The Mullis Family

New Dog on the Block

2012-02-09T21:31:00.000-06:00

This morning, Mom and I were working in the office when we heard a ~~little~~ loud voice yelling, "Look! I'm a dog too!" I went to check out the noise and found this:

Kinley, our new dog! She fits so nicely in that crate. Maya was so confused!

Although Kinley was pretending to be the new dog in the house, we actually do have a real new dog in the house now too! Meet Henry!

He's my parents new dog but he's around us just as much as my parents right now so I guess we can kinda claim him too! Henry and Maya immediately hit it off and have become fast friends. They play hard all day.

Marley, on the other hand, is none to pleased about this addition to the family. She mostly growls at Henry, hides, and sticks to herself!

Kinley loves Henry too but he gives her fits, stealing her toys, stealing her snacks, and chasing her! Wait a minute.....that's generally what Kinley does to me all day too. Maybe she really is a dog too!

92 Years!

2012-02-05T15:48:00.001-06:00

The big event of this weekend was my Mamaw's 92nd birthday yesterday. We weren't able to have all of the family together to celebrate but there were a lot of us around and it was a really nice time.

Kinley, in particular, enjoyed herself immensely because she had all of her cousins around to play with. I was pretty impressed that Josie could pick Kinley up like this! They are so sweet together!

And leave it to Kinley and Walker to find the air conditioning unit super entertaining!

Kinley and Mamaw resting

Some of the party people

We added everyone up yesterday and Mamaw has 4 children, 12 grandchildren, 25 great-grandchildren (plus 1 on the way), and 8 great-great-grandchildren. That's pretty impressive!

Here's Mamaw with her 4 children: Uncle JL, Uncle Melvin, Aunt Liz, and my mom.

Mamaw with her 4 kids and all of the great-grandchildren that were at the party.

It's pretty much impossible to get a group shot with all of the little ones smiling. As you see above, all of the kid are smiling (or at least looking at the camera) except Kinley who has her hand in her face. And then Kinley's smiling in the one below while Walker's running away, Uncle Mel's trying to wrangle him back and Josie's looking distraught! So funny!

The grandchildren who were at the party with Mamaw: Julie, Michelle, Keith, Tim, and me.

I love this picture below of my mom and Mamaw. I think it's so good of the two of them.

More fun with cousins! The nursing home isn't exactly the most exciting place for little ones but they had a good time making their own fun. They played ring around the rosies, hide and seek, chase, and anything else they could think of!

And I guess that Kinley had too much fun because she collapsed on the floor. She used to do this all of the time and I thought it had stopped but I guess not!

I think Mamaw really enjoyed her party. We all enjoyed getting to celebrate her!

Fun with Cousins #2

2012-02-03T18:42:00.000-06:00

Kinley and I got to spend the day today with Josie. She was out of school so I took the two girls to the Children's Museum in Monroe. It's a really cute place and they had such a good time. I took tons of pictures so here's some for you to check out! Kinley the fire dog....

Playing in the sandbox

Trying to make a giant bubble around themselves. Too bad they kept bending over and busting it with their bottoms!

The water table

Playing in the giant mouth where Kinley kept shouting, "It's eating me! It's eating me! Oh no!"

Working together to brush the giant teeth

I think their favorite part was the Kid's Cafe. They loved preparing food for each other and pretending to be waitresses.

I'm not sure what Kinley was doing with the ketchup and mustard but I'm pretty sure that a ketchup and mustard drink would be really nasty.

The girls other favorite activity was probably the kayak.

There was a camera filming them that then showed them on the tv screen like this:

Obviously, in the picture above Kinley had fallen out of the boat! Josie told her, "Get back in the boat! Your pants are getting wet!"

They also had a big firehouse that the girls played in too. Part of the firehouse had a jail in it so I happily sent the girls to jail!

They had so much fun and were so sweet together all day long. We followed up the museum visit with a trip to McDonald's and Target and I never heard one ugly word out of either of them. I was so proud and it made for such a good time! And after being together all day long, they are currently cuddled up together in a chair in the den playing perfectly together on the ipad. I love seeing that!

Fun with Cousins #1

2012-02-03T17:57:00.000-06:00

Kinley, Mom, and I are in Louisiana for the weekend. Kinley's already having the BEST time with her cousins! Ty took Kinley and Lucy for several rides down the hill in the backyard on top of what I think looks like a cooler but it's actually a gardening cart.

Lucy's turn!

Having a blast!

Piling on top of Ty

After all of the running, jumping, riding around, and rolling down the hill along with shooting off fireworks, you would have thought that all three of them would have been worn out. Yeah right! They all piled on top of Uncle Gordan to watch tv and started to calm down for a little while until they had a small dance party. Uncle Gordan introduced them to the timeless tune, "Don't Mess with my Toot Toot" and they danced their hearts out!

Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures or video of that but it was entertaining to say the least!

Every night when I'm putting Kinley to bed, before we pray I ask her what she wants to thank God for that day. Last night she said, "For dancing to the Toot Toot song with Ty and Lucy." I thought that was so cute!

Swim Lessons

2012-01-31T10:08:00.000-06:00

I mentioned in the last post that Kinley started swim lessons last week. To say that she loves swim lessons is a huge understatement! Here she is before we left....she can hardly contain her excitement! Ha!

The funniest thing to me is that this swim coverup is an 18-24 months size but we still use it because even though it's a little small, it works and it's super cute. Since her first lesson, she's been working on "holding her bubble." That just means holding her breath. Here she is practicing....

I took lots of pictures yesterday at lessons and I'll try not to bore you with too many! This is her little class. There are four girls and one boy. Kinley is the youngest by quite a bit as I think most of the kids in her class are closer to four years old.

Swimming with Miss Paige and Gracie as the backpack.

Over

And under...

More swimming

Swimming on her back

She has made so much progress in just two weeks. Before we started lessons, she refused to go in the water without her swimmies/floaties on. Now, she doesn't even mention her swimmies.

She's also started to dive down into the water to pick up things off of the steps. And if she falls or slips down into the water over her head, she knows to kick her feet and go toward the side.

She's most definitely the most vocal kid in her class though, which cracks us up! She'll get excited and announce, "Woo hoo! This is fun!" "Yeehaw!" When she's having her turn swimming with Miss Paige, she'll tell the other kids, "I'll be right back." And then when she's swimming back towards them, she makes sure to announce, "I'm coming back, guys, okay?" One of the other moms told me that it seems like Kinley's favorite part of the lesson is getting to socialize. I couldn't disagree with her!

I think it's helping too that we have easy access to a pool at Nea and Ry Ry's house where Kinley gets to practice all of her new skills.

Another good thing? All of this swimming wears her out!!!

Another Birthday!

2012-01-23T20:28:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, we celebrated Jake's 31st birthday! For his birthday dinner, he chose shrimp creole. We were all happy about that and it was delicious!

Again, Kinley pretty much took over the gift opening. She seems to think that no matter whose birthday it is, she is the designated "gift opener." She also chose the gift wrap for Jake this year as well. And as you can see in the pictures, she chose Toy Story paper!

Kinley also thinks that it's her job to blow out the candles on the cake regardless of whether it's her birthday or not! She actually blew out the candles on Jake's cake three times! She did let Jake help her blow them out the first time so I guess that was nice of her. Ha!

We had a lot of fun celebrating Jacob and I think he had a pretty good day too (even though he had to work).

On other subjects, Kinley started swim lessons today! I was a little bit nervuos about how they would go but she did awesome!!!! I was so proud. Here's a few pictures but they're from my phone so they're not great. I'm going to take the good camera next week and try to get some better shots.

She's the youngest one in her class by almost a year but she hangs right there with them. She's also the class clown, often yelling "Yeehaw! This is fun!"

Happy Birthday, Nea!

2012-01-17T14:19:00.000-06:00

Birthday season has begun around here! Seriously, the majority of our family's birthdays fall in the next 3 months. We kicked it off with Mom's birthday yesterday!

My plan was to go buy Mom a beautiful cake, however she wanted me to make this one instead. Everyone in the family (myself included) thought this was a very risky decision on her part but the cake turned out pretty yummy. I mean, I guess it's hard to mess up a cake that only calls for chocolate cake mix, diet coke, cool whip, and a package of chocolate pudding mix.

Kinley LOVED blowing out Nea's candles. Thankfully, she let Nea do it on her own at first but then the candles had to be re-lit three different times so that Kinley could keep blowing the candles out!

Kinley also loved helping Nea open her presents. This child is obsessed with opening presents. When I was wrapping the gifts, if I took my eye off of her for one second, she was ripping the paper apart. To say that she's looking forward to her birthday is an understatement, I think!

We hope that Nea had a wonderful 53rd birthday!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, and just to top it off......Here's a picture of the biggest cheeser ever!

Transitions and Rewards

2012-01-07T21:04:00.001-06:00

After waiting pretty much forever to do it, we finally transitioned Kinley to a big girl bed this past week. Yes, she'll be 3 next month. Pretty much everyone I know made this transition with their kids when they hit 2 or shortly after 2. But, ya'll, I just couldn't do it. We had such a difficult time getting Kinley to sleep through the night and any time we've ever made the slightest change to her night time routine, it's weeks of tears, tantrums, sleepless nights, and it's just super stressful. I was stalling....there I admit it!

