S & C Family

Valentine crafts

2012-02-13T13:42:00.009-06:00

I love Valentine crafts. The web is an awesome tool for finding cool craft and card ideas. So off I went to find an idea to make Valentines for our immediate family. I found a craft that used the bottom of a celery stalk to make a rose stamp. Here's what the stamp looked like.

Here Mallory is using another piece of celery for the leaves.

Here's the final product.

Here's the inside.

Pretty sure the people that got one in the mail had no idea we made it with celery! :)

I found another cool idea on the web that we used for Mallory's school Valentines. This is Mallory's 3rd year at her preschool. And each year we've made homemade Valentines. Her first year we made flowers with lollipop centers (I can't seem to find a picture of those). Then last year we made butterflies. This year we made bumblebees. They were really easy and I think they turned out cute.

Valentine Party

2012-02-13T13:32:00.005-06:00

Today Mallory had her Valentine party at preschool. It was my first time helping at a school party. I'm sure it won't be my last! Thanks to Papa for watching Edee so I could go.

First they made a craft. Here's Mallory all smiles.

Then they played games. The mom in charge of games brought some neat ones. This one they had to pick up conversation hearts with chopsticks. It was hard! But I stink at chop sticks. :)

Of course I brought the cookies. Mallory and I made sugar cookies on Saturday and then decorated them yesterday. I think this is one of the first times I've seen Mallory eat a cookie without licking the icing off first. Maybe she realized that isn't polite (especially in public!).

Kaleidoscope

2012-02-11T13:29:00.014-06:00

Steve is out of town this weekend. He went to see his friends in Jefferson City. I didn't want to sit around the house all day, so I had to come up with a plan. I got my dad to join us for a trip to Kaleidoscope (my mom had some church stuff to do). We arrived earlier than we needed to. I assumed it would be crowded on the weekend and they would let you in the lobby area even before they hand out tickets. Nope. Oh, well. Live and learn. It was not crowded at all when they first let us in. It was a nice change from the last time we went.

Both girls had a blast! Actually, Papa did too. Our first stop was the glow-in-the-dark area. We missed it the last time we were there. They had all sorts of fun toys to play with. One took your picture and projected it on the wall. Here's 2 of the pictures that I took of the wall.

The last time we were there, Edee stayed in the stroller. Today she got to do everything. Here the girls are painting birds.

While the birds were going through the dryer, Edee and I played in the submarine. We're looking out at Papa over by the dryer.

Papa and his girls.
We had fun playing with the kaleidoscope on the wall. It was our picture. Mallory's in the middle and Edee and I are on the outside. You can see Edee's stripped pants.

We did a quick peek through the Hallmark Visitor's Center too. Here's the silly picture of us.

Edee got to make her first bow. She had to be held up to reach the button, but she could get the bow out herself.

After that we headed to Lucky's for lunch. What a fun morning. Too bad that didn't translate into long nap for Edee. She's already up after a little over 1 hour. It's my fault, she was actually fell asleep on the way to lunch. Well, I guess that just means an early bedtime.

Smash

2012-02-08T10:05:00.000-06:00

I am the first to admit that I'm a "theater snob." I've seen about 80 musicals in last 12 years. My good friend Julie and I have season tickets to the Music Hall (and now the season is split with the Kauffman Center). Then my friend Jennifer joins us in the summers at Starlight. We've been doing this since we graduated from college.

So when I saw previews for a new musical-theater drama television show, I had to DVR it. I got my chance to watch it last night. It's called Smash. And it's right up my alley. I am normally not one to watch new TV shows. But I'm hooked already.

If you're curious about my 80ish musicals, here's the list. Actually there are a few that are not musicals. We created a list a few years back, because we started forgetting what we'd seen and when. My full list contains dates we saw it and at what location.

12 Angry Men

42nd Street

9 to 5

A Chorus Line

Aida

Annie

Anything Goes

Avenue Q

Beauty & the Beast

Blast!

Blue Man Group

Cabaret

Camelot

Cats

Chicago

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

Cinderella

Cirque Dreams Jungle Fantasy

Contact

Defending the Caveman

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

Disney's High School Musical

Disney's on the Record

Dr. Dolittle

Dreamgirls

Drowsey Chaperone

Evita

Fiddler on the Roof

Floor Play

Footloose

Full Monty

Grease

Guys and Dolls

Hairspray

Hello, Dolly!

Jekyll & Hyde

Jesus Christ Superstar

Joseph & the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

Kiss Me Kate

La Boheme

Legally Blonde

Legends

Les Miserables

Little House on the Prairie

Little Shop of Horrors

Mama Mia

Miss Saigon

Movin' Out

Patti Lupone and Mandy Patinkin

Phantom of the Opera

Ragtime

Rain - A Tribute to the Beatles

Rent

Riverdance

Rock of Ages

Saturday Night Fever

Shrek - The Musical

Singin' In the Rain

Some Like it Hot

Sound of Music

Spamalot

Spring Awakening

Starlight Express

Stomp

Sweeny Todd

Sweet Charity

Swing

The 25th Annual Putnam Co Spelling Bee

The Color Purple

The King and I

The Lion King

The Music Man

The Phantom of the Opera

The Producers

Thoroughly Modern Millie

Titanic

Urinetown

Wedding Singer

West Side Story

White Christmas

Wicked

Will Rogers Follies

Wizard of Oz

Xanadu

Happy Birthday Papa!

2012-02-07T20:29:00.007-06:00

I'm finally getting around to posting about my dad's birthday. Oops. Sorry dad. My dad (AKA Papa) turned 60 on Friday. We had my parents and my sister, Tina, and her husband, Brian, over for dinner on Saturday. Mallory picked out Edee's outfit for the party. It was a Christmas present and I just love it. I truly can't stand how cute she looked in it.

Do you think I could find it in my size!?! I'm sure I'd look like an idiot in the skirt. Maybe I should try to find it in Mallory's size instead! :)

Here's Papa and Edee. I think my mom has a picture of him with both girls and his birthday photo book.

I made my carrot cake. Oh, so yummy! I think Edee did manage to blow at least 1 candle out. She's recently learned to blow bubbles from a wand and in the bathtub. The bathtub one really surprised me. I don't remember Mallory learning how to do that so young. But I have a horrible memory, so I could be wrong.

Hope you had a nice birthday, Papa!

Hawaiian Vacation 2012

2012-02-06T13:22:00.002-06:00

My family all loaded their pictures from Hawaii to Shutterfly. I spent every waking moment for about a week working on a photo book for my dad. I was really excited about how it turned out. I used pictures from everyone. Amazingly it arrived the day after his 60th birthday. But it happened to be the night everyone was coming over to our house to celebrate his birthday. So he received his photo book at his birthday party! I was so excited!!!

When I ordered his book I realized that Shutterfly was having a 50% off sale. So I decided to make one for us too. I removed things from my dad's book that we didn't do and added things we did. It really isn't that different from his. Our book arrived in the mail today. I really wanted to share it on here as well. I logged back into Shutterfly today and realized that you can share it! So here it is.....

Click here to view this photo book larger

Shutterfly offers exclusive photobook layouts so you can make your book just the way you want.

Edee's Animal Sounds

2012-02-03T16:46:00.006-06:00

I know I haven't uploaded videos in awhile. I have some good ones too. Here's one from yesterday. Mallory was singing with her microphone and Edee wanted a turn. She "sang" a bit and then I asked her to do animal sounds. Some are very funny.

Mallory did the video taping. She's doing much better at actually keeping Edee in the shot.

I know I look like a dork reacting to Edee's lion sound. Go ahead and laugh at me as well. Enjoy!

More Outside Fun

2012-02-03T12:35:00.007-06:00

We headed to the park yesterday after Edee took a short nap. We took Mallory's bike and Edee's tricycle and headed to Shawnee Mission Park. They have a big, flat parking lot for Mallory to ride her bike. Our driveway is pretty short and we live on a hill. So she rarely gets to practice. Here's my cute girls.

After riding for awhile, we walked to the playground. We weren't there more than a couple minutes when Papa shows up. This is not a park we frequent regularly, so it was weird seeing him there. He was actually playing disc golf and saw our van parked in the lot. So he walked over to find us on the playground. It worked out perfectly to have him there. Edee still needs some help at the top and bottom of the slides. This is a fairly long, tunnel slide. She loved it! Check out the look on her face. Check out her hair too....it was blowing. :)

Edee showed that she can walk up steps by herself. These were perfect for practicing. They are shorter steps and she had railings on both sides.

Not really sure why this picture is so hazy. But you can still see my reflection in Mallory's sunglasses.

It was a fun afternoon. Still crazy that it's just beginning of February.

We wore Edee out, because she ended up taking a late-afternoon nap.

Winter Weather!?!

2012-01-31T20:34:00.011-06:00

I haven't seen snow yet this winter. Kind of funny that Santa brought the girls a new sled that hasn't been used. Well, that's a lie. We've pulled Edee around on the house on it. :)

I think we missed a dusting when we were in Hawaii. I know we haven't gotten our first inch in KC, because that's been on the news. The last 2 days have been spring-like. So the girls have got some good outside time. Yesterday we met my dad at Westflander's Park. It was crowded, which Mallory always enjoys. Makes me nervous with Edee. I heard lots of parents say "watch out for the little one."

She's signing "all done" in this picture. Check out those blue eyes.
She loved all the slides she went on. If you look closely, you can see her tongue sticking out. Is she concentrating!?!

Mallory's wispies almost make it look like she has bangs in this picture.

It was nice having Papa there to help Edee up to some of the longer slides, while I waited at the bottom to catch her.

Today we just played outside at our house. Edee enjoyed the Cozy Coupe. Notice the tongue again.

We also played with sidewalk chalk. You can see it all over Edee's pants!

Not sure what this pose is, but it's so Mallory.

Edee had the tongue out while shooting hoops too.

I don't miss driving in the snow. But Mallory had so much fun sledding last winter. I was looking forward to sledding with her again. Who knows! We still might get snow. I hope it's soon though. Otherwise I'm worried my tulips are going to come up.

Boat Show!

2012-01-28T19:37:00.003-06:00

For Papa Friday, my dad took Mallory to the OP Boat Show. She was so excited! According to my dad, she was the only one ready to leave school. She had her coat and backpack on.

She climbed in all the boats and got to "drive."

Her favorite boat was a yacht. Check out the look on her face.

She really liked the kids' room with the stuffed dog.

My dad took a picture of the price, so he wouldn't forget. $1,043,216. Yeah, just a bit out of our price range.

KidScape, etc.

2012-01-28T19:15:00.010-06:00

I use to be able to blog after an activity or event. But I have found that every waking, free moment lately I've been spending creating a photo book for my dad. It's a Hawaii book that contains almost 60 pages with 300ish pictures. So until I get it done....this will have to do.

Thursday we met Ian & his family at KidScape. Because I have a search function for my blog, I just looked up the first time we went there. Ian was there that time too. Here's the link. It's fun to see Mallory so little!

Here she is golfing.

And pretending the X-Ray was her own bones.

Mallory loves the theater. She dances and sings (always has loved it). Edee loved the chairs for the audience. She loved climbing on them.

We had a great time! So nice that it's so close to our house.

Thursday Edee got to experience finger painting for the first time. She loved it! And I only had to pull her fingers from her mouth once. She's actually wearing my "paint shirt." It says "Big Red is Dead".....in reference to K-State beating Nebraska in football in 1998. :)

Mallory and I made homemade pizza this evening. So we both had aprons on and Edee decided she wanted one too. And sure enough we have a "smaller" one. So she got to wear it. Then Steve captured this great smiles. Not sure what technique he used. But I need to learn it!

He did get this mean-looking one of Mallory too. Maybe he's not quite the master.

Week in Review

2012-01-23T12:28:00.001-06:00

We're slowly transitioning back into our normal life. Getting back to a normal sleep schedule has taken a full week. We woke up last Sunday at 10am. That was 6am Hawaii time, so it makes sense. I think we're finally back to our normal.

Mallory started back to school on Wednesday. She was really excited to bring some things to show to her classmates. She took some postcards. I really wish I could have been a fly on the wall to hear her talk about it. Here she is in her "HI" t-shirt. Pretty cute.

Thursday we had nothing on the calendar, so we decided to take Edee to Little Monkey Bizness for the first time. My parents actually met us there too. Here's Edee going down the slide for the first time. She actually loved it. Doesn't surprise me. Since she is such a wild, climbing girl.

Mallory and Edee went down the slide together.

Edee even went down the big slide. She had to get help up there, but she went down with no problems.

I think we'll be frequenting that place. She loved it!

Friday evening I had a show at the Kauffman Center with my friend Julie. While I was there, Steve took the girls to see a Funky Mama concert at Mallory's preschool. According to Steve, Mallory had a great time. Edee did too. She was dancing and everything. But I think it was a little much for Steve.....trying to keep Edee from getting trampled by the big kids. Edee thinks she's so big and wants to be right in the mix.

Sunday we went to church as a whole family. It was really nice to go together. During the Sunday School hour, Steve just walked around with Edee. Then we put her in the church nursery for the first time for worship. And I guess she did great. I was worried, but she did fine. I hope that continues.

I just love this picture of the girls before church. Mallory has on a super cute outfit she got for Christmas from Steve's parents. It has an attached scarf. She loves it too!

This morning I enrolled both girls in preschool. Well, sort of. I enrolled Mallory in the transitional kindergarten class. And I enrolled Edee in a Children's Day Out. I can't believe she's already old enough for that. My girls are growing up! :)

16 Months

2012-01-17T10:15:00.004-06:00

A few items for Edee at 16 months.....

She continues to climb all the time. It's now not just small, kid chairs of Mallory's. It's the chairs in the kitchen. It's everything, really.
I really thought things would be easier when we got home from vacation in terms of chasing Edee. I thought the reason we were so worried about her was because the condos weren't baby-proofed. I was wrong. I still feel like I have to chase her around the house. You never know what she's going to climb on and then either fall from or get stuck. I consider it a good day if she only falls 2 times.
We've started putting Edee in time outs. Normally it's for putting her hand in the cats' water bowl or standing on a chair. She hears "On your bottom, please" an awful lot!
She's starting to get her bottom eye teeth. Her top left molar is coming in too.
Her sleep in Hawaii was bad. She was sleeping through the night without any problems before we left. But she woke up every night in Hawaii. At home we let her cry a bit and she will generally go back to sleep easily. But I just didn't feel like we could do that on vacation when we were sharing walls with others. But the transition back home hasn't been too bad. She still cries a little overnight, but she goes back to sleep without any problems. I think we're starting to get back to where we were before.
She did great in Hawaii with naps. She was flexible and that was the key. She'd nap on me on the beach. Sometimes she'd nap in her bed. Back at home we're down to 1 nap. She does well if she doesn't have a bowel movement. Seriously. If she goes, she'll wake up and not go back to sleep. Frustrating.
She thinks she can walk down the steps. This started when we got back home. We're trying to sit on her bottom and go down. She is getting better at that. But she just thinks she's bigger than she is.
She loves to roar like a lion. I think it's her favorite animal sound. I need to get a video of her sounds. They are funny!

