Family Photos October 2012

Not long after Charlotte's birthday, I took the girls out and did a little photo shoot with them... I wish I had gotten one of them together, but Charlotte had been asleep, and they just weren't cooperating very well... We also didn't get one of just the two of them during our family photos because it was just getting too dark out. :( Oh well, I guess we'll have to do some of at least the two of them this spring... It was kind of fun, and somewhat frustrating at times, but these are my favorites. :)

Soon afterwards (within the next few days), we did our family photos. It was definitely later in the day than I had wanted, but I think we got a pretty good one, and I loved the colors!

We also did a few silhouettes when we got back to James' parents. I thought some were way cool and cute! :) I even used one to carve in my pumpkin! :)

**Please don't copy or use these as your own. If you would like a photo, please ask, and I will print one for you. Thank you!!**

Birthday Girls!

Kiely's birthday was back in August. I know, I know, that was two months 5 months ago... But at least I'm getting back to it. She really anticipated her birthday, and it was a little different, but exciting. I kind of decided to make, and Kiely wanted a castle birthday cake. She is all things princess right now... We are actually kind of getting sick of the whole princess thing, but I have a feeling that as soon as she's done with the phase, it will be Charlotte's turn. Maybe she can skip that one? ;) Anyways, I made the castle cake, and for my first time trying to do any sort of fancy decorating, I felt like I did a pretty good job. Her birthday was on a Sunday, so we didn't do anything too fancy, just the regular cake, ice cream, and presents. We got her a fishing pole, a little ABC tracing book that comes with a dry erase marker, a CTR butterfly necklace, and fingernail polish (purple and sparkly- two of her favs). She loved her cake, and almost didn't even want us to cut into it, but we told her that's what we made it for. (We didn't even eat half of the cake. We're not much of cake people. I think I might do a pie or cheesecake next year.) She loved all of her gifts, and still enjoys them, so that's a good sign. :) Kiely is such a big girl now. She knows how to spell her own name, mom, dad, and knows that Charlotte starts with C. We've been working a little bit on writing letters, too. Back in June, she memorized her first book- Something Special by Terri Cohlene. I can't remember if I've blogged about that before or not... but it was really cute. :) Kiely still has her long, beautiful, blonde curls, and is becoming more willing to get her hair done. She is a great helper, and also great at bossing her sister around. (Yep, she came first for a reason...) We have started teaching her a little bit about money and saving, so she has her own special money jar. One time I was talking about how I want to buy a house, and she told me she would buy a house with the money from her money jar. :) She continues to tell me that she'll do that. We love her so much and she has such a fun personality. Kiely is loving and kind, and likes to help take care of her sister.

Charlotte's birthday was on October 1st. It's so crazy how fast time goes.... Right now I'm kicking myself (ok not literally. :) for not getting to this sooner, but I'll do my best. :) Charlotte has been so different than Kiely, but she is so fun, too, and so sweet. She wasn't walking by one, but really probably could have if I had wanted to push her a little harder (and if she weren't so stubborn.) She was closer to 13 months if I remember right... Which I was ok with, because she's a handful. That little Charly gets into things so much!! (Sharlee- not to be confused with Charlie-I have to clarify that, because I said I wouldn't call her Charlie, but DaNae started calling her Charly, and I told her NO CHARLIE, so Charly has stuck.) We didn't really do anything too fancy for Charlotte's birthday, either. Maybe I'll start doing things a little more fancy when it will mean more to them. I made brownies (with frosting of course, because you can't have a first birthday without becoming ridiculously messy, and I'm pretty sure that by the time we got around to eating them, she was getting pretty tired. :) We of course got her some plastic stuff- a little puppy (she LOVES animals SO much!) that was supposed to be for her to walk around with/ encourage the walking... Kiely pulled it around a lot for a while instead, and Charlotte would sometimes chase it... Charlotte does play with it now. :) She also got some blocks, and a baby doll.  It was fun helping her open presents (and Kiely definitely took part in this-- Thinking maybe some of the gifts were for her, I'm sure.) When she turned one, she weighed just over 16 pounds- maybe 16.5. She's our little one. Still not even on the charts as far as weight goes! She's just like her mom, though. When I was one, my mom said I weighed around 15 or 16 pounds is all. (From looking at my baby pictures, you probably wouldn't believe it, because I was probably the chunkiest as a baby out of all of my siblings, but I guess as soon as I went mobile, it was gone!) Charlotte is a bit of a fireball. She still has a little bit of red in her hair- she's a little strawberry blond, and can get pretty upset about things at times, and she'll let you know with her shriek! (good thing she's so cute!) She really is so sweet, though, even with everything she does to cause mischief, and she has me wrapped around her little finger.