We finally decided to bite the bullet and do it after two nights of her climbing out of her crib and running into our bedroom before sunrise. To say that it's been hard is an understatement. To say that we have a strong-willed child is an understatement! The first night consisted of her screaming and crying constantly as well as climbing out of her bed and running out of her room repeatedly. This went on until about 4am when I gave up and crawled into bed with her so that we could all get some sleep. Pretty much the same exact thing happened night two except that we put a door knob cover on the inside knob of her door so that she couldn't get out of her room. She screamed, cried, insisted that she had to go potty for hours on end. I think she gave up once and slept for 2 hours before she started up again with the screaming and crying. I think that day, I gave up about 4:30am or so again and got in bed with her. Yes, I know that's probably the worst thing I could do but when I have a work day ahead of me, it's not an option to get zero sleep. Night three was pretty much exactly like night two with very little sleep for anyone.

Oh, and did I mention that these same behaviors go on during nap time? It's a little easier to ignore during nap time because I'm busy doing things myself. However, the other day I ignored her for about an hour and then heard her yell, "Mommy, I need a wipe." Ugh oh. I walked into her room and found that she had poop finger-painted her whole room. I won't go into the details but let's just say I was horrified. I've heard plenty of other parents share stories about their kids doing that but I really never thought I'd see it myself. It was AWFUL! And I suppose Kinley thought she was teaching me a lesson. UGH. And to be honest, she was probably successful because she ended up having to take a bath which then lead to her not having to take a nap at all.

Last night, we decided to try something different. I told her that we could keep her bedroom door open if she stayed in bed, however the first time she got out of bed that bedroom door would be shut and it would not open again until the morning. I also told her that if she was able to stay in bed all night, we would go to the park today. She specifically asked if we could go to one with swings so that is what I promised. Stay in bed all night, go to the park with swings tomorrow. Did I think it would work? Nope. I can't remember a time when she has ever responded to a bribe or reward. However......

She did it!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's not to say that the night was perfect. She did fuss a little when I first put her down but it was minimal. And she did wake up about 5:00am crying, but she never got out of bed. All I asked was that she didn't get out of bed. That was our goal and we reached it. So we went to the playground today and played on the swings!

And she climbed on this strange spider web looking thing.

And got lots of energy out running around.

I am so thankful that we had at least one good night so far. That doesn't mean that I'm naive enough to think that everything's smooth sailing from here on out. For all I know, tonight may be a nightmare again. But she did it for one night, so she CAN do it again. Let's just hope that this transition goes a little more smoothly from here on out. I'm praying!!!

And to finish the post off....here's a cute picture of her in my shoes today. She is such a mess! But she's seriously good at walking in heels!

Spring Day in January

2012-01-07T20:38:00.000-06:00

Yesterday we had an unusually warm day and it was wonderful!! I think we got up to like 78 degrees yesterday! Needless to say, we tried to spend some good quality time outside in the beautiful weather! You never know when we'll see it next. Of course, this is Texas so we could very well see 78 degrees again next week....but still!

Kinley seems to think to that she has mastered the hop a long. She keeps sitting on it and yelling, "Look! I'm doing it!" She doesn't really hop though. Mostly, she just scoots but she's excited about it!

This picture on her bike cracks me up! She looks like she's taking off so fast! Too bad she only ended up crashing into the house.

Cheese:)

New Orleans #4

2011-12-31T21:25:00.001-06:00

Friday, we went to Magazine Street to do some shopping. Once back at the house, we spent more time outside. Kinley loves, loves, loves swinging with Grandaddy as you can tell by this picture. She would would climb up with him and say, "Do Spaghetti!" She loves to hear Grandaddy sing "On top of spaghetti (old smokey)." She loves to sing "This Old Man" with him too.

My mom got a Kindle for Christmas and Kinley has already mastered how to use it. She's made sure that Nea has plenty of games for her to play on it!

Pretty girl:)

We finished out our last day in New Orleans with a yummy dinner with the whole crew. After, Kinley enjoyed getting to play with Uncle Rick some more.

Kelsi, Grammie, and me

We had such a great time during our visit!!! We love spending time with family and having fun in our favorite city.

New Orleans #3

2011-12-31T21:18:00.000-06:00

Thursday, we spent time shopping and then headed back out to Lafreniere Park to enjoy the nice afternoon. We had just about perfect weather during our whole visit. Before leaving for the park, Kinley decided to show Dad some of her gymnastics skills on Gram and Grandad's front railing.

Most people tell their kids not to hit people with sticks. In our case, Kinley was being strongly encouraged to fight Aunt Kelsi with her stick. And look at how excited she is about it! Ha!

Silly girl!

Kinley and Mom

New Orleans #2

2011-12-31T21:02:00.000-06:00

On Wednesday, we headed downtown to the French Quarter. We always love going down there and have so much fun! It was SO crowded, which was great to see. Kinley was really wanting a balloon so we stopped to let this nice fella make her balloon, specifically a cat balloon.

So excited waiting for her balloon!

I thought this cat balloon was going to be your typical run of the mill dinky balloon animal but I was mistaken! It turned out to be a rather large cat with wiggly eyes and all! I have to admit, I was pretty impressed and Kinley was thrilled even though she has a super serious look on her face in this picture.

Only in New Orleans.....

Dad, Kelsi, and Kinley waiting to eat lunch at Masperos

Kelsi and me

Mom and Dad in Jackson Square

Fun shopping!

Kinley and me on the river

After a super fun day, Kinley crashed!

New Orleans #1

2011-12-31T20:47:00.000-06:00

The day after Christmas, we loaded up and headed to New Orleans. Jake wasn't able to go because of work, so that stunk but I was glad that the rest of us were able to go. We did miss him a lot though:( The trip down there felt like it took forevever. The traffic and weather were pretty much terrible! Once we finally got there, we opened presents with my grandparents, Uncle Rick, and Aunt Patsy. Kinley was thrilled that she had more gifts to open!

Oh, and take notice of the Saints game on the tv behind Kinley. We definitely got there in time to watch the game and watch Drew Brees set his new record! Kinley wasn't too interested in the game though and was much more interested in playing with Uncle Rick. She became quite obsessed with that gigantic turtle!

The next day, we enjoyed spending some time outside in Grammie and Grandaddy's backyard. Kinley really enjoys playing back there and she definitely needed to get some energy out after being in the car for 11+ hours the previous day. Here she is swinging with her Yo Gabba Gabba friends....

Kinley and Grandaddy playing...

I think I've mentioned on the blog before, but New Orleans has the BEST Christmas lights hands down of any city I've ever been to. I just love, love, love, the tackiness of the yard decorations and they're everywhere!!! This particular yard was right by my grandparents house and was Kinley's favorite. We had to drive past it 2-3 times every night for her to stop and look at it.

We also went to Lafreniere Park to check out their lights.

Kinley was being weird that night and refused to walk at all. I had to carry her through the whole park because she wouldn't let anyone hold her but me. It was exhausting! It also meant that I wasn't able to take very many pictures either. And the ones I did get weren't great. For example:

We also went to Rivertown in Kenner to check out the lights down there.

Again, Kinley was being weird. The only way I was able to take any pictures was to plant her on this picnic table and listen to her whine!

Stick with me....more posts to come!

Christmas Day

2011-12-25T15:24:00.000-06:00

We have had such a wonderful Christmas Day and we hope that ya'll have as well! Here's a before shot of the tree and all of the gifts:

Kinley was so excited about all of the presents Santa left her!

Maya enjoyed her Christmas bone

We try to keep the stocking stuffers fun around here!

Such a happy girl!

Aunt Kelsi got Kinley the carrot she's been wanting from Ikea! Who knew a kid would love a carrot so much?!?

Cruising in her new car!

Me and Jake

Me and Kelsi

Mom and Kelsi

Kelsi, Kinley, and Maya

We had to take a break from opening gifts while Dad went to church. But we jumped right back into it as soon as he got home!

Christmas isn't complete without a funny pair of underwear for Dad! Ha!

Kinley has enjoyed spending the rest of the day playing with her toys. She got SO much stuff!!

Christmas Eve

2011-12-25T15:02:00.000-06:00

We went to the Christmas Eve service at church last night and we actually got a pretty good family picture in front of the tree while we were there! Kinley's even smiling! Wonders never cease...

My parents...

When we got home, we enjoyed our traditional Sausage Eve meal! I think I mentioned it on here last year but pretty much every item on our Christmas Eve menu includes sausage. Strange? Maybe. Delicious? Definitely!

After dinner, we opened our usual two gifts. One is always an ornament and the other is always pajamas. Kinley waited so patiently to open her gifts.

And then she quickly had a meltdown when she realized that none of her presents had toys in them! We ended up letting her open a gift from Gram and Pop that had play doh in it and she was thrilled!

Quick kid and grankid photo op!

Merry Christmas

2011-12-24T22:47:00.000-06:00

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.

Luke 2:11

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve Eve

2011-12-23T17:17:00.000-06:00

We have done a whole lot of running around today. I was hoping to get some good shots of Kinley in this particular Christmas dress but it was pretty cold outside and she was more interested in running around than posing for pictures so that plan didn't pan out so well! She gave me a few smiles anyway though so it turned out okay:)

I tried, again, to get a cute shot of Kinley in front of the tree. I don't know what it is, but the child is not cooperating! I WILL get a cute shot in front of the tree before Christmas is over (I hope)!

