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! :)

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!