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.