The first pic of them smiling together!
Before I begin the pre-christmas hustle and bustle…let’s start with milestones…
My little girl kisses—well actually licks. But it is so cute. You can be giving her kisses on her cheek and she will turn her face to you and start licking you! What a sweetie! I almost always get a kiss from her after she eats—I guess it is her way of saying “thank you.”
She is also working her abdominal muscles. If you lay her down and she wants to be up, she will actually attempt to sit up. You will watch her pick her head up and part of her shoulders. She is so strong. I know she will sit on her own early.
She has rolled over “accidentally” a few times from her stomach to her back…I think those occurred around 2 months…However right now she still needs to figure out how to move her arm out of the way before she will roll over on her own.
One of Alaina’s latest things is scooting with her feet. This drives me nuts! She plants her little heels into the floor and scoots her whole body back. This is very difficult when you are trying to change her diaper….Very talented little lady though..
She also has begun laughing. Very cute—with a squeal and everything. I think Ky gets the most laughs. She is very amused by her big brother.
Speaking of big brother—we put in an old video of Ky around 1 year old the other day and we asked Ky who the baby was. Well Ky was very confused, because I was on the video saying to Ky “Smile for the camera, Look here Ky.” So Ky kept looking at me in real life. He was very confused. It took some time for him to be able to understand that that was baby Kylan on tape. At the same time I still don’t think he realizes that baby Kylan is him….
On to Prechristmas. Well Prechristmas was pretty hectic and crazy with Rob’s Grandma passing on. I think the added concern and stress along with trips made things a bit rough. Alaina—who is still not a fan of her car seat—wasn’t a fan of the trips either. The second trip, we learned our lesson and brought along formula to feed her in the car. This did make that trip a bit easier. We also tried to travel more in the daylight which made it go better for Ky as well. Thank goodness the days are getting longer now.
The weekend after T-giving Rob went to a local store and bought us our first and last real tree. I say last because unless the kids are older and want to get a real tree the old fashioned way (chop it down ourselves) I do not want another sap dripping, needle dropping, bug hiding, vacuum killer tree in my house. Rob is mad at me and my dislike for the tree—but he wasn’t vacuuming the pine needles up all the time—and now the vacuum no longer works. And yes—there was a spider crawling out of it! YUCK! Ky had fun watching daddy set up the tree though—and we tried to get him to help hang ornaments—though it is hard getting those little loops of string over the branches. All in all it went well—the tree was up and decorated and then began its destruction….Let’s move on to better things…
The beginning of December we took Ky to the Olbrich Train Show. Rob’s company had a free night, so we took advantage of it. Ky of course loved the trains. He watched and watched and watched and watched and watched and watched—we finally got him to leave by bribing him with cookies in the next room. One of the train guys was really nice though and let him touch his train. He was so excited. Then after cookies we went back and watched the trains some more. We finally were able to leave because it was closing—and I told him we were returning in a few days to see the trains with some friends (which was true at the time—but then we got snowed in and couldn’t see any trains after all—another 9 – 12” snowstorm.)
Ky got a little bit of time to enjoy the snow this year—though not as much as I would have liked. With the snow has come some brutal temps. The first time we dressed him up in his snow gear I realized that he had outgrown his snow pants (you can see in the picture of him inside)—oh well—he wore them any way(I wasn’t about to undress him to redress him)—and the next time he went out I just put him in a bigger pair. These kids grow so fast!
So what did Ky do outside---he ate snow. Then he ate more snow and then he ate more snow. He LOVES to eat snow so much in fact that I had to create some snow-eating rules. He can only eat the snow at our house—and the snow that is white.
What we really need is some good snow-packing weather days so we can go make a snowman and snow forts and snowballs…You know all the fun stuff. We also need it warm enough so I can take Alaina out and we can all have fun playing with Ky in the snow.
We also did our annual bell ringing for the salvation Army. Alaina was making a lot of money until she fell asleep on the job. I guess she couldn’t last the 2 hour shift. This year Ky wasn’t as interested. We pretty much had to bribe him to hold the bell for the picture. The past two years he made a lot of money, so it was sad that this year he just wasn’t into it. He made up several “potty” excuses to get us (Dad) to take him elsewhere. Maybe next year. We tried to explain to him the purpose of bell ringing, but he doesn’t get it. Like I said—hopefully next year.
Even with Baby Alaina—we were able to prioritize our Christmas baking this year and make baskets for family members. This year I made Chai Spice cookies (instead of ginger bread cookies). They were delicious! In fact I think I will be making them every year now. Ky helped me roll out the dough for the Chai Spice cookies and cut them out. He also helped me decorate. You can see the cookies he decorated are covered in layer after layer of sprinkles. My cookies are okay—one of these years I will need to invest in some serious frosting decorating accessories so I can make nice faces and details to my little guys. I was most proud of my neon ‘80s Chai Spice men. I thought they came out pretty groovy.
Other cookies I made were my Grandma’s favorite “Bon Bon” or “Surprise” cookies and I also made chocolate dipped pretzel rods—YUM! Rob made his truffles (espresso Kalua & Baileys)—oh yeah! And he made brownie cookies---where I think the dough was WAY yummier than the cookies. (Am I making you hungry yet?)
The last pics are of Alaina on Christmas Eve—I was going to get Ky too—but then things happened and he went to bed. Oh yeah—we got home later then expected and he was tired and crabby. After church, we drove through the festival of lights ---a little light show they have in one of our parks. Ky loved the lights---Alaina slept through them.
So I am going to leave this blog here, the next blog will cover Christmas to New Years….Lots more pics..you know it!
