Zoo trip

We just got back from a trip to the zoo with our friends Shelly and her daughter. We went to see the Dinosaur exhibit. It was a good exhibit for little ones because the moving dinosaurs were really close. The moved and growled and were quite entertaining. Most of the dinosaurs were familiar (I guess I've seen the Jurassic Park movie too many times). But there were a few new ones like these freaky guys.

Give our baby girl a Cherrio snack cup and she is completely content--even when something is creeping up behind her.


The zoo people warned us that the T-Rex scared some children.

Our little girl just pointed, growled right back at it and then smiled.

I just liked having an excuse to dress her in her new hippo shirt and safari hat. We all had a good time.

Speaking of hats, I created this page last night.

Details are here.

Perfect wading pool

We found the perfect toddler wading pool just a few miles from us and took Kylie there this afternoon.
She waded in like a pro.

She plopped down on her belly in an impromptu decision to try floating. She floated very well. Just relaxed in my arms and let herself float.

The pool has lots of toys floating around and Kylie enjoyed walking around grabbing at all of them.

She had quite a collection of toys gathered at the side of the pool. So she pointed at a nearby bucket so that she could collect them together. (I love her smile in this one).

We all had a wonderful time. I imagine you'll be seeing lots more pool pictures.

Three new things

Three new things that I'm enjoying right now:

The babysitter's bowl.
I try to get a babysitter for a few hours once a week for a much-needed break and for Karen and I to have some time alone together. We've been lucky enough to find a real gem of a sitter (let's call her "D"). D loves being outside as much as Kylie does. They take adventure walks together. And on their walks, they find all manner of flora and fauna. D collects these items and places them in one of Kylie's plastic bowls. So when I get home, I pick up Kylie and cover her with kisses and then I let D show me the day's bowl. She's always so proud of them. Here's the latest one:

Isn't that lovely?

Table Toppers.
I just found these! It's a disposable placemat that you can use for your child at restaurants.

This way I can feed Kylie right on the table without worrying about germs or leaving a sticky mess.

Digital Scrapbook Glitter
Well, the kid in me is loving this! I had to restrain myself from not covering my latest scrapbook page with it.

This is from our April TN trip.
You can see the close-up
here along with the left and right pages.

Wordless Wednesday

14 month update

Kylie's enjoying her afternoon nap. So I took the time to finish this page. A little late but here is Kylie's 14 month update (Part 2 of 2). You'll probably have to click here to read it.

A few pictures

I just couldn't decide which one of these I liked best.










I'm planning on registering for this photography class tonight. So brace yourself for more pictures once the class begins. But who knows maybe they won't all be of Kylie.

Shoes and straws

We took Kylie to StrideRite today to get her a pair of shoes. Until now, Kylie's been wearing Robeez and Pedipeds. The StrideRite folks measured her foot. She is a 3 1/2. The recommended getting her a size 4 shoe which is what we got. These shoes look huge to me.

Even though I've been feeling for Kylie's toes in her other shoes and making sure she has room, according to this sizing I think she's been wearing some shoes that are too small. Until now, she's been only wearing shoes while riding in her stroller or in a shopping cart. But now that she's cruising more and more, I'm glad that we got her sized. We'll see how her new shoes do.

Aren't they cute?


This weekend, we taught Kylie how to drink from a straw. We started with the small, juice-box type straws that come with some soy milk boxes. (Thanks Meg! That was a great idea and Kylie loves soy milk). Then we moved on to the larger, bendy type straws. This afternoon, we all went to Red Robin for lunch. Kylie drank at least 2 ounces of milk from her toddler cup using a straw. Hurray!

Kylie has been drinking lots more water lately. And she'll hold up her sippy cup to one of her dolls and make sipping/drinking noises. Too cute!

Our friend Heather and her son Ethan came to visit late this afternoon. They played very well together. And even consented to posing for a few pictures.

I love impromptu playdates. It makes the afternoon fly by. Thanks Heather.

Lastly, I want to thank Karen for taking care of me all day Saturday when I had a horrible 48-hour stomach bug. You are the best my love!

Bath, pj's and more

Kylie did the sign language sign for "bath" last night at bathtime. And then she crawled to her bathtub, stood up by it and pointed. It's delightful when they can tell you what they want!

Here's Kylie modeling her new, hippo, zip-up pj's.
.

"Hi!"


And here is part 1 of her 14 month update. This scrapbook page details her love of her giraffe and other zoo animals and how she's learning to make animal's noises. You'll probably have to click here
to read the journaling.

Teething and stuff

My blogging friends, Stacey and Angele at "2 girls in love" once commented to me that "Teething never ends".

Isn't that the truth.

We've had 7 pretty hard teething days. By my count, Kylie has six teeth that are all sitting there waiting to cut through. And they are causing her lots of pain.

A "teething day" looks like this.

First of all, she has this expression for most of the day. "I'm trying to have fun Mom but I just don't feel right".

Kylie wants to be fed and soothed at around 1am and then again at 5am. (Before this, she was back to sleeping through the night until 6am but I guess those days are over for a while).

She sits and strokes her cheeks over and over or just holds them. After a while, she breaks out in tears.

We have tearful, "I'm hurting Mommy" moments several times throughout the day.

She needs more distraction and more interaction from me during playtime. If she plays quietly on her own, she feels the pain more and cries. But if I can keep her distracted with walks, a daily trip to Gymboree playtime, and really playing with her, she does better. Normally, I'll spend 30 minutes cleaning a room while she's playing in it. But I've not been able to multi-task like this because she needs me so much.

Her appetite is really inconsistent. She'll either be wildly hungry or want nothing at all.

