Kaylee eating again

She had a few drops of Margarita, a whole plate of Mexican food, and she was topping it off with Flan. Needless to say she was a bit on the hyper side. Oh and she was dancing to the live music too!

Little Mexican

Kaylee really loved all the Mexican food. These videos were the end of a really funny few minutes of her dipping everything including her fingers in the guacamole. Sometimes she even dipped it, then licked it off, and dipped again.

FINALLY!!!

Here is one of the videos I promised to upload like 2 months ago, but just now got a chance to get it off my moms computer.

mom, Mom, MOMMY!!!

Today Kaylee figured something out that every mom dreds! I am not trying to sound mean, but when a child figures out when he/she says "Mom" and "mom" answers sometimes "Mom" wishes the child would suddenly forget her name. I, thankfully am not to that point yet. Today it was kind of funny, but i am sure as the days go on the funniness will fade.
Kaylee thought it was absolutely hilarious that everytime she called my name i would respond, sometimes with a "Yes, Kaylee" or sometimes with a simple glance her way. She would call my name, wait for the response, let out a little giggle, and then continue whatever she was doing. It was like she had control over me, in her own little way. Then when marcus woke up she tried her little trick on him, but obviously it didnt work because she was saying "Mom" to him too. She knows his name is daddy, but she hasnt figured out yet that he will respond to "daddy," much like i respond to "mom" (that is when he is not entranced by his blackberry). So for now the "mom, Mom, MOM" phase is fun and exciting, but check back with me in a few weeks to see if my ideas have changed. I can hear it now, each time she says 'mom' her words become louder and sound more emphatic as she demands my attention.........Oh the joys of motherhood!

Child-Proofing

As almost anyone knows when you bring a little one into the world your whole life changes. You have to look at things in a COMPLETELY different perspective! One of the biggest things that I feel is important is safety. I want my/ our child(ren) to be and feel safe in their own home. So in order to accomplish this I have attempted to "child-proof" our home. This has definitely been a process. As Kaylee has gone through her stages I have had to advance the child-proofing.

It all started when she began to crawl, we had to make the big step in rearranging our living room. This was a really big deal for Marcus and a necessary evil for myself. I decided it would be best if we moved the coffee table away from its original home on the rug, to the corner of the living room where it can serve 2 purposes: blocking part of the rock around our fireplace and opening up a large area for Kaylee to roam.

I was scared to death of the jagged rock surrounding our fireplace and could come up with nothing better than a thick blanket folded over so it pads the rock as much as possible. It has seemed to do the trick thus far, and has helped avoid a few head injuries already.

Next came the outlet plugs. I had gotten the regular plastic ones you stick in the outlet for a gift, but after researching for a better solution I found these, and I LOVE them! They are such a great idea, you dont have to worry about removing the little plastic piece you just slide the plate over and push your plug in. So I decided to put these in my most frequently used areas.

Then when she began pulling up and developed her love of buttons I had to get more creative to find a way to "block" our media stand which houses all the electronic equipment. She had pressed so many buttons on the receiver that Marcus had trouble getting the settings right. So i decided to buy a piece of plexy glass and temporarily attach it to the front of the media stand, that way the remotes still worked but little fingers could not press anymore buttons.

Once those buttons were no longer available, she found the buttons on the TV. So I devised a cover for those as well.

Baby gates are a must when you have infants on the move, we have strategically placed 4 gates throughout the house and move them as necessary.

Then came the cabinet locks, we got the magnetic ones which we absoluetly LOVE!

Raising the blinds and tying up the cords came shortly after that

Recently she has learned how to open doors, so I figured it was time to get the door knob covers. I just purchased the regular ones that snap onto the door and you have to pinch the grips in order to open the door. Well they worked for about 5 days. She figured out if she just kept spinning the cover until she got the grip just right she could open the door. I guess i need to invent some that are "maniac proof" and not just plain ole "child proof!"

So what is next? I keep watching her everday to see what else she can get herself into. Her newest and greatest stunt is climbing on the kitchen chairs and then onto the table. We need to hurry up and finish the upstairs so we can put a gym up there for her.

I am sure there are many other child-proofing measures that I have taken that havent come to mind, but all you ladies who are about to have little ones of your own...................BE PREPARED!!!

Little Picasso

Here is Kaylee's 1st ever coloring page. (Well except for the few times she colored at restaurants) But I would like to think that this is her "true first". We had some time to kill before dinner tonight and thought she might like to get a little creative and do something different. I got out the art box that I have put together over the years for different visitors we have had over the years. I told myself when she started that I would let her do it completely on her own. So that is exactly what I did. I think there might be some potential artist skills in her future. But then again I am a biased judge of that. This coloring page is proudly displayed on our refrigerator.

1 Thing I have learned from Kaylee

Among the MANY MANY things Kaylee has taught me in her 19 short months of being with us, there is one that I would like to share with you today.