Christmas Projects

2011-12-22T17:11:00.000-06:00

We've been really enjoying this week! I've had lots of projects planned to do with Kinley including cooking, crafts, and just fun stuff in general. The other night, I was hoping to get a cute shot of Kinley in her pjs in front of the tree. She is such an uncooperative model sometimes! This is the best I got:

We painted one day, which was a lot of messy fun! Kinley really enjoys painting. And, as you can tell, Maya was supervising!

Here are two of the semi-finished projects. There were other details added later that I didn't snap a picture of but they turned out really cute!

After painting, Kinley moved onto her regular mischievous behavior...

Aunt Kelsi's also in town! We are so enjoying having her around! Kinley loves playing with Aunt Kelsi.

Clearly, Kelsi's a lot of fun!

Like a lot of people lately, I'm obsessed with Pinterest. The previous two paintings that I showed you, were found on Pinterest. The following project was also an idea off of Pinterest....

I think Kinley and I both agreed that this Pinterest project was kind of a bust! Can't you tell by the look on her face?!?

I guess I thought she would enjoy putting the icing on the ice cream cones or that maybe she would enjoy decorating them. She really didn't care anything about them other than licking a little bit of the icing off. Oh well! It was a fun project for about 2 whole minutes! Ha!

Clearly, she had fun regardless!

The Past Few Days...

2011-12-17T20:59:00.000-06:00

Like most people this time of year, we've had a lot going on lately. The past two weeks, I was working a lot trying to get ahead so that I could truly be off of work for the next two weeks. That meant Kinley spent a lot of time hanging out at the house entertaining herself. She's been doing a pretty good job of staying busy herself though and being cute at the same time:)

Jake had her outside playing basketball the other day. This girl is going to be an athlete....no way around it. As much as I priss her up and make her as girly as possible, she is going to be an athlete.

And this thrills her Daddy to no end!

And, yes, she is playing basketball with a soccer ball. Unfortunately, Maya bit a hole in Kinley's little basketball and we haven't replaced it yet.

Happy girl with blue sucker on her face!

Rolling down the berm...

After all of that hard playing outside, Kinley disappeared to her room. We realized after a while that it was a little too quiet up there. Jake and Mom walked upstairs to check on her and found this:

Oh yes, she is totally passed out asleep next to the trash can, on top of trash, with her pants down! Seriously!??!?!?! It looks like the morning after a rough night of partying! Obviously, she used the bathroom at some point but how she fell asleep before pulling her pants back up....I'll never know. Won't she love this photo when she's older?!?! Ha!

Last night, Jake, Dad, Kinley, and I headed over to Prestonwood Baptist to visit their walk through Christmas activity for kids. Kinley had a great time! I didn't take many pictures but she enjoyed decorating cookies...

And her favorite thing was visiting the animals, specifically the donkey.

And in case you missed it.....yes, she does have a red Rudolph nose!

A red dot on her nose was all the face painting lady could talk her into!

I'm off of work until January 3rd!!!! So, look for lots more posts to come!

Singing

2011-12-13T11:56:00.000-06:00

Just thought I'd post two cute videos of Kinley singing and ~~banging~~ playing the piano! The first video is Jingle Bells:

This second one starts out as Jingle Bells and then goes into Kinley's version of Feliz Navidad (thank you Dora)!

Carols and Cookies

2011-12-10T11:42:00.000-06:00

We're all enjoying the Christmas season around here! Kinley's really into banging on the piano lately so Mom decided to show Kinley how you're actually supposed to play the piano by showing off her skills with a few Christmas carols.

I think Kinley was shocked that someone actually knew how to play the thing! But she liked it and did a little dancing..

And then she also tried to play along with Nea. Let me tell you how well that worked out! Ha!

And just in case you spotted him behind Kinley in the above picture, Mimmie TP'd our tree!

My parents watched Kinley for us last night while we went to our Sunday School class Christmas party. We had a great time! (And I totally stole this picture from Andrea....So, Andrea, if you read this...Thanks!!)

We also decorated Christmas cookies this morning.

And in typical kid fashion, Kinley enjoyed licking the spoon with the icing on it more than anything!

The BEST dog!

2011-12-08T19:58:00.000-06:00

We have the BEST dog on the planet! By no means is she a perfect dog, but she sure is perfect for us:)

Here are some cute shots from Kinley, Jake, and Maya's cuddling session tonight.

Best friends

Santa!

2011-12-06T20:52:00.000-06:00

We made a visit to Santa today! I thought it was going to be a quick visit, however the particular mall we were at has a whole Ice Palace display/experience that you walk through before seeing Santa. It ended up being a lot of fun and Kinley had a great time! She got to put her hand in a polar bear's frozen footprint.

Kinley got to see how she measures up to a polar bear also.

They had a giant snow globe with more polar bears inside.

Pretty trees!

And Kinley's favorite part.....

Snow!

Making snow angels! The child had snow everywhere!

And the best part awaited her at the end........seeing Santa!

I have to say I'm pretty pleased with her Santa picture this year! Oh, and in case you're wondering.....she told Santa that she wants a cat (thank you Lilli Johnson for putting this idea into her head)!

A Visitor!

2011-12-05T21:07:00.000-06:00

One of our best friends from high school, Daniel, flew into Dallas this weekend for a conference with his job. We were so glad that he was able to fly in a day early and spend some time with us before he had to get to his actual work resonsibilities. We always have so much fun together!

This was the first time that Kinley and Daniel had met and she took to him pretty quickly. We only wish that he had been able to bring Chloe with him so that the two girls could have played together. I know that they would have such a great time together.

We didn't have a whole lot of time but we tried to show Daniel some highlights of Dallas. Here he is in Dealey Plaza on one of the X's on Elm Street. I feel like we have one of these pictures for every visitor that we have to Dallas!

It was SO incredibly cold and rainy. Kinley hung in there with us and was so good but can't you tell she's freezing?!? Poor thing:(

Kinley, Jake, and Daniel

We also took Daniel to see all of the major sports arenas/stadiums/facilities in the city. Needless to say, Kinley and I hung out in the car and watched movies while the boys got out and explored! Even though we didn't get too much time with Daniel, we really enjoyed the time that we did have with him. It's always good to catch up with old friends and hopefully we're going to see him again soon!

Yo Gabba Gabba Live!

2011-12-05T20:56:00.000-06:00

Saturday night, Kinley, Jake and I went to Yo Gabba Gabba Live. As you can imagine, Kinley was super excited! She has always loved Yo Gabba Gabba. Here she is ready to go:

All three of us:

We actually got the tickets as an early Chrismas present from my parents. So, thanks Mom and Dad!! We had a great time!

Kinley was watching so seriously! She always starts out so calm and focused on these shows. It's almost like she's in shock that they're live and not on a tv screen!

Leslie was there! (Kelsi, this picture is for you!) Ha!

Biz Markie was there too!

Having fun with Daddy!

Kinley got down and did quite a bit of dancing in the aisles! It was so funny!

Saying goodbye!

Poor Kinley got upset when the show was over and cried:( She definitely wasn't the only kid in tears leaving though! It's crazy how much kids love those strange characters!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas....finally!

2011-12-05T20:43:00.000-06:00

We've finally gotten all of the Christmas decorations out and the tree is up! I am feeling super behind this year. I've hardly purchased any gifts, our Christmas cards aren't even started, we haven't seen Santa, and I could go on and on. I know that I will get to it eventually but I just don't know how I got so behind to begin with! Anybody else feeling that way?!?! Mimmie (our Elf on the Shelf) arrived on December 1st and he's been keeping a close eye on Kinley. Kinley has also been keeping a close eye on Mimmie. On days when Kinley's behavior hasn't been so great, we've noticed her trying to hide from Mimmie! It's pretty funny!

Kinley "helped" me get all of the decorations out. By "helped" I mean, she played with everything and hugged all of the Santas while I put them in their designated spots.

I guess she did a pretty good job of keeping Maya entertained and away from the decorations as I got them out. They have so much fun together!

I guess Kinley helped more than I thought she did though because she and Maya both look pretty tired in this photo!

I also tried to snap a few shots of Kinley in one of her Christmas outfits (this one made by my mom) in front of the tree Sunday morning. This is all I got:

Nice, huh??

Those are just about the best I can hope for these days!

Rounding Out the Trip....

2011-11-29T21:29:00.000-06:00

We had to head back to Dallas on Sunday but before we got back on the road, we went to church that morning. We always love going back to Biltmore to visit. Seeing familiar faces and catching up with friends that we miss always makes us happy!

We snapped a few pictures in Gram and Pop's backyard before beginnning the packing process after we got home.

We were also able to have a wonderful family lunch after church as well. Kinley had so much fun with Devon and Alex! Kinley knew Alex would play videos for her on her phone so she gladly planted herself in Alex's lap every chance she had!

Kinley, Shannon, and Kayla!

One last shot with Gram and Pop before getting in the car!

We are so thankful that we were able to make the trip and spend the holiday with Jake's family!

More Asheville Trip....

2011-11-29T21:19:00.001-06:00

Although we didn't exactly have a lot of downtime while we were in Asheville, we did get to enjoy hanging out at Jake's parent's house quite a bit. Kinley busted in on Jake and Devon's ping pong game...

Kinley then moved onto a little "Ring Around the Rosie" with Kayla. Thank goodness Kayla had a lot of patience with Kinley!

She worked on her backbend a little bit......ha!

And started to look really irritated at me taking her pictures all of the time! Too bad, little one! You should be used to it by now!

