Visit at Poppa and Peggy's

Got a few pictures of Tyler at Poppa's house, too!  He loves going for a motorcycle ride with his Poppa.  He has mentioned it several times since we left!  :-)

Kinley is 18 months old!

Kinley is 18 months old.  1 ½ years old!  Technically closer to her second birthday than her first one now.  The time is flying!  I know I sound like a broken record, but there has not been a shortage of difficult moments with Kinley this past month. Of course, it’s not a surprise to us.  I think I have accepted that this is just her.  She had her pediatrician well-check today and I talked with Anna in detail about Kinley’s behavior and she assured me that it all sounded very normal and that we may have to deal with another year of it.  Lord help us!!!  She explained that Kinley is so much more ahead cognitively  than what she can communicate, which results in her frustration (tantrums and constant screaming at us).  It makes sense.  Anna described her as having “high emotions.”  If she’s out of her snack, she doesn’t bring me the bowl and indicate that she wants more.  Instead, she frantically brings me the bowl, hits my leg repeatedly with it and screams at the top of her lungs and then starts crying if I haven’t refilled the snack in .2 seconds.  This is not an exaggeration!  And it’s all the time about everything.  That's just an example.  Anna said that instead of being the quiet girl watching a football game, she will probably be sitting on the sidelines, screaming and cheering loudly.  And for some reason, I can totally picture that! :-)  The rest of the appointment didn’t go well in terms of Kinley cooperating.  She must have finally made the connection with getting shots there, I don’t know.  She kicked, screamed, wiggled and tried to jump off the table while they were just trying to get her stats!  The weight is probably pretty accurate at 24lbs (25-50%), but I’m sure the length and head circumference is a guess with all the fuss that was going on.  Length was 30 inches (5-10%) and head circumference was 18 3/4cm (75-90%).  We tried to get out of there pretty quickly after that. :-)

Of course, things aren’t all bad.  Kinley has adjusted pretty well to the new schedule we have since Tyler started school.  She wakes up about 7:30am, takes a nap around 11:30am and is in bed around 9pm.  She’s still waking up during the night and I’m still hopeful for a change soon.  She understands so much more of what we say now, but she hasn’t added many new words to her vocabulary.  Aside from momma or dada, the two most used words are ‘mine’ and ‘no.’  Of course, those are the two words that most parents probably dislike the most.  ;-)  She calls Cooper 'Bo Bo' and she is calling her lovey ‘weevie or weebie,’ which I just think is the cutest thing ever.  She is so attached to her loveys (yes, pleural... she has like 6!) and carries them around everywhere.  She is really starting to love on her baby dolls more and even rocks them in her arms.  I think it’s amazing how she instinctively knows to do that.  She can finally reach the door knobs in the house and takes great pride in opening or closing a door.  Still a stinker, but sill fun!

And, I think that about covers it until next month.

Pictures from our recent visit to Poppa and Peggy's house. :-)

Play time~

A little fun in the front yard~

Always fighting over the same toy!










Various play times at the house~






What our living room typically looks like (play forts that the kids build)

Grandpa Jim is our Angel

Travis' Grandpa (Tyler and Kinley's Great-Grandpa Jim) passed away on September 8th. This was Travis' last living grandparent and Travis is in California, as I type, attending Grandpa Jim's service where he will be laid to rest with his wife. Grandpa Jim was 96 years old and was generally healthy up until the very end.  He had a good family, was a Major in the Air Force (I think Travis said for 22 or 24 years!), was the pilot of some pretty impressive planes, lived in some awesome places, like Japan, and had a successful career in real estate. What else could you ask for??  It's hard to be sad when someone has lived such a long, healthy and fulfilling life, but we are certainly going to miss having him around us!

I met Grandpa Jim nine years ago and I was warned ahead of time about how difficult he could be and that there was a chance I may not like him. I immediately fell in love with Grandma Winnie, but within two hours of meeting Grandpa Jim, I was pretty certain that I did NOT like him. ;-) He had me attempt to till his garden and when I couldn't do it, he gave me a pretty hard time. He gave me such a hard time that I actually left and sat in the house by myself and sulked. haha. We then hiked through his California hills neighborhood and he gave Grandma Winnie a very hard time anytime she tried to take a small break. He wasn't going to let anyone have a break.  I found out pretty quickly that this man meant business and I was not a fan of his. As he showed me around their home later, he came across several old pictures of Grandma Winnie in their bedroom and I'll never forget his words to me. He said, "Isn't she one of the most beautiful women you've ever seen?" He looked at her so adoringly and told me several stories from their younger days. He told me how she was always the prettiest woman in a group and he was so proud that she was his wife. I melted hearing their love story and obviously, my thoughts of Grandpa Jim changed. He wasn't THAT hard on the inside.  ;-)  I actually grew to have a tremendous amount of respect for him for so many different reasons and really admired that strong personality that he had, probably because I came to realize that we shared a similar personality.  :-)  I'm thankful that I really took the time to get to know him.  I'm thankful for the time we shared together, the stories we shared and look forward to sharing many memories with Tyler and Kinley.  

Back when I first met Grandpa Jim and Grandma Winnie- walking through their neighborhood~

Fast forward and how could you not love this man? Just a moment before this picture was taken, he told me that he had only ever seen one bride prettier than I was and that was his wife.  ~Melt~

One of our fishing trips together and one of my favorite pictures that I took of him.

