Pinecone

"Mommy, what is this?"

"Kylie, that is a pinecone. It is the seed-producing cone of a pine tree."

"But Mommy, haven't you been calling it a pineCOMB? Didn't you even blog about it?"

"Yes Kylie. Mommy misspelled a word on her blog. When my friend Kerry pointed out my error, I was really embarrassed. My only excuse is that I had too much Honeycomb cereal as a child."

"So let this be a lesson. No sugary cereals that warp your brain, okay?"


Have a great Halloween everyone. And stay tuned for pictures as Kylie dressed as a pink poodle!

Off!

Well, even though we went through 4 outfits before noon this morning, all in all it was a good day.

Kylie likes to suck a mouthful of water from her sippy cup and then dribble it down her chin and neck and all over the shirt. She has a wicked propensity to do this whenever my back is turned. She managed to soak both her shirt and pants this morning. I didn't realize that she had also spit water onto her play table. As I took her first wet outfit to the laundry room, she was wallowing in water again. There went the second outfit. The third was history when she slid down a hill of mulch. And then her diaper leaked during her nap onto her 4th outfit.

The afternoon flew by lunching and visiting with my new friend Shelly. Kylie was on her best behavior during the entire visit. She was a regular chatterbox of gibberish all day but she minded her manners.

This evening, we were practicing saying "on" and "off" by playing with some scarves. So far, she doesn't say the word "on" but she loves to say "off!"

I love the dramatic way she throws the scarf off.

And speaking of drama, look at how she's hamming it up here!



What a little drama queen. I have no idea where she gets it (wink).

Wordless Wednesday

I wish today's post was filled with inspiring writing but I've been feeling pretty flat and uncreative. So I'm afraid it's more photoblogging for now.



Hopefully the blahs will end and this blog will become less boring. Hang in there with me.

Playing in the park and funny hair pictures

Karen and Kylie had a sweet reunion. We played for quite a while at our nearby park.


Kylie is all about pointing to our noses and saying "nose". She does this a hundred times a day. I like that I got a picture of it.


I thought this one was sweet.








Yesterday was really windy. Kylie's hair kept blowing all around and standing on end. I loved her hair in this whole series of pictures.


I can't look at this picture without cracking up. She looks like she's going to blow off the slide like a dandelion.



Don't you love the static they get in their hair when going down the slide?




The whole family has the morning together but then Karen flies off to Chicago this afternoon. She'll be there until Thursday night. (sigh).

Reveal and updates

Don't you love Home and Garden tv shows when the re-decorated room is revealed to the owners? Well I can't wait to reveal the new office to Karen. It took 2 coats of base paint, 2 coats of color paint and every available minute of Kylie's nap time as well as 4+ hours at night for 5 days and nights but the new office is completed. I had to take apart the desks and rebuild them upstairs in the new room because they wouldn't fit through the doorway. I got the rest of furniture and all of her books installed on Saturday. I'm so glad this project is done. It's hard to tell in these pictures but the paint is a lovely neutral color with a slight tinge of green. The room has a fresh, crisp feel to it.




I shot this fun photo as Kylie played at a nearby shopping center playground today.

We were shopping for bjorn potty chairs. Kylie's been giving me a few signals that it is time to introduce the chair. And I agree with the theories of potty training discussed in the Diaper free before 3 book. So the plan is to have Kylie sit on the chair first thing in the morning, last thing at night before her bath, and after her meals at home. But enough bathroom stuff, here are a few more updates.

Kylie has finally gotten the hang of pull toys. I bought her the classic pull phone and she is enamored with it. It was like she looked at her two other pull toys with and said, "Oh that's why you have strings! So I can pull you". She's also drags the popcorn popper along. Sometimes, she drags all of them at once.

Kylie has two plastic buckets that hold miscellaneous toys. Lately, she's been dumping out the toys, putting the bucket on her head and trying to walk around. The other day I was rinsing some dishes and felt a pull on my legs. I looked down and saw Miss Bucket Head. The cutest part was she was quietly snickering in her bucket. So fun!

We listen to The Yellow Bus cd all the time in the car. Kylie has started to sing part of the lyrics on two of the songs: the car song and the hippopotamus song. It tickles me to hear her in the backseat singing with me.


