Some Assembly Required, Batteries not Included

As a rule, I don't particularly like toys that require batteries, make artificial noise, are made of plastic or are very commercialized (read: Disney Princesses).  I much prefer soft, plush toys or classic wooden ones.  They just feel more wholesome and genuine (not sure if that's the word I'm looking for but I'm a little brain dead right now so it will have to do, you know what I mean).  Also as a rule, I want my kids to be free to pursue their interests and develop their individual personalities.  I don't want to suppress or hold them back from what truly makes them happy.  And right now the thing that seems to make Kaelyn the happiest is princesses.  Especially Disney Princesses.  So, when my brother called me while Christmas shopping for the kids and asked if it was ok to get her the Disney Princess musical vanity, for the sake of my daughter's happiness I said, "yes."

And then I took the thing out of the box and saw how many pieces it came in I seriously considered taking it back.  (She got to open her presents from them early since we won't see them on Christmas.)  Only problem was, she already saw it. And there was no way she was going to forget it.  So, I spent the better part of nap time today putting it together.  At least the part I wasn't ushering one child back to bed or trying to rock the other back to sleep.  Since she didn't stay in bed, Kaelyn knew I was putting it together and it was the first thing she asked about when she woke up.

(Notice the new princess jammies she got from Maya too.)

Naturally she needed to get out all her princess paraphernalia to play with it.  The cape and wand were already with her at nap.  Maya gave her these over Thanksgiving too.  These were homemade and not Disney, big pluses in my book.  She also had to have her tiara on and her new princess brush.  Later she also insisted on wearing Rapunzel dress, long hair and Rapunzel necklace.

The next challenge will be finding a home for it that is not our living room.  I hope the gift give realizes that we will be "gifting" this to their children in the future, whether or not they have any girls.  Lucky for them it will come assembled. (Really, she loves it guys.  And we still love you, even if you do give our kids obnoxious gifts.  I'm sure I was guilty of giving a few myself.)

And so begins the Christmas season. Do you think the musical vanity will help her forget the Disney Princess castle she wanted to ask Santa for now?  Santa thought he was done shopping but I don't know if Mama is quite ready to teach her a lesson in disappointment this Christmas.  I have a lot more to say on the topic of Christmas but I think I'll save it for another day.

Funny Faces

Since my last post was a little verbose, I'll take this one in the opposite direction.  Here are some blurry, yet funny faces.  I hope they make you smile.

P.S. B has four teeth coming in on the top now, for a total of six. Ouch!

Have kids, will travel

 After Kaelyn was born we said that we weren't going to let having kids stop us from getting out and going places because one, we love to travel and two, all of our family is out of state.  So we knew we'd at least be traveling to Wisconsin and Virginia several times a year.  I'd say up until recently we really stayed true to that.  Before Kaelyn was four months old she had been to two different states and one foreign country.  That's probably more traveling than I did the first 16 years of my life.  She rounded out her first year with several trips to two more states.  I've lost count of how many times she's been on a plane.  And, while traveling with a baby and then a toddler was never a breeze, I'd say we had gotten the hang of it. And then along came number two.  I still don't want to be stuck at home, but the thought of traveling with a 3 year old and a baby honestly frightens me a little.  So, poor Brennan will probably think we were sheltering him compared to his sister.  Until last week his travel adventures included two trips to Wisconsin and one to South Bend.  And sorry to tell you Buddy, but it doesn't look like you'll be leaving the country until after your first birthday.

So we decided to expand his horizons a little and last week we took the trip to Savannah to visit Nana and Pop and see their new house they'll be moving to next summer. This is what the trip started with:

 My hand-dandy packing list.  Matt always tells me to calm down and not stress when we're getting ready to go on trips.  Next time I'm just going to show him this list again.  This doesn't include clothes plus I think I added a few things the morning we left that weren't on the list.  I don't think I stress but I'm constantly doing mental checks, writing things down as I think of them and trying to figure out when things are going to be packed (most not until last minute) and how it's all going to be organized and work out.

