Did it really snow yesterday?

I had to look back at these few pictures for confirmation. :)

a work in progress

Sydney and a snowman.

He's looking much better now.... (yes it's a "he", i asked.)

This is Jake before I clobbered him and his friends with snowballs. :)

Across the street from Trailhead Park

Random pictures from my Camera Phone

Sydney running along the beach on Coronado Island

Courtney looking cute at Ikea

A submarine warning.  Don't get into the sub if you can't fit through this hole.

Who is the coolest kid in the whole wide world? (Jake on Coronado Island)

Too cute for words.....

Milestones

Kiley now says:

• bye-bye - her first official word that she's been saying clearly for months
• hello (when she picks up one of the kids' itouches and holds it up to her ear - comes out as huh-LO
• ball
• baby
• uh-oh - very cute, anytime something drops or someone falls
• mo - along with the sign, means more or I'm hungry
• no - as in 'can we change your diaper?', answer 'NO'
• mama & papa - although she doesn't typically say these when she sees us or in context, (more like babbling 'mamamamama') - once in awhile she will look at me and say 'Mom' or 'Mama' and the same with Papa

She knows where her tummy is, her eyes, her nose. She knows her toes and feet and hands. Her tummy was first - we'd say 'where's Kiley's tummy' and she'd stick it out (which takes very little effort really) and pat it. I love, love, love her feet. I call them her happy feet - as they are in constant motion. When she's really excited in the car she kicks them between the seats while I drive. She also does her happy dance, when she's having fun or something tastes really yummy. She LOVES to eat; now will do green beans, broccoli, spinach, roasted bell peppers (but not raw), tomatoes, strawberries, bananas, oranges, any kind of carb, cheese, yogurt, peanut butter, and on and on. She knows where the girl scout cookies are and she will go to them and point and grunt, or come and grab and hand and drag us over and point and grunt. If she's eaten, I will give her a small bite. She ALWAYS wants 'mo, mo...' and I tell her 'that's a treat and we only eat a little bit. Too much is bad for our body.' And she gets really mad, but we move on and find something else to do.

Kiley took a spill at Brownies the other day because she was tired and missed her nap. She hit her mouth on the floor (carpet) and it bled like crazy. It was scary, but Sydney was incredible - she whisked her to me and then ran to the bathroom for paper towels, then stayed with me while I rinsed Kiley's mouth and stopped the bleeding. Once all was under control, I realized I was shaking and repeating, 'It's ok, it's ok, it's ok...' which I realized I was doing kind of robotically to reassure myself as much as anyone else. Still Sydney was a trooper until a few minutes later when I looked up to see big tears in her eyes. She held it together longer than I did really, and when she lost it she was upset for awhile. I didn't realize that your mouth bleeds so much. Sydney and Kiley's shirts were both ruined because of the stains, and Kiley's mouth looked bad for a few days, but she's just fine now.

Included are a couple of pictures from lunch yesterday. We ate outside at Chuy's and it was gorgeous!! We're expecting a couple of inches of snow tomorrow??? Anyway, you can see Kiley's four teeth (just four) - with the same big gap between the front two that Sydney had with her baby teeth - compared to the gummy grin that is long gone. And, if you look closely, you can see three hair bows in her hair, because she finds them lying around and wants them all in her hair at once these days.

today....

today, i stopped by for a visit at lunch. when kiley heard the door open she ran over with her arms together and with the biggest smile, ran over to see her papa.

....she had been playing with her mama all morning.

did i mention, how stinkin' cute she is? :)

stuff kiley loves....

stickers...she just discovered them. or maybe it's something i just noticed. she puts them on our hands, clothes and sometimes on herself.

shoes & clothes....the other day we must have tried on 6 pairs of shoes. My sis donated a lovely selection of what must be 500 pairs of shoes (only a slight exaggeration) and kiley routinely has to try on a few any time she has an opportunity.

her car....yep, kiley has a car. it's not a real car but it's certainly a toy she can not get enough of. she finds a set of keys. our spare keys most of the time....where are those spare keys? Kiley!!!! they can usually be found in the ignition of her fred flintstone car (called that because it's foot powered) or in her einstein music table or in one of her many toy boxes. she's so stinkin' cute.

