Kylie Turns Three

Our little princess is growing up so fast! Last Thursday was her third birthday! We had her party for her the weekend before and she had a blast. She wanted a princess party with a princess castle cake, so I did my best to make that happen for her. Each year, as she gets older, she seems to have a better understanding of everything and she was so excited as her party day came. It amazes me how even at three she is so creative and decisive. She knew what colors she wanted for her party and what kind of food! It took me three days but by the party I had a fully edible princess castle cake. The look on her face when she saw it made the time and energy well worth it! We had a wonderful party filled with family and friends who spoiled Kylie beyond belief and helped make the day so special for her.






She had her check up on Friday and she is good and healthy. She weighs 36 lbs and is 39 inches tall. Tall and skinny as usual (which explains why none of her pants fit her correctly). She is a fashionista and absolutely has to pick out her own clothes in the morning, which can lead to fights some mornings. Kylie can count up to 12 (20 some days), knows all her colors and shapes, knows her alphabet and recognizes some letters out and about. It's always fun to be driving and to hear her say "look mommy, that is your letter, A!" She is so full of energy; I wish I could bottle some of it to use myself :) She loves to play outside, soccer being one of her favorite games. She has been doing gymnastics for the last month and completely loves it. She is such a sweet child too. The other day at library story time, a mom commented on how impressed she was that Kylie will unprompted share with the other kids. She likes to make sure, everyone is included! What a wonderful girl she is becoming. I can't wait to see what will happen in this next year!

The Halfway Mark

Caleb is finally 6 months old! We have made it halfway to toddlerhood. It is amazing how much faster time flies when you have two kids. I thought Kylie got big fast, but it seems as though I just blinked and Caleb is 6 months old. He is getting to such a fun stage. He is army crawling across the house. The other day he tried to get up on his knees, but gave up and went back to arm crawling. He is such a happy little man. Even though he constantly dealing with reflux, he loves to smile and talk and laugh. He loves his big sister and lights up when she walks into the room. She can make him laugh faster than anyone else in the house. He also has made a unique bond with our cat, Chrissy. Chrissy loves to be by herself and runs away whenever Kylie comes near her, but for some reason she will cross the room to come over by where Caleb is playing and let him pet/pat her for a while. He loves it and smiles and talks to her. Caleb is not a great sleeper, (though, neither was Kylie) he has three short (45min tops) naps during the day and wakes up every 3/4 hrs at night still. We are slowly getting him use to his crib. He will start out there at night and if we're lucky go back into it after he wakes up around 1:00am (this doesn't happen often, but we are working on it). Caleb is eating solid foods and loves his fruits. Vegetables are a little harder to get him to eat and normally involve being served in between bites of a fruit. He is started to eat those little gerber puffs and is getting pretty good ate feeding those to himself; though Kylie loves to help feed him those, so he doesn't get much practice. He is growing great! He now weighs 16 lbs, 2 oz. and is a little over 26 in. long. Who needs a gym, when you walk around carrying a 16 lb baby most of the day. We are very blessed to have him in our lives, he brings so much to our family!

Pumpkins & Leaves

We have taken advantage of some nice days in the last few weeks and had some fall fun. My dad has a huge maple tree in his backyard and he gave us a call last week to see if Kylie would want to jump in the leaves before he cleaned them all up. Of course, she was excited about the idea. My dad blew the leaves into a pile using his leaf blower and even started blowing the leaves at Kylie. She had so much fun. Before we were done, she asked if she could climb the tree and before we knew it; my sister, Kylie, and I were up hanging out in the tree. It was a fun fall day.

We always carve our pumpkins halloween night, it gives us something to do as we wait for trick or treaters without resorting to the television. This year was no exception. My sister came over because she wanted to carve a pumpkin this year but said it was no fun to carve by yourself.... So we had lots of fun scooping, drawing and carving our pumpkins after making our very short neighborhood rounds (up and down the street) and eating dinner. Kylie wanted to make a 'scary' face, so my sister and mike helped her while I was on photo and Caleb duty. It was a lot of laughs and fun!