This Baby Einstein book has cardboard cutout shapes that pop out. Kylie has learned how to put the shapes back in the book in their proper places (triangle in the triangle shape, circle in the circle, etc.)


That's all for now. Karen just called and is safely in Portland and on her way home. Hurray!

We both really miss her

Four facts and four pages

1. Karen is doing well in Denmark. She's jetlagged but made it through her presentations splendidly.

2. Standing on a ladder for 4+ hours is HARD. The painting is going slower than I hoped but it's going.

3. Kylie has learned to say "down". This is fabulous because until now she used "up" for when she wanted up and down. She's also learned the words book and tree.

4. Yesterday I received four children's toys catalogues in the mail. I guess my address has been sold and I'm going to be tempted by tons of awesome kids toys. This Fisher Price set caught my eye. As did this one.

Here are four pages documenting Granna's recent visit.
Chalk


Zoo


Park


Duck pond

Fall Appreciation

Yesterday was one of those days that I was glad the camera was in the car. I caught some fun and colorful photos of Kylie playing in the park.

She decided to go down the slide today. I don't know about you other moms but seeing Kylie climb these stairs gives me feelings of part pride, part happiness and part nervousness. She decided to carry a pinecomb all the way up the stairs with her.


Here she is telling me that she'll go down the slide WITH her pinecomb, thank you very much.


I'll take a brief moment to thank Photoshop for their wonderful photo fixing ways. I shot this picture with one hand. The other hand was ready to catch Kylie. And I was shooting right into the sun. So this is what I originally got.


Anyway, this particular park is surrounded by beautiful trees. I've invited Kylie to play under them but she hasn't been the least bit interested. Until today. Today, she ventured away from the playgym.


And wanted to play among the trees.


I taught her the great joy of running a stick back and forth over a fence. It makes an interesting sound you know.


Dude. That was so cool. (Notice....she is still holding the pinecomb.)


THERE ARE MORE PINECOMBS!


I have no idea of what's going on in her head on this one. None. But it makes a fun photo.


These are the last two pictures of the day and they are un-retouched.
I love the reds in the background. I love how her nose, cheeks, and hands are a bit pink from the cold. I love that she's so tired that she kept her hood up.


This one is nice too. I like how the sun illuminates her turned face. And that lovely patch of sun on her shoulder.


So much happiness. The light, the colors, my camera, my daughter and a beautiful Fall day.

Denmark and painting

As I write this blog post, Karen is on a big ole plane to Denmark. She's speaking at a conference held outside of Copenhagen. She'll be there until Sunday night. The weather is supposed to be decent-- a slight possibility of rain and highs in the mid 50's and lows in the mid 40's. And she'll be hearing people speak like this.

I'm excited for her and all that she'll see and I'm a bit nervous about her being an ocean away from me. She's under strict orders to not be involved in any accidents or hospital visits.

We'll be corresponding by email rather than by phone which will be kind of interesting.

At least I have a project here at the house to work on. We're turning our guest bedroom into an office. Our house has a dining room located off the kitchen. Since we aren't formal dining kind of folks, we turned this large room into an office for both Karen and I. But this office is completely open. There are no doors and no way to shut out Little Miss Toddler.

Since Karen works from home when she's not traveling, we need to limit work-time interruptions. So we are changing the guest room into an office for Karen. I'll be selling our two twin beds, nightstand and propeller on Craigslist (don't you just love craigslist!). Then I'll be painting over our plane mural.

When we bought the house, it had been customized with a plane mural scene on the guest room walls.



The mural is lovely but we never really loved it like we did the mural in Kylie's room.
So I'll be painting it this week to make it a bit more like an office while Karen's gone. We bought an environmentally friendly paint with no VOC's. So hopefully there won't be any fumes to bother Kylie and I.

Anyway, please send Karen so good wishes for this trip. And send me good wishes that I won't go nuts while she's gone.

Fall Leaves

Oh, how she loves the leaves!




I was in photography heaven yesterday when Kylie decided to play with these beautiful red leaves at a nearby park. I must have snapped over 100 pictures. She picked up large handfuls and dramatically dropped them to the ground. She rubbed leaves all over her face and hair and then got down and rolled in them. She's so tactual-- I love it!