usually comes out more like a bounce (until today that is). This afternoon we were listening to her mixed CD, and she did it! She was super proud of herself, and I am super proud of her too! She was soooo cute smiling, clapping, and stomping around the living room. Unfortunately I didn't get any video or pics, but now that she knows how to do it, I'm sure I'll have plenty of photo/video opportunities. I'll try to get some soon.

1st Day of Gymnastics

Yesterday was Kylee's first day of gymnastics. I was very pleased with the class and the instructors. Both teachers were great with the kiddos. They provided quite a few fun, developmentally appropriate activities for the little ones and were very good at encouraging the kids to try each activity but were also completely understanding if any of the girls needed to do her own thing or even take a snack break (like Kylee did). As awesome as the class was, I've been debating whether its worth the money to enroll her now or if would be better to wait until she's a few months older. Well... this evening I got my answer. Yesterday we left for gym at about 5:10. Today at almost that exact time, Kylee walked to the garage door. She kept hitting the door and then looking at me and signing "more". I asked her "more what?" and she starting bouncing and repeatedly signing "baby" and "bubbles". Of course I can't be certain, but I'm pretty sure she was talking about gymnastics. Yesterday she bounced on the trampoline and got to play with bubbles, and there was a little girl in her class that she kept pointing to and signing "baby". So... I guess Kylee wants to go back! :) I'm glad she does, because I had a great time. Even if she doesn't quite grasp the concept of all the activities just yet, it's a great mommy and me experience.

Mini Mother Goose

Lately I've been reciting nursery rhymes to Kylee whenever she is in her swing. She must actually be listening to the words in the rhymes and remembering them, because she is starting to say and sign words from the rhymes before I even get to them. For example, when I say "Hickory dickory dock", she clicks her tongue to make the clock noise. When I say "Jack be nimble", she signs "jump". When I say "Jack and Jill went up the hill", she signs "water". When I say "Hey diddle diddle" she signs cat and makes a "l" sound (which I'm guessing is for "fiddle"). I've never used the signs during the rhymes (my hands are busy pushing the swing), so I'm super impressed that she is recognizing the words from the rhymes and putting them with the signs that she knows.

Tumble Time

This Saturday we met Kylee's playgroup at Tumble Time gymnastics for open gym night. I was a little reluctant to take her, thinking she'd probably cling to me most the time. Boy, was I wrong! The second we walked in to door, she ran off and started playing. She had a blast running, climbing, sliding, playing with balloons, and bouncing on the trampolines, and as long as someone was jumping, she was cracking up. While we were there I found out they offer classes for tiny tots that are walking to age 3. Kylee had so much fun at open gym that we're going to try it out. Tonight is our first class. I'm so excited!