Saturday in Asheville

2011-11-28T21:43:00.000-06:00

Abby drove up to Asheville from Charlotte on Saturday to hang out for the day. Kinley and I were so happy to see her and so glad that she took the time to drive to see us. We headed to Fun Depot for a few hours and had a great time!

Aunt Abby is so much fun!

Aunt Abby teaching Kinley to drive! It did not go well!

More fun!

We also did a little shopping in Biltmore Park where they are all decorated for Christmas. Here's proof that I was actually there!

Abby, Kinley and me!

We also got to hang out with Kenan, Molly, and Steve on Saturday which was fun as always! Too bad the only picture I have to show for it is of the boys!

Needless to say, we enjoyed every minute we got to spend with these lifelong friends!

Hickory

2011-11-28T21:31:00.000-06:00

On Friday, we drove to Hickory to see the Johnson family. We miss them so much and were so glad that they were close enough for us to be able to visit with them for the day! Kinley had so much fun playing with the big girls. Kate and Claire were so patient with Kinley and so sweet!

Jake and Eric raked up a huge pile of leaves and the girls had a blast!

Doesn't it make you itch just looking at them in all of those leaves?!?!

Kinley relaxing in the leaves!

Kate's under there somewhere!

Claire getting a running start!

Absolutely no chance of getting a cute picture with all 4 girls looking at the camera at the same time. I had to give it a try though!

Brandi, forgive me for posting this one but it's too funny not to! Not only do I love Amelia about to fly through the air but I really love Lilli and Claire so excited to catch her! Ha!

And the best part of our day in Hickory was finally being able to meet their two newest additions! Meet Allie!

And meet Amelia!

They are the sweetest babies ever! I have been dying to meet them since they were born and couldn't get enough of either of them all day! They are the cuddliest little things and so happy! And don't you just love that hair on Allie?!?

We miss them (all 7 of them) already:( But we had so much fun spending the day with them and can't wait to see them again!

Trip to Asheville

2011-11-28T21:16:00.001-06:00

Jake, Kinley, and I made the long drive to Asheville last week to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with his family. We split the drive in half, driving as long as we could on Monday and then finishing up the trip on Tuesday. Kinley did so awesome! She is such a good little traveler. But I must give most of the credit to the DVD player! What in the world would we do without that invention? I'm quite sure I would lose my mind very quickly during these long car rides! To say that Kinley was happy to be at Gram and Pop's and out of the car was definitely an understatement though! Here she is showing Pop her guitar skills...

She also showed off some of her gymnastics skills. Funny thing is, Mr. Cody has been trying to get her to do this in class for weeks and she's refused! I'm going to have to take this picture to him to prove that she can do it!

Kinley loved playing with Kayla too. She followed Kayla around, copying everything she did.

We were thankful for beautiful weather in Asheville too. In typical fashion though, we wayyyy overpacked. I was thinking that it would be cold (as it usually is during November) so I packed mostly sweaters and cold weather clothing. It ended up being in the 60s most days, which was nice but not too cold. Kinley really enjoyed playing in Gram and Pop's backyard. She kept calling it the playground. I mean, they do have a trampoline, treehouse, swings, and hammocks so I guess to her it was a playground!

Kayla and Kinley hanging out in the treehouse...

One of the funniest things was seeing Kinley being so unsure of the leaves. We don't exactly have piles of leaves all over the ground in Dallas. It was almost like she didn't know how to walk in them!

Thanksgiving day was nice and low-key. We spent lots of time outside.

Kinley enjoyed playing with the dogs (all 25 of them). No, I'm kidding....there's not really 25 but there are a LOT! Not only are there several dogs that actually belong to the family but then it seems that the neighborhood dogs all end up at Jake's parent's house too! Kinley was in heaven! I think she might end up being a veterinarian some day.

Showing off some of her cheerleading skills that Kayla taught her...

Kinley, Jake, and Kayla also did a bit of work in the treehouse that day too. It was pretty messy! But then again, I'm not sure it had been played in for quite a while considering the massive amount of leaves and sand all over the place! Once they had it cleaned out, Kinley wanted to spend as much time in there as possible.

Kinley and Kayla helping Gram and Pop in the kitchen...

Making crescent rolls is serious business apparently! She looks so serious!

I have more pictures from our trip to post so stick with me! This is just post #1!

Bike Riding Video

2011-11-13T21:51:00.001-06:00

Here's a cute video from today when Kinley was riding her bike. My favorite part is when she says "Weee!!! My doin it!" And please, please, please ignore my screaming/squeeling in the video as well. I wish I could just mute myself out of these videos all together!

Tricycle

2011-11-13T17:44:00.000-06:00

For Kinley's birthday back in February she got a tricycle. She's loved playing on it but mostly would just scoot it around with her feet on the ground. It wasn't that she couldn't pedal, she just wouldn't! This afternoon, however, she headed outside, hopped right on and took off!

Aren't kids funny that way, though? They can clearly do something but they just choose not to and then one day something snaps and they take off like they've been doing that one thing for years.

She had to take her pumpkin for a ride with her too. Before she took off, she turned around and said,"Hold on punkin! Buckle up!" She also doesn't quite understand how to avoid the curb and, instead, just slams right into it every time. It's quite funny!

Taking a break with punkin

Apparently all of that bike riding must be pretty exhausting because after she was finished riding, she collapsed in the yard!

Not much of an update..

2011-11-11T18:33:00.000-06:00

It seems like we've been really busy lately, but if you asked me to tell you what we've had going on it probably wouldn't seem like anything out of the ordinary. But still, I haven't had much time to blog or much to blog about lately either! So, here's just a quick update about what Kinley's been up to. She loves to play hide and seek or as she calls it "One two free, my find you." We all find it very entertaining because she's such a cheater! If she's hiding, she spends the entire time "hiding" actually switching spots and running all over the house. If she's seeking, she keeps her eyes open the whole time she's counting and only pretends to not know where the other person is hiding.

We've been trying to spend a good amount of time outside while it's still not really cold.

And I just think that the face she's making below is funny!

Kinley's been doing some more modeling for Mom as well!

She models clothes AND kitchen utensils apparently!

Kinley and I went to Drew's 4th birthday party last Sunday. His party was at ASI Gymnastics so it was a lot of fun for the kids. Here's a picture of the birthday boy..

Kinley loved jumping on the trampoline

I'm not quite sure she knew the situation she was getting herself into on the rope swing but it gave me a good laugh! Her eyes were huge at first and then she dropped as slowly as she possibly could into the foam pit. Hilarious!

Cupcakes!!! Or in Kinley's case I should just say....Icing!!! Because the icing is the only part she'll touch.

Like I said...not a whole lot going on lately! Just normal life for now I guess!

Trick or Treat!

2011-10-31T21:46:00.000-05:00

I had to work tonight but Jake, Mom, and Dad took Kinley trick or treating around the neighborhood. She was so excited and had been practicing saying "Trick or Treat!" for several days.

Apparently, her rather large dalmation had to go along too! They told me that when she went up to the first house, the door opened, and Kinley tried to go inside! I don't think she quite understood what she was supposed to do! Thankfully, the neighbors are nice. In fact, I think they told her to come on in!

Grabbing some candy with Ry Ry

She even found a pumpkin decorated with potato head pieces!

Back at the house, Kinley loved helping pass out the candy to the other kids too.

She would stare out the window waiting for more kids to come up and then when they would leave, she'd stare out the window watching them go. I hate that I had to miss it but I'm glad that they all had such a fun time! Now....time to go check out all of her candy!

Trunk or Treat

2011-10-30T21:44:00.000-05:00

Kinley decided that for Halloween she wanted to be her favorite toy...Mrs. Potato Head. Mom and I combined efforts to make her costume and I think it turned out pretty darn adorable!

It has extra pieces too for her to switch out. Here you can see her putting some extra pieces on her pumpkin!

Unfortunately, velcro doesn't exactly stick to pumpkins!

We went to a Trunk or Treat at a local church tonight. Our church doesn't have a fall festival or anything right now because of all of the construction going on so it's nice that we have so many other churches close that provide fun events.

Kinley loved playing all of the games.

And digging through the trunks for candy with Mom.

She also loved jumping in the inflatables. Does anyone else still call these moonwalks? I do...it'll always be a moonwalk to me!

Courtney, Mollie, and Drew joined us out there as well. We missed Leroy who had to work:( Drew/Buzz Lightyear is giving such a good smile in this picture and Kinley just looks clueless!

The kids all rode the train.

Kinley had been eating a blue sucker and ended up with blue all over her mouth!

Us!

Kinley also got a yellow puppy balloon animal. She LOVED this thing and kept hugging it and saying, "My wuv you, puppy!" Unfortunately, the puppy didn't survive very long and has already deflated and been snapped in two!

Mrs. Potato Head and Buzz with their balloons!

A few days ago, I tried to get Kinley to carve a pumpkin with me. Too bad she wanted nothing to do with it and I ended up doing all of the work! She loved watching me but didn't want to touch the pumpkin at all. She loved the end result though!

Our Weekend

2011-10-23T17:35:00.000-05:00

I helped host a Sip N See for my friend, Sarah, from church this past Saturday. It was a lot of fun and we were all so happy to be able to see baby Reid (and his Mommy and family too)! I kept the decorations pretty simple but I still think they turned out cute!

The Mommy, Sarah, and her daughter, Michelle. I think it was so sweet that Michelle was able to come and hopefully she had a good time too!

