Merry Christmas!

In the morning, we leave for New Jersey and we'll be there for several days. We'll post lots of Christmas pictures in the new year. We hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Christmas Cookies

Kaitlyn and I started what I hope will be an annual tradition--baking Christmas cookies together! Although I love to cook, I really don't bake very often. But I found a sugar cookie recipe that looked pretty easy, so I decided to give it a try. Kaitlyn was mostly an observer this year, but she enjoyed playing with the mixer, the dough, and the sprinkles. And of course she liked the yummy finished product!

We mixed everything together at the dining room table so she could see what was going on. She was eager to "help" me pour the ingredients into the bowl. And she got to touch the dough afterward.

After I cut out all the cookie shapes, it was time to decorate. Her "job" was to help me press the sprinkles into the dough. She diligently did what she was asked to do.

However, I had trouble conveying the concept of pressing lightly. Pretty soon, all of my cookies had perfect finger-shaped holes in the centers!

She loved watching the cookies bake and rise in the oven. And she got to enjoy a few bites of a cookie once they had cooled. (I, however, was unable to stop after just a few bites! They were quite tasty!) Hopefully, this will be the first of many cooking experiences we will share together!

Uh-Oh

A funny thing happened last night. I was in the kitchen making dinner before Jeff came home, and Kaitlyn was playing quietly in the living room. Then I felt a little hand tapping me on the leg. When I looked down, Kaitlyn was quite serious and she simply said, "Uh-oh" and walked away. She's been saying that a lot lately, so I didn't really think much about it. But she came back and tapped my leg again. "Uh-oh." And then she walked away, but this time she looked back every few steps to see if I was following her. I decided to investigate.

When I walked into the living room, I expected to see a broken toy or a torn page in a book. But nothing appeared out of order. So I said something to the effect of, "I don't see anything wrong, Kaitlyn." Again, she looked earnestly at me and said "Uh-oh." So I asked her to show me the uh-oh. She pointed up toward the fan, but I didn't even bother to look up because what could possibly be wrong with it? I said, "Yes, it's a fan." She was beginning to lose patience with me, but she tried one more time. She pointed to the fan/ceiling again and said (a bit more insistently) "UH-OH!" So I looked up, and that's when I discovered the problem...

Apparently she had been playing with her Publix balloon and somehow managed to separate the balloon from the weighted string. An inaccessible balloon in our house is a BIG problem, but since we have ridiculously high ceilings in our living room, I knew there was no simple solution. It was clear that she wanted Mommy to fix things immediately, but I wasn't about to climb on a ladder at this point in my pregnancy. So I promised her that Daddy would get it down when he got home. She seemed content with that, but as soon as he walked through the door, she ran up to him saying "Uh-oh" and pointing to the ceiling. Fortunately, he wasn't as slow on the uptake as I was :) So with the help of a ladder, a Swiffer handle, and some tape on the end of the Swiffer, Daddy was able to save the day!

The lengths we go to for our children...

Santa

Last week, we went to the Family Christmas Breakfast at our church. In addition to a yummy breakfast, kids could have their pictures made with Santa. As you can see from above, Kaitlyn was not thrilled with that prospect. Although she loves pointing out pictures of Santa at home and in books, apparently the real thing is a bit scarier. The video below shows the "traumatic" visit in more detail.

Once we got away from the scary Santa, Kaitlyn was happy to enjoy the rest of the festivities. We had a family picture taken on stage. I'm sure the regular readers of this blog (all four of you!) will not be surprised in the least to see her with a balloon. They were part of the decorations, and she managed to find a loose one and claimed it as her own. Not willing to make her cry twice in less than an hour, we let her keep it.

Here she is with Austin, one of her friends from church. Amazingly, the two of them sat still enough to have their picture taken!

Christmas Lights

Last night we started decorating the house for Christmas. We had time to put up the tree and the lights before Kaitlyn went to bed. Last year, she showed little to no interest in the tree or lights. but this year is completely different. She especially loved the lights! We had an extra strand that we draped around her neck. We got one picture where she was looking at the camera, and the rest of the time she was focused on investigating the blinking lights around her body.

This morning when she woke up, there were ornaments on the tree and the rest of the house was decorated. She had lots of fun exploring the house and is pretty fascinated by all the shiny things hanging on the tree. We hung lots of kid-friendly ornaments down low so that she could explore freely without too much fear of permanent damage. We're still trying to get her to understand that the ornaments are not toys and have to stay on the tree. It's a hard thing for a toddler to comprehend!

