Bathtub Art

This evening Kylee played with bathtub finger paint. First I showed her how to smear it around with her fingers. Then I showed her how to use a paint brush.

When she was finished with her masterpiece, I turned on the water and the paint became bubble bath. Super fun!

Nations of Fun

A couple weeks ago we made some new friends at Nations of Fun. Wednesday we met them there again. As usual, we had a blast! This was our 3rd time there, and Kylee is becoming quite the pro. She can climb all the way up on her own, and even goes down the slide, which is pretty big, all by herself (see picture below...the black dot at the top of the middle slide is her). She is much faster than I am at navigating the tunnels. She knows that and thinks its hilarious.

On the way home, I finally remembered to switch out the CDs so that she could listen to "Old McDonald Had A Farm" (one of her favorite songs). We haven't heard it in awhile, and she was very excited to hear it. She repeated the animal sounds and sang the "EIEI" part every time, but never said "O". When the song was over, she fell asleep.

New Favorite Song

This evening while Robert was channel surfing, he happened to pause on the theme song of Two and Half Men. The song immediately caught Kylee's attention. She ran up to the tv and started bouncing (dancing) and giggling, and she spent the rest of the night singing "men, men, men" over and over. The funny thing is she actually does a pretty good job of keeping the tune.

Other new things she has been saying the past few days include: arm, uncle, bug, bed, thank you, penny (she calls all coins "penny"...well more like "be be"), and Mia (Kylee's friend from playgroup....apparently Kylee is her #1 fan). She's also started saying "meow" for cats and "hiss" for snakes. Speaking of sounds, I noticed I accidentally left off a few on her baby book list last week: Santa ("ho, ho, ho"), wind (blows), and "weee".

Last Tuesday

Earlier this week I left the baby gate open when I left the room to go potty. When I returned, this is what I found:

Kylee had decided to give herself a sponge bath in the dog's water bowl. Yuck! She was smiling so big and having so much fun. All I could do was laugh and grab the camera. After that I gave her a real bath.

At the Hospital with Daddy

Today Robert underwent his first major medical procedure (kidney stone extraction). Kylee and I stayed with him at the hospital from 8:30 to 11:45. She did great! She was completely fascinated by the nurses taking daddy's temp and blood pressure. She greeted each one with a big smile and a friendly "hi". Then watched intently as the nurse took daddy's vitals. She even learned what sound daddy's heart makes (if you ask her she pats her chest and say "bumbum bumbum"). She eventually got antsy. So, my sister walked her down to cafeteria to get a snack. When she returned, daddy had his IV in. She must have thought the IV bag looked like a punching bag, because she kept pointing to it and saying "hi-yah" (she wanted to kick it). Once they took Robert back to start the procedure, I took Kylee and Michelle back to the house. Kylee fell asleep just as I pulled on to my street and ended up sleeping the entire 3 1/2 hours I was gone! She woke up literally 1 minute after I walked back in the door. Talk about perfect timing! She never even knew I was gone. :)

Since the weather was so nice (91 degrees!) when Kylee woke up, we set up the water table that Aunt Michelle got her for her birthday.

In other news... Kylee said a new word yesterday: "owl". Its soooo funny watching her say it, because she tucks her top lip under and stretches her nose out (its hard to describe... I'll try to get a pic). She also blew her first bubble and got her shoe on all by herself (although it fell off about a second later)!

Baby Book Stuff

One of the main purposes of this blog is to compensate for my failure to keep up with Kylee's written baby book as well as I should. I have a milestone sticker calendar that I did an OK job keeping up with at least for most of her first year, but now that her first year is over.... its down to just this blog. So, I've decided to periodically (havent decided how often) do a baby book style documentation of her milestones, skills, and favorite things. On that note...

Favorite Nursery Rhymes: Jack Be Nimble and Baa Baa Black Sheep

Favorite Songs: The Elephant Show song, If You're Happy and You Know It, The Bye Bye song from gymnastics class

Favorite Toys: Slide, Ride on alphabet train, rocking dog, baby doll, balls, Cozy coupe, wallet

Favorite Books: Where Is Baby's Belly Button?, Hands Toes Fingers Nose, Hand Hand Fingers Thumb, Brown Bear Brown Bear

Favorite Things to Do: run/be chased (especially by daddy), bounce a ball, play outside with Rocky, put pennies in her piggy bank, check the mail, show off her belly button, watch the birds

Favorite foods: pizza and pasta

Words She Can Say: hi, bye, mama, daddy, grandma, aunt, ball, baby, banana, Elmo, hippo, cookie, apple, mail, moon, help (sounds like "up"), more, eat, hot, bread, ice, eye, nose, no-no, night night, bubble, lamp, belly button (sounds like "ba la baba"), crunchie (sounds like "gun ga"), ET, pizza, bird, boot, Charli (sounds like "ka ka"), Lily ("Lila"), dum dum (she gets one every week at the end of gymnastics)

Other Things She Says: uh-oh, yum, brrr (as in "brr its cold"), hi-yahh (she says this anytime she kicks or when she sees a punching bag), boo!

Signs: baby, bubble, duck, bird, cat, dog, fish, frog, more, milk, water, done, outside, eat, jump, swing, thank you (this one is new.... and she only does it when she REALLY means it)

Animal Sounds She Makes: dog (pants), bird, monkey, elephant (attempts to trumpet), chicken, cow, sheep, duck, rabbit (says "hop hop"), horse, tiger (growls....learned this from Charli), alligator (claps hands and makes biting noise) , turkey

Other things she makes sound effects for: clocks, Elmo ("la, la, la")

Body parts she can find: eyes, ears, mouth, nose, head, hair, teeth, tongue, hand, fingers, leg, foot, toes, tummy, belly button

Staying Busy, Having Fun

Thursday night we got some depressing news regarding some unfortunate things to come this week. So, this weekend I've been trying to keep busy and have as much fun as possible. Friday morning we met our friend, Nicolette, and her playgroup at Nations of Fun. We bad a blast! Nations of Fun is the new pizza place in town. It has arcade games, a mini carousel, and a GINORMOUS indoor play structure (similar to the one at McDonalds but WAY bigger and cleaner). I climbed inside with Kylee and Clarissa, and we had the best time chasing each other through the tunnels. At the top of the structure, there is a maze of mini punching bags. Kylee immediately recognized them as such. She ran up to each one, smiled, kicked the bag, and screamed "Hi-yaahh!" It was so cute/funny! She is definitely daddy's little girl!
When we got home, her week squeaks (shoes that squeak when you walk) were there. When she woke up from nap (she fell asleep on the way home from the pizza place), I put them on her. She LOVES them! She spent forever running, bouncing, and spinning around the living room - giggling the whole time!
This morning (Saturday), Robert and I took Kylee to K-Mart in search of an easel. Kylee had a blast squeaking around the toy aisles in her new shoes. We didn't find an easel, but we did come home with new sippy cups, some finger paint, a dress to match Kylee's new shoes, and a stroller for her baby doll. Kylee fell asleep in the car on the way home (woo-hoo!).
When she woke up from her nap, we went to the mall with grandma. We both had a good time. I got a double fudge cookie and some much needed retail therapy. Kylee got 2 new outfits for herself, and one for her friend Meadow whose birthday party is coming up in a couple weeks.
Right now I am updating this post from bed, which I can now do, because Robert surprised me with a new mini laptop! yay for surprises!!