Aloha!

2012-01-14T20:11:00.002-06:00

We arrived back to KC safe and sound this evening. We spent the last 2 weeks in Hawaii. The trip was great! I have over 1,000 pictures to sort though. I'm excited to do it too!! I intended to post journal style and back-date my posts to the actual day. I doubt I get to any posts this evening, but be looking back if you're curious to hear about our trip.

Travel Day #2 - Home to KC

2012-01-14T16:00:00.003-06:00

Steve got in the shower first this morning. He said the girls looked super cute sleeping together. He said they were even sleeping the same way. Too bad he didn't get a picture of that.

We ate a quick bite of food in the hotel and headed back to the airport.

Amazingly the flight was on time. Edee did great on this flight. Not sure if it was just good timing or she was use to flying. I don't know. Mallory did great on every flight, really. She's a good traveler.

Here's a picture of Edee on the floor and Mallory coloring.

We arrived to KC about 30 minutes early. Amazing!

Travel Day #1 - Kona to Portland

2012-01-13T22:26:00.007-06:00

I always meant to get pictures of the condos. But I always seemed to forget. I managed to snap a few this morning before we left. The coolest part was the patio that overlooked the golf course. We never really used it. But it had a nice wet bar out there and everything.

While we finished up packing, the girls hung out at the other condo. We left a day earlier than my siblings because we could get a direct flight to the mainland. It just made traveling so much easier. My parents actually stayed a couple more days and went to Oahu.

Mallory loved going upstairs to Chase and Deanna's loft/bedroom. She just thought it was so cool.

Edee loved going up to the loft too. The spiral staircase made me a bit nervous. But Papa was with her.

We said our goodbyes and headed off. We stopped at a lookout point not to far from our condo that we had passed a couple of times. Today was the first day that wasn't really overcast and hazy. So good thing we saved it for our last day.

We arrived at the Kona airport with plenty of time. The flight to Portland wasn't too bad. Edee kept kicking the seat in front of her from her car seat. I did everything I could to stop her, but it just didn't work. Edee only slept about 1 hour, because another little baby started screaming and woke her up. Argh. Oh, well. We managed.

We arrived in Portland to find everyone in winter coats. We only brought light jackets, but it was fine. A shuttle arrived to take us to our hotel. We checked in and settled down to sleep.

Edee woke up in the middle of the night screaming. I got her calmed down and attempted to put her back in the pack-n-play. Too bad she continued screaming. So I put her in bed with me and Mallory. She slept between us. I literally had a sliver of the bed to sleep on. Oh, well. Edee and Mallory both slept.

Big Island - Beach & Family

2012-01-12T22:22:00.022-06:00

Today was our last full day of vacation. :( We've had such a great time. I think we're ready to get back home, but then again.

Today we headed out to find a beach. It took us a bit to find the one we were looking for, but I'm really glad we kept searching. It was in the old town of Kailua Village in the Kona region of the Big Island. So it's called Kailua - Kona. It's right by where the Ford Ironman World Championships start. It was the bay right by the harbor. It was a sleepy little beach when we arrived. But by the time we left there were quite a few other families with kids.

Edee continues to love to walk around on the sand. Papa is never far behind.

Right on the beach was a shop to rent paddleboards and sea kayaks. I had been wanting to paddleboard for awhile, so I decided to rent one for an hour. The small bay was super calm, so it was the perfect place to learn. I started out on my knees to get the hang of it. Then I was up and standing in no time. I stuck to the bay though. And it was amazing the number and variety of fish I saw in the crystal, clear water. I saw a school of about 20 yellow tang fish. There were a lot of other ones too. It was awesome! No need for me to snorkel!

I ventured out a little into the actual ocean (with small waves), but it made me nervous. I was by myself and around where no on in my family could even see me. So I came back in and gave Chase a try at it. We took turns for the hour. I ventured out a little further each time, but never very far. My dad even got on and gave it a try. Next time I have an opportunity (that's a when....not an if) I want to rent 2 boards and go further out with someone. Some folks that went out further said they were playing with dolphins. Very cool. Next time! :)

Brian and Tina went snorkeling. We found some extra equipment at our condo to use, so Steve snorkeled too. I think everyone (but me) went snorkeling off this beach. Brian said that it was the best off beach snorkeling he's ever done. They've snorkeled all over the Caribbean on cruises, so I think that's a good compliment.

Mallory even tried to snorkel. The equipment we had for her didn't fit that well. So she got on a boogie board and Uncle Chase and Deanna took her out. She laid on the board and they pointed out fish to her. That has been listed as one of her favorite things she did while on vacation.

My mom's cousin, Donna, lives in Kona. Well here's the real relationship....my mom's dad and Donna's dad were cousins. So whatever that makes them! They hadn't seen each other since my mom was pregnant with my sister. So it's been awhile. Anyway, my mom had been in contact with her and she came and met us on the beach. She was super nice and ended up inviting us to her house for dinner. More on that later. Back to the beach.

We had small beach chairs from the condo that I used to hold Edee for a nap. Worked much better than the last beach nap she took on me. Too bad I forgot her beach hat. So I used an umbrella to protect her little bald head.

Next we headed to lunch at the Kona Brewery. 5 of the 8 of age adults ordered a beer sampler. So there were 20 little glasses of beer consumed. I had a shrimp melt for lunch. Never had one before, but it was really good. The brewery has some of the coolest shirts we'd seen on the islands. So a lot of us got shirts. I even got one with a paddleboarder on it!

Here's the sampler, pre-drinking.

Here's the glasses after most of the beer had been consumed.

Even with the short nap at the beach, Edee took a great nap that afternoon. Nana actually stayed with Edee while she napped. Mallory went to the condo swimming pool with Uncle Chase and Deanna. And Steve and I went back to Kailua Village to do some shopping. We ended up with 2 different bags of 100% Kona coffee. A "HI" t-shirt for Mallory. It has Hawaii's abbreviation on it with the islands. The Big Island is actually the dot of the "i". It's really cute. Edee got a beach towel. And we found a picture frame with "Hawaii" written on it. We aren't real big on souvenirs and trinkets. So this was actually a good shopping trip.

A bit of a note about Kona.....I think we brought the average age down considerably of the tourists there. From what I saw, the average age was closer to 65 or 70. Most people we saw out and about were old. It was just a very different dynamic from what we saw on the other islands. Not sure if that is indicative of the entire island or just the area where we were staying.

After Mallory's swim with Uncle Chase and Deanna, they even gave her a bath! Deanna braided her hair. Isn't it awesome?!? I need to practice to get better. Too bad I doubt Mallory is patience enough for me to practice.

We got back to the condos just in time to go to dinner at Donna's. I was worried that it was going to be awkward. She has 2 high-school age daughters (Brittany and Amanda) and her husband, Steve. But it was a very nice evening. First off their house is gorgeous! Donna and Steve own a pool company. They design and built pools. These are nice, high-end pools. Steve has won awards for some of his designs. The house is all wood interior. The windows open up to a view of the ocean. She has a huge kitchen, an awesome patio, etc. It was beautiful!

Here's a picture of me and the girls outside on their patio.

Here's the family.....Steve, Brittany, Amanda and Donna. If you look close you can see the ocean.

Amanda showed Mallory how to play the ipu. They use this instrument in hulas.

It was too dark to see much by the time I got a picture of Papa and the girls.

Brittany and Amanda were charming. They answered all of our questions about life in Hawaii. Here are some bits of info they shared with us.

They, as Caucasians, are a minority at their public high school. There are some native Hawaiians. Then a lot of Asians, Micronesians, Polynesians, etc.
There aren't a lot of places to shop for clothing on the Big Island. They go to Honolulu to go shopping. Although they just got a new Target and I saw a Macy's. I think this teenage girls want something trendier than Macy's though.
They learned the Hawaiian alphabet and some of the Hawaiian language. But what they really have to know is pidgin. It's the unofficial language that is used in daily conversations.
Amanda (14) is on a canoe team. It's a big deal on the island.
Brittany (18) is a certified scuba diver.
They (well at least Brittany) thinks the island is boring. Wow! But I guess I can see what she means for someone her age.
The farthest west they've been on the mainland is Colorado.

We had a lovely time. We even left with a gift of Hawaiian woodchips from a Kaiwe tree. This is a side-business of theirs. They have 4 local trees that they use: kaiwe, ohia, avocado and guava. Can't wait to give it a try.

Big Island - Volcanoes

2012-01-11T22:20:00.023-06:00

This morning we drove to Volcanoes National Park. It's a long drive to the other side of the island....over 100 miles on a 2 lane road. Along the way we stopped at the Punalu'u Beach Park...famous for it's green sea turtles and truly black sand. A tour bus driver pointed the turtles out to us. They were near the shore, but still in the water. He said that it wasn't warm and sunny enough for them yet to come to shore. You could still see a head poke up occasionally. I never got a good picture though.

We took some black sand home as a souvenir. Only after we were putting some in a little baggie did I see the "Please do not take the sand" sign. Oops. Then we were warned by a group of hippies with really nasty dreadlocks that it's "bad karma" to take the black sand. Sorry. I don't believe in the "bad karma" bit. We already have it in a jar on our bookshelf.

It looks like Papa is in the water with Edee, but he really wasn't.

We finally arrived at Volcanoes National Park. First stop was the visitor's center. We found out that there were no places to see active lava flows on the surface. Bummer. The ranger was very helpful in telling us about cool spots that we shouldn't miss though. Our first stop was the Thurston Lava Tube.

Pretty cool to think that hundreds of years ago lava rushed through this spot.

I guess I didn't realize the volcanoes are all within a rainforest. It was lush and beautiful. It did rain a bit while we were there.

I used a carrier to get Edee through the lava tubes. But that meant she was there to snuggle.

This picture of Papa and the girls was taken from the Kilauea Iki Crater Overlook.

Then we headed to lunch in Volcano Village. It's a tiny town just outside the park. We ate at the Kilauea Lodge. Super nice people and good food too. Another group picture at lunch....this one was without Steve.

Edee fell asleep right after lunch, so we drove down the Chain of Craters Road to the coast. This is more of what I expected to see....lava flows from old explosions. It looked desolate and kind of like the pictures you see of the moon surface. Mallory fell asleep too. Comfy, huh!?!

When we arrived at the bottom, my mom stayed with the girls while we took a short walk to the coast to see the Holei Sea Arch. This waves knock away pieces of various layers of lava flow and created this natural sculpture.

The lava fields make a pretty landscape.

A 2003 eruption caused the road to be closed. Really!?! I thought I could get our rental car through the road. Where is that road anyway?

Next stop was the Steam vents. It was already getting chilly and Nana wasn't prepared. You can tell she looks cold in this picture. I had some capris for Mallory that she hadn't changed into yet. I was fairly well prepared at least for the girls. I didn't bring long pants for myself.

Here we are at the Jaggar Museum looking out over the Kilauea Caldera. The crater is spewing volcanic gases and ash. Part of the Crater Rim Drive was closed due to the high amounts of sulfur dioxide gas.

We were told by a ranger earlier in the day that we should be by the museum between 6 and 6:30 as the ash/gas starts to glow when the sun sets. It was a really neat sight.

After watching it glow orange for awhile and getting cold, we decided to make the long drive back to our condos. Steve set a record for the amount of time it took to get back "home." I think it was under 2 hours. There were times when he passed 2 cars at once. Don't worry, we were safe. The kiddos slept most of the way. And actually transitioned to bed fairly easily.

Kauai Morn & Travel to Big Island

2012-01-10T20:00:00.012-06:00

I am sad to see our time in Kauai gone. There are more things I would have liked to see. But they weren't kid friendly.

After singing Happy Birthday to Aunt Tina, I got a couple pictures of the girls in our banyan tree. I didn't get a picture of Tina with her Hostess cupcake birthday cake. Oops.

This is another crazy tree. It's not as big as the one on Maui, but it was still neat.

We had some time to do a little more on the island before our afternoon flight. So we found the Wailua Falls. I was expecting a trickle, but I was pleasantly surprised to find this. It was really pretty!

A family shot....You can see the falls just to the right of me.

Next we headed to Lydgate Beach Park. We had no intention of swimming or playing in the sand. But they have 2 neat playgrounds. The first one we visited was a bridge/maze. Mallory and Deanna are up on top.

The second was just a really neat playground. In the little kiddo section, we found a slide just right for Edee. She loved it! Check out that smile.

Brian found a seafood place for us called Wahooo Seafood and Grill. I enjoyed an ahi sandwich. It was really good. Man am I going to miss the seafood when we get back home to Kansas. Mallory didn't want her grilled cheese. She wanted Papa's popcorn shirmp. Here she is eating that instead.

This is the closest we got to a group picture. They took one of us on Maui before the whale watching cruise. But we found out later that the card was corrupted. So here's one of the gang without me in it.

Then we headed to the airport. Our flight was delayed a bit again. We had to stop in Honolulu on our way. So we decided not to put Edee in her car seat for the 2 short flights. She sat like a big girl in her own seat with a seat belt. It was really cute. Wish I had a picture of that.

I saw the Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor from the airplane. Steve, the history buff that really wanted to see it, was on the wrong side. He said he saw a bit of it.

We arrived in Kona on the Big Island and headed to our condos. It was dark by the time we arrived, so we didn't get to see anything. That will have to wait for the morning.

Day 2 Kauai - Wildlife

2012-01-09T20:00:00.022-06:00

The roosters didn't seem to bother us as much this morning. Not sure why, but we'll take it. Yesterday I was desperately trying to figure out how Steve and I were going to get to see the Na Pali Coast. I finally figured it out. My parents would go on a snorkeling trip to Na Pali in the morning. Then Steve and I would take the sunset cruise on the same boat with Captain Andy that afternoon/evening. They would take the kiddos in the afternoon and it would work perfectly. Yeah! So we had a fun morning with just the 4 of us.

But first we ate breakfast with Aunt Tina and Uncle Brian at Grind's Cafe again. I had the best French toast I think I've ever had. Oh, so yummy!

Then we drove through the Tunnel of Trees. We actually went this way because we missed our original turn. I'm glad we did. This was pretty neat.

First stop of the day was the Spouting Horn. I saw a lot of pictures with a lot more water coming out. But it was still kind of neat.

