Fork and spoon

Yesterday, we let Kylie feed herself with a fork and spoon (with a little bit of help from us).

Here she is eating a mandarin orange:

And then a banana slice:

She is so proud of herself! And loving those cheers we're giving her.

Then we moved on to applesauce and her own spoon.

Which was also a big hit.

Come a little closer with that camera Mommy!

I'm a big girl now!


And here's another scrapbook page:

Details are here.

A few new things

I wanted to capture and share with you a few new things that Kylie's doing.

1. Sshhh goes the air conditioner
Kylie is very aware of the air conditioner in our home. When it kicks on, she smiles and makes the shhhh sound. Then she crawls to the nearby air vent and puts her hand over it to feel the air. If I say, "Can I have some air?", she'll "grab" some air and hand it to me. It's very cute.

2. Walking the stairs.
Although she can crawl up the stairs much faster, lately she's been insisting on holding onto my hands and "walking" up the stairs. This "walking" mostly consists of me hefting her up by her hands (which makes me worry that her arms are going to pop out of socket) as she touches her toes to each stair. It's a good workout for me and it makes her feel like a big girl or something so I'm indulging her on this one.

3. The garbage can is fun!
Kylie has also learned to lift the lid of our kitchen garbage can and drop things in it. So now I have to keep more of a watchful eye on her when we are in the kitchen together. Fishing Little People out of kitchen scraps and trash is not my idea of fun.

4. Peek-a-boo and hugs
Kylie has been playing peek-a-boo with us by peeking around furniture and by using a blanket or other toys for quite some time. But now she has learned to put her hands over her eyes to play peek-a-boo. It's very sweet. I just wish she didn't want to play this so much while she is eating. Food ends up everywhere!
And Kylie has been hugging her stuffed animals for a while. But now when you say "hug" to her, she'll grab her shirt with her hands and twist back and forth--essentially hugging herself.

Lastly, here's a scrapbook page.

Waking Up Photo Series

Sits up, rubs her head, wonders why Mommy is taking pictures.

Grabs teddy bear and yawns a bit.

Stands up.

S-T-R-E-T-C-H-E-S.

Smiles. (and secretly plots to wake ME up with camera as soon as she can).

Flickr fun

I found this meme from Stitch Marker's blog and thought it was fun.

Here's how it works:

Using BigHugeLabs Mosaic maker to make a mosaic and Flickr to do your searches,
Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
Using only the FIRST page, pick an image.
Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.

The Questions:
1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name.

It is pretty wild what shows up on that first Flickr page. Can you guess what some of my answers were? They may not be what you think.

Language Explosion

Yesterday was one of those day where Karen and I would meet each other's eyes over Kylie's head and smile a lot at one another. The reason for all this smiling was listening to Kylie mimic us and say lots of new words.

It started when Kylie heard our garbage truck coming down the road. Momma Karen held Kylie up to the window and said, "It's the garbage truck" and Kylie prompted said back, "Truck". Kylie said "truck" to herself for most of the morning. Our little block is a good place for the garbage trucks to circle to change their directions, so we saw lots of garbage trucks going yesterday. Each time Kylie heard the a truck, she wanted to be held up to the window and she would say, "truck" again.

But she also mimicked us and said these new words:
pop- while pointing to her pop beads
poot- I'll let you figure that one out.
peek-a-boo
baa- when she picked up her toy sheep and
woof woof- when she saw a dog

Those last two she said on her own without us saying them first. The next few days will tell if any of these words are official "learned" words but it sure was fun hearing her talk so much.

I had fun making this scrapbook 2-pager last night. The journaling is from Kylie's 15 month letter update.

Details are here.

15 months

Dearest Kylie,

This month you learned the word “No” but you don’t always use it appropriately. For example, we’ll ask you if you want juice and you’ll say, “No, no, no” but then you’ll reach for the juice and drink some anyway. You like to walk around singing “No” to yourself. It seems that saying this word gives you a sense of power and independence. Yet you can also use the word correctly—like when it’s time for a diaper change and you want to keep playing or when we offer a food that you don’t want.