Thanksgiving

We spent our Thanksgiving holiday at Mom's house this year. She cooked a scrumptious feast (as always). Mom and I had our traditional Black Friday shopping excursion, and now I'm mostly done with Christmas shopping! And I also got in some good naps in the afternoon while Mom watched Kaitlyn. It was a fun time of family, food and relaxation. Just the kind of break we needed before the madness of the holiday season really hits.

Here are a couple of pictures from the weekend. Papa Bell came over for Thanksgiving dinner, and he had a fun time looking through photo albums with Kaitlyn. And Kaitlyn was all smiles this morning as we took some pictures of her and Gran.

More Balloons

As I've mentioned before on this blog, Kaitlyn loves balloons. She excitedly points them out every time she sees them in real life or in a book. I'm in the middle of a major de-clutter/reorganization project in our house to make room for the new baby, so when I came across a box of old party supplies, I found a few balloons and created some new toys for Kaitlyn. This was about three days ago, and she plays with them many, many times each day. She also loves putting things into any kind of container, so her favorite thing to do lately is to put the balloons into a plastic box and push it around the house. As you can see, she also likes getting in the box with the balloons. And I've been able to get some housework done while she tends to her balloons!

18 month pictures

Here are some pictures that we took recently of Kaitlyn at 18 months. She knows how to smile on command, but "sitting still" just doesn't register with her yet. We probably took 60 or 70 shots and picked 3 that we liked. Thank goodness for digital cameras!!!

Pointing to her belly button

After the photo shoot, we went outside and let Kaitlyn run off some of her energy with Kasha. They're good playmates!

18 Month Checkup

Kaitlyn went to the doctor today for her 18 month visit, and she got a clean bill of health. She weighs 30 pounds, 10 ounces and is 34.5 inches tall. Once again, she's in the 97th percentile for height, weight and head circumference.

The past few visits to the doctor have been nerve-wracking for me because Kaitlyn always starts crying as soon as the nurse or doctor comes into the room and doesn't stop until they leave. It's very challenging to listen to the doctor and ask questions when there's a screaming child in your lap! So this time I decided to "prep" her for the visit. I bought a toy doctor's kit, complete with stethoscope, otoscope, thermometer, bandage and syringe. For the past week, we've been playing with the equipment and acting out what happens at the doctor's office. I even printed out our doctor's picture from her website so that Kaitlyn wouldn't see her as such a stranger. Perhaps the preparation paid off, or maybe she was just in an extraordinarily good mood today, but she didn't cry at all until the very end when she got two shots. She actually smiled several times during the visit and was extremely cooperative when asked to do something! She was a totally different child, and I was so proud of her!

The hardest part of today's visit was keeping her occupied in the waiting room. Like most pediatric offices, there are separate waiting rooms for sick kids and healthy kids. And the sick room has much more interesting toys than the healthy room does! These rooms are separated by a hallway, and Kaitlyn desperately wanted to go into the sick room to investigate the toys. I explained to her that she couldn't go into the hallway (which was tile) and had to stay on the carpet in our waiting room. She tried to bolt across the hall anyway, and I was beginning to wonder if she could understand the boundaries that I had set for her.

And then she proved to me that she understood every word I said. She went to the very edge of the carpet and stopped. Then she looked at me and, without taking her eyes off of me, slowly lifted one foot and put it on the tile and stopped, waiting for my reaction. I had to try really hard not to smile because the defiance in her eyes was cracking me up. I calmly told her again that she had to remain on the carpet and I steered her back into the waiting room. She let out a long, pitiful (albeit very fake) whine of protest that elicited soft laughter and sympathy glances from the other moms. When she realized that she was the center of attention, she instantly switched from whining to laughter. She's definitely beginning to test us and exert her independence...the upcoming months should be interesting!

Halloween

Here are some pictures from our Halloween festivities last week. Kaitlyn was Tigger, in honor of her beloved stuffed animal. First, there was Trunk or Treat at our church on Sunday afternoon. It was a zoo with all the kids there! Kaitlyn was a little overwhelmed and didn't smile the whole night. But she picked up on the whole candy-in-your-pumpkin idea pretty quickly and eagerly ran from car to car to get treats. She even got an orange balloon, which was the highlight of her evening. When she got home, she spent lots of time gleefully dumping out the contents of her pumpkin and putting every piece of candy back in. She didn't show any interest in actually eating the candy, but I'm sure that will come in the years ahead. Meanwhile, the candy seems to be mysteriously disappearing from her pumpkin. I have no clue where it's going :)

Kaitlyn with Emily Kirby

With Mommy

Then Jeff's parents came into town for a quick visit. We carved a pumpkin while they were here and Kaitlyn was very interested in the glowing jack-o-lantern.