Next stop, our beach of the morning....Poipu Beach Park. I read it's a great place for kiddos. I also read that you are likely to see the monk seals in the summer months. I guess this seal didn't realize it is winter. I was excited though. The monk seal is an endangered species. I saw estimates that there are only about 1,000 of these left. And no....it's not dead. I saw it lift its head once.

More sand play for Edee.

Mallory played in the water and the sand. We had a really fun morning.

Then it was off to get cleaned up for our sunset dinner cruise. We handed the kiddos off and hopped on the boat. My mom said that if we saw half of what they did that morning it would be a great trip. I guess they had a fantastic time!

We did too. The most unexpected part of our cruise was the number of whales we saw. At times we were surrounded by as many as 8 whales. It was crazy! I saw 2 full breaches. The whales were completely out of the water. And they were pretty close to the boat. It was amazing!!!! I was so excited. No pictures though. I think any pictures someone actually catches of a breach would have to be a still taken from a video. They are impossible to predict and therefore impossible to catch in a still photograph.

Once we got to the coast, I took a ton of pictures. I actually had a really hard time deciding which ones to include here.

Here we are with the Na Pali coast. It was beautiful! No wonder they film so many movies there--Jurassic Park, King Kong, South Pacific, Pirates of the Caribbean to name a few.

We saw a rainbow. I'm amazed my camera did so well catching it.

Everyone was talking about dolphins on our trip. According to the captain, the best time to see the spinner dolphins is on a morning cruise. He said that the evening cruises see dolphins maybe once a week. And they typically see the smaller, spinner dolphins. But we lucked out and found some bottlenose dolphins. They are about 2x the size of the spinners. They were so playful. It was really fun!

Notice the jackets. It started to get chilly. But isn't the sunset beautiful!?!

We had such a great time! Thanks again Nana and Papa for watching the girls for us.

First full day in Kauai

2012-01-08T20:00:00.015-06:00

We woke up in the middle of the night last night freezing! I guess the windows were a little much. So they got shut. But they weren't shut enough to keep out the noise of the roosters. There are a lot of feral chickens all over Kauai, including the plantation. Kind of funny to see them running around everywhere. But kind of annoying when you're trying to sleep to the sounds of the ocean.

My dad made some yummy omelets for breakfast this morning. Then we headed out to the Salt Pond Beach. We arrived to find a big group of locals in the water. It is Sunday, so I thought baptism. We never found out. And some of them actually ended up swimming laps. Maybe it was just a swim club of some sort.

This is our favorite beach (so far at least). It had enough waves to entertain Mallory, but not knock her over. It also had a fun area with tide pools to explore.

Here's Mallory out in the water on Uncle Brian's shoulders.

The tide pools were swimming with life. Yes, I know cheesy. :) We found lots of sea urchins. A little boy also caught a crab.

I guess all the sand play wore Edee out, because she ended up falling asleep on me again today. Too bad we didn't have the comfy lounge chair this time. While she was napping, Mallory and Steve built a sand castle.

After Edee's nap, we headed to find a little beach called the Glass Sand Beach. It has eroded glass instead of sand, because of an off shore dumping site. It wasn't as neat as I thought it sounded. And my pictures really didn't turn out great. Maybe someone else got a better shot of it.

Then we headed to lunch at a little local place called Grind's Cafe. It was very much a local joint. We had a yummy lunch and then headed back to the mansion.

Mallory and Papa went to the swimming pool, while Edee tried to nap. Her nap was unsuccessful, so I walked over to the pool to get them. On the way back I took this picture of our house with the banyan tree.

Instead of naps, we visited the Waimea Canyon. The first lookout point was called Waimea Canyon Lookout. Clever, right? But very beautiful. Edee wouldn't sleep at the mansion, but she fell asleep in the car. So she slept through this first lookout point.

My mom stayed in the car with her. Then my dad relieved her. Pretty nice that I managed to get out of sitting in the car! :)

This was the 2nd lookout point we stopped at. I think we were at the Puu Hina Hina Lookout. (Is that right!?!) Edee woke up for this stop.

These last 2 canyon pictures were taken from the Kalalau Lookout. We did not dress Edee warm enough for the elevation. So she got to wrap up in Daddy's shirt.

We arrived back at the mansion just in time to see the sunset. Amazing!

Travel day to Kauai

2012-01-07T20:00:00.013-06:00

For some unknown reason the girls actually slept late today. Yeah!

We managed to finish packing and head out to drive back to the airport. The drive was along the coast and I was watching for more whales. Sure enough, I saw my first whale breach. Steve was driving and missed it. It was a ways off the shore, but it was awesome none-the-less.

We decided to stop at a look-out point (I hope someone remembers which one it was!). Here's our last family picture in Maui.

We arrived at the Maui airport to find that our flight was delayed. So frustrating. It wasn't delayed too much, but still frustrating.

We finally arrived in Kauai and had to drive 45 minutes or so to where we are staying. We are staying at the Waimea Plantation Cottages in the oceanfront Manager's House. It's really awesome! It's a 5 bedroom, 4 1/2 bathrooms, 4300 square feet house. My mom started calling it our mansion. It seems to be designed to be a party house. There are tables and chairs everywhere. If you're curious, check out the virtual tour in the link above. I kept losing Mallory in this place. Would have been really cool to play hide-and-seek in this house!

When we arrived, everyone just played outside for awhile. A frisbee was thrown around. My dad and Mallory explored. Their first stop was the hammock. Aren't they cute!?!

Here's a picture of the back of the house. You can see a bit of our huge banyan tree off to the right in this picture.

It was described as a black sand beach. But it was really more of a dark brown. Here's Mallory and Papa exploring some more.

Our family had the upstairs. Edee slept in 1 room in a pack-n-play. The other bedroom upstairs had a king size bed and a small twin. So it worked out perfectly for Mallory to stay in our room and not wake up Edee or have Edee wake her up. So that window above the patio/lanai was ours looking out to the ocean.

Uncle Brian took care of Mallory's dirty feet for her. :)

After everyone got settled, we decided to have dinner at the restaurant on sight. It was called the Grove Cafe. I had ono, the same fish Steve had the other night. It was prepared differently. Yummy. But still doesn't top my mahi mahi. :)

We went to bed with the windows open, listening to the waves crashing on the beach. Awesome!

Day 5 in Maui - Beach Bums

2012-01-06T20:00:00.015-06:00

This morning the rest of the family took a snorkeling trip. So that left just the 4 of us. We decided to take a walk along the Beach Walk south of our resort. We took the stroller, but we still didn't make it far with Mallory. It was nice to see a different stretch of the beach. We also found this enormous snail along the walk. We had to put Steve's phone there for a comparison.

Here's a new stretch of beach where the resorts are a bit further back.

Then we headed back to "our beach" to play. We build a sand castle and played in the waves. Edee took another nap laying on me. It was nice and relaxing. Steve and Mallory also went to the pool for a bit while I was holding a sleeping baby.

We got cleaned up and put on our K-State gear. Our cats were playing in the Cotton Bowl today.

While trying to get Edee to take a nap, Steve snapped this picture of the ocean from our balcony. We aren't super close, but you could still see it.

We tried unsuccessfully to get Edee to take an afternoon nap. So we took off in the car and headed north. We stopped at a lookout point on the Kapalua Coastal Trail. Very cool. Here we are torturing our children with the sun in their eyes to get a good shot. Poor kids.

You can see the tents and things set up for the golf tournament in the background.

We were on another golf course.

We stopped for shaved ice. This one was the size of Mallory's head. It was yummy.

Check out her purple tongue.

We made it back to the condo for dinner and the end of the first half of the football game. We decided it wasn't worth spending an afternoon inside in Maui to watch football. We did watch some of the second half while having dinner. Too bad our cats lost.

Then it was time to pack, as we are heading to Kauai tomorrow.

Day 4 in Maui - Napili Beach

2012-01-05T16:20:00.015-06:00

Edee got up early again this morning.....4:45. Are we ever going to get on local time!?! We were getting up early anyway (just not that early) to head to the beach. The beach we choose for this morning is north of where we are staying, closer to where the Hyundai Golf tournament is located. The tournament starts here today and they have been setting up public parking lots around our resort the last couple of days. I guess they are shuttling spectators up to the course. So we were concerned about crowds. Oh, we were wrong.

We arrived at Napili Beach before 8 and pretty much had the place to ourselves. Not sure if that was because it was early or because the red high tide warning flags were out. We decided to set up shop anyway. And it was beautiful! It's described as a "turtle-filled bay." And sure enough, we spotted 1 when we got there peeking his head out above the water. Brave Brian put on his snorkel gear and jumped in. The others eventually followed, while the girls played in the sand. Deanna spotted some whales and we watched them for awhile. She actually saw the end of a whale breaching. She saw black and not just the white of the splash. We decided that counts! :)

While we were there some people were video taping what appeared to be sports commentators on a cliff near us. Maybe we should watch some of the tournament and see if that's really what we saw. They were on the grounds of the Ritz Charlton. So if anyone watches.....let us know if you saw it.

We walked up by where they were video tapping and saw this rocky shore on the other side.

This is the view of the beach we were at. Isn't it beautiful!?! You can see our family off in the lower left.

I even tried snorkeling for the first time. I borrowed my dad's mask and gave it a try. The water was rough, there was a lot of sharp coral, and I had a hard time. I just couldn't get use to breathing. Maybe if I could have gotten use to it in calmer waters I would have liked it. But I didn't. I saw 1 fish and the coral and called it quits. Then I came out with a cut on my knee. I didn't even feel it. Someone pointed out that I had blood dripping down my leg. I couldn't get it to stop bleeding. Luckily I carry a mini-first aid kit (really for the girls) and got myself cleaned up.

Edee continued to enjoy playing in the sand.

We left there and headed to get some Hawaiian shaved ice. It's Thursday and we hadn't had any yet! It really was good. It's really fluffy. Nothing like a snow cone. Mallory was going to share with my dad, but I convinced him to get his own. She's been coughing worse today and I don't her to get anyone else sick. It's a good thing she did have her own, because she ate the whole thing. She loved it!

Edee went down for an early nap today, while everyone went swimming. I stayed back with Edee and did some laundry. We didn't pack 2 weeks worth of clothes!

Mallory took a nap with Nana today. So when Edee woke up we got her dressed in her Hawaiian outfit for more pictures of just her.

Even without Mallory around, I still had trouble getting her to look at the camera.

Here's the view of the ocean from our beach-front pool. I think Steve was taking this from the bar while getting us an adult beverage.

After Mallory woke up, we headed to the Maui Brewing Company for a tasting. Well, some of the family had a tasting.

Then we helped get the girls some dinner and Steve and I headed out for a date. Yep! A date on Maui! We went to Kimo's in Lahina. I had a lobster stuffed mahi mahi. Oh, it was so good! Steve had a parmesan crusted oho. I got my first drink with an umbrella. It was called Pacific Paradise....a daiquiri with pineapple, mango and strawberries.

We arrived home to both girls asleep. It was a very nice evening. Thanks to Nana and Papa for watching the girls.

Day 3 in Maui - Aquarium

2012-01-04T18:39:00.024-06:00

After waking up at her "usual" 3:30ish timeframe, we managed to get Edee back to sleep. She woke up for good at 6:00. A big improvement! We actually woke Mallory up for the day closer to 7:00. Then we headed to the Maui Ocean Center with Nana. (Chase, Deanna, Papa, Tina and Brian all went to Haleakala to see the sunrise.) Mallory woke up with a bit of a cough, but nothing too bad.

The Maui Ocean Center was really neat. I wasn't sure Edee would be very interested in it, but I was wrong. She kept saying "fish" and pointing at everything. It was really cute! There were some pretty neat fish too.

Steve's favorite were like nothing I'd ever seen before. They were orange frogfish. Weird. Here's the picture I got of one of them.

Mallory got to touch sea stars (they aren't really fish) and sea cucumbers in their tide pool.

Mallory liked the sea turtles. I think that was her favorite.

These were my favorite....the jellies. Cool, huh!?!

There was an enormous tank that Edee and I were enjoying.

It also had a walk-through tunnel. Here's a stingray swimming over us while were in the tunnel.

Then we headed right next door to the Maalaea harbor shops. We had lunch at Beach Bums. It was really good! Steve said his sandwich was one of the best he'd had in a long time.

Next we headed back to the condo for naps. Too bad the only person getting a nap right now is Edee. After trying, unsuccessfully, to get Mallory to nap, Steve and Mallory headed down to the pool. I stayed out on our balcony and saw caught a picture of them.

When Edee woke up from her nap, I dressed the girls in their Hawaiian dresses and took them downstairs at our resort for pictures. It's beautiful here. Edee wasn't cooperative....she just wanted to walk off. I got a couple cute ones though. Here are my favorites.

Then we headed to our pool deck for a Polynesian show. They had a small stage, 3 musicians and a handful of dancers. I had fairly low expectations going in, but it wasn't bad. Mallory loved it! She was coughing a lot and still didn't want to leave. I kept leaving the pool area to watch the sunset. Our resort pool is right by the beach. We're on the west side of Maui, so we got to see the sunset. Nice perk. This is what I saw.

Good thing we didn't leave the show, because they called the kids on stage to dance. Mallory got to learn a little hula and do a dance with the other kids. She was in heaven! I think Deanna got a little video. Hopefully I'll be able to get it from her sometime.

Here's her bow.
Here's a picture of some of the dancers.

After the show it was time for dinner and bed.

Day 2 in Maui - Whale Watching

2012-01-03T22:04:00.019-06:00

With everyone still waking up early, we decided to book a sunrise whale watching cruise. So all 10 us had to be in Lahaina at 5:45am. Not a big deal we were up at 3:30 again with the kiddos. We took some pictures under the Banyan tree. This tree was planted in 1873. It was imported from India and was only 8 feet tall. Now it's over 60 feet high, has 12 major trunks, and stretches over a 200-foot area. It's a crazy tree.

We took the Pacific Whale Foundation's sunrise whale watching cruise. As we were leaving the harbor we got to see the sunrise over Haleakala. Beautiful.

We didn't see much at first. But the action picked up. We saw a lot of whales. Too bad I never saw a breach. I saw the splash from a couple of whales breaching. (Breaching is defined as a whale getting at least 2/3 of their body out of the water.) The best part of the trip was seeing a baby whale. Because it doesn't have the lung capacity of a full grown, it had to come to the surface a lot more to breathe. So we saw it a lot. The adults hold their breath for 15-20 minutes. So if you spot one....it might not come back up for awhile. There is a law about getting within 100 yards (I think I got the distance right) of the whales. But the whales don't always follow that rule :) The baby came right up along the boat and actually went under the boat and came up behind us. Steve had the zoom lens on the camera, so he had a hard time getting a picture. Here's what he got.

Here's the tail of another whale. We had a great time spotting whales!

