A big girl bed

On Tuesday we decided to convert Kylie's crib into the full size bed. She is so tall that it was way too easy for her to swing her leg up and get close to climbing out. The new bed is so big and makes her room look so different. It reminds us how fast she is growing up. We were worried that she wouldn't like the big bed, but so far things have turned out great. When we switched it over, Kylie had decided not to nap so she was awake and up 'helping' us. She was so excited and proceeded to jump on her bed as soon as the mattress was put on. She loves her comforter and pillows and keeps yelling "butterflies, butterflies". We tried putting those safety rails on to make sure that she wouldn't roll out of bed, but when we did Kylie started screaming and crying and saying "no, my bed, my bed..." So we relented and decided we would see how she did. The first night, she just crashed because she had refused to take a nap, she sleep until her normal time (6 am) only waking up once and calling for help because she couldn't get herself back into bed. The next day, I put her stool next to her bed for her to climb up on, which made her very happy. Last night, she wasn't quite ready for bed when we put her down and I got to play the 'catch me and put me back into bad' game for thirty minutes. But that was it and then she slept until 6! I love that when she wakes up, she walks down to our room, we no longer have to go and get her. YEAH! I hope tonight will be even easier than last night!

NO, I do!

Kylie is at the point where she is putting words together to make phrases and sentences. These include; "More swing, mommy/daddy", "I help too", "Bad Shea", "More milk/juice/food please", etc. Very simple, but you can tell that she is proud of herself for getting her point across.
The one that drives me nuts is, "No, I do" said with such attitude. This is said to everything from eating (including bowls of soup..very messy) to putting on her own shoes (not very successful and normally ends in frustration) to putting herself into bed and pulling up the covers and anything else mommy/daddy are doing for her.
I love her independence but when you hear this phrase 10-20 times a day, it begins to get on your nerves. Mike says we should be thankful that she wants to help because soon she won't want to do anything. So for now, we let Kylie do what she can to help.

Relaxing in the North Woods

We had a wonderful time on our vacation in Minnesota. We went up to the Gunflint trail which is a dead end scenic road 40 miles south of the Canadian border. You are literally in the middle of nowhere. As soon as you leave the town of Grand Marais to head up the trail, you lose cell phone service. There are no tvs, computers, phones, or even dishwashers up there! You completely lose touch with the outside world but it doesn't matter. We had a great time hiking, fishing, biking, and relaxing. Kylie was old enough this year to enjoy herself and we were able to find a place that allowed us to bring Shea. He had a blast with all the attention he was getting. He loved hiking on the trails and swimming in the lake. He would jump off our dock right into the water! We went over into Canada one day and found out that there really isn't too much to do over there. But, we found a beautiful waterfall and went to an amethyst mine where we were able to 'mine' our own amethyst (from a pile of there left-overs.. but Kylie didn't care). It amazed me how much amethyst there was just lying on the floor (behind a gate, which we weren't allowed to touch). So pretty! We even attempted canoeing with Kylie one day... We found out that toddlers and canoes don't mix. We didn't go over but came very close a couple of times. Luckily we made it safely and dryly back to land. It was a wonderful vacation! (ignore the dates on the pictures, my good camera broke right before we left so we used an old one, it took new batteries everyday and I got tired of updating the date stamp...)