You love to say “Hi”. One memorable event was when we were walking through a bookstore. You were walking holding on to Momma Karen’s finger and cruising the aisles looking for people to say “Hi” too. You light up when people say “Hi” back to you.

You can point to your own eyes, ears, nose, mouth, hair, and toes. You can also point to these parts on your dolls and your mommies.

You’ve become fascinated with belly buttons or as you call them, “beh-buh”. You’ll pull your shirt up several times a day to touch your belly button and pronounce its name. And then you’ll insist on seeing ours. You like to put your fingers in our belly buttons and laugh.

You’ve always liked being outside but this month you’ve become insistent on it. You love to push your cart up and down the sidewalks for what I’ve started calling your “adventure walks”. You touch the neighborhood plants and play with rocks and have a wonderful time.

You now can follow simple instructions. For example, we’ll say, “Kylie, it’s time to go upstairs” and you’ll crawl to the stairs and start going up them.

You’ve learned how to drink from a cup if we hold it for you. You can also easily drink through a straw. And you’ve started offering your sippy cup to your favorite dolls and make sipping noises for them.

We took you to a child’s shoe store and got you fitted with your first pair of “real” shoes. You wear a size four and we got you a pair of tennis shoes and a pair of sandals. We also took you to a pool for the first time and you loved it. We found a nine-inch wading pool at a nearby recreation center that is perfect for wading. You’ve enjoyed it so much that we’ve taken you several times this month.

Although you’ve started to assert your independence and will a bit in typical toddler fashion, overall you are an easy-going, happy, curious, loving little girl.


PS- the sunglasses photos have nothing to do with her 15 month update but they were too cute not to post. We took them yesterday with Karen's iPhone. If you zoom in on the bottom one, you'll see me with my usual open-mouth, incredibly loud laugh and Karen as she's giggling and clicking pictures.

Skinned knee

We were walking on the sidewalk late yesterday afternoon. Kylie saw some people ahead of her and wanted to flirt with them so she quickened her pace to a very fast walk. Sure enough, she got going too fast and lost her balance. She slid on her knees for half a foot. The good news was that she didn't even cry. She just got up and started smiling and flirting. The bad news was she DID start to cry when the water from the bathtub hit the skid burn.

And this is what it looks like this morning. Not too bad but I can tell that crawling on it bothers her. It is just the first of many I'm sure.

Cruising around and snoopy vultures

Kylie is just a few days short of her 15 month birthday. She's not walking independently yet but she really flies when she's cruising around with her walker. Here's a quick (but poorly lighted)video:

And if you watched it to the end, you can see that she's quite adept at getting stuff out of her way!

The Little People are a huge hit!
She likes to push them all up into a chair.

Takes a brief moment to enjoy her stash--usually she sits on them too. Don't ask me why.

Then she drops them back down.

And then the process starts all over again. I'm lovin' that she can occupy herself with these.

Kylie loves to hang herself over the arms of the furniture. This used to freak me out because I was afraid she would topple over but she does it so much now that I've gotten over it. I think she does it for the head rush. She dangles so long that all the blood rushes to her head. Then she pops up and laughs about it.
This pose of hers always reminds me of the Snoopy Vulture.


This happy, weird kid of mine delights me every day.
Big thanks to Aunt Amy for this great Minnie Mouse romper. Kylie loves it.

There are a few more pictures here if you want some more.
I only got one scrapbook page done this weekend.


Details and a larger look can be found here.

Little People Madness

Go ahead and judge me all you want. I probably deserve it.

But these little people animals are just too dang cute! So we went a little crazy on them.

Haven't you gone hog-wild over some toys?

The good news is that Kylie adores them and plays with them for hours.

(this week).

And if she gets sick of them, well.... I'll sell them on craigslist or give them away to friends.

Wordless [scrapbook] Wednesday

Spent way too long on this one and I am still not happy with it. But it's done and I'm moving on!


A closer look at theleft and right. And the details are here.

Birthdays & belly buttons

This past Sunday was Ethan's 2-year birthday party. Ethan is the beautiful son of our friends and neighbors Jeff & Heather.

I remember his first birthday quite well from last year because it was the first time we had taken Kylie to a party.