After that we headed to a beach called Baby Beach. It's just on the north side of Lahaina. There weren't many people there when we arrived. It was a perfect place for Edee. The water was shallow and there weren't waves. It was more like a lake. Malory could go in and not have to have us there to keep a hold of her. The sand was nice and fun to play in. Edee walked up and down the beach with Papa following along.

Steve even got Mallory's kite up in the air. She got it from Uncle Chase and Deanna for Christmas. They bought it with the intention of us bringing it to Hawaii. Here's the kite with Edee below oblivious to it.

Edee loved playing in the sand.

Mallory loved playing in the water.

After the beach we headed to lunch at a little Mexican food place. Mallory got to ride in the convertible that Aunt Tina and Uncle Brian rented. The restaurant wasn't anything special, but we were hungry.

Then it was time for naps. Too bad the girls didn't take good naps. So we got our suits back on and headed down to the resort pool.

Chase and Deanna cooked dinner for all of us....brats on the grill and potatoes and zucchini from a farmer's market. Yummy! Here's Mallory with Aunt Tina and Uncle Brian.

Then Edee was a mess and it was time for bed. So everyone left our condo to hang out at the other one while we got Edee to bed. I went to change her diaper and found the worst case of diaper rash! She was actually bleeding. It must be all the swim diapers we've been using over the last couple of days. Poor thing. So we let her run around naked for awhile before bed. The rash looked better, but still not good

We decided no water activities for her for at least the next day.

First Full Day in Maui

2012-01-02T20:00:00.013-06:00

Our wake-up call occurred at 3:30, when we heard Edee over the monitor. Yes, we brought a monitor on vacation. Actually, I'm really glad we did too! Anyway, Edee woke up at 3:30am, which is 5:30 CA time or 7:30 KS time. She was quiet in her crib for awhile, so we let her go. Hoping she wouldn't wake up Mallory, who is sharing a room with her. By 4:15 I went in to get her to find both girls awake. So we started our day.

Breakfast was at 5:15. Then Uncle Chase and Deanna knocked on our door around 6:15. They saw our lights on. So we headed down to the beach by our resort, Aston Kaanapali Shores, around 6:45. It was still kind of dark outside. This was Mallory's first beach experience. Not a bad deal, huh!?! First time on the beach was in Maui. Same for Edee. Mallory played in the waves. Edee and I played in the sand. There were very few people on the beach that early. It worked out well for us. We got in the water. Mallory wanted to be held. The waves were fairly big. Edee got in too.

Around 8:45 or so Edee was tired. So I laid down on a lounge chair and held her while she slept. While she was sleeping I noticed something out in the ocean. It looked like a big splash. So I kept watching. Sure enough, I saw my first whale. It was way out, but I could clearly see a fin and tail at times. It was really neat!

Nana made Mallory into a mermaid. Here's the picture.

Best quote of the morning was Mallory saying "I have sand in my butt!" But the best part was really the look on her face. Priceless. Edee had lots of sand in her butt too! :)

After a morning on the beach, we cleaned up and headed to Bubba Gump's in Lahaina for lunch. We ate right next to the water. Fun times. Here's the view from our table.

Edee was a crack up. Someone sneezed and then she kept saying "achoo." It was so cute.

After lunch our family headed back to the condo for naps. We all slept! It was wonderful. 3 hours later, we actually decided to wake Mallory and Edee up. We wanted to make sure that they slept overnight. Edee woke up with a rash mostly on her face. It didn't seem to bother her and she has such sensitive skin. So we are just waiting it out.

I cooked dinner for all 10 of us tonight....lasagna, salad and garlic bread. Nothing fancy, but it was good. We all hung out in our condo. Here's Uncle Chase, Deanna and the girls. If you look close at Edee's face you can see the red splotches.

Hawaiian beer was consumed and Go Fish was played. It was a nice evening.

Travel Day #2

2012-01-01T20:00:00.000-06:00

We were glad our flight was delayed. It felt like the first thing that was going our way. Too bad Edee's little body just didn't want to adjust to CA time. So we wake up at 5:30 (local time) with Edee. She doesn't want to go back to sleep. So we get ready and head back to the airport. We arrive at the check-in before 8:30. And then we find out our flight is delayed even more. They don't even give up an estimated time. Lovely. We check in and head to the gating area to wait.

No flights were leaving San Diego, again because of fog. So the gating area was packed. We got a spot on the floor and staked our claim to it. Edee got to wander around. She made a lot of friends. Both girls enjoyed the escalator that we rode up and down at least 10 times.

Our 7:15 flight, delayed initially to 9:15, was delayed again until 10:55 and again until 11:25. We boarded the plane, got Edee's car seat hooked in and were ready. Luckily they boarded the plane quickly and we were off. Then we waited on the runway for awhile. We managed to finally get in the air around 12:15ish.

I was prepared for a rough flight.....5 hours and 40 minutes. But it went great. The girls were good. Edee cried a few times, but nothing horrible. Both girls slept over 2 hours. I guess that was the good part about the travel nightmare the day before. They were exhausted. Steve and I were running on fumes. We both only had about 3 hours of sleep the night before. Too bad neither of us could sleep on the plane. We arrived in Maui, 4:00ish local time, very tired but excited.

Here's Edee asleep in her car seat on the plane.

Steve picked up our rental car and manged to get a Ford Explorer. It's super fancy and I've had to pull out the manual 2 times already to figure out how to work certain functions. And we were off to grab some food. We found a Quiznos. Spent almost $30 on a meal.

Then we headed toward the west side of the island and our condo. It was about a 45 minute drive, much of it along the coast. We timed it perfect and saw a beautiful sunset over the ocean. We couldn't have planned it any better. This was taken from our car. :)

We arrived at our condo to be greeted by Nana, Papa, Aunt Tina and Uncle Brian. They helped us up to our room. Then it was off to bed early.

Travel from Hell--Day #1

2011-12-31T20:00:00.000-06:00

Our grand plan was to fly to the west coast, stay the night, and then fly on to Hawaii the next day. We just didn't think the kids could make the long trip in 1 day. So we had a flight from KC to Denver in the afternoon. It was Edee's first flight and it wasn't too bad. She cried at times, but nothing too bad.

Then we stayed on the same plane and headed to San Diego. We had about 20 minutes of hysterical screaming. Seriously horrible! She was tired and eventually fell asleep. Too bad that only lasted 1 hour, until we landed. But we didn't land in San Diego. We landed in Ontario, California. Ever heard of it? Yeah, me either. It's about 110ish miles northeast of San Diego....I guess. Then we arrived there and there wasn't a gate for us. So we sat on the runway for awhile. I stopped looking at my watch. We managed to get a gate and got out of the plane to find out that we would be taking a bus back to San Diego. By this time it's 10pm (KC time). Both kids are sleepy and have had a long day. It took forever for our bags to arrive then even longer to catch a bus. We were the next in line for 1 bus and then another one didn't arrive until over 1 hour later. We were actually waiting outside. It was chilly & we had to stand. Just bad. So we have 2 tired kids and our all stuff for 2 weeks in Hawaii. Seriously hideous.

We finally managed to board a bus and by this time Edee is so tired that she's wild. She just wants to play on the bus. Mallory falls asleep quickly and her poor head keeps falling to the side. Eventually she fell asleep leaning on my side. Edee managed to fall asleep too and probably slept over an 1 hour of that trip.

We arrived to the airport and took awhile to hail a cab to head to our hotel for the night. By the time I laid down it was 1am local time (3 am KC time). Our flight to Maui was suppose to leave at 7:15am the next morning. Luckily Steve signed up for travel alerts and found out that it was delayed until 9:45. Yeah, we could sleep some.

No pictures of this hideous day.

Christmas 2011 in pictures

2011-12-28T06:46:00.020-06:00

I am just getting around to posting pictures from the last week. So, there will be a lot!

We headed over to Ian's house before Christmas to play. They got to decorate a gingerbread house.

Too bad it didn't stay up for long. They still had fun decorating it. :)

My sister, brother-in-law and parents came over in the afternoon on Christmas Eve. The girls got to open their gifts from them. Edee did pretty well.

Although she did try to eat the paper on occasion.

The box was a big a hit. Especially when Papa pulled them around in it.

We go to my grandparents' house on Christmas Eve. They have an outdoor-type swing in their basement. The kiddos love it! Here are the 4 youngest of the great-grandchildren. There were 10 of them there that night.

Ellianna and Mallory had a blast playing together. There is only 5 months difference in age, which is about the same age difference between me and Elli's mom. :)

Christmas morning was great!!!! Last year Mallory was sick and Edee was too little open presents. So it was a bit of a bummer. But this year Mallory's excitement made up for it. Here's Edee with her new tricycle. She loves it!

Mallory got the 1 thing she asked for. She was so ecstatic when she opened it! It's a dog that barks, wags its tail, blinks its eyes, etc. It's name is Cookie, but she's changed it a few times already. I think the latest is Aeriel.

Here the girls are again before we headed to our next Christmas gathering.

Edee got to wear her cute, fancy coat. Although it wasn't cold. We had a very mild Christmas.

We headed to my aunt Sara's for lunch and more gifts. Here's Edee giving Uncle Brian a high five.
Another one of my cousin's on that side of the family has a little girl, Audrey, that's about 6 months older than Mallory. They had fun playing together too!

This is my great-aunt Darlene. She's like a grandma to me. So these are like her great-grandkids.
Audrey and Mallory even opened presents next to each other.

Edee loved to rock on this chair. I have a picture of Mallory in the same dress on Christmas in the same chair.
Mallory even helped Aunt Sara play a game.

What a fun-filled Christmas! Hope everyone had a happy one.

Kindergarten?!?

2011-12-20T19:23:00.003-06:00

I know this sounds silly to most of you but I've been thinking A LOT about Mallory and kindergarten lately. If we decide not to send Mallory to kindergarten next year, we have to enroll her in another year at the preschool in January. We have to make this decision soon. So I talked to her teacher, Ms. Melissa, last week.

Academically, Mallory would be fine. Ms. Melissa gave a quick assessment that she passed. But after talking I realized there is a lot more than just the academics to think about.

Here are some other observations from Ms. Melissa. Mallory gets along well with others socially. She is a bit of a follower and is somewhat shy. She listens well, but if someone near her is off task she is easily distracted. Mallory requires help for some activities in the classroom that she should be able to do independently. Ms. Melissa said that Mallory is developmentally appropriate. She's just the youngest in her class.

If we send Mallory to kindergarten, she'll be 4 when school starts. She won't turn 5 until the 2nd week of school. Ms. Melissa recommends another year at the preschool for Mallory. She said that we would be giving her more confidence.

Another thing we talked about is bullying. Ms. Melissa thinks that Mallory would be susceptible to it if we send her. 1) She'd be young. 2) She's shy. 3) She has a tendency to follow. Just thinking about that really gets me leaning towards another year in preschool.

Too bad my poor girl is so tall. She'll be the oldest and the tallest. I guess that will even out eventually.

Dance Christmas Program

2011-12-20T13:01:00.004-06:00

It was a game-time decision on whether or not to take Mallory to her dance program last night. Her cough subsided and her runny nose was manageable. So we headed to the studio for her program.

Here's her class getting ready to demonstrate some of the things they've been learning this fall.

Here's her class.

front: Breeauna, Maggie, Scarlet
back: Mallory, Aubrey, Shayden, Dree & Lauren

Here's a video of the dance that they did. This is the same dance that they performed at the nursing home last week. However they did much better this week. You can really hear Mallory singing. She's the loud one. :)

It's Christmas in St. Louis

2011-12-19T20:08:00.015-06:00

Do you know the Christmas song, It's Christmas in Kansas City? If not, here's a You Tube link. Anyway Steve can't stand the song. I don't like it either, but I think his dislike is stronger. Mallory has learned parts of it from listening to Christmas music all the time on the radio. SO....when we headed to St. Louis this past weekend to celebrate Christmas with Steve's family, she sang the first part of the song and changed the city. It was actually pretty cute.

We headed out after Mallory got out of school on Friday. Edee had a rough ride and we considered turning around. But we went ahead. Funny thing was that Edee ended up doing great all weekend & Mallory was the one that got sick.

Friday night we celebrated Steve's dad's birthday. I had to leave early to put Edee to bed, so there aren't many pictures. Here's one of Edee looking at the pictures of the grandkids.

Mallory woke up with a cough and runny nose on Saturday morning. We debated about not taking her to our planned activity. But she perked up and we took her anyway. We headed to a breakfast with Santa event in the school district that Steve's sister teaches in. Edee got to walk Grandpa around the school, while Mallory ate a donut.

Garrett seemed a little apprehensive to sit on Santa's lap. So Mallory was holding his hand. (Although she's not been too keen on it either.) I think she put on a brave front for her little cousin.

Here they are waiting their turn and checking him out.

Here is the final product. After my experience with Edee at Crown Center earlier in the week, we didn't even try to get her up there.

Grandma also got her chance to hold Edee, while Mallory was doing crafts.

Smiling cousins....

Here's the whole gang.
Garrett has a train under his Christmas tree. They're checking it out.

While the little ones napped, Mallory got to help Daddy race a car. Mallory picked an "outside" car to race.

We opened gifts late afternoon on Saturday. It was chaotic with Edee. She just wanted to walk around. So I didn't really get too many pictures.

Mallory woke up in the middle of the night Saturday with a bloody nose. It wasn't too bad, but she was pretty upset. Then she just coughed a lot. After a bit debate, we decided to head home Sunday after brunch (instead of Monday morning). Probably a good thing we did. We found out when we got home that Steve's sister, whom we were staying with, went to urgent care and has strep. Hopefully we'll avoid that one.

We had a really nice visit. Thanks everyone. Let's just hope that everyone here in KC and in STL gets well before Christmas.

Edee at 15 months

2011-12-17T14:03:00.003-06:00

A few items for Edee at 15 months.....

Now that she's walking great, she's started climbing. She loves to get Mallory's small chairs and sit on them. Then all of a sudden I see her standing on them. I've also found her standing on the coffee table.
Her new favorite thing to do is ask to see our neighbor's horses. She says "neigh", signs "horse" and then signs "please". She can ask to see them at least 10 times in a couple of hours. She loves them!
She also thinks most animals that walk on 4 legs are horses. We need to work on that.
My new favorite word is "balloon." It doesn't sound like that, but I know what she means. She also says "bubble". It pretty clearly sounds like bubble. She says it to me when I'm chewing gum. That means she wants me to blow a bubble.
While Steve was changing her diaper the other day, before he even opened it, she said "poo-poo." Sure enough she was dirty.
She continues to love to talk on the phone. She actually gets impatient with me if I'm talking on the phone and not letting her talk to whomever it is I'm talking to.
She's doing better with table food. She loves scrambled eggs, grilled cheese and pancakes.
The bottom molars are pretty much in. I haven't noticed the top ones.
We're working on the transition to 1 nap. It's going better lately. It made our adventure to Crown Center the other day possible.