books....yes she likes books. some of which are the classics like goodnight moon and Angelina Ballerina and some that mia and reid (jacq and ryan's little ones) picked out for her. one is a barnyard book with holes in the pages for the parent reading the story to stick their mouth's into and make the animal sound. pretty funny. I think courtney hid that one. HA!!! She loves the I SPY books too. Loves 'em! and of course the Eric Carle books, the grouchy ladybug, the very hungry caterpillar. the one thing she does that i just think is adorable, is she'll find a book, bring it over to you and sit in your lap for you to read it to her. It's cute when she goes over to anyone but i especially love it when she does it with me.

eye brows.....this has got to be the most hilarious thing yet. okay so you look at her and when she wants to be cute, she'll raise her eyebrows...up and down, up and down. it's the funniest thing. it's like she knows just how cute she is. hahahaha. we have to get a video clip of that. it shouldn't be hard at all. HA!!!

tough little munchkin

kiley is tough. she's bombarded by 4 dogs daily...yes, four. it's a curse and a source of entertainment. Kiley is constantly trying to avoid tails waggin', tongues licking, nudges of every kind and playing keep away with the snacks she loves so much. it's her little obstacle course....she is at just the right height for all those happenings.

The other day, completely unrelated to dodging dogs all day, on one of her long days without a decent nap she was playing happily and fell down on her precious little face. her two top teeth must have taken the brunt of the impact because her gums were bleeding like crazy. She cried quite a bit but was mostly okay. they were still a little tender for the next few days but now she's as good as new again. quite the resilient little one. i'm sure this will be one of many scratches and bruises that she and jake and sydney will come up against. It's difficult to think of them hurting themselves or getting hurt playing with others but i suppose that's all part of growing up. As for kiley, jake says that she is going to be tough.....for a girl anyway. :) I think he's right, especially with boo, magoo, austin and brownie around.

Valentine's Day

This past Friday was Valentine's day for the kiddos. It's such a hallmark holiday but it's fun to remember the ones we love in a special way. The day before (Thursday) the kiddos and I put together cards for Courtney so that in the morning they would be able to surprise her. We laid out the plan earlier in the week. We would do cards at bed time and I would run out to get flowers and chocolate covered strawberries for the morning. We thought Friday would be perfect for the surprise since we weren't sure whether the big kids would be with their dad or with us.

Well, it worked. she was very surprised. she was up pretty late coding and finishing up some stuff for the end of the week. Sydney went in to wake her up so that she could have her hair brushed but she said, "mom, brush it out in the living room". jake jumped out and yelled surprise!!! She was very surprised and enjoyed the cards dark chocolate strawberries and flowers (at the kid's request, blue, yellow and red flowers, none with the fake looking dye).

The kids had their party starting at 1:50. Sydney had no trouble finding cards she liked and was so ready for the party days in advance. She had her box decorated and cards ready and at school well before the party. Jake wasn't as industrious and didn't really have his stuff there until the day of the party. Courtney found some great cards for the kids in his class that were very boyish. They were cutout football goals. They were pretty cool. I told him to make sure that he got one too because when the class was playing with them he was going to want to do the same.

At Sydney's party they had ice cream with sprinkles. I got there just in time to have some with her. She is really good friends with Sasha this year and we always find something to talk about. They showed me their mud pies and offered to let me have a taste. They are studying soils and were doing an experiment to see how quickly the mud drys. I passed on that, but did have some of their ice cream. Sydney decided she put too many sprinkles on it. I wasn't as concerned about the number of sprinkles so it suited me just fine. By then it was time to head down to Jake's classroom. The girls tried to tell me i was their maid and wanted me to throw there trash away. ...such is the life of a papa. :)

After that Courtney and I swapped classes. When I got to Jake's they were just finishing up on their snack. Sugar cookies with icing. Perfect for any party. The party's typically follow the same format. Snack, craft or talk/visiting time, and game. In this case we also had the valentine's to open but we ran out of time with the games. He was excited about getting home and loading up his nerf guns. He's got some impressive ones too. He can take you out from over 1000 yards with the laser sight. ha!

He's quite the boy. I should mention that his valentine's box was awesome. Courtney decorated it with pink and red wrapping paper. she cut out his name and pasted each letter to the box. and to make it more boy-ish she added some hearts with skulls!! I love it. She is so wonderful!!

The big kids went to their dad's that night and the bigger kids (Courtney and I) went to a mardi gras party in the neighborhood. It's such a good group of people. All our kids go to school together and have for the past few years. Kiley had her fun too. she had a new sitter that she quickly had eating from the palm of her hand. she's such a cutie pie.

I'll have to dig up some pictures to post. :)