My little girl kisses—well actually licks. But it is so cute. You can be giving her kisses on her cheek and she will turn her face to you and start licking you! What a sweetie! I almost always get a kiss from her after she eats—I guess it is her way of saying “thank you.”
She is also working her abdominal muscles. If you lay her down and she wants to be up, she will actually attempt to sit up. You will watch her pick her head up and part of her shoulders. She is so strong. I know she will sit on her own early.
She has rolled over “accidentally” a few times from her stomach to her back…I think those occurred around 2 months…However right now she still needs to figure out how to move her arm out of the way before she will roll over on her own.
One of Alaina’s latest things is scooting with her feet. This drives me nuts! She plants her little heels into the floor and scoots her whole body back. This is very difficult when you are trying to change her diaper….Very talented little lady though..
She also has begun laughing. Very cute—with a squeal and everything. I think Ky gets the most laughs. She is very amused by her big brother.
Speaking of big brother—we put in an old video of Ky around 1 year old the other day and we asked Ky who the baby was. Well Ky was very confused, because I was on the video saying to Ky “Smile for the camera, Look here Ky.” So Ky kept looking at me in real life. He was very confused. It took some time for him to be able to understand that that was baby Kylan on tape. At the same time I still don’t think he realizes that baby Kylan is him….
On to Prechristmas. Well Prechristmas was pretty hectic and crazy with Rob’s Grandma passing on. I think the added concern and stress along with trips made things a bit rough. Alaina—who is still not a fan of her car seat—wasn’t a fan of the trips either. The second trip, we learned our lesson and brought along formula to feed her in the car. This did make that trip a bit easier. We also tried to travel more in the daylight which made it go better for Ky as well. Thank goodness the days are getting longer now.
The weekend after T-giving Rob went to a local store and bought us our first and last real tree. I say last because unless the kids are older and want to get a real tree the old fashioned way (chop it down ourselves) I do not want another sap dripping, needle dropping, bug hiding, vacuum killer tree in my house. Rob is mad at me and my dislike for the tree—but he wasn’t vacuuming the pine needles up all the time—and now the vacuum no longer works. And yes—there was a spider crawling out of it! YUCK! Ky had fun watching daddy set up the tree though—and we tried to get him to help hang ornaments—though it is hard getting those little loops of string over the branches. All in all it went well—the tree was up and decorated and then began its destruction….Let’s move on to better things…
The beginning of December we took Ky to the Olbrich Train Show. Rob’s company had a free night, so we took advantage of it. Ky of course loved the trains. He watched and watched and watched and watched and watched and watched—we finally got him to leave by bribing him with cookies in the next room. One of the train guys was really nice though and let him touch his train. He was so excited. Then after cookies we went back and watched the trains some more. We finally were able to leave because it was closing—and I told him we were returning in a few days to see the trains with some friends (which was true at the time—but then we got snowed in and couldn’t see any trains after all—another 9 – 12” snowstorm.)
Ky got a little bit of time to enjoy the snow this year—though not as much as I would have liked. With the snow has come some brutal temps. The first time we dressed him up in his snow gear I realized that he had outgrown his snow pants (you can see in the picture of him inside)—oh well—he wore them any way(I wasn’t about to undress him to redress him)—and the next time he went out I just put him in a bigger pair. These kids grow so fast!
So what did Ky do outside---he ate snow. Then he ate more snow and then he ate more snow. He LOVES to eat snow so much in fact that I had to create some snow-eating rules. He can only eat the snow at our house—and the snow that is white.
What we really need is some good snow-packing weather days so we can go make a snowman and snow forts and snowballs…You know all the fun stuff. We also need it warm enough so I can take Alaina out and we can all have fun playing with Ky in the snow.
We also did our annual bell ringing for the salvation Army. Alaina was making a lot of money until she fell asleep on the job. I guess she couldn’t last the 2 hour shift. This year Ky wasn’t as interested. We pretty much had to bribe him to hold the bell for the picture. The past two years he made a lot of money, so it was sad that this year he just wasn’t into it. He made up several “potty” excuses to get us (Dad) to take him elsewhere. Maybe next year. We tried to explain to him the purpose of bell ringing, but he doesn’t get it. Like I said—hopefully next year.
Even with Baby Alaina—we were able to prioritize our Christmas baking this year and make baskets for family members. This year I made Chai Spice cookies (instead of ginger bread cookies). They were delicious! In fact I think I will be making them every year now. Ky helped me roll out the dough for the Chai Spice cookies and cut them out. He also helped me decorate. You can see the cookies he decorated are covered in layer after layer of sprinkles. My cookies are okay—one of these years I will need to invest in some serious frosting decorating accessories so I can make nice faces and details to my little guys. I was most proud of my neon ‘80s Chai Spice men. I thought they came out pretty groovy.
Other cookies I made were my Grandma’s favorite “Bon Bon” or “Surprise” cookies and I also made chocolate dipped pretzel rods—YUM! Rob made his truffles (espresso Kalua & Baileys)—oh yeah! And he made brownie cookies---where I think the dough was WAY yummier than the cookies. (Am I making you hungry yet?)
The last pics are of Alaina on Christmas Eve—I was going to get Ky too—but then things happened and he went to bed. Oh yeah—we got home later then expected and he was tired and crabby. After church, we drove through the festival of lights ---a little light show they have in one of our parks. Ky loved the lights---Alaina slept through them.
So I am going to leave this blog here, the next blog will cover Christmas to New Years….Lots more pics..you know it!
1 comment:
mmm...I'm totally interested in your chai spice cookies, and the kalua and bailey's truffles. I'd love the recipes if you're willing to share!
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