Hopefully Reid enjoyed getting passed around and snuggled. I know there were lots of people trying to get their hands on him and I was totally one of them! He's such a sweet baby.

I made several things for Reid that I ended up using for decorations. Here's one of the bibs that I think turned out pretty cute!

Today (Sunday), we actually got to go to church! I say that because last Sunday, we were almost ready to go and then Kinley threw up so we ended up not making it out the door. Here she is before church this morning....clearly feeling just fine today!

I had nursery today during the second hour in Kinley's class. Kinley enjoyed cleaning the floors for about 15 minutes! If we could only get her to do this at home!

After church, Mom, Kinley, and I headed out to the Huffhines Art Trails. Honestly, we had no idea what we were heading out to but we thought we might be able to find a few cute crafts for Christmas gifts or something. Sadly, we found nothing. They did have a pretty large playground that Kinley enjoyed though so that made the stop worth it.

I actually think we spent more time letting her play than we did walking around looking at the craft booths.

Hope ya'll have enjoyed your weekend as well!

Visit #2 to the Fair

2011-10-18T15:33:00.000-05:00

Mom, Kinley, and I went back to the fair so that we could enjoy some of the exhibits when it wasn't so crowded. When you go on the weekends or in the evenings, it's tough for the little kids to do the stuff that's fun for them because it's so crowded. So, it was nice to go during the day and let Kinley do some of the fun kid activities. We had already visited the petting zoo the other day but, of course, we had to make a stop there again!

Kinley liked checking out the little piglets. I just think piglets are so cute. The mama pigs....not so much!

We stopped in to listen to the Mother Goose Story Time also. As you can tell, overnight the temperature dropped here in Dallas. We went from a high of 90 yesterday to a high of 64 today!

I was kind of bummed (but found it funny) that Mother Goose didn't exactly look like I had expected but Kinley enjoyed it regardless!

Mom and Kinley in front of Big Tex. I had a lens on my camera today that wouldn't capture all of Big Tex so, sorry, all you get is his waist down! Ha!

But in case you care to see what he looks like close up:

The Texas Star

We also got to enjoy the music of a talented one man band! Again, I found this pretty funny as well!

I finally got a picture with Kinley smiling! Woo hoo!

Running around...

They have a children's farming exhibit that Kinley really enjoyed as well. She got to water the plants and pick some fruit:

Plant some seeds:

She also got to feed some sheep, cows, and chickens before she hopped on the tractor:

We had a great time but no more fair for us again until next year!

Fall at the Arboretum

2011-10-17T16:43:00.000-05:00

Mom, Kinley and I made a visit to the Arboretum to check out the pumpkin village. It's actually Cinderella's pumpkin village this year but we didn't really do any of the Cinderella themed stuff that's there. I did, however, get TONS of pictures of Kinley. I'll keep the narrating to a minimum and hope that you just enjoy the pictures!

They have some seriously large pumpkins out there!

My attempt at getting a picture of Kinley and me.....not so great. She was way more focused on chewing on her mouth.

Trying to reach the corn hanging from the ceiling.

Drumming with crazy hair! It is such a battle to keep a bow on her head.

Hugging the armadillo. Mom and I are thinking that maybe she'll become a veterinarian or a zoologist. She loves animals, real or fake!

Here's what she really likes to do in all of these prissy dresses I put her in....

She totally picked some flowers! I'm pretty sure this is a huge no no....

Cooking a mulch meal in one of the cabins

Pumping water

Hope you enjoyed the pictures!

Silly Girl

2011-10-15T16:56:00.000-05:00

Kinley keeps us laughing all of the time. One of her favorite things to do right now is play in my mom's makeup or my makeup. Sometimes turns into a big mess. But most of the time, the result is something like this:

She looks like a kid version of the Joker! She's so proud of herself too!

Another thing she loves to do is peel paper. If you give her a pack of crayons, the first thing she'll do is peel the paper off of each and every crayon. If you give her anything with a label, she peels the label off first before doing anything else. On this particular day, she decided to peel the paper off of this box:

Ya'll, I think she laid there and peeled that box for over an hour! Yes it made a mess but it also allowed me some quiet time!

I bought a storage box at the store the other night and as soon as Kinley spotted it when I got home, she had to have it. In my mind, it was a storage box for her summer clothes. In her mind it was a bed for herself and her friends:

And she fit just fine. Even with the lid on!

We could probably save a lot of money around here if we just kept the house stocked with packaging boxes and storages boxes. Who needs all of those expensive toys?!?!?

State Fair!

2011-10-15T16:44:00.000-05:00

We headed out to the State Fair last night and had a lot of fun. Kinley had a great time but I think she loved the car show the most. I'm just as surprised as everyone else about that but she really did love the car show! Here she is picking out a new Explorer!

And then she moved onto the Toyota Venza with a little help from Daddy.

She kept telling us she was driving to the store to buy toys. When I asked her what store she was going to, of course she said "Target!"

Yeah, she loved the car show.....until....she spotted this cricket! Maybe you can spot the little black dot toward the lower right. She was bound and determined to stomp that thing! Yuck! I don't know where she got that from. Certainly not from me! I was running away squeeling.

We also visited the petting zoo.

Kinley was all about feeding the animals all by herself.

Below is a picture of Kinley and Mom being silly. Kinley could just about fit her whole body through that hole!

Our friends Jeremiah and Tessa came along with us to the fair along with their sweet baby girl, Kenna. We were so glad they joined us! And I'm even more glad that Jeremiah and Kenna jumped in for one of these pictures too! Kenna looks so confused!

We had to make a stop, of course, for corn dogs (mini ones for Kinley).

We also had to make a stop to take a picture with Big Tex! Kinley was so mesmerized by Tex talking though that we absolutely could not get a picture with her looking at the camera. Oh well!

And even after all that fun, Kinley was still totally excited about a traffic cone. Go figure!

Fall??

2011-10-04T13:28:00.000-05:00

I've been seeing all of these pictures on facebook of people in their sweaters, turtlenecks, scarfs, jeans, coats, and boots. Does that mean it's Fall somewhere? Because it surely doesn't feel like Fall around here! Don't get me wrong, it's definitely cooled off. But it's still at least 80 degrees outside by lunch time everyday. We decided today to take Kinley out to the park to get some energy out and to enjoy the warm weather while we still have it

Kinley was drumming for us and singing a song she learned at The Little Gym. She loves to drum (really, she just loves to make as much noise as possible)!

Being that it is technically Fall, I'm having a difficult time choosing clothes right now for Kinley and myself. It's too hot outside for real Fall/Winter stuff but it's not really appropriate to be running around in sundresses and tank tops anymore either. Therefore, Kinley was wearing an outfit with a sand dollar on it today. Oh well!

While we were at the park, Jake noticed a strange looking plane flying overhead. Being the smart guy that he is, he realized that it was Air Force One. I pretty much thought he was crazy but nope, he was right. Obama is actually in Dallas today to speak. Whoop de doo, right?

Below, Kinley was pretending to be stuck.

Such a happy girl:)

The Little Gym

2011-09-29T13:43:00.000-05:00

Kinley's taking a class at The Little Gym once a week and she LOVES it! It's really good for her to get to run around and get some energy out while learning some gymnastics skills at the same time. Here's some pictures of her in action:

(I apologize for the poor quality of pictures. They're all taken with my phone.)

Kinley loves her teacher, Mr. Cody.

Bear crawling on the bars

Just Kinley

2011-09-18T21:32:00.000-05:00

Just posting some cute shots of Kinley from earlier today:

Clothes

2011-09-18T21:29:00.000-05:00

I've been doing tons of sewing lately trying to get Kinley's fall/winter wardrobe ready. Not that it's cooling down here or feeling like fall at all but still....it will at some point and then Kinley will need something other than sundresses and shorts to wear!

In case you haven't noticed, my mom and I make about 90% of Kinley's clothing. Why? Especially when it would be so easier and sometimes cheaper to go buy something from a store?
#1. I'm super picky and have caviar taste with a tuna fish budget (that's probably what my mother and husband would tell you anyway).
#2. The stuff that they sell for little girls in stores is AWFUL! I could go on and on about this but I'm constantly shocked at the clothes that stores are selling for girls ages 10 and below. I don't want Kinley to look like a teenager...she's 2! Even some of my go-to favorite stores such as Strasburg or Macy's are now carrying stuff that you would expect to see in the pre-teen area of most major department stores. Seriously...if you haven't been in Strasburg lately, give it a visit. You'll be surprised at what they have on the displays up front. Maybe I'm just too old fashion or traditional. I don't know but if you can't tell, it bothers me! Time to get off my soap box now...
#3. I like the fact that Kinley can have stuff that is unique, personalized, hand made by me or my mom, that no one else will have. Also, there's something a little more special (to me) about passing down handmade clothes to friends, cousins, and future kiddos.

Seriously, I did nothing but sew this weekend. I got a lot done but I still have a lot left to do. And I have a HUGE mess to clean up!

Great Wolf Lodge

2011-09-18T21:10:00.000-05:00

One of the many perks of my job is that we have lots of fun activities and events for our bigs and littles to attend. Often times, if we work those events, we get to bring our families along to enjoy the event as well. This past Thursday we had a match activity at Great Wolf Lodge where our bigs and littles could come and play in the water park for free until it closed. Needless to say, I worked the event which meant that Kinley, Jake, Mom and Dad got to come along and have fun too! I actually didn' t take that many pictures since I was working part of the event but I do have some to share (of course)!

