Kinley is 21 months old

Kinley is 21 months old and somewhere between 19 months and now, she was 20 months old, but work, illnesses, holidays... life, didn’t allow for a post. :-( I’m not sure that there would have been much to recap anyway. Kinley is still Kinley and there hasn’t been much change in her constant fussiness, but I feel like she’s able to communicate more and more every day and I’m still hopeful that that’s our ticket to a happier child. She is attempting to repeat a lot of words that we tell her now and she’s starting to put words together... “No, Momma;” Night Night, Bubba;” “My phone;” “My baf;” “My bebe” .... you get it. It’s funny because she’s having trouble pronouncing t’s and l’s just like Tyler did/does. For ‘thank you,’ Tyler always said, “nank you” and Kinley says, “nink, Momma.” With ‘l’ sounds, Kinley says, “yight” for ‘light’ and Tyler still says, “yittle” for ‘little.’ I love that they both do that. And of course, Tyler is teaching her words as well. The cutest thing that she learned from him, “No way.” :-) She is obsessed with cats (which she affectionately calls ‘meow meows’) and babies and LOVES watching Team UmiZoomi and Doc McStuffins.

I think she is still mega clingy to me, but she is also super independent. She wants to buckle her own car seat, dress herself, bathe herself, fix her own drinks, not hold hands and the list goes on and on. And because she can’t completely do these things all on her own (like she thinks she can), she pitches a fit when we try to assist. It’s always something. She is showing a huge interest in the potty and will take off her diaper and try to pull her pants back on without one several times a week, but we’re not having a lot of luck with actual potty training just yet. She wants to sit on the potty, but has never gone potty. ;-) We’ve been attempting for well over a month and nothing. I keep putting her on when she asks, but I’m in no rush to get her out of diapers. Call me weird, but I’m just not like other Moms. Diapers and Pull-Ups are the easiest (aka laziest) way to go and I’m a fan for now!!

I'm still pleased with our sleeping situation! Travis and I have been taking turns laying with Kinley at night until she falls asleep, so it's been nice for me to have a little break and enjoy quiet time with Tyler at bedtime. She still takes a sippy cup with yogurt smoothie to bed initially, but she’s been experimenting with milk a little more, so I’m going to try to switch her over to that pretty soon. She'll usually wake up sometime during the night for a sippy cup of water (that we take to bed with us) and then she's out the rest of the time. I'm so much more refreshed! I can’t believe that it was just a few months ago that we were waking up 6-10 times a night... it seems so long ago now.

It was hard to get a good picture of my busy toddler this month!






My personal favorite... Naked Butt, Naked Butt!

Pre-K Nativity Play

Tyler was in his first Christmas play for school! He was King Herod and he did an excellent job of telling the Wisemen that Baby Jesus was not at his palace. See below. :-)

He is far right in purple.








Short clips~

 

 

Poor Tyler was having some trouble with his crown.

Backyard Fall

Enjoying the beautiful weather and a little Fall fun in our own backyard!

O' Christmas Tree

I let the kids pick out their favorite ornament to put on the tree (Tyler started doing it last year and picked out a Lightning McQueen one) and it's something that I hope to continue doing each year. It will be fun to look back years from now and see what they were interested in growing up. This year, Kinley picked out a kitty ornament. She is mildly obsessed with "meow meows." Tyler picked out a Batman ornament. Our tree ended up being half decorated (top half only) because a certain little someone couldn't resist pulling everything off and playing with it. ;-) We're all ready now!

























As good as it's going to get this year~


My new FAV.O.RITE Christmas decorations that I will cherish forever! Yes, those are Kinley's "Mistletoes" and Tyler's "Santa hand." :-)

Santa visit!

It's no secret that I think the crying Santa pictures are hilarious. Wrong?? Maybe, but still funny! At least, I think it's funny with MY kids. I jokingly tell people that this is what Kinley gets for being such a stinker all.the.time. ;-) If she's like Tyler was, she'll enjoy her visit with Santa next year and this will be my last crying picture. Guess we'll see.





Tyler got to spend a few moments with Santa alone. :-)




The purchased photo~


All SMILES while riding the train THREE times after visiting with Santa. See, those few seconds with Santa was worth it for 10 minutes of FUN!