 

You can definitely tell the personalities of each girl from some of these pictures! :) I can't believe how big they're getting! Even since Charlotte's birthday! More posts to come... I will catch up! :)

Kiely Joy :)

Kiely is my little helper. She is so great! I am amazed almost every day as to what she can/wants to do. She loves playing with Charlotte (because Charlotte is now to the stage where she can play some) and sometimes does the things that Charlotte does to get our attention! She'll crawl/army crawl, and sometimes even ask to have some of Charlotte's food. It's pretty cute.

Cute... Kiely "reading" to Charlotte.

 "I'm not so sure about this..."

Charlotte was a little jealous that Kiely was outside dancing

Kiely has hit a hard stage: toddler tantrums! UGH! We are not loving this stage, but we are learning things to do to help it not be so bad or last so long, hopefully! The thing is: Kiely is VERY particular about things... such as "I need a jink a water." (One thing we're working on is helping her say please every time. She does pretty well, but sometimes demands things... the other thing is helping her understand that she can't always get everything she wants.) So, I might be busy doing something, and James will help her with whatever, then the tantrum will start: "NO! Mama will get it!" (Or whoever she may be attached to at the time... especially if we are with other family members: Nae, Allie, Chalea, and Evie are some of her favorites.) To help her overcome some of these things, we are learning how important distraction is! It works pretty good sometimes, and other times, not so much... One time she wanted me to put her in her carseat, but James had already done it because I was busy putting Charlotte in, or it was just easier that way. She cried most of the way home saying, "Mama will put me in my carseat!" She would stop for a bit, then remembered she was supposed to be upset, and started saying it again. To help ourselves not go crazy during these fits, sometimes we try to distract ourselves, or we'll rate her fits: on a scale of 1-10 how bad is it? I have also been trying to do better with giving her snacks, and making sure she has food in the tank, otherwise it can be worse.
Even through all these tantrums, I still think our little Kiely is great! People also often tell me that she is a good little girl. That makes me feel better when there are hard times. Some things she likes to do: read books from the library (Dooby, Dooby, Moo by Doreen Cronin and Betsy Lewin is one of her favorites. I need to purchase it sometime. I love all of her books. Hilarious!) She also now calls pretty much every book with a cow, duck, or other animals on it "Dooby, Dooby, Moo." Kiely loves to turn on the radio and dance/sing. (This is very cute, and I need to take more pictures of this: she stands in front of the TV and uses it as a mirror to watch herself dance. We will definitely be putting her in a dance class within the next year or two, I think!) Going on walks and picking dandelions and "blows" (seeding dandelions) is probably one of her favorite activities. Kiely also enjoys visiting her aunties and uncles, and grandparents on both sides.

One of the things she says right now when she wants to do something is, "Should we...." (instead of "we should...") This makes it fun because if I don't want to do that, or I'm busy, I say, "no, we shouldn't." Often I get a response like, "No! SHOULD WE...." :)
A few days ago, she came up to me and said, "Should I sweep the floor for you?" To which, of course, I replied, "Yes. You should." So I helped her get the broom out, and she tried REALLY hard to sweep the floor by herself! She was actually more successful than I thought she was going to be, and it was really cute watching her try to get the dirt into the dust pan!