Grandpa Jim out fishing a group of 15 younger men at Travis' bachelor party.  :-)  He was one of the toughest guys I've known. 

This was the beautiful sunset from the day that Grandpa Jim left us.  It was beautiful for a reason...  We're going to miss him.  

Littlest Moppet

Somebody else is ready to go to school. :-) Kinley went to her little moppet class (it's only one day every other week for 2 hours). I'll have to give a better report in the coming weeks. Day 1 drop off was horrible, but she was all smiles when I picked her up on the playground. We're going to give it a solid effort because I could definitely use the break and she needs the socialization!

She was so excited to show off her little backpack.






Irresistibly cute while eating a not-healthy snack later that afternoon.










Little stinker loves this new head band she picked out at Target. AND it matches her outfit perfectly! My little fashionista. :-)

Pre-school Days!

Oh.Em.Gee.... My little dude is now a big pre-schooler dude! It's not like I haven't had 4 1/2 years to prepare for this moment, but it's still so surreal to think that Tyler is starting his school journey now. I managed to get the mini-meltdown out of the way a week before school started. It's crazy how emotional sending your baby off to school is. The last thing I do every night before bed is shut the light off above the fireplace and the switch for that sits right beside this sweet photo....



This is the last photo I see every night- my chubby cheek boy when he was just 10 months old- and every night I think about how fast the time has gone by and I miss that little baby. It makes me teary-eyed on a good day, but when I saw that sweet face staring at me and then thought about sending him off to pre-school, my emotions hit me like a freight train. I mean, he might as well be heading off to college across the Country. I was seriously a hot mess and wasn't expecting that. He wasn't excited about going and I was consumed with anxiety, wondering how he would do this or that without me there or how other kids would treat him. It was just too much. I almost had myself convinced that night that I wasn't going to let him go. It's not like it's required and we would enjoy another year together, right??? But then I knew it would just be that much harder to send him off to kinder next year, so then I even entertained home schooling, which would make Travis happy, but then I doubted my teaching abilities and knew I wasn't really up for that challenge. Ugg. It was inevitable, he HAD to go to pre-school, whether either of us liked it.

Fast forward to the BIG DAY and Tyler literally woke up crying that morning, telling me that he didn't want to go to school. Travis had taken the morning off to deal with Kinley so that I could focus 100% of my attention on Tyler and Tyler kept saying that he just wanted to stay home with Travis and I and he cried for at least 10 minutes. It broke my heart, but somehow it all turned around. We surprised him with a new Iron Man toy and then he got excited to put on his new outfit and shoes (we may be in trouble because he has discovered that he loves Ralph Lauren Polo shirts $$$). He got excited about his new backpack and lunchbox and legit seemed excited about going to school. I was shocked and confused, but happy because he was happy. After a million pictures (seriously!), we were off! My stomach was turning knots for him on the way to school, but he was cool and collected and even throwing fist bumps in the air.

He walked right into pre-school with his backpack on, carrying his lunchbox, like the big boy that I have to accept he is. We put his stuff in his cubby, found his seat and gave the teacher her gift. I met several of the kids and then introduced each of them to Tyler. Once Tyler made friends, he was off and running. I hung around for a few minutes taking pictures, but he didn't notice me at all. I snuck up to him and gave him a hug and kiss and told him I'd pick him up shortly and that was that. Without a tear in his eye, he let me go and traded me in for new friends. [Totally teasing, but I did kinda feel that way for a split second]. I came back to get him five hours later and he ran up to me and gave me a big hug and said, "Can we stay a lot longer?!?" I asked him how school was and he summed it up in one word... "AWESOME!!" It's hard letting go of your babies, even if letting go is only two days a week for five hours, it's still hard! But, it's hard to not be SO excited for them when they are so excited. I think that we have found a perfect match for us in our pre-school and I can't wait to see how this year turns out for him. :-) Okay, Drama Queen out.....

Tyler's First Day of Pre-School Log:

Rise and shine- we haven't been up this early in a long time!


Getting ready for school~


The teacher gift that Tyler and I made together. Hey, I'm all for teacher appreciation (i.e., sucking up so you'll be extra nice to my baby!). ;-)




















I couldn't decide which sign I wanted to use in the future, so T indulged me and held up both. ;-)




Welcome to Tyler's classroom!




His cubby~






His seat~




The kids start out the day by grabbing their name tag at the door and answering a question of the day by placing their name on their answer.


First question of the day: Are you a girl or boy?


Tyler giving the teacher his gift. Out of all these pictures, I can't believe I didn't grab a good one of him and his teacher. Bummer.




This is the "safe place." Tyler was familiar with this from the open house and started out in there. It's a place in the room where the kids can go if they are feeling scared, stressed, overwhelmed, etc. and they have some teaching tools in there to help them learn to cope. Love the concept! I'm not surprised that Tyler found himself in there before more kids showed up and he started mingling.


It didn't take long for him to warm up to the kids coming in the room!




Every kid has a "job" that changes every week.


Tyler's first job was being the caboose and he loved it!!


Everyone colored a little kid at open house and they are displayed in the room.




Pick-up time: the kids had a little treat waiting for them at their seat when they came in from the playground.






Meeting up with buddy, Trace, after school.


The perfect way to end the first day of school- a trip to the ice cream shop with buddy, Tanner.