And then we got a sweet ride for the trip (yes, I just called a minivan sweet).

I was actually ready to join the minivan mom's club when we pulled out of the driveway.  It had all the bells and whistles.  DVD player, automatic doors (which Kaelyn called magic), Sirius Satellite radio, park-assist, seperate climate controls, built-in sun shades in the back, blind spot notification and about a kajillion cup holders.  I must say all the extra space was nice too.  I don't think we could have fit all our gear in either of our cars.  Maybe Matt would have had to leave his clubs behind (like that would ever happen).  It was definitely comfy for the 14 hour drive and definitely helped that I was able to climb in the back seat to entertain Brennan and keep him (somewhat) happy most of the trip.

So anyway, we got to Matt's Aunt and Uncle's house in the middle of the night and it was a bit of a struggle getting both the kids back to sleep.  Needless to say, we were all a little exhausted the next day.  We went to see Nana and Pop's new house, which is undergoing a facelift and then finally checked-in to the rental house in the afternoon.  Kaelyn was a bit confused with all the different houses and the fact that she thought we were going to be staying in a hotel the night before.  The house was beautiful, but the view was the best part. 

Not bad, huh? Kaelyn loved going down to throw stuff in the "magoon."  There were tons of turtles sunning themselves on the banks and peeking their noses out of the water.  We also saw some cool heron-type birds (not exactly sure what they were) every day.  And one morning when Rudy started barking I scolded him for barking at the morning runner only to look out in front of the deck to see a six point buck standing there. Thankfully there were no gator sightings, though we were told there was baby who lived there.

 I thought this tree was absolutely beautiful.

Love all the Spanish moss blowing in the breeze.

Anyway, I'm sure that's what you all really care about.  Unfortunately I didn't get a lot of good pictures of the kids on the trip but here are a few highlights.

Friday we took the kids to the aquarium.  Brennan fell asleep for about 5 minutes in the car and called it his morning nap.

The aquarium was a little smaller than we had expected and only took about 15 minutes to see everything, but Kaelyn didn't seem to mind.

Don't you think seahorses are so cool? They were my personal favorite.  Kaelyn liked the turtles.

Since we had some extra time to kill we ran around outside by the water for a while.

Then we went downtown to have lunch at Aunt Laurie's restaurant (for those of you who don't know Laurie is Matt's aunt and the name of the restaurant isn't Aunt Laurie's, it's Debi's Laurie's Restaurant).  Did you know they filmed a scene from Forest Gump there?  That meant absolutely nothing to Kaelyn, but she loved waving out the window to all the people walking by after the parade.

Saturday's itinerary included a golf outing for Pop, Dada and Kaelyn, swimming with Nana, Mama, Kaelyn and Brennan, a fancy dinner at one of the country clubs, a sick mama and an Irish win.  I'm going to blame being sick but with all the great photo opportunities this day we only got pictures of the golf outing. And the kids looked so cute dressed up for dinner too.  I'm really kicking myself on that one.

Sunday was pretty low key.  The older boys went golfing and the ladies stayed home with B so he could nap.  We took a walk by the "magoon" again (I kept trying to call it a lagoon but luckily I had Kaelyn there to correct me.  What would I do without her?) and then after afternoon naps went to Aunt Laurie and Uncle Hal's for dinner.  It was fun to see Matt's cousin's who we haven't seen in a while.  Kaelyn had a blast running around with the other kids.

Oh, did I forget to mention the actual drive?  Let's just say Matt did an awesome job driving the whole way there and back  Kaelyn watched more movies than I care to admit and I may win an award for the most verses of "Twinkle, Twinkle" sung in an hour.  The van was amazing for the trip.  I don't think we could have done it without it.  Good decision by us.  But now that we're back I think I'm quite happy with my little Ford Fusion and I'll hold off on joining the minivan caravan for awhile.  Maybe next time I'll be brave enough to try flying with two kids.

School pictures

Tear. My baby girl is all grown up. We got her first school pictures back last week. Naturally she wanted to wear Rapunzel dress on picture day.  Luckily I managed to get her out the door in "fancy" polka dot dress instead with few tears.