A couple weeks ago (probably... I don't remember exactly when it was) I became determined to help her learn how to spell her name. And now she can! :) I wasn't exactly sure how I was going to do this, but I knew it was possible. She's smart. Very smart. And she has an incredible memory. So how did I do this, you ask? Well, she already knew that her name started with a K, so I thought of how I could do it. Her name has five letters in it, so I just put it to the tune of BINGO. "There was a mama had a girl and Kiely was her name-o K-I-E-L-Y!" Now she'll randomly say, "K-I-E-L-Y spells my name-o!" (or "spells me!") I was one proud mama the first time she did it on her own! She also knows that Charlotte's name starts with C, Mom starts with M, and Dad starts with D. I think our goal of having her learn to spell a few words before she's three is possible, after all! Kiely also knows all of our birthdays, and DaNae's birthday, too! :)
When she can't do something, or needs a little assistance, Kiely says, "Can you help me?" and when we ask her to do something, and she's unsure of it, feels like she can't, she'll let us know, "No, I can't!"I always tell her to at least try...
She will now sometimes go to the bathroom by herself (which means go in, turn the light on by herself, and get on the toilet by herself...) I don't think she's done it all for herself yet. This means she is fairly comfortable doing everything besides getting the "wipe" by herself.
Kiely still loves Princesses, and we tell her a "princess and the frog and the castle" story every night before she goes to sleep. These are very quick, short stories about the princess doing things like going on walks, going swimming, picking flowers, and/or painting. (Oh yeah, Kiely has recently become fascinated with painting, and this past week, I got brave enough to take my expensive watercolors out and let her use them. She loves it, and she is very careful!)
One of her other favorite things to do is playing with James. It's one of my favorite things to watch. SO adorable. And so precious!

A month ago, we went to "Dizzyland" (Disneyland) and took DaNae and Kevin with us! It was a very fun trip, one of the greatest, with tons of memories to last forever! I won't go into any details of it right now, that will be the next post, another day, but here's a picture of Kiely and Princess Tiana at "Dizzyland" from our trip for now!

Imaginary Friends

This post is mostly for my sake... memories of our little Bug... but I wanted to write it down while it's fresh in my memory (and even happening as we speak). Kiely has quite the imagination. She even has an imaginary friend already. The other day, she pulled out the hymn book (which is done often anyways) and was singing--with her friend. They were sitting on the couch and Kiely told her, "Wanna sing ith me? n-kay. Ready. Set. Go." And then would proceed to sing the hymns (in her own language, of course). Then she says, "scoo-over a li'l bit. Scoo-over a li'l bit. That's MY spot! That's MY spot!" She makes me laugh. haha. SOOO funny! (I tried to record it, but of course she quit doing it once I pulled the camera out...) Right now, she is sitting on the couch (apparently with her friend) writing. She said, "Don't bite me. Don't bite me." Then growled/grunted, clearly annoyed at the situation that was going on with her friend. (Apparently I need to be more aware of when I'm talking to myself... or grunting when I'm home alone with her... and don't tell me that you other stay-at-home moms don't do the same thing, too... After all, we can't tell our children don't really understand everything, so we have to vent to ourselves. :)) I love her little... or more like BIG imagination! Kiely is so much fun, and I can't wait to see what it's like when our next little girl is here! (And for when they can play together!!) Just over 5 weeks left till she's supposed to arrive! We'll see if she is stubborn like Kiely was (a week late) or if she decides to come closer to her due date. Either way, I'm going to soak up the time I have left with just Kiely... and work on a few projects, as well!!

One Year Older and Wiser, TWO!

