Happy Birthday, Sweet Kaitlyn!

As hard as it is to believe, my baby girl is turning two today! It seems like only a few short months ago that we were celebrating her first birthday! I'm sure the years will seem to get shorter and shorter as she gets older. We're having her birthday party on Saturday so that most of the grandparents can be here. So today, our "celebration" consisted of going to Chick-fil-A for lunch, playing on the indoor playground (since it's monsoon season here!) and eating ice cream. I'm even going to let her watch a little extra TV today :)

So in honor of her 2nd birthday, here are some updates about Kaitlyn's activities and interests lately.

• She's really loves Dora the Explorer, so she's going to be in for a treat when she sees the Dora plates, napkins, cake and party hats at her birthday party :)
• She still treasures her beloved Doggie. Every day, she feeds Doggie a bottle, lets him nap in the Pack-n-Play, puts him in Ethan's swing and bouncy seat and generally carts him around everywhere she goes. If he's out of sight for a while, she walks around the house calling for him. I shudder to think what would happen if we ever lost Doggie.
  
• Her vocabulary has exploded in the past month or so. She picks up new words everyday! And she's getting more complex in her language by stringing together sentences and using all kinds of adjectives. "Mommy get Baby Ethan in the Pack-n-Play." "Mommy's big blue towel." "Kaitlyn go home and Mommy go home too!" Her enunciation isn't the best yet, but Jeff and I can usually translate for her.
  
• She talks up a storm and is a very outgoing child at home, but in public, she's very quiet and wary of people she doesn't know well. In fact, if a stranger tries to talk to her, she starts crying loudly and clings to me. A very good thing if a stranger is trying to kidnap her, but not so good when the "stranger" is one of my friends and we're in the middle of Target! I won't even go into the trauma of the church nursery lately!!
  
• She can identify and say almost all of her letters and colors.
• Her favorite color is yellow. Yellow shirts, yellow Play-Doh, yellow cars. I usually have to allow for extra time when we're getting in the car because she loves to pick all the yellow dandelions in our yard...and sadly, we have a lot.
  

Happy Birthday, Kaitlyn!

My three favorite people in the world...

Growing Boy

I took Ethan to the doctor today for his 1 month checkup. He's a very healthy, growing little boy. He weighed in at 11 pounds, 11 ounces and is 22.5 inches long (90th percentile in both cases). He's put on 2 pounds in the last two weeks! I hope this growth rate slows down soon...I've already had to put away some footed pajamas that have gotten too short for him.

Easter Fun

This year, Kaitlyn was old enough to go on her first Easter Egg Hunt at church. For the 2 year olds, the eggs were "hidden" in plain sight in a grassy area. I wasn't sure if Kaitlyn would actually participate in the festivities or simply observe from a safe distance, but when the hunt started, she eagerly started gathering as many eggs as she could. She was on a mission to pick up as many eggs as her basket would hold...and then some! She also had lots of fun opening the eggs to discover the surprises inside.

And although he didn't get to hunt eggs, Ethan accompanied us on the outing. I dressed him in this adorable little Easter bunny outfit that a friend had given us. Unfortunately, it was too cold to unwrap him from his blankets, so no one got to see it. I decided to take some pictures of it. In the picture above, he looks very unimpressed by his cuteness.

Anytime Ethan is on the floor, Kaitlyn insists on laying beside him. Here, she squeezed onto his play mat and tried to show him how all the toys work. It's going to be so fun to see them playing together as Ethan gets older and more mobile.

For little girls, no Easter is complete without a pretty new dress. It was still a little chilly, so we had to add a white sweater too. She was happy to model her new duds for us.

Gran was with us to celebrate Easter, as well as to offer some much needed help with child care. Taking care of two kids under two is quite exhausting, especially with a broken foot (see below). Jeff and I were even able to have a date night, which we thoroughly enjoyed! Thanks Gran!

Here's one more picture from the egg hunt. Notice the fashionable accessory on my leg? I'm now wearing a walking boot for the next three weeks because I have a stress fracture in my foot! It apparently happened a couple of weeks after Ethan was born, although I have no clue how it happened. I'm chalking it up to pregnancy since I don't have a better explanation. You should see me trying to keep up with Kaitlyn in this thing. It's quite humorous!