Pictures to come later.

Crown Center's Santa Claus

2011-12-15T13:00:00.012-06:00

My dad's last day of work was yesterday. So I invited him along on our adventure this morning. First stop, Crown Center for a visit with Santa Claus. They have a great play area while you wait for your visit with Santa. But we arrived early and there wasn't much of a wait. So we went to see Santa first.

As you can tell, Edee wasn't too happy about it.

Poor baby. Here's a link to the picture last year.

Edee perked up fast after the visit with Santa. She really enjoyed playing.

Edee really liked this mirror. And I was able to catch a fun picture of it.

Both girls had a lot of fun playing.

We tried 1 more time to get Edee near Santa. The plan was to have my dad sit next to Santa holding Edee. She didn't want any part of that plan either. I don't think Papa minded. He got snuggles from Edee after that attempt.

Then we saw the Gingerbread Village. Edee seemed to like the trains, so we decided to make a trip over to Union Station as well.

Here are the girls at the Westin Hotel before walking over on the Link.

Edee and Mallory both got to ride the train. Edee started in the backward seat, facing Mallory. But somehow ended up riding the whole time on the floor between the 2 seats. She still seemed to have fun.

We went to see the model trains at Union Station. Edee liked the lights.

I loved the snowflake lights on the floor. Edee liked them too.

What a fun-filled morning! Hopefully all the walking Edee did will mean a nice, long nap.

Dancin' at the Nursing Home

2011-12-14T12:00:00.001-06:00

Mallory's dance teacher's mother was recently moved to a nursing home full-time. Rena did a couple rehab stays there earlier in the year after a fall. But with continued decline, it was time for full-time care. The great part is that Rena loves it. She plays bingo, interacts with others, etc.

So Patty decided to bring some students there for a Christmas program last night. Each of the 3 age levels did a demonstration first. Then each of the groups also performed a dance to a Christmas song. Mallory's group did "Here Comes Santa Claus" by Elvis. They didn't sing nearly as loud as they do at the studio. But it was still cute. I'll post a video at some point. But here's a picture of the whole group.

Swim Lessons

2011-12-13T18:00:00.000-06:00

Since my parents had Tuesday off, they both came to swim lessons. They took turns watching Edee run around and Mallory swim. So I was able to take pictures. Too bad it was extra steamy at the pool and my lens kept fogging up.

Here's my dad chasing Edee.

Mallory adjusting her goggles.

Ready. Set. Jump.

Best Christmas Pageant Ever

2011-12-13T14:00:00.000-06:00

My cousin, Elle, is in Theater for Young America's production of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. To get Mallory ready for the show, we checked the book out at the library. It was Mallory's first chapter book. It's a very funny book narrated by a girl, whose mom is putting on a church Christmas pageant with a family of horrible kids in the main roles. In the play, my cousin is the narrator.

My parents took Mallory to the show on Tuesday. From what I hear, Elle did great with a ton of lines. Mallory had fun and now wants to be in a play when she gets older. I tried to explain the concept of trying out. Not sure that worked. :)

Picture Update

2011-12-11T19:21:00.015-06:00

At Mallory's swim lessons on Thursday, Edee found the lockers on the pool deck. She was opening and closing them. Then she managed to climb on in. Pretty cute!

Friday marked the first time (I think) that we took Edee to the doctor where we didn't leave with a prescription for something. She slept horrible Thursday night and I thought that maybe her ear infection didn't clear up. So off we went first thing Friday morning. The doctor actually found her throat all red and swollen. So they took a strep test. Luckily it came back negative.

She still had a rough day. Her temperature was over 102. But she slept better Friday night and was almost back to normal Saturday morning. But we still decided not to take her to the children's holiday party at Steve's work. Instead, Steve just took Mallory.

They had a great time. A caricature artist did a picture of Mallory. It's really cute. I'll have to take a picture of the final product and post sometime.

She also got her face painted.

After playing life-size Candy Land, giant bingo, making a reindeer cupcake and taking a picture with Santa and Mrs. Clause Steve took Mallory to his office. Looks like she enjoyed sitting at his desk.

She really enjoyed the view of the city from a conference room.

Then they went to play at Crown Center. I think the highlight for Mallory was watching the ice skaters.

Here's a picture of her face paint when they got home.

Saturday evening Edee got to play Steve's guitar. Check out the smile on her face!

Mallory wore her Christmas dress to church today. So when we got home, I put Edee in one of her dresses as well. I really wanted a good picture of both girls standing by the tree. But I couldn't get Edee to stand still. I do love this one though. Here's a link to Mallory wearing the same dress. Check out the difference in hair!

I'm really not sure what they are looking at, but I think it's a cute picture.

Sometime this afternoon Edee climbed into her toy basket. I think she looks proud of herself.

Christmas Card

2011-12-10T10:19:00.007-06:00

I held off posting the professional photos we had taken when Edee turned 1, because I knew I was going to use them in our Christmas card. Since I got our Christmas cards out this week, I decided it was time to share them. I posted a slide show to the right for your viewing.

Here is our Christmas card. The family picture in the bottom left is a silly one. The girls were screaming (for one reason or another) and Steve and I were laughing. We think it's pretty funny. But I realized I never explained that in our Christmas letter. Oops.

Here are a couple of our favorite pictures. Two of which didn't make the Christmas card.

We framed 3 of the prints I posted above and hung them in our entryway.

Must Be Santa

2011-12-07T20:43:00.003-06:00

Here is part of "Must be Santa" that Mallory sang this morning. I think it's funny that the kiddos only really sing one part, although you can see Mallory moving her lips. Maybe she's singing softly on the other parts. Please excuse my horrible video taping abilities. Maybe I need to bring a tripod next time. :)

Enjoy!

Songfest!

2011-12-07T19:59:00.002-06:00

Mallory had a Songfest at school this morning. This is the first one she's had this school year. She had one in February and she was shy. She did much better today. I have heard at least part of each song before this morning, so she knows them.

I taped the whole thing. So I need to sort through the 10 minutes or so and find a good clip to share. Here's a picture of her class.

Sitting: Janae, Cameron, Mallory & Jeremiah
Standing: Zach, Alaina, Connor, Jadyn, Lauren, Gigi, Natalie, Joseph

Christmas is coming

2011-12-07T19:07:00.007-06:00

To work on cutting skills, Mallory made a Christmas countdown chain yesterday. I drew the lines and she cut the construction paper. She did a really good job. You have to look closely to see the not smooth cutting of a 4-year old.

It's still really long. But she is really excited about it.

Yesterday afternoon Molly came over to play. She has a 6 week old baby brother and a dad that hasn't been well. So her mom needed a break. It was actually even a break for me. The girls play so well together that I didn't have to keep Mallory entertained while Edee was napping.

The big girls said they wanted to take a nap too. Yeah, right. In this picture they are snoring and giggling.

Of course they played dress-up.

I helped them write letters to Santa.

Molly wanted to thank Santa and God for her new baby brother. Sweet!

Mallory wasn't sure what else to say after she told me the 1 toy she wants. So I mentioned asking for something for Edee. Her response to me was....."Can you give me some options?" That just cracked me up. I provided a couple of ideas like: books, puzzles, dolls, tricycle. She jumped right on the tricycle. :)

It was a fun day!

1,000th Post

2011-12-04T12:40:00.009-06:00

First I have to comment on the fact that this is my 1,000th post. Crazy! It just makes me realize that I need to create a blog book. Maybe when I find some time. :)

We've had a busy week....preschool, dance, dentist appointments, swim lessons, book club, etc. All the while trying to transition Edee to 1 nap a day. This week we achieved 1 nap every other day. We'll get there.....eventually.

The girls have a pair of the same pants. It was a totally random deal, they weren't even purchased at the same time. I couldn't manage to get a picture of them standing still in their pants. So I had Mallory walk Edee around the house. I tried to have her pause by the Christmas tree, but that didn't work. This is what I managed to get.

Edee loved walking around the house holding Mallory's hand.

I decided to take my camera to swim lessons. It is difficult for me at swim lessons anyway....trying to keep Edee contained. So I didn't get too many pictures. Here's a cute one of Garrett and Mallory.

I let Mallory play a little before lessons start. She likes to go down the slide and play in the fountains. Here's the silly girl.

Her swim teacher, Alex, is great. The guy is probably college age, has a scruffy beard and tattoos. But is the nicest guy! He took 2 kids at a time around the lazy river. You can see the splash from Mallory kicking in this picture.

My girlfriends (and sorority sisters) from college came over on Saturday morning. We've been getting together at Christmas for awhile now. I was really looking forward to getting our 7 little girls together. Between Emily, Erin and I we have 7 girls. Jana just got married this summer, so no kiddos yet for them. Too bad two of Emily's are getting over croup, so they didn't make it.

Here's the link to last year's post. I titled it "Girls, girls, girls." Then this year we added 2 more girls to the mix. Pretty crazy! I wonder when Jana and her new husband have kids if they will be girls too. Here's the list of girls....

Lydia, 5
Mallory, 4
Hannah, 3
Grace, 2 (almost 3)
Edee, 1
Annabelle, 7 months
Rebekah, 5 months

Edee loved having other "babies" around. She tired to sit on Annabelle's lap! Here it looks like she's trying to give her a hug.

Here are the 5 girls. Grace, Annabell, Mallory, Rebekah, and Edee. I can't believe I got this good of a picture. Most are smiling and even looking somewhat toward the camera!

Then last night we went to see Journey to Bethlehem at our church. I was asked to take pictures for church publications again. (Aside...it's been fun to see some of our pictures in the newsletter and on our church website.) I took pictures right before it started. Then we went through it as a family. I was worried Edee wouldn't do very well. But she did great!! Mallory loved it and I expect we'll be a part of the cast next year.

Thanksgiving Weekend

2011-11-27T21:34:00.012-06:00

Edee was a bit of a mess on Tuesday. Since we were suppose to leave for St. Louis on Wednesday, I decided to take her to the doctor. Sure enough...both of her ears were infected. So we were up in the air on if we were going to go or not. She did pretty well on Tuesday night, so we decided to go ahead and go. I'm really glad we went. Edee did well.

We stayed at Steve's sister's house.....or as Mallory calls it, Garrett's house. Here she is with cousin Garrett playing on his slide.

Cousin picture.

Thanksgiving dinner was at Steve's parents. Here's Mallory playing with Uncle Brian and Garrett. Mallory loved the pumpkin pie. :)

Friday we went to Lone Elk Park and the World Bird Sanctuary. First stop was to see the birds. Edee got to enjoy the birds too. She actually enjoyed walking all over. She was very independent.

Check out the dodo bird cousins.

A family picture. :)
After seeing the birds, we drove through the park to see if there were any deer, buffalo or elk. We saw about 10 buffalo and a couple of elk. It was pretty neat.

We left Saturday morning. Steve's parents came to his sister's house to say goodbye. I managed to get a good picture of Mallory and Grandpa.

Here's Grandma and Grandpa with their grandkids.

My brother, Chase, and his girlfriend, Deanna, came to KC for Thanksgiving. We got to spend some time with them this weekend as well. I love this picture. Too funny.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Happy Birthday Daddy!

2011-11-21T10:03:00.004-06:00

Steve has a busy day today, so he wanted to get in early. He actually left without seeing the girls this morning. So when Mallory came into the bathroom where I was getting ready for the day, she was so upset. She wanted to wish Daddy a happy birthday. It was really sweet. We called and left him a voicemail of her singing Happy Birthday.

But we also taped this video last week in preparation for his birthday. I was trying to just get Edee to say "Dada". It was a struggle. She was too busy. Then Mallory was suppose to sing Happy Birthday. But she stated singing her own song for Daddy. She's quite the performer. Enjoy!

Weekend Update

2011-11-21T09:35:00.007-06:00

We had a nice weekend. It started off Friday evening with a date! I met Steve at Lidia's for dinner. Then we had tickets to Alvin Ailey at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. I am, admittedly, a theater snob. I've had season tickets to the Music Hall productions for 10 years and the Starlight productions for 11 years. I am very particular about where I sit. So I called awhile ago for tickets to make sure I got what I wanted. I had never been in the theater, so it was a bit of a guess. Our seats couldn't have been more perfect. We were in row E of the first balcony. But with the unique design, there were only 2 rows of people in front of us. We had tons of leg room and both Steve and I had our own arm rest. The theater itself was awesome! The show as fantastic as well! I always love Alvin Ailey.

Obviously this isn't a picture I took. But I wanted to share how cool the building is for readers who aren't in KC.

Nana and Papa watched the girls for us Friday evening. Thanks again guys! It was also the first day of 1 nap for Edee. It went really well on Friday. She actually took 1 great nap. No problems.

Steve had to work Saturday morning and I wanted to do some shopping. So my parents watched the girls for a bit again. I got them home in time for Edee to take another great afternoon nap. I was amazed at how smoothly the 1 nap transition was going.

We played in the playroom after her nap. She loves it up there now.

This picture cracks me up. I love it!

Edee didn't sleep great Saturday night. She's had a runny nose for a bit that just seems to be getting worse. So what I thought was a great transition to 1 nap, turned out not to be. She took 2 naps on Sunday.

Today is Steve's birthday. Our Monday evenings are always chaotic with dance class. We don't eat dinner together. We rush home to get Mallory into bed at a decent time. So we celebrated yesterday. I made one of his favorite meals, spaghetti and meatballs. And Mallory and I made him a chocolate pie. Here he is with his girls.

Edee slept better last night, so I thought we'd be able to do 1 nap today. So I planned some errands to run this morning after dropping Mallory off at preschool. Too bad Edee fell asleep in her car seat. So she's in her crib taking what will be her first nap today. Maybe she isn't ready yet!

Learning about Hawaii

2011-11-18T09:31:00.008-06:00

We have a trip coming up to Hawaii. My dad is retiring and is taking 10 of us! So to get Mallory ready for the trip, I've been checking out books at the library. Then she started drawing things we've been talking about. So yesterday I got out a big piece of paper and we drew a picture of Hawaii together. She is VERY proud of it.

It was really cute to see her describe everything on the picture to Steve. So this morning I got her to describe the picture for the camera.

My favorite thing on the picture is the little pink shark. If you look closely it's smiling. Oh, but I also like the starfish. She can't draw a star, but she knows the sun is a star. So you get the starfish that looks like a sun. What a smart girl! :)

Jungle Gym

2011-11-17T10:46:00.004-06:00

Mallory started another session of indoor swim lessons on Tuesday. So we had to play at the jungle gym first. Edee got her first chance to play on the little kid side. She wasn't sure what to think and she was the only one there, so I had to show her what to do. I think she liked the little slide though. No pictures of that, because I was helping her.