Yes. I meant to use two instead of too. That's because our little Kiely Bug is now TWO years old! We can hardly believe it's been that long since she joined our family. Time passes much too quickly! Kiely had a great birthday this year, complete with swimming, pizza, cake, ice cream, and presents. During the day, I made the cake and the dough for the pizza (that way we could put the toppings on and pop it in the oven when we got back from swimming) and also played with Kiely. We read books, and I think even sang some songs together. She loves singing and will get the hymn book off the shelf and even sing by herself sometimes. I caught her doing this today, and when I decided to video it with my phone, she quit. Just believe me that it was cute, because of course it was! Okay, back to her birthday...
After James got off work, we headed to the pool down the street from our house and swam for a little while. She'd say "simming pool!" lots and loved to splash in the water. Kiely also enjoyed watching her da-da jump off the diving boards. We talked her into going off the little slide a couple times, and then she'd want us to go down, but we didn't because we were too big for the slide. lol. I'm glad she wanted us to have fun, too! :) We played with some balls and threw them back and forth for a while, swam around, and James and I would each chase after her (while the other was holding her). Oh yeah! One of my favorite parts was watching her try to walk in the water. They have a little 2 ft section and she'd walk and walk, then when she started going the wrong direction, she'd start going down the slope of the pool... I don't know if she really ever caught on to what was going on completely! Although we were originally going to have our families come, we had fun with just our little family at the pool, then headed home and ate some chicken, tomato, olive, 1/2 ranch 1/2 bbq pizza. YUMMM! After we ate, some family came to celebrate with us (my family couldn't come, because my parents were out celebrating their anniversary which was the next day... yep. The little Bug's birthday falls between both grandparents' anniversaries, and then ours is 4 days later!) We ate some cake and ice cream, which turned out... ok. It was good, just not how it was supposed to be. I wanted to make one with the pudding/bavarian cream in the middle, but it didn't work out so well, and the pudding pretty much ended on top. It was a chocolate cake, and then I colored the pudding so that it was pink (her FAVORITE color). Kiely then opened her gifts. The Butlers gave her a teddy bear, notebook, and crayons. We got her a hoodie, some play dough, a microphone :), pink nail polish (which I'm pretty sure she thinks she got from Audrey, because Audrey painted her nails with it that night. haha), a book- Just Go to Bed (One of the Little Critters books by Mercer Meyer), and a hex bug. I don't know if you've heard of the hex bugs, but James thought they were pretty awesome, and put one in the cart when we were shopping for Kiely's presents. I wasn't so sure about it, and kind of rolled my eyes... well, she LOVES it! She thought it was so funny watching it crawl around, and still loves playing with it a week later. (It's a good sign that you did a good job when they aren't wanting to just play with the boxes or something a week later, right?!) You should look them up, because they really are pretty cool... I just wasn't sure how our 2 year old would like it! When Kiely opened her card from Great Grandma & Grandpa Andrews, she was ecstatic to find MONEY in it. She "counted" it carefully, then picked it up again and exclaimed, "Money!!" Kiely also got a new dress & t-shirt from "ANae & Kef-vin" (DaNae & Kevin), a stroller for her babies, 2 shirts, and a skirt from my parents. She was pretty spoiled this year, and loved everything that she got. Little Kiely Bug is growing up so fast, and we are grateful to have her in our family.
Here are some pictures from her birthday:

 Eating lunch. She didn't make me hold the sandwich for her at all, which is an accomplishment... :)

 The fancy cake I made for her. Oh. she said fancy today, too. It was pretty cute & funny.

 I told her to smile... There were lots of people around, and she kinda was laughing and being goofy.

 PLAYDOUGH! "Op-un, Op-un"

 She thought the microphone was pretty cool!

 Happy about getting a book

 The hex bug. SO funny to watch her with it. "It's gonna getch-you!"

 HOORAY for money from Great Grandma & Grandpa Andrews!

COLORS!!

