10 new things about Kylie

1. Bears. Kylie is in love with the build-a-bears that Aunt Amy and Uncle Tony sent with Karen's mom. Kylie has a pink one named Amy bear and a blue one named Tony bear. We've been in a build-a-bear store a few times with Kylie with the intention of getting her a bear but Kylie has been too distracted and we've put it off. I'm delighted that she loves these made-for-her bears so much.



2. Dollhouse. Karen's mom also brought a hand-me down dollhouse with furniture and people. Kylie plays with it throughout the day. Ah, the magic of new toys!


3. Chapstick. Kylie has learned to open my nightstand, get out my chapstick, take the lid off and apply some to her lips. She rolls it down, puts the lid on and returns it when she's done. The whole thing amuses me which is why I took this picture of her doing it with my iPhone.


4. Watercolor method. Kylie loves to watercolor and asks to do it every day. The curious thing is that she always paints the colors in the order of the paint bin. First the brown, the purple, the blue and so on. She never gets out of order. When she gets to the end, she starts over again. She's very intent on the way she wants to paint and doesn't like it when I make suggestions. If I happen to tell her it is pretty before she's finished, she sighs and says, "It's not done yet."


5. Viewfinder. We bought Kylie a viewfinder a while ago and she's mostly used it as a pretend camera. She's just now really gotten the hang of it.



6. Stickers and sticker books. Kylie has gotten to the stage where she adores stickers. Fortunately, she prefers reusable stickers. To make it less frustrating for her, I peel off the stickers and put them on a small square of wax paper. Then I tear the corresponding page from the book. When she's finished with them, I put the page and the square of stickers on wax paper into a sheet protector. The sheet protectors are in a three-ring binder. This took a bit of set-up to do but was completed during a few nights while Karen and I were watching tv. Karen laughed at the assembly line I had set up but it was so worth it. Now Kylie can complete the sticker page by herself and I can do useful things like cook dinner uninterrupted.

If you have little ones, give this sticker book method a try! We have some sticker books as Christmas presents for her but so far my favorite one have been Elmo's World Super Sticker Book and the Sesame Street Super Sticker book.

7. Freckles. Kylie has her first two freckles. The first one that appeared is on her left thigh. The second one is on her right arm.

8. Shoes. She's finally learned to put her shoes on the hall table where they belong instead of flinging them near the door when she takes them off.

9. Crying. After Kylie calms down from crying, she always says reflectively, "I cried a little bit" as if she's playing back the events in her mind.

10. Snow. One more belly shot because it's stinkin' cute. And yes, we have TONS of snow. It was too deep for Kylie to really play in but she gave it her best effort.