Kinley spent most of her time in the kiddie area and the wave pool. Jake took her on the lazy river too, I think, while I was working. From what I heard, she also soaked Jake pretty good with this jet ski gun!

The picture below cracks me up! Kinley's pretending to be mad. She likes to re-inact episodes of Ni Hao Kai Lan where they talk about feelings. Kinley will stomp around like one of the characters with a frown on her face and say, "MY MAD!"

Hanging out while the waves are paused.

Heading into the waves!

Jumping the waves (with some help from Daddy)!

Kinley suckered her daddy into buying her a souvenir while I was working too. Meet "Wolfie!"

She loves him:)

Everyone had a great time! We'll be heading back out there soon to stay the night so there will most likely be another very similar post on here before long!

Weekend in Louisiana

2011-09-11T18:16:00.000-05:00

Mom, Kinley, and I spent this past weekend in Louisiana. Unless you live under a rock, you've probably heard about all of the wildfires in Texas. Although, none of them are near where we live, we did drive through quite a bit of smoke on our way to Louisiana. Thankfully, on our way back today the smoke was all cleared up, which is definitely a good sign that they're getting things under control.

My mom and aunt had to move my Mamaw from one nursing home to another so Kinley and I went along to help (a.k.a. offer Mamaw entertainment). It's hard to be much help when you have a 2 year old to chase around! But Kinley always loves to see Mamaw. She talked Mamaw's head off, danced, sang, and cuddled with her in the bed.

Kinley did a lot of playing outside.

And singing and dancing outside. This is her singing "Never Say Never" from An American Tale (one of her new favorites).

Kinley really loves spending time with her cousins too and plays so hard when we're there! Here's Faith, Kinley, and Lucy playing with sidewalk chalk under the carport.

Wrestling with Ty in the backyard.

Dancing with Josie before bedtime.

Kinley also loves going out of town because it usually means she'll get to sleep with Mommy. And, to be honest, she does pretty well. I don't lose too much sleep with her wiggly self in the bed with me!

We had a fun weekend but we're home now and thankful to be back!

Labor Day Zoo Visit

2011-09-05T19:45:00.002-05:00

We spent our last unofficial day of summer at the zoo. We wanted to wait until it cooled off a little and today was the perfect day for that. I know that ya'll are shocked to hear that, right? Hey, it was in the 80s today so that was definitely a cool front for us! Really, the weather was perfect and we had a great time! Kinley was all about seeing the giraffes. She didn't care a thing about the elephants and zipped right past them, in fact, to head straight for the giraffes.

Maybe it's because she knew about this little cutie. Baby Jamie is the newest giraffe in the zoo! How precious is that??

Checking out the cheetahs

Driving the jeep, which she did NOT want to leave.

The picture below could appropriately be captioned, "MOM, PLEASE stop taking my picture!"

Hugging the chimp

Quick picture while waiting to ride the monorail. Kinley totally thought we were back at Disney World and kept saying, "My go to Disney World. Disney World is fun!"

Waiting patiently for the ride to start

It wasn't exactly like the monorail at Disney, but it was still fun!

Looking pretty serious in this picture

Maybe she was wondering just how close this guy was going to get!

She had so much fun checking out the animals and climbing on the fences! This child still loves to climb.

We headed over to the children's zoo and Kinley had a blast. Her favorite part, by far, is the water area. She would have stayed there all day if we'd let her. It was super crowded though (not that she cared).

Getting dropped in by Daddy

Running!

Taking a rest

This picture cracks me up! She was telling people her foot was stuck and then she was acting like it was soooo hard for her to pull it out. Dramatic, maybe?? Don't know where she gets that....

Petting one of the goats. She loved the petting zoo area too!

We got in the car to head home and within 2 minutes, she was out!

Kinley topped off her Labor Day with some Fun Dip! Does that look like a happy kid or what?!?

Random Phone Pictures...again

2011-09-04T12:27:00.000-05:00

I feel like I should maybe start doing a once a week post that includes the pictures that I take on my phone! I take so many and then they all end up in some random post like this one. Oh well....here's a recap of some stuff we've been up to as documented by the camera in my phone! We had to pick my parents up at the airport at few weeks ago but their flight was delayed so we got there early, parked on the top of the parking deck, and watched the planes. Kinley is fascinated by airplanes and loved watching them land and take off.

She also loved running around too (as usual). Don't worry, the top of the parking deck was pretty much deserted and we were right with her so it was safe! In the picture below, you can see the top of her little head with downtown in the background.

Kinley loves to read. Mostly, she likes just telling us about the pictures on each page but it's a start! Here she is reading Winnie the Pooh. By the way, according to this book, Winnie the Pooh's real name is Edward Bear. I had no idea! There's your fun fact of the day!

Every 3rd Sunday, I keep the nursery at church during the 2nd hour. Well, lucky me.....Kinley's class just promoted to the class that I keep my one Sunday a month. I wasn't sure how it would go but she did well and most of the time forgot I was even there.

How do you like this ginormous Minnie? Costco has everything, don't they?

One happy girl:)

One of the malls has a little corner where there is a pad on the ground with lights and colors projected onto it. I don't have a clue how it works but when kids jump and wiggle around on it, it reacts to their motions.

Kinley loves it and would play on it forever if we let her.

I think that's about it for now! Hope you're all enjoying your Labor Day Weekend!

Two Year Photos!

2011-08-28T20:32:00.000-05:00

Back in July we had Kinley's two year portraits taken. We got some new family shots done as well. Our photographer was awesome and I love how the pictures turned out! I was only going to post a few but...well....you know how that goes:) Needless to say, I ended up posting a lot! Enjoy!

Yoga pose?? haha

Friday Evening at the Park

2011-08-27T17:34:00.000-05:00

We spent last night enjoying some of the park areas at White Rock Lake. I thought we'd be burning up considering that it was still 106 degrees outside at 6:00 but it actually wasn't too bad. We found a park that was totally in the shade so that helped. We even took Maya with us on this outing. Kinley, of course, loved the playground and did lots of swinging,

hugging chickens (ha!),

goofing off with Daddy,

showing off her skills from gymnastics,

and running around all over the place with Maya.

When the sun started to go down, we headed over closer to the water. I just think this picture below is a cool shot. You can see downtown in the background.

Kinley required a wardrobe change after waiting a little too long to go potty!

I was there too, I promise! Just not in any of the pictures (not that that's anything unusual at this point!)

I have a confession to make....for the first time in my whole life I am ready for fall. Summer is my favorite season but, ya'll, these days of temperatures over 100 are exhausting!

Charlie Bit Me...By Kinley

2011-08-23T14:18:00.000-05:00

I mentioned in my post below that Kinley loves the Charlie Bit Me video on Youtube. She loves it so much, she's memorized it and loves to run around immitating the video. Check it out:

More Facts & Funnies

2011-08-22T12:10:00.000-05:00

I realized the other day that I need to be documenting more of what Kinley says and does these days. Not just because she's so stinkin cute and funny but because as soon as she stops doing them, I quickly forget:( So, that's what this post is about! Here's some of the stuff she's up to lately:

Kinley knows her whole alphabet and can recognize every letter. Sometimes she gets stuck on recognizing Q but she does well, overall, with all of the others. With a few letters, she can also tell you words that begin with that letter. For example, she knows apple begins with A and banana begins with B. She can't do the whole alphabet like that yet but I have a feeling it won't be too long for that. And I have to be honest, her knowing these things has very little to do with us! We all go over letters and stuff with her some, of course, but I'm pretty sure she's learned most of it from the Ipad!
She can count to twenty and can recognize all of those numbers by sight as well. She can also count backwards from 5.
Instead of saying "I," she says "My." For example: "My want to watch Toy Story." "Mommy said my can't do that."
When Kinley says I love you, she says both, "My wub you, Daddy. My wub you too, Daddy." She doesn't quite get that the other person is supposed to say I love you too.
She hasn't mastered how to pronounce L yet and it mostly comes out sounding like a Y. For example: "My yike yotso huggin bear."
Kinley doesn't understand the meaning of thank you. Sounds wierd? Yeah, it is! For some reason, she thinks thank you is something bad. So, if she does something nice and you say, "Thank you, Kinley," she falls into tears. This also goes for "you're welcome." We have no idea why she thinks those phrases are bad, but somewhere along the line she associated them with something negative. I REALLY hope we get past this soon!
She's still a super picky eater. Her favorites still include: macaroni & cheese, pizza, grapes, cheese, hot dogs, bread (any kind), cheeze its, fruit snacks, rice, chips & queso, cheese quesadillas, ketchup (she'd eat it by the spoonful if we let her) and bacon. Kinley LOVES turkey bacon. She eats 2-3 pieces everyday for breakfast.

Lately when she gets frustrated or angry, we've heard her saying, "Oh, buggers!" Thank you Peppa Pig! My child now thinks that she's British! By the way....she is obsessed at the moment with Peppa Pig.
Kinley still loves everything Toy Story. To be honest, she just loves everything Disney. In fact, just today she begged for some Toy Story stickers at Hobby Lobby, which she then used to decorate her leg while in the car.