Some things that she does and enjoys at TWO years old are:
-brushing her teeth (she does ok for a 2 year old... at least she's putting it in her mouth and sort of brushing around)
-singing songs -- her favorite at bedtime is Popcorn Popping and it's actually part of the routine. :) I've also been teaching her When Daddy Comes Home, and it's hilarious to watch her with her actions. She also loves singing the hymns at church, and usually has to have her own book.
-Puts her clothes away in the "top-un drawer" and "second drawer" don't know where the "un" came from, but she uses it quite a bit to start her sentences or just randomly... I taught her which clothes go where, and she gets it right almost every time, although I do remind her almost every time, she is getting the hang of it. I even caught her putting her clothes away without being asked recently. I had a pile sitting by her door from what I folded when she was in bed, and she just put them away without me asking!
-Knows her colors (red, pink, blue, green, yellow, orange, white, black, brown, purple)
-No longer uses a sippy, but big girl cups! Sippies get SO nasty after a while, and we decided rather than wasting money on another one for her that she doesn't really need (because she knew how to use a cup) we just got some good cups for her to use. She likes to pick the color each time, too.
-Loves to read/look at books... we're going to be starting on learning the ABCs completely within the next couple weeks, then we'll learn about sounds.
-Seems to be liking the idea more of us having another baby girl at home. She likes to feel the baby move sometimes, and others she says "Baby's sleeping" or if she is willing to feel it, she will say "Baby moof-ving"
-Can count to ten and sometimes even "elef-ven"
-Love, love, LOVES to play with her dad, and when James walks in the door, I love watching both of them Kiely "DA-DAAA!!" and James "KIELY!!!" It's pretty much the best!
-She is sadly not potty trained yet, but we continue to work on it. The biggest thing is getting her out of the crib into a bed she can get out of at night/naptime so that she can go when she needs to. (This will be happening soon, and I'll post pictures of the BED when James is done with it!!) She IS using the BIG POTTY now, though, so that's EXCELLENT for me! She also seems more excited since we started having her use the big potty, because now she's a "Big girl!"
-Her favorite color is pink, and also seems to like green.
-Her favorite fruit is probably raspberries, and her favorite vegetable? Broccoli. You got me! But she pretty much loves the stuff. Has to have the "leaves" on it, though, and it has to be cooked.
-Loves to pretend. Today she was on the couch talking to her imaginary friend, singing with her, and telling her to "scoot over a little bit"... and "it's my spot!" so funny!

Here are her stats for her two year old well-check:
-Weight: 25 lbs. 2 oz. (29%)
-Height: 34 inches. (56%) (If the theory is true that your final height is double your 2 year old height, she will be 5'8"... 4.5 inches taller than me, and I think 1-2 inches shorter than James! That's pretty tall for us!... Must have some Butler genes!)
-Head: I don't remember. I have the papers, but I remember her doctor saying "Her head is continuing to grow really well" or something like that... Not sure if that was supposed to mean her head is big for her height and weight, or what, but it looks to me like it's pretty normal...

I know our little Bug had a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY! and she continues to grow, learn and develop in new ways each day. We love you little Kiely Joy!!

**I haven't taken 2 year old pictures yet, but will soon, and will post those when I can... I have LOTS to do... especially in the next 6 weeks!

Smart & Imaginative!... and Kiely's first big OUCH!

