Kendree - 16 months

Whew!  Another month (and two weeks, but who's counting) have gone by already!

At 16 months, Kendree:

• Is walking!  No more crawling for this big girl.  She made the decision to just go for it around 2 weeks after she turned 15 months and there has been no turning back!  Sadly, I don't have a video of it yet (bad mama!) but will soon, I promise!
• Got her third tooth (top right) on June 13th.
• Takes one nap a day.  I've had to get used to a "normal" child when it comes to naps.  My sister always warned me that Easton's 3-hour naps daily were not the norm, but I held out hope.  I'm lucky to get 2 hours from Kendree regardless of when I put her down.
• Answers "yeah" when she wants something and when she shakes her head yes, it is really a shake of her entire upper body, which is hilarious.
• Signs please and thank you like a champ.  She will say thank you (tain-to) but please is just the sign and an occasional hissing sound along with it.  She will copy any sign you say to her, but sticks to her favorites when she is trying to communicate.  New favorites include cheese and drink.
• Is so easy to put to bed.  PJ's on, tell the family "night-night" and then a quick verse of Teach Me to Walk in the Light as you lay her down and walk out of the room and you won't hear from her again.
•  Loves to wrestle and can occasionally be found taking her brother down so he will wrestle with her.  This does not always result in happiness.
• Screams like no one you have ever heard.  I HATE IT!  She lets out the most high pitched scream you have ever heard if she doesn't get her way, or wants something a little differently, or if you are not understanding what she wants.  It is not fun.  She is that one kid in church that the whole congregation has to roll their eyes at.  Oh well!  At least I know she will grow out of it as she can express herself better (I hope!).

On to the pictures.

The only shot I got on her actual 16 month "birthday." She is sporting Easton's cowboy boots.

 Playing dress up with big brother.

 She loved pushing the fake buttons on his outfit.

 Wearing Grandpa's glasses.

 Kendree has an obsession with carrying around random pieces of clothing.  Her favorites are garments, but since I didn't want to take a picture of that, I waiting for the day when it was her swimsuit.

 Hanging out with daddy (photo by Easton).

 Wearing her new hat (well, new to her).  Easton and daddy wear hats, so she always wants one too.  I dug out Easton's old Cowboys hat so he wouldn't get upset about her borrowing his current hats.

 It was a Sunday right before church.  Kendree was eating lunch as Ronnie and I were finishing getting ready and starting to load up the car.  I only had to put a bow in her hair (or so I thought) and she would be ready to go. Enter the banana.

 Needless to say, we were skimming into church that day.  I didn't get everything out of her hair, but she at least looked presentable.

How I've tried to fix my parenting mistake

So, Easton has never been a big fan of milk or water.

Let me re-phrase: Easton hated milk, even chocolate milk when I weaned him so I allowed him to become a watered-down juice drinker, almost exclusively.

Parenting fail.

Since he has been able to "reason" so to speak, I've tried various things to get other liquids into his diet.  The kid struggles with consistency in "going" so I'm always trying to improve his diet while not slowing things down with less liquid than he needs.

So far, everything I've tried has led to a battle of the wills.  Tantrums and refusal to drink from him and yelling and frustration from me.  Then, for the sake of normalcy around here (bathroom-wise) I usually give in.

Then, I had a brilliant idea. 

The drink chart. 

We've been using this method for just over 2 weeks now and haven't had a single tantrum.  Easton just checks the fridge to see what drink he is on and is perfectly fine when that is what he is offered.  Stickers go up and we all move on.

I realize that not every one's kid struggles with this...but since the visual solution has worked so well, I thought I would share in the hopes that you could adopt it for what is driving you batty.

Notes: I created the chart in Word using an image I found online.  I colored every other glass the color of apple juice and on the white glasses, Easton gets to choose whether he wants water or milk.  I'm happy to email it to anyone who could use this exact chart.

16 weeks

I assume from the enthusiastic response I received when I asked if people wanted belly pictures when I was pregnant with Kendree, it is no different this time around.

So here we go.  Me at 16 weeks.  I would say that I'm past that phase of people thinking that I just ate a lot for dinner.  I lost about 5 pounds during the first trimester and have yet to gain that back, so I like to think that the bump is all baby so far.

I'm feeling really good.  I love this stage of pregnancy.  Energy is up, belly is not in the way, etc.  The kids and I have been enjoying bike rides and walks now that summer seems to have arrived in Cheyenne.

I'm still not craving anything consistently, and food in general doesn't hold the same appeal for me as it usually does.  Too bad I can't keep that feeling after the baby is here!  Baby is moving around, but it is not very consistent or really all that frequent yet.  I have 4 weeks to decide if I'm really going to let this baby be a surprise since they do the ultrasounds at 22 weeks at my doctor's office.  Ronnie would really like to find out this time and I'm still on the fence.

My pregnancy with Kendree at 17 weeks here.

The long awaited (by about 3 of you) house tour

Here it is folks.  I figured I couldn't delay much longer. :)

The view from the front door:

And from over by the love seat looking towards the garage door and desk/piano area (a big hello to Easton playing games at disneyjunior.com):

Another view of the piano area:

Next, a few views into the kitchen, that door you see leads into the laundry room:

Which looks like this (there are also pantry shelves behind the door that I didn't think you cared to see):

And then we have a view into the main room from the kitchen (by this point, you should really feel like you are IN this room with me):

And one last view of the doors, which lets you see that we don't have a coat closet (GASP!).  I know, how I overlooked such a thing when we were looking at what seemed like hundreds of houses is beyond me.  Oh well!  Hooks from Target work just great.

A view into the dining area:

The stairs to the unfinished basement (which looks like a bomb of boxes and long term storage went off in it) are just off the garage door.  Ronnie and my dad installed this baby gate which I love!

Now we can finally move on to another area of the house--the hall! (note the fan that keeps the kids cool-ish at night as we are adjusting to no A/C--our first time without it in over 3 years--I know we were insanely spoiled).

Straight ahead in the last picture is the kid's bathroom which almost always looks as you see it here...ready for Easton to use it at any given moment:

If you turn to the right from the bathroom, you come to Kendree's room (with Easton, our tour guide):

And to the right of that is Easton's room:

And to the left of the bathroom is the door to the master bedroom:

The door on the right is the master bathroom and the door on the left is the closet.

Standing in the doorway of the closet you see this:

And this little girl who loves to tear shoes off of mom's rack.  Good thing she is cute!

And that's it!  Congrats if you made it to the end. Now you just need to come visit!

A Funk

You know how sometimes you get in a blogging funk?

Or a funk in general for that matter?

I'm in one and trying desperately to get out.

My house is relatively put together and I still haven't taken pictures to give you a tour.  That's #1 on my list, I promise.

I have orders for what feels like one bazillion cards that I need to get on top of.

Not to mention the sewing, etc. that I would love to do for this little one.

Oh, and you know what?

I have a family too.

Bottom line?  It's okay to let blogging take a back seat for a while.

Just know I still love ya!