Mallory did really well at swim lessons. There are only 4 in her class and her teacher seems great. The best part for me was that her friend Garrett is in her class again. So I got to hang out with his mom and new baby brother. I told Jessica when we were taking lessons, but I wasn't sure they were going to as well. It was a nice surprise.

The hard part is containing Edee during the 30 minute class. I brought the stroller, hoping she would stay put for awhile. That didn't work. She signed "all done" almost immediately. The pool deck is always so wet and slippery that I didn't really want her walking around. I did manage to find a spot that wasn't wet to let her walk for a bit. It was still difficult. Parents are suppose to stay on the pool deck during the lessons. But Jessica offered to keep an eye on Mallory if I needed to take Edee back to the jungle gym. I didn't take her up on it, but that might be an option.

14 months

2011-11-17T09:01:00.012-06:00

A few items for Edee at 14 months.....

It's official....she's walking. She pushed up to standing without assistance on 11/10/11. She still crawls on occasion, but not as frequently. Her UTI impacted her walking. She really stopped walking at all for at least a week. But she's back in full force now.
I can only think of 1 new sign that Edee has added in the last month and that's horse. It's not exactly the sign for horse, but I know what she means.
She can point out more body parts and she loves to play the game. She constantly points to parts of my face to get me to say the words.
She repeats more words every day. My favorites are bye-bye and baby.
She loves to talk on the phone. Monday night I called on our way home from dance. Steve let Edee talk to me. It was cute. Then when we hung up, she kept signing "more" and saying "mama". I think she was even pointing to the phone. So they called back. It was really sweet!
I'm still having trouble getting her to eat meat. She's doing pretty well with a lot of table food. She loved a baked pasta dish I make with Italian sausage. Well, she loved the noodles, sauce and cheese. But if I try to sneak some of the sausage into her mouth, it comes right back out.
She is drooling a ton over the last couple of days. So I finally checked her teeth more closely. I can feel her 1-year molars. One is actually through a bit and others are just below the gums. She has a bit of a rash on her face because of all the drooling.
If you're sitting on the floor Indian style (sorry...criss-cross applesauce) Edee will come up and climb into your lap. She does this with me all the time. She also tried to climb into Mallory's lap this morning. :)
She was doing good with naps, but that's changing. I think she's getting to the point of transitioning from 2 naps a day to just 1. I'm ready for it....I think. It would give us more time in the morning to go out and have fun.

Daddy's Morning

2011-11-14T08:50:00.005-06:00

We still haven't been taking Edee to church. Mallory and I go. We leave the house around 8:30 and don't get back until after noon. It would be a long morning for Edee. So instead she gets to spend some quality time with Daddy. These were the pictures that I came home to. Isn't she cute!?!

Climbing into drawers isn't the only climbing she's been doing lately. She tries to climb onto the coffee tables. She climbed onto her activity table this morning. She LOVES to climb the step stool in Mallory's bathroom. If she sees the door open, she's in there almost immediately. She tries to climb into the dishwasher if we aren't fast enough to get it shut. She's a wild, little thing. She keeps us on our toes.

Healthy

2011-11-12T13:43:00.002-06:00

Mallory has been having trouble hearing lately. We asked her teacher at school just to look out for it too (to see if it was just us). Ms. Melissa said that she did notice Mallory not hearing well. So we took her for a hearing test on Tuesday. We actually saw the nurse at her elementary school. She was really nice and Mallory passed the hearing test. I know I'm having trouble hearing around here lately. It's just so loud all the time. I guess we just need to be more aware of the other noises.....Edee.

Steve and I took Edee to Children's Mercy for her renal ultrasound yesterday. We arrived a bit early. But then we waited over an hour past our scheduled time in the waiting room. Edee was a champ, until the end. She acted like she owned the place. She was walking all over the waiting room, talking to other kids, etc. She was quite the hit!

The actual ultrasound took all of 5 minutes. Edee was exhausted, because she missed her morning nap. It actually might have turned out for the best though. She just laid there to get her ultrasound done. She had tears in her eyes, but never cried out. She did really well. I was expecting the worse. The best part is that her kidneys are healthy. So yeah!

Star of the Day

2011-11-07T13:52:00.006-06:00

Mallory was the Star of the Day at preschool today. She got to make a poster about herself. She also had to answer some questions about herself and bring a special toy. She's been looking forward to this for about the last month. She is one of the last kids in her class to get to do it.

Here she is this morning with the toy she chose. This bear really has no significance. She actually dug it out of a pile of stuffed animals that was in her play room. I'm really not sure why she wanted to bring this one.

Here she is with the poster we made. She was very proud of it.

Here is a closer look at it. She helped cut and glue. She also put on all the stickers. I think this qualifies as her first homework! :)

Here are some of the questions she had to answer.

My favorite.....
color: Pink & all the colors
food: Pizza (just a couple months ago she answered this as spaghetti and meatballs)
holiday: Easter (really, that's what she said!)

I love to play Barbies.
I love to read Clifford.

Edee and I showed up early to pick her up so we could see her share. It was cute to see her show everyone her teddy bear and hear her answer some of the questions.

Low Key Weekend

2011-11-07T10:41:00.005-06:00

We had a nice, unscheduled weekend. Once we got Edee down for a nap on Saturday morning, the rest of us raked leaves. We used Grandpa's method. Steve's dad use to (I don't know if he still does) rake leaves onto a tarp to haul away. We raked leaves onto a tarp to haul back to our compost pile. It worked really well and we were done really quickly. Mallory still got to play in the leaves.

Here's a picture of our hard workers.

Edee is walking most of the time now. She still can't stand up without the assistance of some object. But she'll walk circles around our kitchen and living room. I think she's really proud of herself.

Here's Mallory in a new outfit dressed for church. She insisted on wearing 2 headbands. I decided to pick my battles. So she wore 2.

Daylight savings time in the fall use to be a wonderful thing before children. Mallory did fairly well, but she is sleeping later now than she ever use to. Edee on the other hand woke up at 5:45 this morning. Hopefully we'll get back to a decent schedule soon.

Mallory Bowling

2011-11-03T13:08:00.005-05:00

This is really Mallory's 2nd frame of her first game. Papa was up there helping in the first frame. But she caught on and was ready to do it herself.

In this video you can see that the mom to the right was bowling without the bumpers and got a gutter ball. But you can also tell the speed that Mallory was rolling her ball vs. the mom.

NOTE: After you watch the video, other You Tube videos show up. They are not our videos. It's not our Mallory in them.

Bowling

2011-11-03T12:44:00.005-05:00

My dad is retiring soon. He has some personal days to use before then, so he took today off. And I had the perfect plan....bowling. Mission Bowl has an event on Thursdays for kids 5 and under. It's just $3 for 1 game, shoes and drink. I've been wanting to take Mallory for awhile, but I didn't have anything to do with Edee. So this worked perfect! My plan was for my dad to bowl and me to watch (both Mallory bowl and Edee).

Mallory was up first with the bumpers, and she loved it!

Here she is watching her bowl roll (slowly) down the lane.

The bumpers automatically go up and down depending on the bowler. Pretty cool. After 2 frames, my dad asked if I wanted to bowl instead. Mallory was beating him after those 2 frames. :) So I ended up bowling the rest of the game and he chased Edee around. And I literally mean chased. She was walking all over the place. You would think she would be worn out, but she's playing in her crib. I might need to go in and remind her it's nap time.

Mallory scored a 68 in the first game. Then she decided she wanted to bowl again and scored a 59 in the second game.

What a fun morning! Thanks Papa for helping out so Mallory could go bowling for the first time!

Our Happy Halloween

2011-11-01T09:30:00.012-05:00

We had a crazy weekend. Saturday Mallory had a birthday party for 1 of the girls in her class. Then Sunday we had the event at church and another birthday party for a different girl in her class. So we really didn't have much time to carve our pumpkins. So Sunday evening we carved a little pumpkin. I just love the expression on Mallory's face!

She had fun cleaning it out. You'll see the finished product further down.

After preschool, Mallory managed to take a great nap. While she was napping, Steve and I carved some more pumpkins. Then my parents came over to see the girls in their costumes before we headed out. I really didn't think we would be able to keep Edee in her costume. But she managed to do really well. I never got a big smile out of her, but she wasn't screaming....so it was good.

Here's our witch and black cat.
I took a zillion pictures and got a few decent ones.

Here's the pumpkins lining our steps.

I got to take Mallory trick-or-treating this year. It was a lot of fun! One house had a woman that looked like she was headless in a rocking chair. She had a hat and glasses above where her head was with wire or something. It was dark enough out that it looked really good. Of course, Mallory was freaked out. I was holding her hand and she still wouldn't go up to get candy.

After about 45 minutes of trick-or-treating, Mallory was done. We even walked past houses that had their lights on to get home. She wanted to hand out candy with Daddy. Steve was sitting outside to keep the kids from ringing the doorbell and waking Edee up.

Edee slept horrible last night. I think her sickness has really derailed a lot of things she's learned. We had worked really hard to get her to sleep through the night and now she's not. She also stopped walking for about a week. She's doing better now, but she hasn't progressed. Her illness really messed up a lot of things.

I realized I had these cute diaper covers that I never put Edee in this Halloween. So after a bath this morning, she got her picture taken. She was brushing her hair. (There actually is enough hair now that it needs brushed!)

Hope all of you had a fun Halloween.

Preschool Costume Parade

2011-10-31T10:37:00.008-05:00

This morning Mallory got to wear her Halloween costume to preschool. Here she is before we left.

Here's Edee waiting patiently.

They had a costume parade. It was super cute to see that many 4-5 year olds dressed up! Check out that grin on Mallory's face.

Here's Mallory's class.

Front row: Jadyn, Alaina, Zach, Jeremiah, Joseph, Cameron
Back row: Connor, Gigi, Janae, Lauren, Mallory, Natalie

Here's her class with her teacher, Ms. Melissa (Snow White) and her aide, Ms. Becky.

And Steve took today off work, so he got to enjoy the festivities too. What a fun start to a fun-filled day.

Halloween Party at Church

2011-10-31T10:08:00.009-05:00

Our church is wealthy. It's in the Brookside neighborhood. Many families send their children to Pembroke Hill, where tuition for Kindergarten is over $16,000 & high school is almost $20,000 per year. However, with the resources our church has---we do great things. One organization supported by our church is Community LINC. They have a transitional housing program for homeless families. The overall mission of the program is to help these families become self-sufficient. Our church recently gave them $80,000 to purchase medical equipment for their wellness center.

Aside from just giving money, our church is also reaching out. Yesterday we hosted a Halloween party at our church and invited the families from Community LINC. Our church donated new and used Halloween costumes and the kids got to come and "shop" for a costume. Then they got to wear the costume and play all sorts of games, eat lunch, get candy with the kids of our church. Then they take the costumes home and can wear them tonight to trick-or-treat.

The kids of our church even got to wear their costumes to church. Yesterday Mallory chose to be a tiger. I think it was because she wanted to wear make-up.

I made a bat hat, so I would have something festive to wear as well. I didn't put it on until the party though.

The party was a lot of fun. There were about 12 games and activities from bowling, bean bag toss, bounce house, basketball, etc. There was also a cupcake walk. Check out these cupcakes!

It was a really fun event. It was neat to see our "wealthy" church kids interacting and taking turns with the homeless kids.

Ups & Downs of Our Teams

2011-10-29T19:12:00.003-05:00

I have been watching WAY too much TV lately. I should clarify that. I've been watching way too many games on TV. The baseball postseason has been a lot of fun to watch. I think I've watched at least a bit of every Cardinals game. I still can't believe they pulled it off. Pretty amazing! Since Steve and I have been together, I guess I would call St. Louis my adopted team. Don't get me wrong....I will always cheer for the Royals first. But it's been fun to watch and really want a certain team to win the World Series. Edee wore Cardinals gear on Friday. I tried to get a picture of Steve with his hat on, but Edee just kept looking at him. So this is what I got instead. I think it's pretty cute.

The "downs" in my blog title refers to K-State. Before today they were the surprise of college football (and I'd watched every game). No one, me included, expected them to be 7-0. I knew today would be a challenge, but it really turned out horrible. And my brother even drove down from Minneapolis to see it. Here we are this morning before my dad and brother left for the game.

Papa & Pumpkin Patch

2011-10-29T14:02:00.006-05:00

My friend's dad gave us 2 free passes to Carolyn's Country Cousins pumpkin patch. Steve intended to take Tuesday off and we were going to go as a family. But then Edee was sick. So....Papa got to take her on Papa Friday. Sounds like they had a lot of fun!

Here they are riding the train. The engineer took their picture.

By going so late in the season, the pumpkin patch was really picked over. Mallory still found 3 little pumpkins that she got to bring home.

There was a small corn maze that they navigated through.

This is Mallory's 3rd year of going to a pumpkin patch in town. And it's her 3rd different one. Pretty cool. Here's the blog links to our other visits.

2009 KC Pumpkin Patch
2010 Schaake's
2011 Carolyn's Country Cousins

Biking for Baseball

2011-10-27T14:35:00.004-05:00

I added a blog link the other day to a blog my brother writes. I'm not sure if he is the sole writer or not. But it's my understanding that he writes a lot of the entries. It's called Biking for Baseball. This group that Chase is a part of is intending to bike to every major league baseball complex in the 2012 season. Sounds crazy, right? Nope. Sounds just like something my brother would do. If you're curious about it, check out the link above. It talks about why they are doing it, the route they are taking, etc.

Here's a picture of Uncle Chase with Mallory in their Royals jerseys from earlier this summer.

Edee Update

2011-10-26T13:42:00.004-05:00

Yesterday Edee didn't seem to be doing that much better. She still had a high temp in the afternoon. She took her first antibiotic late morning. Then after struggling to get liquids in her all day, she ate a little dinner. Then I gave her the 2nd dose of antibiotic and she proceed to throw up. It was all over me and her. Yuck!

After that, she seemed much better. She still didn't want much liquids (which the nurse emphasized she really needs). She went to bed easily and slept through the night. She cried out a few times, but nothing that warranted us going in her room.

This morning I took her back to the doctor. She had an elevated white blood cell count yesterday of 18,000. They wanted to do a finger prick and check it again. Today's count was 14,000, which is in the acceptable range.

I think she's improving. We're still going to get a renal ultrasound done in a couple of weeks to make sure her kidneys are okay. Doctors say children under age 2 are more likely than older children to suffer serious damage from the infection. So they are treating it seriously.

Here's the not-so-happy girl getting pushed around at Nana and Papa's on Monday.