SMART
It's been a while since I've done a post on our little Bug. (Or at all, I guess.) I don't have pictures on this computer to add to the post, but hey, at least this is something. Maybe I'll add some pictures later. Kiely is getting smarter and smarter each day... and she makes us laugh with the things she comes up with. She can count to 10, which we think is awesome and amazing for her age. She also likes to ask me what I'm doing. "Mom, doing?" (or she'll say "Mom... [mumble mumble] doing?" I tell her what I'm doing at the time, then ask her what she's doing and she'll usually say, "Ummm, stuff." Love it. James loves her little mumbles she does when she doesn't know how to say the words. It's pretty cute, and at least she's trying! I have also been helping her learn how to say her prayers for the past few months. It's part of her bedtime routine, which she is also doing great with! (Although there are times she doesn't want to go to bed, so she tries to find excuses like, "milk? milk?") She took FOREVER to sleep through the night, and I am DEFINITELY going to do things differently with this next one so that she'll sleep through the night sooner... Now we actually catch Kiely kneeling, folding her arms and saying, "Heavenly Father... Amen." when she's pretending. It always makes me happy. Oh by the way... potty training, yeah... that was put on hold for a little bit because of how busy we were with things, and I was gone Tuesday thru Friday last week. We are trying to get back into things now. Sorry so random, but maybe most of this is for me to remember things later... Kiely no longer calls every kind of drink "lala" although she sometimes uses that still, she knows: sippy (surprise to me when I got home last Friday), milk, "watey" (water), and juice. By now, she definitely has a favorite color: PINK! Of course. She's so girly! We got her a swimming suit about a month ago and when we were looking for it, that's how I talked her in to being happy while we were shopping, "Let's get Kiely a new swimming suit... Maybe we can find a pink one!" Good thing I found one!! Now it's "Kiely's pink soup." Our little Bug is also somewhat of a tease and plays teasing games quite often, "No, it's-a Kie-y's!" or she'll just pretend to do little things and it's pretty funny. We realize how much she is learning from us, and she definitely catches on quickly. She loves shutting the door to the laundry room, and our door doesn't shut sometimes if you don't shut it exactly the right way. As she was trying to shut the door, she got frustrated because she tried and tried and it wouldn't shut for her. We heard her say, "shoot." Uh-oh! Not sure if she got this from us or one of her relatives, but we decided that we'd be extra careful about even saying things like that especially around her... besides, that's not really necessary anyways! (So, whenever you're around her, we'd appreciate it if you try to be careful about the things you say and do... she's catches on so quickly and we would like to only teach her good things as long as we can help it. Thanks!)

IMAGINATIVE
Kiely loves to play games with James when he gets home from work. They have their own special games that they play-- wrestling, "eating" Kiely, etc... Well, within the past few weeks, Kiely made up a new game. The sun was shining in the window making a spot on the floor, and she'd say, "Uh-oh, Kiely in the hot..." when she stepped in that spot, then she'd get out of it and try to get James in, etc... It was so cute, and I'm glad she can come up with her own games to play.

Earlier today I was working on my computer. She always loves getting in the drawer where the pens, pencils, etc. are in the desk. Today she found our little orange stapler. (You know the kind that's nice to take to class with you because it's so small...) She pulls it out and starts sort of chomping it at me saying, "rawr, rawr!" (Good thing she's not strong enough to push it in all the way yet...) It was stinking cute how she recognized and thought it looked like some sort of monster or something!