One of her other favorite things to watch right now is the Charlie Bit Me video on Youtube. She thinks that it is one of the funniest things ever. She will watch it over and over and over again and laugh equally hard every time. She also thinks it's hilarious to tell people, "Charlie bit me! That really hurt, Charlie!"
She has such an imagination! The other day she took some plastic bowls out of the cabinet, put them on her feet, and told me that she was skating.

She would fall down and say, "Skating's really hard!"

Kinley's also really gotten into painting and just arts and crafts in general lately. I found a great finger paint recipe on pinterest (I'm obsessed with pinterest by the way) that we tried out and she loved it!

She's also started to enjoy helping in out in the kitchen, mostly when we're preparing an activity for her. Really, she just makes a big mess and has a blast doing it!

Here's Kinley playing with her homemade play dough after she made the HUGE mess!

Yes, she does wear pants (in case you're wondering)! I just realized that in most of these pictures, she's only wearing a shirt. That's just because her mama was lazy and didn't feel like getting her dressed yet for the day when these pictures were taken!
Kinley and Maya are still best friends:)

Kinley loves to say the blesssing every night at the dinner table. Her blessing goes something like this: "God is great! God is great! Thank you for the food! Ssdlkabj aoeiu asklag! Thank you for the food! Amen!" It's adorable:) She also sings "God Our Father" sometimes too but it's not as enthusiastic as the other one!
She also has a very favorite pair of shoes. If she had her way, she would wear these shoes everywhere we go.

Needless to say, these are not Mommy's favorite! They're hand me down, light up, flip flops that no longer light up. Not only that but Jake has to glue the heels back on them every few days because they constantly fall apart! I think she loves them because they're more like big girl shoes than anything else she has. Oh, and when she stomps around, they're very loud. I'm willing to be that's the real reason she likes them so much!

She loves to act out her favorite tv shows such as The Backyardigans, Ni Hao Kai-Lan, Dora, Peppa Pig, and a few others. It amazes me what she remembers and how creative she is in recreating the scenes from her favorite shows.
Kinley also loves to dance and we get so many laughs out of watching her boogey down. Along with dancing, she's still a fantastic climber! She loves to climb way up high on things and then look at me and say, "Don't wuwwy, Mommy! My okay!" We're enrolling her in a Little Gym class one day a week so that she can actually do some dancing and climbing in a class setting where she hopesfully won't hurt herself!
I am stumped as to what to do with her hair. We've trimmed it several times and the curls have stayed but even though it's all one even length when we're cutting it, once it's dried, it just looks kinda crazy. The sides are only wavy but the middle hairs in the back are very curly. I think I'm just going to leave it the way it us until it grows out longer.

She loves to be silly, especially with Daddy!

And even though I have moments (many moments some days) when I feel we might never make it past the terrible twos, I'm so very thankful everyday for my little girl. Kinley continues to be such a blessing to us and teaches us new things all the time.

Life Lately

2011-08-07T09:11:00.001-05:00

Kinley wasn't feeling too great early last week. How did we know? Well, the fact that Jake found her passed out asleep on the floor in her bedroom at 9:30 in the morning was a big clue.

And how pitiful does this look?

Yeah, she clearly wasn't feeling well even though she did give me a quick smile while hugging Olivia (that her Daddy bought her because she wasn't feeling good).

She ended up running a fever, which was a new experience for us. That probably sounds strange to most of you but, seriously, I don't remember her ever running a fever before. We have been so blessed that Kinley has very rarely been sick (only one minor ear infection and one stomach bug). So anyway, I ended up taking her to the doctor. And, I swear, sometimes I think the child just enjoys making me pay the co-pay! Because this was her at the doctor's office:

Look like a sick kiddo to you? Yeah, me neither! And of course she wasn't running a fever at the doctor. She smiled, danced, and talked the doctor's head off. I'm pretty sure the doctor thought I was crazy. Oh well. At least it gave me peace of mind that she didn't have an ear infection or something else. I'm so thankful that she wasn't sick!

And to catch up on other stuff we've been up to, here's several pictures from my phone camera. We've been spending lots of time at indoor play areas to beat the heat. Kinley loves this big cat at the Galleria. Every time we go there, she has to sit on the cat.

And she loves trying to play the video games with the big kids at McDonalds.

Kinley enjoyed her first slurpee on 7/11/11 to celebrate 7-11's birthday. Slurpee's are perfect on a super hot day!

Kinley's been helping out around the house some as well. She always says that she's "Ry Ry's helper." I'm not sure how helpful Ry Ry really thinks she is.

More than anything, she usually just steals his tools and acts like she's doing something helpful before running off with whatever "treasure" she's just snatched up!

After all of that hardwork, a nap is usually in order. Does this look like an exhausted kid or what?!?

And sometimes she just likes to cuddle with Daddy.

Too bad when she wakes up, her hair is totally doing its' own thing. Something about her hair in the picture below reminds me of Rod Stewart. No?!?!

I think I'm all caught up with the pictures from my phone (for the time being). And just in case you're following along....we're now on day 37 of temperatures at or above 100! I also think I've forgotten what rain looks like......

Arts & Crafts

2011-08-04T20:25:00.000-05:00

Kinley and I have been doing some arts and crafts projects lately. All of the sudden, she loves to paint so I've been trying to let her do some of it without making a gigantic mess. Here she is painting what was supposed to be a Snow White wind chime:

So fun! And, no, she's not wearing clothes because I really don't have anything that I'm willing to let her get paint on.

Like I said....it was supposed to be Snow White, however when she was done it turned into this:

Snow White's under there somewhere! I still think it's beautiful:)

You know the old plaster of paris handprint craft that everyone did as a child? My grandmother still has my dad's from when he was little hanging in her kitchen! I just love them and I've been wanting to do one with Kinley for a while but I didn't know if she'd be able to hold her hand still enough to actually get a good print in the plaster. I decided to tackle this craft the other day and after about 30 tries, we finally got a handprint that was decent!

It's not perfect but I love it! I contemplated doing her footprint as well but I decided we better hold off on that!

And here's just a cute picture to top off this post!

Staying Cool (or trying to)!

2011-08-04T19:34:00.000-05:00

We headed back out to one of the local spraygrounds the other day and met up with friends, Courtney and Drew. It's so nice to have all of these spraygrounds around for the kids to get some energy out for free, however I have to say it doesn't do much to cool you off if you're just supervising!

Drew is so good about smiling for the camera!

There was even a guy that delivered free breakfast for all of the kids at the park while we were there! I don't know why he was doing it (I think he worked for the city), but we were happy to take some free orange juice and snacks.

Having fun!

I think Drew could have been entertained all day with this water bottle.

It wasn't too long, though, before Kinley decided it was too hot to even play in the water any longer and she was done. She was totally over being hot and was ready to pack her bag to leave!

At that point, we got smart and headed to the indoor, air-conditioned play area at Chick Fil A!

Oh, by the way....we are now on our 34th day in a row of temperatures at or above 100 degrees. We're melting...........

The Circus!

2011-08-04T19:16:00.000-05:00

We took Kinley to her first big circus the other night. It's technically not her first circus, however the first time she went looked like this:

So, really she just attended the circus, but she didn't get much out of it since she was only 2 months old and slept in the Baby Bjorn the entire time! And it was a little tiny one ring circus at the fair so she didn't miss out on a whole lot either! I can definitely say that she enjoyed this circus experience much more than the last!

I just realized that my last statement was about how much she enjoyed it, however that picture above doesn't really show that she's enjoying herself much, does it?!? We went early so that we could go down on the floor for the pre-show entertainment and see some of the acts up close. It ended up being so crowded that we couldn't do much but we did get to meet a few clowns and performers. Kinley was being super shy.

Kinley got a circus tattoo on her hand that she was very proud of!

Her favorite parts of the circus were when the animals were out. She liked all of the acts but the animals were the only ones that she couldn't take her eyes off of.

I just think this is pretty impressive!

Kinley's into telling us how she really "NEEDS" things lately. For instance, at the circus she kept repeating, "My NEED candy, Daddy!" So, of course, her daddy made sure that she got her cotton candy that she needed so badly. Mommy was just fine with that too because I love cotton candy:)

Kinley got this awesome hat with her cotton candy too. I'm guessing that's why the cotton candy was $12!

Her very, very favorite part was the elephants. She got so excited every time one came out and would get really upset when they would leave, repeatedly asking when they would be coming back.

I've always loved going to the circus but I think I had more fun this time than ever before. Watching Kinley take it all in makes it all so much more entertaining!

Addison Circle Fountains

2011-07-28T13:14:00.002-05:00

Kinley and I headed out to Addison Circle this morning to play for a while. They have an interactive fountain. It's not really a sprayground or splash pad....it's really just a fountain. But they encourage people to play in it, so it's pretty neat. Most importantly, the water is cool and there are lots of benches with plenty of shade so you don't feel like you're baking!

As you probably expect, I have lots of pictures!

Singing....

Funny story about the picture below.....There was a little boy playing in the fountain too. Out of the blue, he walked up to Kinley and pushed her down. It made her SO mad! So, she would stand behind the railing until he walked far away from her and then she would go back in the water and play. She didn't want him to come anywhere near her again!

We gotta get this kid in gymnastics!

Indoor Safari Park

2011-07-26T19:18:00.000-05:00

Since we are going on our 26th day in a row of temperatures being over 100 degrees, the daily goal is to find something fun for Kinley to do in the air conditioning where she can really get some energy out! So, we decided to check out the Indoor Safari Park. This was our first visit there and it was great! Courtney, Mollie, and Drew went with us so that made it even more fun. They have a "safari" train....