The plus side is that she's napping more. I suspect the pain wears her down or she just wants to sleep to escape it for a bit. The naps are a welcome relief for me because she's wearing me out.

We've been consistent with giving her Motrin. Each morning I hope that she won't be symptomatic but then she starts pulling at her cheeks and crying so I'll give her a dose. She welcomes the medicine. She opens her mouth wide for it and smiles (probably from the good taste). But I think she knows that it helps her.

She hates the teething tablets and they don't seem to help her so I've stopped those. We've had to rub Baby Orajel on her gums a few times. She either grabs and chews a cold teething ring or pushes it away and starts crying. We gave her frozen blueberries yesterday which she loved (either the taste or the fact they were frozen) but then she had purple fingers and lips for several hours.

All of this is to say, "Come on teeth! Cut on through!"

In other news, we've all been enjoying a children's music cd by Justin Roberts titled Yellow Bus.

It's a welcome relief from listening to Jack Johnson when we are in the car. Jack Johnson is Kylie's favorite. She settles down and grins whenever she hears him.

I completed this scrapbook page last night.


Here's another picture of our foot-lovin' girl.


And I did this pageas a placeholder in my 2008 scrapbook album. The journaling explains that there aren't many scrapbook pages for the month of May because I was doing the book project instead.

The difference a year makes

I thought this would be fun. I had no idea just how much she has changed until I started looking at last June's pictures! The one of the left was taken 6/16/07 and the one on the right was taken today.

Scrapbooking for Father's Day

Details are here.

Anniversary

Saturday, June 14th, is our Anniversary. Karen and I have been a couple for five years now. What is amazing to me is that Karen works from home a lot of the time. And I'm a stay-at-home Mom. So there are weeks when we are together 24/7. And I don't get tired of her. I think that is freakishly cool!

Karen, I love you so very much. You continue to delight me every day. I think we are perfect together. And I hope to spend many, many more years by your side.

( gushy, I know )

If you would like to read about how Karen and I got together, you can click here and see a simple 4x6 paper scrapbook that I made for her last year.

I remember the making of this scrapbook so well. It was the first time Karen had left home for work after the baby was born and I buried myself in this project. The dining table was turned into scrapbook central. I kept 2 month-old Kylie in my baby pouch when she wasn't nursing as I looked for these images, printed them and pasted them to paper. The quality of these pictures of the book are pretty poor and the scrapbooking itself is very simple. But it was one of my first ones and I'm still exceedingly proud of it.

Anyway, Karen decides to surprise me this year with a wonderful gift. UPS delivers THIS box to us today.
Really big surprise inside!

Here is the sweet, sweet note.

And inside is an Amazon Kindle.

I just about fell over.

What an amazing gift.

Here it is next to a book I had sitting around.

It's about the same dimensions and weighs even less than this paperback.

Top Ten Reasons that this was a great gift for me. This is a long list. Feel free to blow on by it.

1. I'm a prolific reader and I read very fast.

2. I don't always have time to drop everything and run to the bookstore. This is why I always buy "extras" when I'm at the bookstore. I simply can't run out of things to read. They would have to put me in the loony bin. Anyway, now I can buy an entire book online. It downloads directly to the device, for FREE, in LESS THAN A MINUTE.

3. I buy a lot (way too many) books that are new releases which are hardbacks.

4. Kindle's versions of these new releases (still in hardback) are much less expensive than a bound book.
For example, I bought Charlaine Harris' book From Dead to Worse just a few days ago. Paid $16 for it which I thought was a deal because the cover price is $25. Kindle version is $10.

5. I tend to read a book in a few days and then take it to a book reseller. I've vowed to only keep books that I think are irreplaceable or are non-fiction references that I turn to often otherwise I would be over-run with books. The Kindle will let me store 200 books on it (and even more on my Amazon account or on additional memory cards). No more bookshelves getting too full. No more feeling gypped by the reseller.

6. As I'm reading a hardback book in bed, I often turn to Karen and say, "I wish someone would create something that would suspend a book over my head and let me read it that way" or "If I could have only one spell work it would be 'windgarium leviosa' so I could levitate this book" or something similar. I secretly think that after five years, she's hoping not to hear this same train of thought again. Afterall, the Kindle is so dang light.

7. No more weird neck strains or forearms shakes from holding a big tome like this one (1200 pages and weighs 3.2 pounds in hardback). I love this book by the way...one of my favorites.

8. No more scrambling around for bookmarks and no more groaning when Kylie pulls one of my bookmarks out of my books. The Kindle easily bookmarks all of your books for you.

9. I'm an Early adopter

10. To be the envy of other bibliophiles.

So I'm incredibly tickled. I hope you are happy for me too. I'm off to read!


PS- This was the first book I bought for my Kindle. I read her first book and found it delightful.

Finally... a scrapbook page to share

This one took me a while.

Close up of full 12 x 24 layout here along with the left and right pages.

Thanks for looking!

Reaching up and bananas

Why is Kylie looking up?

And reaching up?

It's because she wants Mommy to get her helium balloon from the ceiling.

Baby Girl was having a hard, teething day but a balloon lifted her spirits.


Of course, I had to grab the balloon from the ceiling hand it back to her quite a few times. But whatever makes her happy!

In other news, she has added a new word to her vocabulary. It's Banana. When she says it, it sounds like "Na-na-nuh" but I know what she means. She has a banana for breakfast just about every morning. Lately, I've been asking her, "Are you ready for breakfast?" and she'll reply, "Na-na-nuh". Then, as she's stuffing her mouth with banana pieces, she'll smile and say the word over and over again.