Kiely's first big OUCH!
I didn't really want to do another post on this, so I'm just combining it... Monday Kiely and I got groceries. I'm not sure if anyone really loves grocery shopping. Especially with an almost 2 year old. Especially with an exhausted-almost 2 year old. That was what our Monday grocery shopping trip was like. Kiely was pretty grumpy and tired because the only nap she'd had was on the way to Winco. Good thing I had my grocery list. She did pretty good for the most part, but at a point wanted me to hold her. She was getting more & more tired. I told her I couldn't hold her & push the cart, and we needed to be fast, so she wasn't going to walk until it was time to get the milk. (It takes her spot in the cart...) I gave her my arm to snug for comfort. Soon she was asleep, and I was unsure how I was going to get the rest of the groceries... I did my best as long as I could, but eventually had to take my arm back and she woke up. We made it to the milk and she got out and walked, helping me push the cart. After checking out, she helped me push the cart again as we walked out to the car... Well, I'm not sure exactly what happened at this point, but here's my guess: There's the spot on grocery carts where they weld it together. Kiely must have tripped over something, her thumb got caught on the welding, and then she fell and was flat on her belly. I went and picked her up, and asked her what hurt. She showed me her left thumb. It was skinned pretty bad and bleeding-- kind of on the side of the knuckle & inside knuckle. I wasn't really sure what to do, because that's all I saw. We didn't have a first aid kit in the car, (which I decided is a must after this occurrence) so I grabbed a diaper wipe and cleaned it as best as I could, and held it on for a minute. I figured it would be okay until we got home where we had some good stuff to take care of her. Kiely wasn't so happy when I put her in her seat, but I told her we were going to go home and put some "bes" or "mess" (medicine) on her ouch. I packed up the groceries into the car and we were on our way. She was asleep soon after we got on the road. (Thank goodness.) When we got home, I let her sleep in her car seat as long as I could while I took groceries in, and then brought her in with me when I had them all in. We washed her ouch with soap & water and I attempted to put some Melagel and a bandaid on it... It didn't work so well... I held her as much as I could while putting groceries away/starting to make dinner. James got home finally. I told him what happened and he looked at her thumb. He was concerned that it might be broken because it had swelled up and was kinda red & purple. (I hadn't noticed the swelling before we got home from grocery shopping.) We decided it would probably be best to take her in and have it looked at. Thank goodness for Urgent Care! (Although it did take a while, it was probably better than going to the emergency room...) The first nurse that saw her only cleaned it with sterile water. (I think I probably cleaned it better with my faucet water and soap...) Another nurse apparently chewed that nurse out, asking her how she thought it would clean the wound... then came in and cleaned it with betadine. She told me she had had a similar experience with one of her own children. Kiely ended up having some x-rays done just to make sure it wasn't broken. No fracture! Hooray! She was so patient the whole time we were there, and I was grateful. I couldn't get her to hold still for me while I tried to take care of it at home! Although it wasn't broken, I was glad we went in... much better to know and be safe than to wonder and possibly be wrong and regret it later. Kiely came home with a pink bandaid, pink sucker and a Clifford sticker. (She said thank you to the dr. for all of them.) She also continued to say thank you on the way home. "Thank you, pink." (sucker) "Thank you, princess." (bandaid) I am so grateful for modern medicine, and that Kiely is okay! (By the way, they measured and weighed her when we went in, and she was 33.25" tall and 25 lbs! She's getting so big!)

Sorry again for no pictures... I didn't take pictures of the OUCH when it happened because well, honestly, I'm not one to document every little detail like that...

Kiely Lately

Kiely seems to be having more and more personality lately. She makes us laugh so much! From the things she does while she's playing by herself, like pretending and disciplining her kitty, "NO, NO, NO! Kee!" (stuffed animal, not real)--to the little things she does that make her who she is, like needing to snug on my arm "Awm!" when it's time for a nap or bed, being very organized and not liking anything to be open "Shut!" (cupboards, milk jugs, water bottles) or holding her hands together really tight when you put lotion on them because she doesn't want it to get away-- she is quite the character! I love the big imagination that she has, and that every time I have something to do, I don't always have to turn to the TV to entertain her! Our little Kiely Bug really is so much fun, and I'm glad I get to be home with her-- even if some days aren't the easiest. Sometimes when I'm cleaning in the kitchen (doing dishes, etc) she will bring her toys in the kitchen, and make her own little spot so that she can be with me still even though I can't be playing with her.

 Kiely's spot on the floor in the kitchen while I was doing dishes. I thought it was so cute, and she's done  this a few times!

After we give her lotion, she holds her hands together so tight that her fingers turn blue sometimes! Funny kid!

Kiely is also learning so much- She says amen "men" when the prayer is over, knows the order of things during sacrament meeting (song, prayer, song, sacrament, etc.) and gets ready for each by either folding her arms or getting the hymn book and leads the music with the chorister (one of my favs). She is also learning her colors, letters, and numbers, and is becoming more familiar with her aunts' and uncles' names. (Grandma is "Ba-kah" and Grandpa is "Pa-kah" usually.) She is also starting to just say "mom" and "dad" more. She'll say, "Mom!" and then go on to tell me something in her little language. When James is at work, she'll ask, "Where's Dad (or Dada)? Where'd he go? Work?" and recognizes that when he's gone, he's usually at work. Kiely is just so stinking sweet and cute and we are so grateful to have her as our little one! (Oh, and just so you know... of course she's not perfect, we see those terrible two characteristics starting to come... Oh joy!)