Drew rode the train, but Kinley refused. She only wanted to ride it if I rode it and this mommy was not about to squeeze myself into that kiddie train!

They had lots of tables where the kids could entertain themselves endlessly playing with trains, planes, castles, etc.

Kinley in the lion's mouth

Drew was really good at disappearing in the ball pit!

And Kinley loved the slide....as always. Unfortunately, she's also the kid that loves to climb up the slide backwards...oh well!

Sweet friends:)

They have robotic animals that walk around for the kids to ride. Kinley chose to ride the zebra. Warning--These pictures are horrible and I have no clue why.

And Drew decided to ride the dinosaur

Overall, we had a really fun time and I'm sure we'll be going back. Especially if the temperature never drops below 100!!!

Today, I'm Thankful For...

2011-07-22T11:33:00.001-05:00

Washable markers!!!!!!!!!!!!

Because all it takes is for me to turn my back for 2 minutes and this is what I find!

Even trying to color her toenails.

Oh, how this girl makes me laugh and keeps me on my toes!

Day at the Waterpark

2011-07-20T20:19:00.002-05:00

We spent the day today at Hawaiian Falls Waterpark. It's a pretty small park (and there's 3 others just like it in the Dallas area) but fun, nonetheless. They have lots of stuff for little kids and Kinley had a blast! I really didn't take too many pictures due to the fact that I didn't really want to worry about keeping the camera out of the water but here's some pictures to show you a bit of our day....

Kinley had a slight meltdown about something (I can't remember what now) but she was mad at me and ran through the water, under the mushroom thingy for attention from Daddy. Looks like she was successful, huh?

Didn't take long before she was all smiles again:)

Singing.....loudly....very loudly!

Taking a break in the shade. Interesting way to lay/sit in the chair, huh? I have no clue how she finds that comfortable!

Playing in the waterfalls with Daddy

Happy girl

And here she is after a long day of swimming and playing...ready to go home.

We also had Kinley's 2 year portraits and some family portraits done last night. The photographer was awesome and already has a few of our pictures up on her blog for a sneak peek. If you want to check them out, click here!

Just Trying to Stay Cool

2011-07-18T20:53:00.000-05:00

I really have nothing to blog about today but I do have a few pictures. Yesterday was our 16th day in a row of temperatures above 100. Needless to say, we've been spending lots of time inside!

What I love about the photo below isn't just the crazy look on Kinley's face....it's the shoes....on the wrong feet:)

Busted with the bandaids! We go through boxes of bandaids like crazy around here lately. It's amazing how many invisible boo boos show up throughout the day!

First Trip to the Movies

2011-07-09T09:39:00.000-05:00

Jake and I decided to take Kinley to see her first movie at the theater....Cars 2. We had been talking about taking her for a while but when we heard that there was a Toy Story short before the movie, we knew we had to give it a try.

I pretty much knew the chances were slim that she would be able to sit through the whole movie but she did really well during the previews, Toy Story short (which she LOVED), and about 20 minutes of Cars.

She ate lots of popcorn, drank her juice, drank our coke, and then was totally over having to sit still and be quiet. Needless to say, I ended up taking her out. That was okay with her though because she found other stuff outside to play with like the booster seats.

Mommy was over that pretty quickly though after she got the bright idea to take them all down, stack them up, knock them over, screaming and squeeling. I just knew we were probably disrupting everyone's movie at that point. I think we'll wait a while before trying another movie!

More Singing

2011-07-06T21:31:00.001-05:00

Kinley is always singing something and has been in the mood lately to let me video her. So, while she's allowing me to catch some of these moments, I'm going to take full advantage of it and share some of them with you! She's swimming while she's singing so it makes some of them hard to understand but it doesn't take away the cuteness:)

Itsy Bitsy Spider:

I've Got the Joy, Joy, Joy, Joy Down in My Heart:

You've Got a Friend in Me:

This video isn't singing but it's specifically for Aunt Kelsi (little inside joke the two of them have):

Hope you enjoyed the videos!

4th of July Weekend

2011-07-05T21:53:00.000-05:00

We had a pretty low key 4th of July this year. Jake had to work the entire weekend so that kinda stunk but we still enjoyed ourselves. We spent lots of time at the house eating yummy stuff like this:

And swimming in the pool..

On Sunday night, we went to KaBoom Town in Addison. KaBoom Town is ranked as the #3 place to watch fireworks in the country on the 4th. We'd never been before and I have to admit....it was crazy! I think there was something like 500,000+ people there. We had a lot of fun though.

They have an airshow before the fireworks that was pretty cool. Kinley loves spotting airplanes so she thought this was great!

Watching the show...

Kinley, Mom, and me

Giving Daddy a big hug

Mom and Dad trying to stay cool

Here's some other folks trying to stay cool...

And I know you can't really tell because there are so many people but that's actually a fountain full of people that on a normal day looks like this:

The fireworks were great! They lasted for about 30 minutes, which I thought was pretty impressive.

These are my attempts at pictures of fireworks. I, obviously, have no clue how to photograph fireworks!

Addison is only like 3 miles from the house so it would normally only take us about 5 or so minutes to get home. HA! It took us almost 2 hours to get home after the fireworks. Apparently all of those 500,000+ people were parking in the same parking garage as us and were all trying to go home the same way as us! Thank goodness we have a DVD player in the car because Kinley was a perfect angel. I don't know what we would have done without having Mickey Mouse for her to watch because we didn't get home until midnight! And even though she stayed up that late, she didn't get grouchy one bit in the car. I was so proud (and thankful)!

Here's some more pictures of Kinley enjoying some pool time on the 4th:

We hope that you all had a wonderful holiday weekend!

Sixth Floor Museum

2011-06-30T10:41:00.000-05:00

To finish up Abby's visit, we took her to the Sixth Floor Museum (JFK Museum) downtown. Jake and I had actually never been. We've always wanted to go but kept finding excuses to do other things instead. Of course we had to take the totally strange picture of someone (Abby this time) standing on one of the X's in the road.

Everyone who visits Dealey Plaza takes a spot on one of the X's but if you think about it, it really is odd! Why would you want to take your picture, smiling, where JFK was shot??? I guess because we're strange Americans?!?

I already miss having Abby here! We have so much fun together!

Jake and me

That's all of the pictures I have for this post. They don't let you take pictures inside the museum and there's only so much to look at outside. The museum really is interesting though. If you ever visit Dallas, it's a must see activity.

NKOTBSB

2011-06-30T10:30:00.000-05:00

Now, there may be some of you who think this post is absolutely ridiculous and then there will be some of you that are SOOOO jealous! ha! One of the main reasons Abby came to visit was to go to the NKOTBSB concert! Yes, she flew all the way to Dallas to see them. That's one dedicated fan, huh? If you recall (which most of you probably don't), Abby and I went to the NKOTB concert in October 2008 when I was several months pregnant. You can see a post about that here. I have to say, we had a lot more fun at this concert than the first!

Bet you're shocked to see that Jake went, huh?!?! Don't let him fool you, he loves boy bands too!

The girls in front of us brought along some of their NKOTB collection from when they were younger. We could not stop laughing at the Donnie doll that was waved around the entire concert! I had to admit, I was thinking.....if only I'd kept all of my stuff too!

The New Kids (who are kind of old kids now)!

The Backstreet Boys

We thought we had pretty good seats during the beginning of the concert. We had no idea that we were about to have the best seats in the house! Most of these pictures aren't great because I seriously turned into my 13 year old self and could not stop screaming or jumping around because I got so excited when........Jordan started walking our way!

Too bad he turned around about halfway up to where our seats were:(

That was okay though because as soon as we turned around....

Nick Carter was walking right toward us! And walked right up to us and shook our hands!

By the time we got over him walking by, we turned around to see Brian Littrell coming too!

Yes, the picture below is a totally crazy picture of him. Maybe that was because Abby had just screamed at him and asked him how he was doing and he was thinking....."I'm out of breath, in the middle of a concert, sweating like a pig."

My favorite thing is that we have a video of this whole encounter that is quite funny. If you're friends with me on facebook, you already saw it. I'm going to have to try to figure out a way to get it on the blog! And I have to give a big thank you to my husband for trading seats with me and Abby so that we could meet Nick and Brian. I should probably also thank him for tolerating his teeny bopper wife freaking out over some crazy boy band members. Jake's a pretty great husband, huh? I think he's the best in the world!

Here are all of the New Kids and Backstreet Boys together...

And here's NKOTB rocking their Mavs jerseys!

We had so much fun! Such a great concert! I'm not sure I'll ever get over my crush of the New Kids:)

More Pool Time!

2011-06-30T09:50:00.000-05:00

I really think that Kinley spends at least 2-3 hours (if not more) in the pool every day. It's just too hot to be outside and not be in the pool or sprinkler. So, of course, while Ab was here we spent as much time as possible cooling off! The picture below makes me laugh because they look like they're having such a serious conversation!

We tried out some new pool floats.

We also headed out to the sprayground for a little change.

The only bad thing about the spraygrounds is that the water ends up being lukewarm. The kids don't seem to mind though so I guess that's all that matters!

She's in there somewhere!

Abby, me, and Kinley staying cool!

How's this for adorable??? Ha!

Abby brought Kinley this whole get up and she loves it! I just love watching her try to walk around in those flippers! It's hilarious!