First Bath

You always hear that parents never take as many pictures of the second child as they do the first. That's already happening in our household, but I'm trying to remember to capture the important moments in Ethan's life...like his first tub bath! Kaitlyn screamed the whole time during hers, but Ethan really likes the water. He stared out the window and didn't complain one bit.

And Kaitlyn is still enjoying her role as big sister. She loves holding Ethan, so I had to get a picture of my two kids together :) When we picked Ethan up, Kaitlyn had a big wet spot on her shirt. Apparently Ethan's diaper had leaked. So we had to change both of them! Fun times!

The first two weeks...

Tomorrow, Ethan will be two weeks old. I don't remember much about those first few days, except that I was in a sleep-deprived fog. Thankfully, things are getting better. Ethan is mostly sleeping on his own for two 3.5 - 4 hour stretches at night, and is taking pretty decent daytime naps. Let's hope that trend continues!!! My mom and Jeff's mom have been taking turns staying with us, so Jeff and I haven't been "on our own" yet with the two kids. I'm sure that will present some new challenges when my mom goes home this weekend. It's been nice having an extra pair of hands around!

This is a picture of Ethan in his car seat for the first time. I know it won't be long until his feet are hanging over the edge. But for now, he looks so tiny!

These are pictures that Jeff took over the weekend. Ethan is one week old here.

And this one below cracks me up...Jeff captured Ethan's expression in mid-poop.

It's been nice having friends and family stop by to visit. Here is Ethan with Uncle Andrew and Aunt Lindsey.

Kaitlyn is spoiled rotten with attention from grandparents these last two weeks. I don't know what she's going to do when all the grandparents are gone! In the picture below, Papa Greg is making "snow" by shaking the blooms off our Bradford pears. It's the only snow she got to experience this year!

Kaitlyn has been so good with Ethan. Several times a day, she gives him kisses and is generally pretty fascinated by him. Since he doesn't really have his own crib yet, sometimes I put him in Kaitlyn's for a few minutes for a change of scenery. Kaitlyn always wants to get in with him. In the picture below, she's giving him kisses.

And here she is imitating Ethan and having so much fun doing it. I hope she continues to enjoy her baby brother this much!

Our newest family member

We're happy to announce the arrival of Ethan Daniel Krinks! He was born on Friday evening and weighed 9 pounds and 9 ounces. Our not-so-little baby is home and doing great! Kaitlyn is fascinated by bee-bee-eee-in (Baby Ethan) and is happy to help rock him in the swing and wrap him up in blankets. Ethan slept great last night--as long as someone held him at all times :) Somehow we need to convince him that it's okay to sleep without being held...wish us luck!

A Visit from Noah

Sorry for the lapse in blog postings. We've been preoccupied with preparations for the new baby--who is expected to arrive any day now! Plus, there hasn't been a lot of "blog-worthy" things to post about recently. But yesterday, we had the pleasure of having Jess and Noah come to Nashville for a quick visit. Kaitlyn and Noah hadn't seen each other since Christmas, so they were excited to play together again. They loved hugging on each other, as you can see in the picture above. (Mimi and Papa Greg, this picture is especially for you!)

Noah is really into guitars right now. He had a blast playing on Kaitlyn's toy one. There are real strings to strum! He even knows how to hold it right and dance while playing. Perhaps a future rock star in the making??

Kaitlyn is checking to make sure that Noah's heart is beating properly. Noah was a good sport about it all. We had a pretty traumatic visit to the doctor a couple of weeks ago for an ear infection that involved having her ear irrigated. I was afraid that she would hate all things doctor-related for a while, so I was happy to see her pull out her trusty stethoscope again.

This morning before Jeff left for work, he helped Noah play a real guitar, complete with a loud amplifier. Noah was all smiles as he slipped the strap over his head and began banging out some music.

Not wanting to be left out, Kaitlyn took her turn too. Love the toothy smile. That's her "excited" smile these days.

And finally, since their arms are a little short right now, they decided that a tag-team performance was the way to go. Kaitlyn took the frets while Noah strummed away on the strings. They're so much fun together! And it's only going to get better as we add another Baby Krinks and Baby Risinger to the mix over the next months!

What we've been up to lately...

