Kaelyn's a Big Girl

Kaelyn has been showing me lately that she deserves to be called a Big Girl. She's not the smallest or the skinniest  kid but she is less than 50 percentile. And her hair still reminds me of a mullet.

Speaking of her hair. I've tried clips (Kimmi found some that are little enough for her sparse, short front hairs) but she doesn't leave them in for very long. Headbands stay on a little bit longer. And hats are a hit or miss.

Today she came to me with a ponytail holder that she had found. She tried to put it in her hair by herself (like she puts on her headbands) but obviously, since it was too small, that didn't work out well. She asked for help. Knowing how she is about everything else in her hair, I didn't think it would stay in very long.

It is still in! I took {horrible quality} pictures and she's gone off to read books, have a drink, snap herself with a rubber band... She hasn't tried to take it out once.

What a sweetheart!

What I really wanted to write and remember was that we were eating breakfast (German pancakes) and she wasn't in her highchair. She took a bite even though it was still too hot for her liking and then spit it out. "Oh no!" In the past, that's all she did while I would pick up whatever fell. This time she ran off and came back with the hand towel and said "excuse me!" while pushing my chair so I knew she wanted me to move. She wiped up the whole area.

This also brings to mind another Big Girl incident. A few days ago, I was changing up my family room (again). The way the couch and the toy thing was, she kept climbing on the toy thing and falling head first onto the couch. It made me too nervous the way her neck was bending some times so I just moved the toy thing. I also took the time to put chairs and a table there.

The table was something like $12 from craigslist. It's a metal base and a glass top.

The chairs were $5.99 from Goodwill but they were 50% off that day so I grabbed all four of them up (the other two are blue and still in the basement because I don't need them all up right now). They need a paint job. I'll get to it. Sometime. I bought them last year because I knew I wanted them someday for Kaelyn. That day has come.

The second day it was up, she tried standing on the table to look outside. "Oh no! Mommy! Help!" (Why is it that everything is said with an exclamation mark now?) She now learned why I said not to stand on the table as the glass top can tilt. Since then, she hasn't tried to get on it again and instead stands on the chair to look outside.

What happens instead is that whenever that cats sit on it, she tells them "all done" and tries to get them off.

I love watching her grow up. I have no sniffles or tears about my little baby being such a big girl. Probably only because I know another baby is in my future (NOT AN ANNOUNCEMENT). I will probably get the blues when I'm on my last child.

Cool New Blog Thing I Learned About Today

Yup. That's the title of this post and I'm sticking to it.

So today I was in my Good Reader catching up on my beloved blogs that I follow when I came across this post by Mandi over at Sugar Bee Crafts. She talked about this thing called the Next button and linked to Oops, I Craft My Pants where she had learned about it.

Okay, so first off. I didn't always use Google Reader. But then I started to read blogs that weren't just people I knew. I got tired of a huge list to click through sitting around on my blog. In fact, the huge list in general was an eyesore to me. So I started using Google Reader. I was a little sad to not see the actual blogs anymore because some of them have some cool designs and are pretty. And I definitely don't comment often because of the extra clicks to make it happen (lazy, I know). It also doesn't give the blog author page hits so they don't know that I'm reading them.

Enter the Next button. I gotta say... I'm likin this button and I've only had it for about five minutes (excluding the time it took to write this post).

W8 Garden

These were taking last week but I haven't taken any this week and probably won't. In fact, I may just stop taking pictures for this year. Reasons at the bottom of the post.

NW Garden.

Right now, there actually are two zucchinis in my garden. Almost ready to pick! And sometime early next week, I'll be picking my pak choy.

SW Garden. This was after I had been gone for 1 1/2 weeks and my garden didn't get much water. It looked sad.

My poor strawberry plants.

 This is ... um.... oh! one of my bean plants. There are beans on them now so that is why I didn't recognize it at first.

SE Garden.

The pepper is bigger now.

This tomato was eaten already.

And here are some pretty flowers on some tree in our backyard!

So this was all about the experience of a first year garden, right? Here is what I have learned.

• For my backyard, putting the garden boxes on the asphalt was the best choice and I really like them there.
• I knew the dirt would settle, but I didn't expect it to go from 6 to 3 or 2 inches. As a consequence, my plants growth is stunted.
• The hot weather stunts growth too.
• I haven't eaten a lot of produce from the garden (with the growth stunted and all) but I absolutely love it.
• Next year, I think I will build 12 inch boxes with lots of soil. If Jared agrees.
• Best way to garden ever! The first 3 or 4 weeks, I had a lot of weeds--mostly those seeds from the tree that was falling into the garden. Lately, it has been weed-free.