So cute!  Right?! Although I don't think I've ever seen that smile on her before. We have probably over a thousand pictures of her but for some reason I just can't stop looking at this one and thinking about how adorable and grown up she looks.  Her first ever school picture.  Bittersweet.

Kaelynisms

sweet girl

Sometimes this girl can drive me crazy, but she also makes me laugh out loud. Every day.  She can say, and do, the craziest things.  And sometimes it's just the way she says it.  And sometimes I really shouldn't laugh.  I bite my tongue and look away, but the laughter just comes anyway.  And hey, laughter's good for you, even it's laughing at something inappropriate my 3-year-old says.  Because I know I've already forgotten some of the hilarious things she used to say, I really want to record as many "Kaelynisms" as I can.

An oldie but a goodie: "oh dis KK why-go baba" which, when she was about 18 months to 2 years (I think, I really have no idea because my preception of time is totally out of whack) , meant "oh this Kaelyn's water bottle."

My current fave: "last day," which refers to anything that happened in the past.  Also, sometimes, but less frequently (and also less funny), "last year" or "last night" which also refers to any time in the past, not necessarily last year or last night.  She has a pretty good memory, so we hear about "last day" a lot.

"Mama, I like your necklace/juice/movies/whatever she wants to have or do at the time."  This is always said in a very sweet, honey-coated voice and intonation.  In Kaelyn speak "like" = want = you better give it to me right now or I'll stop sounding sweet and throw a tantrum.

"I don't think we've had/done X in a while."  Meaning it's about time we do/have this thing that I really want or, like above, I might throw a tantrum any minute.

Every night when Matt comes home she greets him by saying, "Dada, you still got your work clothes on."  I promise, it's funnier when you hear her say it.

"Dada has to go back to his medium."  Medium = meeting

"Oh, little, tiny, little, little B."  Or some other variation of the baby talk she must have heard us saying to B at some point.  She really nails the overly dramatic baby voice.

"Here comes the B Train, he's coming in the spaceship!"  Spaceship = station

"Mostly."  She just throws that in with a lot of things.  For example, "Dada mostly just calls him B Train."

"Booped your nose!"  Come on.  Does this really need further explanation?

"Don't do drippies or pinchies."  It started out with just "drippies" because she doesn't like water dripped in her face at bath.  And then one day she got pinched by her pajama zipper (or maybe it started when she zipped up Matt's coat and pinched him).  And now she always says them both together because you know, she frequently gets dripped with water and pinched by a zipper at the same time.

silly girl

"Belle over Belle."  This means she's wearing her Belle underwear over a Pull-Up with Belle on it.  Sometimes, also, "Princesses over princess" in the same vain.

"Irish boys" and "First down!"  While watching, or referring to, Notre Dame football of course.

"Big guys or little guys."  To which the answer is, "Big guys cut up into little guys."

"I got my milkers!"

Another oldie but a goodie: "Outside, Backyard!" Refers to playing outside in the backyard, duh.  But she says it with such enthusiasm.

God, I love this girl!

I'm sure there's a bunch I'm not thinking of right now.  Maybe I'll start writing them down and do a sequel post.  What are some of your favorite "Kaelynisms"?


P.S. Do you like my new header?  Perfect Halloween costumes, right?  Still not totally on board with the long, tangly hair, but whatev.  Getting over it.  It's a little large right now, I may need to play with the size.  I totally wish I could take credit for it (well, I'll take credit for the cute kids at least) but I have to thank my good friend Heather for her photography skills and creativity. (Who is also probably pulling her hair out right now at my awful grammar and use of commas in this post.)

Halloween fun

In case you didn't know, Matt and I don't really get into Halloween that much.  But we know it's a fun holiday for kids and we made sure our kids had some Halloween treats this year.

