Christmas 2008

Here are some pictures and stories from our whirlwind holiday season. We celebrated Christmas three times, once with my mom in Fayetteville, once at our house, and then once more with Jeff's family in New Jersey.

Kaitlyn reading with Gran and Papa Bell

We had an early, low-key celebration with my mom. She made a scrumptious dinner (as always) and we opened presents. Being the only grandchild, Kaitlyn got lots of presents and tons of attention. Guess she'll have to learn to share the limelight next Christmas!

Since we were flying to NJ on Christmas morning, we decided to pretend that Christmas Day was really on the 24th. (I figure this may be the last year that we can get away with manipulating the dates for the Christmas!!) We left out milk and cookies the night before, and Santa made a special trip from the North Pole to drop off presents. When Kaitlyn got up that morning, the first thing she went to was the empty plate. Never mind all those tempting wrapped presents that mysteriously appeared overnight. She was just amazed by the fact that Santa actually ate the cookies and drank the milk :)

One of her gifts was a baby doll and stroller (so she can practice being "gentle" with babies!). She was delighted to push the baby all around the house. She pretty much kept herself occupied for the rest of the day with her new toys.

I'm sure Kaitlyn doesn't really appreciate this gift yet, but I bought an unfinished toddler table and chairs, stained them and painted the alphabet design on the tabletop. It took an insane amount of hours to finish the project, but I had a lot of fun with the design process and I'm happy with the outcome. Now she finally has a place for art projects and other playtime fun.

Kaitlyn being silly with Daddy

On Christmas morning, we flew to New Jersey to be with Jeff's family. Kaitlyn has always loved airplanes, so she had lots of fun watching the planes land and take off from the terminal. She did very well on the plane rides (both there and back) and Jeff and I were very thankful that she was on her best behavior! She especially loved sitting in Jeff's lap and looking out the window. I was armed with a bag of food and activities to keep her occupied, so she was pretty content during the flights. While she was very cooperative, I still don't want to fly again with a toddler anytime soon! We were exhausted afterward!!

Mimi and Papa Greg's house was pretty packed for the holidays. 12 adults and 2 toddlers! But Kaitlyn had plenty of people to pay her lots of attention. She actually seemed a little sad that there was no one fun to play with when we got back home. We were especially happy that Jeff's grandparents (Gigi and Bobby) were able to join us. It's so fun seeing Kaitlyn with her great-grandparents.

Kaitlyn getting a kiss from Gigi

Gigi playing with Kaitlyn and Noah. (Notice the plush airplane in her hands. It's a Christmas present from Mimi and Kaitlyn was pretty excited to have her very own plane)

With 14 people, it seemed like someone was always in the kitchen preparing food. Kaitlyn and Noah were eager to get in on the action. I like the picture below because everyone is laughing and having a good time together--definitely what the holidays are all about.

Debbie (family friend), Gayle (Jeff's aunt) and Mimi preparing dinner with Kaitlyn and Noah.

And of course, it's always fun to see Kaitlyn and Noah together. They interact more and more the older they get and I can't wait to see them grow up together. Kaitlyn thinks Noah is pretty cool.

Kaitlyn and Noah holding hands

Apparently, something is more interesting than the TV!

Jeff and I managed to squeeze in some time to visit dear friends in Philadelphia. Yvette hosted a Christmas party at her house, and we finally got to meet her fabulous new husband, Elhadj.

Andrew and Jennifer, Yvette and Elhadj, me and Jeff

These last two pictures were taken by Jess. What Krinks family gathering would be complete without a family picture? By some miracle, both kids are actually looking at the camera and smiling!

This last picture cracks me up. Can you tell we read the newspaper every morning in our house? Kaitlyn certainly knows what to do with one. She looks like she's 1, going on 30. I'm sure she would find Noah's book much more entertaining!

I posted a lot more photos on Picasa for those who are interested (mainly family members). Click on the "Photos" link at the top of the page and then on the "Christmas 2008" album.

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!