Kaitlyn got to spend Halloween weekend with Gran while Mommy and Daddy went on a little weekend getaway. Gran and Papa Bell took her trick-or-treating, and from what I hear, Kaitlyn had a great time. She came home with even more candy!

Here are some more pictures of Kaitlyn in her costume.

We're Having a....

...little boy! We had our ultrasound today. Everything looked normal. There were a couple of heart measurements that the tech wasn't able to get because of the baby's position, so I have to go back in a couple of weeks to "finish" the ultrasound. But if everything continues to go smoothly, Baby Boy Krinks will be making his appearance in mid-March.

More Fall Fun

This weekend, we went to Walden Farm for an afternoon of fun. It's a pretty exciting place for a toddler, and Kaitlyn kept running from place to place, exploring to her heart's content. (Which meant we had to run after her! Not an easy task when there are lots of people around!)

There were troughs full of grain and corn. Such a simple idea, but it was a magnet for the little ones. She played there for quite a while.

Kaitlyn found some sunflowers and cotton plants to wander through. No time to look at the camera.

She loves pumpkins. Everytime we see them in a grocery store or drive by a house with pumpkins outside, she has to point them out. So I thought she would be in heaven with all the pumpkins at the farm. But I think she was a little overwhelmed by the sheer volume. She paused in front of them for a while...and then kept on going.

But her favorite part was getting to sit on the antique tractor. She could have stayed on that thing all day!

Here are a couple of pictures from the same farm last year. What a difference a year makes!!

Fall Fun

It was a beautiful fall day today, cool and sunny with bright blue skies. Kaitlyn enjoyed a little bit of fall fun in our yard.

Playing in the leaves

Smelling the last of the summer flowers


Feeling the autumn sun on her face

Wagon Rides

Today Kaitlyn decided to give some of her friends a wagon ride. So she loaded up Pegasus and Doggie into the wagon and pushed them around...

...and then pulled them around. A great time was had by all!

The Zoo

We decided to take advantage of the nice weather this weekend and took Kaitlyn to the Nashville Zoo. She was pretty excited to see some of the animals that we read about in her books. It was hard to decide which animal was her favorite. It was a toss-up between the elephants and giraffes, although I think the giraffes edged out the elephants in the end. Their habitats are right next to each other, so she kept running back and forth between the two animals, pointing and jabbering in her own little language. I think she was telling the giraffes something very important!

In contrast to the fair that we went to last month, Kaitlyn was happy to pet the goats in the Critter Encounter. I think the baby goat was a little more her size! It's about the size of our dog, which she loves to chase around the house.

The camels were also entertaining. Fortunately, none of them spit at us. It's very fun to see these animals again through the eyes of a child. I'm sure Kaitlyn was wondering why they all had weird humps on their backs!

We ended the day with a ride on the carousel...Kaitlyn's first merry-go-round experience! She was happy to be riding a giraffe, and she was mostly all smiles until the giraffe started moving. As you can see below, she wasn't too sure about things at first. But she warmed up pretty quickly, and by the middle of the ride, Jeff had moved her to a neighboring koala bear that actually moved up and down. I wouldn't say that she really enjoyed it, but she didn't cry, so we considered it a success :)

A visit from Noah

This weekend, we got to spend some time with Jess, Adam and Noah. Kaitlyn and Noah were pretty funny together. They actually played together this time...sort of. Mainly, they followed each other around and tried to imitate the other one. Fortunately there wasn't any fighting over toys (yet!) and they were all too happy to share toys with each other. They're going to have some great adventures together as they get older!

Otherwise, there hasn't been a lot happening here this month. Just the normal busyness of life. Kaitlyn is learning new things each day. She's much more animated in her dancing now. It used to consist of just bobbing her head when she heard music. Now she stomps both feet and bounces up and down. The rhythm needs a little work, but it's fun to watch!

And on Sunday as we were watching the Eagles, Jeff taught her how to make the touchdown sign. She was gleefully doing it the rest of the night. Even when I was putting her to bed. The lights were off, we were quietly rocking, and I felt her lean back and let go of me with both hands. With the dim light of the clock, I could see her making the touchdown sign in the dark.

Some other random pictures are below.

Pegasus is still her most beloved stuffed animal.

This is her latest version of "Hide and Seek." If she can't see us, then she thinks that we can't see her!

And she still loves her hats! It's a bit early for fleece winter hats, but this one is her favorite.