Some random pictures and stories from the last week or so...

The weather this past weekend was surprisingly nice for January. So we decided to venture outside and go to the Fly-In at the John C. Tune Airport in Nashville. It's an event where pilots from around the area fly their planes to the airport, visit with each other and talk about airplanes over lunch. Clearly, we weren't there for the socialization aspect (since we have no plane), but the public is welcome to attend the event, walk around the tarmac and check out the planes. Kaitlyn really likes airplanes and helicopters---she gets that from Jeff---so we knew she would enjoy exploring. The Channel 5 helicopter is housed at this airport. Too bad there were no breaking stories that required aerial coverage. It would have been fun to watch it take off.

As Kaitlyn was walking around all the planes, she kept saying, "Wow!" Just that one word over and over. Guess she was pretty excited to get up close and personal with one of her favorite things. She also loved watching the planes take off and land. Perhaps we have a budding pilot on our hands.

In other news, we had an eventful week last week with birthday celebrations (mine and Jeff's) and a visit from Mimi. Kaitlyn enjoyed getting all kinds of attention from Mimi for a few days. Continuing her dress-up phase, she decided that she wanted all of her bows in her hair at the same time, and Mimi happily obliged. She walked around like this for quite some time.

Many times a day, I hear Kaitlyn call out, "Tashi! Tashi!" It's her word for our dog, Kasha. Kaitlyn loves Kasha so much and would play with her all day if Kasha would let her. Fortunately, Kasha is a very patient dog and puts up with Kaitlyn chasing her, hugging her, and trying to sit on her. The picture below shows a typical interaction. Kaitlyn's trying for the 20th time to sit next to Kasha and lean on her, and Kasha is wishing she could just go back to sleep. I'm looking forward to warmer weather so that I can release both of them into the back yard and let them run to their heart's content!

One day last week I was in the bedroom, and I noticed that it had gotten very quiet in the rest of the house. Those of you with toddlers know that this is never a good thing. So I went to investigate. Apparently, I had accidentally left the laundry room door open (where Kasha's kennel is). Kaitlyn spied her opportunity and made a beeline for Kasha's bed. She climbed in, shut the door, and proceeded to lay down...and roll around...on Kasha's hair-covered pillow. My immediate thought was to drag her out and take her straight to the bathtub. But I figured the damage was already done, so I decided to just let her play for a bit while I took some pictures. Needless to say, I haven't left the door open again!

Other fun times with Kaitlyn...

Playing doctor: she diligently checked the heartbeats of all of her stuffed animals.

Snack Time: for some reason, we've gotten into the habit of having afternoon snacks while sitting on the floor in the kitchen. I'm not sure how much longer I'll be able to get up from this position, but for now it's a sweet time that we share each day. She climbs all over me and is generally pretty loving and cuddly during this time.

Play Time with Daddy: one of the highlights of her day is when Jeff comes home in the evening. That's when the real fun begins--tickling sessions, shoulder rides, and other physical feats that only daddies can do.

Dress-Up

Kaitlyn is getting into that fun age where she likes to play dress-up and practice her mothering skills. She routinely brings me various bows, headbands, shoes, etc. throughout the day to put on for her. On one particularly cold morning last week, Jeff went outside dressed in all of his winter gear. When he came back, she insisted on dressing up like Daddy, including coat, scarf and hat. Sometimes you forget how short toddlers are until you see them wearing an adult piece of clothing!

She also has started being a "mom" to her baby doll that she got for Christmas. She feeds the baby, gives her a bottle, and wraps her up in a blanket. She'll even pulls her own changing pad off the dresser so that she can lay her doll down on it while she's changing its diaper. I know she's just imitating what she's seen me do, but it's still sweet to see her care for her baby doll and other stuffed animals. Let's hope that she can extend that empathy and compassion to her little brother in a few weeks!

And one other random picture that I liked...Kaitlyn reading a physics book! This was one of my old teacher textbooks. She's actually been flipping though its pages for a few months, but I just never got around to taking a picture of it. Don't worry, she's not some little Einstein or child prodigy...she just likes to look at the pictures inside. (And it has some interesting ones, I must admit).

7 weeks and counting until the arrival of Baby Boy Krinks! And there's a lot to do between now and then!