Exercising: "Go!"

Kimmi and I have been exercising in the mornings. We got three weights of dumbbells (1, 2, and 3 pounders because we're weaklings). Kaelyn loves to exercise with us by using the 1-lbers. Today she popped a wall squat too. And just now, Kimmi asked if she was going to do some push ups and after a few attempts, she got in the right sort of pose.

Kimmi was doing push ups. And I've been harrassing her about her form on previous exercises and push ups were no different. This time, however, Kaelyn goes up to Kimmi and instead of trying to climb on her, she says "Go! Go! One more! One! Two! Three! One more! Go!"

Yes, can you tell what I say?

Let's gush about Kaelyn

Um.

Hi, New Blogger UI. It will take me a while to get used to you, but it looks like you are easier to use. Always a good sign.

I know I'm a week behind on garden pictures. Story of my life. (Short story, right?) I haven't taken them off my camera yet.

Nothing is better in my life than this sweetheart right here.

I failed in writing her an 18-month post. She is now 19 months! A month ago, she weighed 23 lbs 6 oz and 29 7/9 inches tall. At 15 months, she was 22 lbs 4 oz and 29 inches.

I don't write about her very frequently. I don't very frequently at all. But I really should write more about her (and probably Jared...). Because she's just so darned cute!

She has 8 teeth. Most of her hair is growing. That front little bit still isn't...

She loves her cousins Lara and Vivi. I am sure she loves her cousins Lilli and Grace but we don't see them as frequently. Actually, I don't think she loves Vivi as much as Lara. But she knows Lara comes with Vivi so she says both names. Kaelyn gets so excited whenever they come to visit.

Kaelyn is going to be a great older sibling. When we met her newest cousin, Mariella, Kaelyn was drawn to her. I got to hold Mariella early in the evening and Kaelyn climbed onto my lap saying "baby! baby! hold" and then put her arms around Mariella so sweetly. Since then, every time she sees Mariella, she says "baby" and looks at her but is very gentle (for a kid!).

Her Aunt Kimmi stays with us during most of the week and Kaelyn just loves having her around. On the days Kimmi is not here, Kaelyn will periodically throughout the day ask for "Kimmi?" or "Josh?" whichever one suits her fancy.

We went to Oregon a few weeks ago and Kaelyn had a great time with everyone she got to meet and play with. Aunt Colleen taught her the itsy bitsy spider and now Kaelyn loves it. She can sing it herself. If I can ever get her to do it when the camera is on, I will post it!

No, she is not potty trained. Yes, we sort of are starting (very VERY sort of). Whenever she gives us signs that she is pooping, we sit her on the potty. She loves it. I'm happy she is not afraid and sometimes will even ask to sit on the potty.

While I was at Youth Conference last week, Kaelyn got to stay with her Aunt Jamie, Aunt Lindey, Uncle Kevin, and Cousins Lilli and Grace. Of this time period, Lindey said "does she always leak through her diapers?" She insisted she changed her every few hours but for everyone who knows Lindey.... well, it's Lindey. Jamie said that she was perfect and Kevin proclaimed her a genius.

I recently looked at developmental milestone charts mostly because I was curious as to what they said. One said that by the time your child is 2, they will be able to say three-word sentences and sing simple tunes. I don't particularly consider Dynamite by Taio Cruz (but sung by Mike Tompkins) to be a simple tune. She sings the entire chorus. She has a great sense of rhythm.

She is starting to try to walk up and down the stairs without holding onto anything. She can do shallow stairs really well. Our stairs are not so easy but she still tries.

She loves to help so I gave her a job. She gets to feed the cats every day. I still assist her (her picking up and putting down skills aren't very level yet) but she loves it. I thought that maybe it would help her stop getting into the food and water. It did. Or maybe it was just lucky timing. Either way, we don't have to be paranoid about leaving the pantry door open. 

She loves "pictures" (the camera) and will take and look at pictures.

She loves to brush her teeth and her hair. She even -spits- in the sink when she is done.

I'm not even sure I could begin to count her words but I'm 100% positive that she exceeds the developmental charts 50-70 words by two years of age.

As far as the bad things about her... she still doesn't sleep through the night and she still doesn't go to sleep by herself and she still sleeps in my room (albeit in her toddler railed crib).

If I write more about her, I'll be able to tell more stories rather than facts. :)