We picked out pumpkins for each of the kids from the makeshift pumpkin patch at the Wishing Well Motel across the street.  Yes people, every year they bring in probably hundreds of pumpkins and mums to sell on the front lawn of the dilapidated motel outside our subdivision.  I don't understand it, but every year we've lived here that is where we've bought our pumpkins.  I guess you could say we like to support our local businesses.

Naturally, Kaelyn had to wear her Rapunzel costume to pick out pumpkins.  I mean, why wouldn't she?

This is the closest I could get to them both looking and smiling at the camera at the same time.

We brought them home and helped Kaelyn carve hers into a jack-o-lantern.  She was very excited about the whole process and loved touching the slimy yucky insides and seeds.

The girl has an amazing memory.  She remembered kissing the pumpkin when we carved them last year.  So of course she had to kiss the jack-o-lantern again this year.  I think it's become her Halloween tradition.

Pretty sure it was the only night we ever actually lit our jack-o-lantern but I had to get the obligatory picture of them with it all lit up on the front step (even though it was still light out and you can't actually tell there's a candle inside).

Kaelyn and I also had a blast at her classroom Halloween party.  I was a little reluctant volunteering to help but was very excited to see her and her new school friends in action.

I tried to get my creativity on, but in reality I ended up stealing this cute idea for a snack from another blog.

Oh, did I forget to mention that Kaelyn was Rapunzel for Halloween, oh wait, I mean she was Rapunzel like every day in October?  Oh yeah, and they really nailed the name for that movie.  It would be a real shame if her "long hair" accidentally got left somewhere and was never ever to be seen again.

"The Princess and the B"

Kaelyn was a bit of a dawdler while trick-or-treating last night and had to constantly be reminded to keep up, but I think it was just because she was having so much fun looking at everything and stomping in the leaves. And to be fair, the long hair may have been weighing her down a little and possibly obstructing her vision.  Hey, when you're not used to having any hair, suddenly having three feet of it can cause a girl problems.  We went with her best bud Hudson, who happens to live in the same neighborhood as her favorite babysitter who gave her some extra special treats of course. 

She was a little shy when she went up to the doors, but luckily Hudson was there to take the lead.  Part of me is glad she's still a little wary of strangers, but part of me wishes she were more outgoing.  But she had such a great time and she's freaking adorable no matter what.

Happy Halloween everyone!

Go Irish Boys!

Last weekend Brennan made his first trip to Notre Dame to see the Irish take on Navy.  It was a little chilly but overall a gorgeous weekend in South Bend (minus the random thirty minute hail storm in the middle of tailgating).  We stayed in a house just a couple blocks from campus, which was so convenient since we could walk just about everywhere we needed to go.  Kaelyn was very excited to see the "Golden Done" so we took a stroll over to campus Friday after nap and she loved it.  I think she would have gone in and out all night, first looking at the Golden Dome outside and then inside to see the angels on the ceiling and the giant crown.  But alas, Nana had dinner waiting for us so we had to leave.

B's first tailgate experience was touch and go at first, but after a couple naps were had he was the life of the party.

Bantering with Dada and making everyone smile.

Kaelyn seemed to enjoy the tailgate too.  She had a lot of fun playing football with Dada, Pop and Uncle Jay.  Seeing her running around in her ensemble reminded me a of a scene with Jim Carey in Ace Ventura.  There were a few giggles and comments from strangers when they saw her but I think she looked great.  I only wish I could pull off an outfit like that.  Once she tired of football she got to watch a little bit of Jasmine and play games on Pop's "keekapooter" (computer).

Too bad she's missing her crown in this picture, it really completed the outfit

And I would vote to take her more often since she was so well behaved the whole weekend and so polite.  When we went out to breakfast Sunday morning she ordered her own drink food like a little lady - pleases and thank you's without even being reminded!  And of course what Notre Dame weekend would be complete without a second trip to the Bookstore and second and third trip to the "Golden Done."  We left South Bend on Sunday with an Irish win, a $16 bracelet for Kaelyn from the bookstore (Dada thought it would only be a couple dollars but he must have mistook the bookstore for Walmart) and some happy and tired kids (who thankfully slept most of the ride home).