Mallory's Fall Fun

2011-10-26T13:25:00.006-05:00

I realized with Edee's sickness, I never posted about Mallory's fun happenings. First....the church hayride. We decided that Steve would take her to the hayride and I would stay home with Edee. So I can't give much of an update, except to say Mallory had fun.

Here she is running around playing before they got on the hayride.

Here she's eating a peanut butter and honey sandwich. The kiddo doesn't really like hot dogs, which was on the menu.

She was all dirty when she got home. She had marshmallow and hay in her hair. I think dirtiness = fun. Right?

Then Mallory's dance Halloween party was Monday evening. Edee was still a mess, so I didn't stay at the party long. I did snap a few pictures before getting Edee from my parents' house.

This Halloween party is really fun, because they get to dance and pretend to be whomever they are dressed as. In this picture below Mallory is a guest at Cinderella's ball. Looks like she's having fun to me. :)

She still has 2 more opportunities to dress up before trick-or-treating. We'll see what she decides to wear.

Edee's Diagnosis

2011-10-25T10:01:00.002-05:00

Edee has continued to have a fever without other symptoms. So I called the doctor yesterday morning. They recommend being seen after 4 days of unexplained fever. So after taking her temp this morning, we headed to the doctor.

Edee was upset as soon as someone walked in our room. Even the nurse who just asked me questions. Then the nurse practitioner came in and she screamed even more. She had wax in her ears that required more torture to check for an ear infection. After the torture, she said her ears were clear.

So the nurse practitioner recommended a finger prick and a urine analysis. So more torture ensued. She was already so upset. I got her calmed down after the finger prick. Then 2 nurses came in to put a catheter in her. She started screaming as soon as they opened the door. The catheter process was quick, so that was good. I hope it didn't traumatize Mallory too much.

Then we waited for some initial results. Sure enough, she has a urinary tract infection. The nurse practitioner wants to see her back tomorrow. I think they want to check her again to determine if we need additional tests. She mentioned an ultrasound, to check the kidneys and bladder.

So Edee's on antibiotics now. Hopefully it's just a UTI that will clear up with medication.

Here's a sweet picture of Edee. We have a booster seat for Mallory that she uses in my parents' and Steve's cars. It was sitting in our entryway for awhile. Edee loved to climb in and sit down. Here she is on Saturday just chillin'.

Inactive Edee

2011-10-23T14:07:00.002-05:00

Poor Edee is sick! I thought she was teething on Friday. So when she cried for a longer period of time overnight, I had Steve give her some Tylenol. She seemed okay on Saturday morning. Not 100%, but I didn't think she was that bad.

Then we took her temperature around 5:00 after a long nap, and it was 103! I'm pretty sure she's never had one that high. She did fairly well last night, considering. Steve gave her Tylenol around 3am.

This morning she had chills while Mallory and I were at church. She was pretty pitiful when we got home. I just held her during lunch. Poor baby. She's asleep now. Hopefully she'll get better quickly. It's just so sad to see her so pitiful.

Later this afternoon we were suppose to be headed to a church hayride. Now only half of us can go. I'm really bummed. I was looking forward to a whole family function.

Edee Walks

2011-10-21T14:42:00.003-05:00

Here's a video of our wobbly, little one. Enjoy!

Flustered Mama

2011-10-21T13:07:00.004-05:00

My parents are headed to visit my brother this weekend, which messes up Papa Friday. So instead of picking Mallory up from preschool today, Papa took her. So he came over a bit early to play first.

I love this picture.

I got some good work done around the house this morning, even though Edee only took a short nap. Then she started getting a little fussy before 11. So I decide we'll just leave early to pick up Mallory. We'll drive around.....something for a change of scenery. So we go out to my van and I click the automatic door to open and it doesn't. Argh. So I put the key in the ignition and it's dead. So I go into panic mode.

I call Steve. No answer. I call my parents to see how far out of town they are. They were already 1 hour away. I check the house to see if the car charger is around (and not in the trunk of Steve's car). I can't find it. I call my Aunt Jan, who is retired. And she answers! Yes! She agrees to pick Mallory up from preschool. Luckily she has grandkids, so she has a booster seat in the back of her car already.

I call the preschool to let them know a person not on the approved pick up list is coming for Mallory. I can't even get a person there, so I leave a message. Then I realize that I hardly gave Jan any details...what class Mallory is in, what the code is for the door, etc. I'm a mess! She manages and brings Mallory home without any problems.

Steve finally calls me back around 12:40. He had his phone silenced. I think we need to come up with a better option to get him in emergencies.

It's been 2 1/2 hours and I'm still flustered. But I'm trying to regain some composure. Edee's asleep and Mallory's in her room resting. Maybe I'll get it together before they need something.

13 Months

2011-10-17T10:47:00.006-05:00

I wasn't sure I was going to continue writing the Edee updates past 1 year. But she's doing so much and I want to keep track. So here's the update for 13 months.

She turns around easily at the top of stairs and slides down quickly.
I love that Edee signs. It’s so fun to understand what’s going on in her little head. She’s added more signs in the last month. Some are very similar, so you have to know the context. I’ve added a side bar to keep track.
She walking more and more every day. Yesterday she walked clear across the living room a couple of times. I wouldn’t say she’s walking yet. But she’s close.
She can point out body parts....nose, ear, eye, head….are the ones she seems to know fairly consistently.
She repeats some words (or something very similar to these words)--hi, eye, head, please, cheese, hat, ball. At least we can understand these words.
She's also started doing a few animal sounds. She can moo very nicely. She also does her own version of a bark. It sounds more like an owl hooting to me, but it's her dog. I'll post a video soon.
Edee consistently sleeps through the night now. She might cry out briefly, but she goes back to sleep.
She laughs all the time and is a very happy girl. She laughs a lot when Mallory is being tickled (and therefore laughing). You would think we were tickling Edee as well.

She has so many Halloween shirts. I think she can almost wear a different one everyday now and until Halloween. Some are short sleeved, so it might not end up working out. :)

Family Festival

2011-10-16T13:19:00.007-05:00

Yesterday we ventured downtown for Sprint's Family Fun Series. It was a Fall Festival for kiddos. I thought it sounded like something fun for Mallory. She got to dress up and trick-or-treat in the Power & Light district.

In my opinion, the event wasn't that great. They ran out of pumpkins to decorate before the event was 1/2 over. We didn't get one. The lines were really long for some activities, so we didn't bother. We had a limited amount of time because of Edee's naps. She was already rubbing her eyes and we just got there.

The weather was lovely and just walking around was nice. Here's a fun city pic.

Mallory had fun and that's all that matters. Here she is with the petting zoo llama. She chose to be Aurora yesterday. She has so many dress up clothes, she can be something different for every Halloween function we attend if she wants.

I guess if they do this again, my recommendation is to get there early.

No Sleep

2011-10-15T10:18:00.003-05:00

From the title of this blog you would think one of our kiddos had a rough night last night. Nope. Both slept almost 12 hours. The reason I got no sleep was the next door neighbor's dogs. And I'm writing this blog because I need to rant and I'd also like some advice. Here's the story.

Our neighbor stopped me when I was leaving the other day. He said...."what a good neighbor you are." I could hear the sarcasm in his voice. Then he proceeded to tell me the story of his wife leaving him. He works for a railroad in town (not my dad's) and when he was gone for work, she cleaned him out. Literally took both refrigerators, beds, furniture, etc. She also cleaned out 1 of their bank accounts. They've probably been married 5 or 6 years. When Steve and I moved into the house, he was single. Now this is a second marriage for him. He has 20-something age children that have lived with him on occasion.

He didn't see it coming at all. And I felt horrible for him. He had to go out and buy a bed and fridge. And I saw the moving truck at the house. What could I have done though? I literally thought it was one if his kids getting their stuff out of his basement. I thought it was a big truck for that, but I didn't know.

So with his job at the railroad, sometimes he's gone overnight. Now without a wife to let dogs in and out, when he's gone the dogs stay outside. Yes, all night. So last night must have been the first because they were barking all night! I went to bed late as it was (because I watched the Cardinals win game 5). Then I was awake listening to dogs from 10:30 until 3ish. I literally got 3 hours of sleep.

Now my question is---what can I do about it? Maybe the dogs will get use to being outside and it will be okay. But I can't handle 3 hours of sleep when I'm trying to keep up with the kids. I feel bad saying something to him, with all he's dealing with right now. I'm very non-confrontational anyway. I'm hoping one of you has some great advice on how to deal with this.

Baby Steps

2011-10-14T10:20:00.004-05:00

Edee is really trying to walk. Lately she's been taking between 3 and 5 steps before going head first into the floor. But Wednesday night (10/12) she took about 12 steps and went about 5 feet before Steve caught her. She was really proud of herself too. She was also trying really hard to stand up on her own. She never managed to do that. But she's really good about pulling up on something then pivoting around and walking for a few steps. Anytime now and I think we'll have a walker. Are we ready for that!?!

Her shirt says....."Mommy's under my spell." Yep! :)

After her bath this morning, this is what her hair looked like. Can you see the little turned up curls? Too bad she's still really bald on top.

Low Key

2011-10-10T13:55:00.003-05:00

We've had a low-key weekend. Friday night Steve and I watched his Cardinals win the divisional against the Phillies. I'm so glad we finally got HD.

I took Mallory to the Turner Day's parade on Saturday morning. My cousin is in Turner's marching band, so we got to see her march. We got a spot by our sledding park that we took Mallory to earlier this year. I don't think she really recognized it. :) She played at the park before the parade started.

We were early in the parade, so she got a TON of candy. Funny thing is, I've ate more of it than she has.

The rest of Saturday we spent watching K-State beat Mizzou at football and just hanging out at home. This is what Edee looked like.....

She had a horrible rash, mostly on her face. I'm almost certain it's a reaction to her 1-year vaccines. They said the fever, which she also had, may develop 5-10 days after the immunization was given. Sure enough.....her's developed 8 or 9 days. The rash is also a symptom. It's going away now, but it still shows up some after she sleeps.

After church yesterday, we just hung out at home again. Edee liked wearing Mallory's helmet. Mallory's class had a visit from the Lenexa Fire Dept on Friday. So Mallory came home with this helmet. Isn't she cute!?!

Carnival

2011-10-07T09:41:00.004-05:00

Last night was Mallory's preschool carnival. My mom headed to Branson yesterday with some friends, so my dad is on his own. So I invited him to come along. Steve met us there after work. We ate pizza, bake sale goods, then visited Mallory's classroom. We got to see Ms. Joy, her teacher from last year as well. Mallory made her a picture and then acted shy when she saw her. Silly kid.

After the teacher visit, Edee and I headed home to get her to bed on time. Steve, Papa and Mallory stayed to play the carnival games. Mallory was so excited! She knew what to expect this year, unlike last year.

She won these sunglasses as a prize.

It was perfect weather and fun was had by all.

Farmstead Visit

2011-10-04T09:21:00.008-05:00

Mallory didn't have school yesterday. So we decided to get together with her friends. Molly and Ian both go to school on Tuesdays and Thursdays (Mallory's off days). So getting together with 2 of her best friends is starting to be a challenge. So we took advantage and headed to the farmstead with Ian, Erik and Renee. Molly wasn't feeling well otherwise she would have been there too.

I had fears of it being crowded because Shawnee Mission School District was out of school, but it wasn't bad at all. And the weather couldn't have been more perfect. It ended up being warm in the afternoon, but the morning was wonderful.

Edee got to play on the playground.

Since it wasn't very crowded, Mallory got to ride the pony.

I really think this was the first time that Edee really seemed to enjoy herself. She was interested in everything. Here she is leaning up to get a better look at the goats.

I got some really cute shots of Edee with the beautiful flowers.

I managed to get 1 of Ian and Mallory that wasn't too bad. They were smelling the flowers to be silly. So I have quite a few of the backs of their heads.

I need to remember to get the swing picture earlier in the trip. They were getting impatient with my picture taking, so this was the best I could get.

After a fun morning on the farm, we headed out for a picnic and some playtime on the playground. Edee loved the slide! Mallory even went down with her. Pretty cute.

The farmstead closes for the season at the end of the month. Maybe we can manage 1 more trip before it closes. Otherwise the next time we go Edee will be walking. Yowsers! :)

Star Gazing

2011-10-03T13:39:00.005-05:00

Steve has a telescope that hasn't got used often. It was buried under a lot of junk in our basement. Now that our basement is somewhat organized it's much easier to get to. So hopefully we'll be using it more often.

Anyway, Mallory took a good nap yesterday, the weather was nice, and the sky was fairy clear. So he got out the telescope. Mallory loved being up when it's dark. She liked just seeing the stars without the telescope. She also loved seeing lights from the airplanes in the sky. But she got her chance with the telescope too. Here's Steve helping her.

After I got Mallory to bed, Steve spotted a planet and what we thought were its moons. Sure enough we saw Jupiter through the telescope. We even saw the hazy, bluish lines on it. It was amazing! I only saw 3 of the moons. My guess is that I didn't see the 4th one that appears a bit lighter.

K-State & the Cowpoke Campfire

2011-10-03T13:05:00.009-05:00

For those of you that don't follow college football.....my Wildcats had a comeback win in a big game on Saturday. Here's Edee dressed in some K-State gear that belonged to my friend's son, Will. K-State gear is unisex, right!?! She looks like a little boy though. Thanks Lisa for the outfit! :)

Mallory's friend Lydia had her 5th birthday party over the weekend. What a fun, creative party. It was at a nice park that we had never been to before. Edee got to enjoy the swings before the party games started.

The kids had all sorts of games to play.....bandana tag, tossing clothespins into cowboy hats, pass the boot (like hot potato).

I had to leave early with Edee. We didn't want to mess up our 4 nights of sleep training by keeping her out past her bedtime. So Steve stayed with Mallory for the pinata and roasting marshmallows. Pretty sure this was Mallory's first time hitting a pinata. I'm sure it won't be the last. Although we haven't had many since I clocked one of my cousins with a heavy-duty pinata bat. I was blindfolded and didn't know that I broke the pinata. She ran in for the candy and I kept swinging.

1 Year Stats

2011-09-30T10:15:00.003-05:00

Edee's 12 month stats......
Weight = 21 pounds 3 ounces, 50%
Height = 29 1/2 inches, 55%

Mallory for comparison...
Weight = 23 pounds, 2 ounces, 80%
Height = 30 1/4 inches, 85%

Even with the host of shots, Edee's 12 month appointment was uneventful. She did really well. Our biggest discussion was around sleep. Edee's been waking up again in the middle of the night. I've just been going in and feeding her and she goes back to sleep. It was easy to do. But we knew it had to stop. Once we got the all clear from the doctor that she was healthy (ears were clear) we decided to start cry it out. Nights 1 and 2 were bad. She cried for over 1 1/2 hours. Last night was amazing. She went to sleep around 7 and didn't wake up until 6:45. I hope that wasn't a fluke. We'll see tonight I guess.