***Never smell your piggies while you are sitting on the potty***

Let me explain! So our little angel has discovered the fun in smelling things, especially feet (which we call piggies). She will smell your feet and then wave her hand in front of her nose, telling you that your feet stink! She will smell anything and says it stinks! I dont think that she is actually "smelling," but anyways it is quite funny. She never leaves anyone in the room out when she decides to start smelling piggies. She will smell everyones, EVEN Tahoe's. This posed quite a challenge to her when her aunt Mary took her to the park the other day, Mary said she became overwhelmed with all the piggies she had to go around smelling. HAHA Mary said it was quite embarrassing for her!
When you add her love of smelling piggies to her sitting on the potty, it spells disaster! She will try to smell them while balanced on the big girl toilet. Keep in mind she has never used one of those little seats you put on top of the toilet, the ones made so little butts dont fall in. And she has insisted for the past 6 months or so to hold herself on the potty. I am no longer allowed to assist her, except for helping her up and down. So as i am waiting for her to do her business i notice that she is about to smell her piggies. She reaches down with her hand to grab her foot and starts pulling it towards her face. If you can imagine how this looks...she has lost all her support from one side of her body, and has no where to fall but in the toilet. So instead of smelling her feet she decided to dip her butt in the water. This is not the only time she has attempted this crazy feit, she tries often, and is bound and determined to figure out how to do it successfully.

So in case you didnt know and ever wanted to try to smell your piggies while sitting on the potty, DONT!

A look at our little Bambino

Here is the latest ultrasound picture of our little one (sorry, i know it is kind of blurry)

You can see the little "arm buds" if you look closely. That was kind of a funny story. When I was getting my ultrasound, I was asking the tech a bunch of questions. I said "Oh are those the arms?" She sort of took a deep breath and sighed a little sigh and said "No those are the arm buds." I was laughing on the inside.

A much needed break

As most of you already know I am pregnant again. You can always see how far along I am by looking at the pregnancy widget I added to the top right of my blog. I will be adding other fun things to go with my pregnancy as time goes by.

Anyways, I have been laid up with morning sickness (or as in my case "ALL FREAKING DAY sickness"). At least I can safely say that it is not as bad as it was when I was pregnant with Kaylee. I have found a comfy spot on the couch that i like to call home and pretty much stay there all day. I try to only get up when needed, in fear of getting sick everywhere. Things that fall into the "as needed" category include: Tahoe being attacked by his loving sister, eating time for Kaylee (which always makes me sick to smell the food), Kaylee's potty breaks, my potty breaks, any suspicious noises coming from the other room alerting me that she is getting into some sort of trouble. I, being such an active person, am having a lot of guilt and stress piling up from being so dang lazy. I hate that Kaylee has seen me basically inactive for the past couple of weeks. So I decided to muster up enough energy to take her outside the other day to go put a piece of mail in the mail box. And to my surprise after being outside for 15 minutes I wasn't feeling too bad. I decided that Kaylee and I both needed a break from the boredom we have been subjected to. So I went down to our shop and got out the little swimming pool I had bought a few years ago. It was really dirty, but nothing that good ol' vinegar can't handle. So after it was sparkling clean, I decided to fill it up and go for a dip. Out here in the country we are on well water. And if that means nothing to you, think about getting into water that came from about 150 feet down, IT IS FREEZING! I didnt have time to let it warm up in the sun, because it was getting close to nap time. So our only choice was to jump on in. She had so much fun, we are going to try and get outside more often, maybe my morning sickness will die down a bit so I can enjoy more times like these with Kaylee.

check out the pictures in the slideshow above

Newest Accomplishments

Kaylee has been MIGHTY busy these days! She has been hard at work trying to "grow up" as fast as possible. She has added many things to her list of accomplishments over the past few weeks including:

1. Pulling/ climbing up to see what is on the counter (she can actually get her chin to the top of the counter)

2. Opening doors (time for more child proofing),

3. Feeding herself with a fork (not perfect, but definitely improving)

4. Sitting through an entire book (quite a feat for this "busy bee")

5. Going from 2 naps a day down to 1

6. Going to sit on the potty by herself when she has to go to the bathroom (not the big one in the bathroom, her little potty)

7. Attempting to climb out of her crib (hopefully we are a LONG way away from totally mastering this skill)

8. And last but certainly not least climbing the rock wall on her climber!

YES you read correctly! Santa got her a climber for Christmas, which we keep inside. She mastered the slide the first day. She was able to go up the stairs by herself a few months later. And now she is 18 months old and has figured out how to climb the rock wall. I, I mean Santa, purposefully picked out a climber that could "grow" with her and that would hold more than one child comfortably. There are 2 sides (one small and one large) that have a rock wall. When the stairs are just not challenging enough children can climb one of these walls. I never imagined that an 18 month old would figure out, all by herself, how to scale the smaller version of the rock wall. I attempted to catch this unbelievable feat on video but had to frantically get the camera ready and then film it while trying to support her in case she fell. So see for yourself how this little girl did it. Remember NO ONE has ever showed her how to do this, nor has she ever seen a bigger kid climb it. I just want to know how she figured out that the wall was made for climbing.

sorry for my annoying commentary during the video, I could not believe what I was seeing