She looked like this last year:


And this year:


And Ethan looked like this:


And now this:


It's so amazing!
I was proud of Kylie at the party. She held her own with the older kids and played very well. (Kylie is tall for her age but I think she looks like a tiny munchkin next to these 2-year olds.)


And it was just so sweet to be a part of another of Ethan's momentous milestones. I think children's birthday parties are so fun. I simply love to watch kids tear into their presents.


One new thing I wanted to report was that Kylie has become obsessed with belly buttons. Or as she calls them "beh-buh". She pulls her shirt up several times a day to touch her belly button and pronounce its name. She then pulls my shirt up or Karen's shirt and sticks her finger in our belly buttons and laughs.

In fact, she wanted to flash everyone at the party her belly button several times.

I should have put her in a onesie and shorts rather than a dress!

We had a busy weekend but I did manage to finish this page-- still knocking out those April TN pictures.

Details are here.

Lastly, thanks to everyone for your comments on the recent scribbling post!

Scribbling--otherwise known as "What the heck were you thinking?!"

Someone please buy me a couple of shots of Starbucks coffee. And after I've imbibed, please pat me on the shoulder and tell me that I'm not stupid.

Here's the story.
I'm watching Kylie play as I read "What to Expect-The Toddler Years". In particular, I read that between the time a child is 14 and 15 months, they "will probably be able to"..... scribble.

And I think, "Oh my goodness! I've not even introduced Kylie to scribbling".

But hey. I'm prepared. I have paper. I have washable markers. I have the time and energy (just not much sense).

I plop Kylie down, put paper in front of her, pull the cap off a marker and draw a bit on the back of her paper. All the while, instructing her on how fun it is to draw. Then I hand her the marker.

She immediately grabs the marker head with her hands. Then looks at the blue stuff coating her hands and begins to wipe it on her brand new shirt! and my favorite pair of her pants.

I quickly turn the marker down towards the paper. She marks a few lines and then does the same thing. Hands on marker tip and then the wiping on her clothes. I groan and try to take the marker from her. She quickly surrenders it but then grabs another and pops the top off. I'm quickly trying to gather all the markers away from her. And at the same time, I'm encouraging her to actually scribble something on the page to make this entire fiasco worthwhile.

And, you are going to love this, I'm also trying to take pictures.

Heaven help me.

My baby is covering her clothes with markers and I'm telling her out loud that her Mommy can be quite careless sometimes and to please forgive me. Then I scour her hands with soap and take her clothes off.

All of this happened in the space of about 15 minutes but I felt like the top of my head had exploded.

So, let me ask you folks.
1. Does your little one scribble? If so, at what age did you introduce it?
2. Do you strip them down naked for scribbling time?
3. How the heck do you control the madness?
4. Do you make rookie mom mistakes too? (Please say yes.)

"Stupid scribbling? Did I just hear you mumble 'stupid scribbling'? Does this mean you aren't going to frame this?"

A few scrapbook pages

I'm still creating pages from the pictures of our April Tennessee trip.




And here is one for our recent zoo trip.


Details for Arm Sugar
Details for Nana & Pap
Details for Zoo June 28

Walking and Canada

We just got back from an hour-long walk (with Kylie's push cart) around our neighborhood streets.

Of course, there were stops for looking at twirly flags.

Oh! That is soooo neat.

And there are stops for rocks. Rocks are irresistible.

Kylie LOVES to make rock piles.

Walking can be a serious business.

But then we take a break on a park bench so that Mommy can snap more pictures.


More pictures are here.

I want to give a shout out to all my Canadian friends today on Canada Day. You are all in my thoughts today. In particular, I want to acknowledge Canadian authorThe Yarn Harlot. I've been reading her (her books and blog) for years now. I admire her writing style. I love her wit and humor. I enjoy her humanity as she writes about knitting mistakes she makes- even though she's an expert-- which makes us new knitters seem a little less flawed. I love her audacity as she asks complete strangers to hold her traveling knitting sock as she takes their picture. And I admire that she's an advocate for GLBT&Q as seen in this recent post. Even if you aren't a knitter, you might enjoy reading her.
Anyway, HAPPY CANADIAN DAY!