Fun Times

2011-09-28T20:03:00.012-05:00

Mallory had dance class again on Monday. My parents don't live far from the studio and they typically watch Edee for me until Steve can pick her up. Things were a little different this Monday after my visit with the dermatologist that morning. I decided that I couldn't help that evening with class. I'm still not healed & I'd really like it to heal without any more complications. So Mallory got to go without me. But we still hung out at Nana and Papa's for awhile.

My parents have this car for Edee that they let her use around their house. It cracks me up. Mallory loves pushing her down the hallway. Check out the faces on both girls.

This is how Edee signs "baby". She even does the rocking motion with it. It's fun when I capture her signing.

When Steve's family was in town for the birthday party, his mom brought leotards for Mallory. They were Steve's sisters' leotards from when they were little. Mallory loves it! Thanks Grandma!

Today while Mallory was at preschool, Edee and I went to our last Baby Sing and Sign class. One of the items to play with today was a water tub. The kids loved it. Here's Edee with Olivia and Luke, the other kiddos in her little class.

Here's my little pupil signing "all done". I am still amazed at how easily she is learning signs. She loves to listen to the CD that accompanies the class. We have it in a CD player in the kitchen. Now she goes up to the CD player and signs "music." Sometimes she'll also include the sign "baby". Do you think she wants the Baby Sing and Sign CD?!? It's just amazing what's going on in her little head. And to think we'd have no idea if we didn't teach her to sign.

The water tub motivated me to get Edee's new water table out. It was a warm day, so the girls got on swim suits and played on the deck for awhile.

This suit was one of my favorites on Mallory. I know she wore it the summer that she turned 1 & it's still too big for Edee.

Week in Review

2011-09-26T10:02:00.002-05:00

I can't believe it's been a week since I've last posted. I'm sorry to my loyal readers who have been eagerly awaiting an update. So here it is...

Last week was only the 2nd full week for preschool for Mallory. So we're starting to get into a routine. She continues to love it and talks about her new friends often.

She also started dance class last week with me being the assistant teacher. Our studio continues to be very small. I think her class will end up being a decent size, but with a bigger range of ages. She's on the young end of it. So last week we talked about being a "big girl" in class and following directions, trying hard, etc. And she did awesome! She did way more than I thought she could do. Maybe having the "older" girls in class will challenge her. :)

Edee continues to amaze us daily. Since my 1 year update, she's started doing even more. She turns around to go down the steps easily. She's added dog and cheese to her list of signs. She took a couple of steps by herself on Friday (9/23) between my dad and I. She hasn't done as well since. She lunges forward and loses her balance, but she's determined.

Steve had a cold last week and none of us have been 100%. I still think mine is allergies though. We did manage to get family pictures taken on Saturday morning at Loose Park. I thought we might have to cancel it, but it turned out wonderfully. Edee was the real focus of the photo shoot, since we did a huge deal when Mallory turned 1. Here's the link to our favorites from Mallory's 1st birthday shoot. We used the same photographer. But this time we also did pictures of the girls and then pictures of the whole family. Can't wait to get the online proofs.

My wound from the melanoma removal is not healing well. I actually thought it might be infected, so I went back to the dermatologist today. She drained some liquid that had built up and gave me 2 prescriptions for antibiotics....one oral and one topical. She didn't confirm that it was infected, but she said the antibiotics will help with the inflammation. She also said that my body could have rejected the interior stitches that should have dissolved. When your body rejects them, they push the stitches out instead of dissolving. Lovely. Hopefully the antibiotics will get this thing healed. It's been over a month!

Sorry I didn't take a lot of pictures last week. Here's one of Edee on her swing in the backyard.

Edee at a Year

2011-09-19T10:50:00.007-05:00

I still can't believe Edee is 1 year old! There's a couple things I wanted to document since the last month.

She got 1 more tooth in the last month. She has 4 on top and 4 on bottom.
She crawls on all fours now. She'll tummy crawl if she's carrying something and doesn't want to let go.
She tries really hard to turn around at the top of the stairs to go down. She doesn't quite make it. Normally she ends up sideways.
Edee’s signing continues to improve. Her favorite word is baby. She smiles great big when she says it. She's using her new ones from last month even more. And she's added eat. (I think there's more but I can't remember. If I think of them I'll add them later.)
She cruising easily now. She loves to hold onto someone's hands to walk. I can tell she's getting more steady. I'm trying to let her only hold 1 hand, but she keeps grabbing for the other one.
She'll walk between Steve and I. She still really wants to hold our hands. Occasionally she'll lunge a little without holding on. But she still wants the help.
She LOVES the cats! They are so patient with her....it's amazing. She'll pet them, try to lay on them, etc. They take it all nicely and run away when they get sick of it. I think we've only had to rescue Edee a couple of times before Cooper turned on her. They avoided Mallory when she was this little. I think they've become much more tolerant with baby #2.
It's nearly impossible to change her diaper. She rolls over immediately. I can't seem to hold her down. Argh.

Birthday Party

2011-09-19T09:35:00.013-05:00

We started Edee's birthday morning by giving her the gift from us. She's still in her jammies and Mallory is there helping. Mallory actually had to go sit on the couch after a bit, because she was "helping" too much.

We got her a water table. I know she won't get much use out of it until it gets warm again. But I'm thinking about putting warm water in it and doing it in the kitchen sometime. Edee loved climbing on the box.

The party didn't start until 5pm and that was just torture for Mallory. I think she was ready for the party to start around 10am. Here's Edee carrying a balloon around as the guests were arriving.

Can you tell how excited Mallory was!?!

I made a lovely Mexican dinner....tacos with fresh tortillas from Ninfa's, rice, beans, Rotel dip, guacamole. It was easy and turned out really good.

After dinner we moved on to gifts. It's pretty chaotic to have both kids opening presents up at the same time. But it would take too long to do it separately. This is as they were both getting started. It wasn't too crazy yet.

Both girls got great gifts. Mostly clothes, books and a few toys for Edee. Mallory got clothes, a Barbie car, My Little Pony, etc. Here's Edee hugging an outfit she got.

I made bumblebee, chocolate cupcakes. It was my first time attempting homemade chocolate icing. I think they turned out really well. My cousin even said that she would buy these cupcakes. I take it she liked them. My parents also provided the homemade ice cream. It was a hit too. I saw quite a few people get seconds on that. :)

I think this is a sweet picture of her waiting for the candle to be lit.

Edee puts everything into her mouth lately. But she didn't with her cake. I made her a whole wheat, fruit juice sweetened cake. It's the same cake I made Mallory for her 1st birthday. To be honest it's pretty good. Kind of a cross between a muffin and cake. The icing was sweetened with raspberry preserves.

She kneaded it like you would Play Doh. I tried to give her some with a spoon and she didn't have any interest in it. Her bib says "Birthday Girl". Bummer that I didn't get a good picture of her wearing it. Too much craziness going on at the time.

Here's Edee playing with one of her new toys. I think she liked it.

It was a bit wild, but good. Everything turned out great and I think both girls had fun. And that's what is important.

Happy 1st birthday Edee!
Happy 4th birthday Mallory!

Happy Birthday Edee!

2011-09-17T22:20:00.002-05:00

Still can't believe my baby is one! With her bald head, she doesn't look one. We had a great birthday party.....lots of food, fun and family. Hopefully I'll find some time to post tomorrow. It's late and I'm tired.

Happy 1st Birthday Edee!

Birthday Party Approaching

2011-09-15T12:28:00.002-05:00

Saturday is the big, combined, family birthday party for the girls. In order to make it easier on Steve's family from St. Louis we decided to have 1 party. Here's the front of the invitation we sent out. Aren't they cute!?!

So I'm trying to get things cooked, baked, cleaned, etc. Sometimes I wish I wasn't such a perfectionist. It would make things easier. :)

Edee "walks"

2011-09-12T21:31:00.002-05:00

Edee has been cruising more and more lately. She is also walking behind push toys. There are a couple of toys that get going too fast for her and she can't keep up. She ends up on her knees trying to hold on. But today we found that this car works really well for her. And she LOVES it. She went back and forth between me and Steve this evening about 5 times. Hopefully that means she'll sleep good tonight.

Butterflies & Wildflowers

2011-09-11T20:58:00.006-05:00

Saturday Steve took Mallory to an event at the Ernie Miller Nature Center. They learned about monarch butterflies and then went into the wildflower fields to tag them. I guess this upcoming week should be the best time to see the monarchs around here before they migrate. Steve and Mallory actually didn't see that many on Saturday.

They only caught 1. This is the one they caught and tagged.

Here's Mallory with her net. Note to future butterfly taggers, wear long pants. Ooops. Mallory and Steve were in shorts.

What beautiful weather for Daddy/Daughter day.

For those of you curious about tagging, here is a website that explains the purpose, etc.

First Day of Preschool

2011-09-07T20:37:00.005-05:00

Today Mallory had her first day of preschool. As with last year it was a transition class. She only went 1 hour to get use to things. She really didn't need it. But there was at least 1 kid in her class that seemed to really need to ease into things.

As I got out of the shower this morning around 6:30, in comes Mallory fully dressed with shoes and socks on. She was ready! Check out the poses I got when I wanted to take some pictures. She's a funny kid.

We also snapped a quick picture outside the building before heading into her classroom.

For comparison, here she is on her first day last year for 3-year old preschool. Here she is on her first day in 2009 for Children's Day Out.

While Mallory was at school, Edee and I got to do our first class together.....Baby Sing and Sign. Mallory and I took the class together when she was little. Here's a link, if you're curious. Edee is 1 of only 3 kids in the class. She still had fun though. Edee seems to be the only kid that has already been exposed to signs. She knows quite a few now, and the teacher was really impressed. It was fun to get to do something just the 2 of us.

Long Season?

2011-09-03T20:33:00.004-05:00

The girls in our house dressed in our K-State gear today in honor of the season opener. I haven't been listening to the game. But from the stats, it looks like a horrible game. K-State is losing 7-0. Here's the cute pictures though.

I had one of those headbands with a bow on it on Edee's bald head. But she wouldn't leave it on. I think it looked pretty silly on her anyway.

Here she's saying touchdown. Too bad K-State hasn't had one all game. They did just manage to score a field goal.

I hope the Cats' performance today is not an indication of how the season is going to go. I love my Wildcats. Well, I love football season in general......college and pros. We finally got high definition cable for our new tv. Just watching a little football today was awesome!

Farm Birthday Party

2011-09-02T19:23:00.008-05:00

Ian and his little brother, Erik, celebrated their birthdays today at Screamin' Oaks Farm. It's the same place they celebrated Ian's birthday at last year. Ian wanted to go there again....so we went. Edee and I got to go this time, since she wasn't just 3 days old like last year. They were nice enough to let Papa come too, since it was Papa Friday.

The morning started rough. Molly and Mallory were running around playing when the resident turkey started chasing them. Mallory fell hard on the gravel driveway. She already had a skinned knee from Saturday, which had a band-aid on it. So she started bleeding again. I keep a first aid kit in my van, so I got her cleaned up as best as she would let me. Luckily she recovered and had fun. This picture was pre-fall. Mallory only has 1 band-aid on her knee.

All the kids got to milk a goat. Here's Mallory taking her turn.

While the kiddos were taking turns the others were playing on the gate. If we could have managed to get all of them up there, it would have been really cute. Still cute.

They were looking out at my favorite animal on the farm, the donkey.

After our tour, we had a picnic lunch. Then we had cupcakes to celebrate the birthdays. Mallory just ate the blue icing.

My dad was a hit pushing some of the kids on the swing. Check out their faces....I think they were having fun.

What a fun morning!

Tidbits

2011-08-31T14:23:00.003-05:00

No theme for today's post. Just some random tidbits of information.

Edee is starting to cruise more and more. She will also walk while holding onto my hands.
Yesterday she used a riding toy as a step to get onto the coffee table. Smart girl. She also flipped herself into the bathtub when we were in there helping Mallory brush her teeth. She just got a little bump. She's a tough little cookie.
Mallory met her preschool teacher today....Ms. Melissa. Mallory really doesn't know anyone in her class, which is pretty weird. We seem to have the class of people new to the preschool. I chatted with some of the moms today and they seem nice. And Mallory makes friends so easily. She shouldn't have any problems. Should be a fun year!
I got the call from the dermatologist's office yesterday. The sample they sent to the pathologist showed no signs of melanoma. This is a catch-22 to me. I'm glad there's no melanoma. But....did they really have to take out a huge chunk of me to figure that out?!? With all the technology out there, hasn't someone thought of a better method to determine if all the melanoma is gone? I still have to keep my stitches covered for a little over a week. Luckily I think I've found some tape that won't irritate my skin so badly.
We messed up Edee's afternoon nap today. I took pictures of the staff at my church for an updated website. We got home a little late and she doesn't seem to want to sleep now. Argh.
These 2 pictures crack me up. Are they really the same kid!?!

Church Block Party

2011-08-29T20:40:00.006-05:00

We had a big event at church yesterday. It was an event to learn about opportunities within the walls of our church and outside as well through mission work, etc. Then it transitioned to a block party with dunk tank, food trucks, bounce house, kiddie pools, etc. I was called to take photos. I really enjoy taking pictures at events. It's fun to try to see everything that is going on. And I always get compliments on the photos that I give them! :)

Mallory enjoyed the whole thing. Here she is in the bounce house. (Her and some of the other girls had stickers on their foreheads after church. Not sure what they were doing, but she kept hers on the whole time.)

The kiddos changed into swimming suits and played on the lawn.

Edee even got to enjoy the fun. Well, she got to enjoy some snuggles with mom.

It was a fun morning. We really lucked out with perfect weather.

Just a quick update on me.....I'm moving around a lot better. The swelling has gone down a lot. And the bruising is not getting worse. My biggest complaint is the tape that I am using to keep the stitches covered is bothering me. I have nasty red marks from it. I'm trying a different kind tonight. Hopefully it won't bother me as much. I'm still having a hard time keeping Edee away from my leg, but we're managing. Thanks to everyone who's called and e-mailed.

Our Anniversary

2011-08-29T20:32:00.002-05:00

Yesterday was our 7th anniversary. My folks watched the girls on Saturday night and we went to our favorite place, Piropos. We had a fantastic meal. Our server asked if we were celebrating anything. And when we told him it was our anniversary he said then we get a free dessert. Very cool. I'm normally not that impressed with their dessert menu, but we found something. And it ended up being fantastic. It was some wonderful vanilla ice cream, tons of fresh fruit and dulce de leche sauce. It was heavenly. It's been awhile since we've gone out. So the whole evening was even more special. And Edee didn't give my parents trouble, which was what I was worried about. Yeah!