Kaylee's visit to Grammy and Papa's house

Last week Kaylee got the opportunity to stay 5 whole days at my parents house (Grammy and Papa) in Minnesota. This was the first time that she has been away from us (I have only been away from her for one night, the night I was in the hospital when Conner was born), so it was a little hard to say goodbye to her. We met my parents and Mary in Omaha on Sunday at the Pizza Machine and after eating and playing a few games it was time to pack her things the their car and say goodbye. Man that was hard and it was so strange how quiet it was on the way home. But we survived and Kaylee had so much fun and made many great memories. Here are some pictures of their fun and proof that they did more than just watch cartoons!

Here she is helping Uncle Corey at work on the diary farm and at his house.

Travis and Kaylee reading

Swinging with a kitty on the tire swing that Papa made just for her! Not quite sure what she is doing here to Uncle Corey, but I bet it was cute!

Aha, there is some proof that she did watch cartoons! HAHA

Posing with Great Aunt Mary after a busy day of going to the Sioux Falls Zoo and visiting the butterfly house.

Mom said as soon as she woke up she wanted to go outside to play with the kitties. We are working on Steve to get her one, but I don't see that happening in the near future. :)

She still talks about Travis combing her hair. Guess he did a good job. Hmmm...Maybe a new profession?!?

Trying something new here with a collage. I believe you can click on it to make it larger but I'm not positive. Anyway, here are some pictures of their fun at the zoo, butterfly house, and the Slayton fair.

She had so much fun and Steve and I got a lot done here after Conner went to bed that we might consider letting her stay away again. But not for a little while, the transition back home was quite difficult for her and she had many a tantrum.

Can it be true?!

That we have a 10 month old (okay he's almost 11 months by now, but it's been a busy couple weeks) already! Two more months and we have a 1 year old! Conner is learning so much and it is so fun to see him growing (and a little sad)!

Some new things the Conner is doing............

- eating all table food, he usually eats what we eat with very few exceptions. It is so nice to not have to buy or make the baby food and serve two seperate meals. Conner loves to EAT!!! He eats just about anything. Somethings take a couple servings to get him to eat it but he hasn't really turned anything away. Some of his favorite foods are toast (cut into quaters), bananas, any meat, potatoes, GRAPES, and of course cheerios.

- he drinks from only a sippy cup. He has been doing this since the beginning of July and it wasn't a problem at all getting him to give up his bottles. With both kids we made sure to do it early so they didn't get too attached to the bottle and didn't make a big deal about it. He also made the switch to formula at this time. He did notice something was different but since he eats about anything he didn't refuse it. :)

- he has two teeth on the bottom with about four more on top trying to break through. The ones on top have been trying to break through for a long time now and we thought by now they would have but still nothing.

- he is able to stand by himself with great control and even clap while standing. He can squat up and down without holding on to anything, but won't take a step yet. He is so fast crawling that we think he just prefers that for now. But I can't wait for him to start walking so he isn't so dirty all the time and isn't finding all those crumbs, or dirt, leftover from the kids.

- he is starting to have favorite toys and right now it seems to be a potatoe masher (I think that is what it is?). I've never personally used it so I put it downstairs in the play kitchen things and he found and will carry it around while he is crawling. I think he likes things that have long handles on them because tonight he found a K-State clapper of Kaylee's and crawled around with that and cried at bedtime when I had to take it away from him. Poor kid.

- at his 9 month appointment he was just shy of 20 lbs. so we are pretty sure he is there now.

- is hair has one little curl in it so far, right behind his ear. So I'm pretty sure he will have some curls!

- I know there is so much more that he is doing, but it's been a very long week!

I'll leave you with pictures of Conner from when he was born, 5 months old, and 10 months old. (You can click on the pictures to view them bigger)

Doesn't he look like Steve in the last one?

Sunday School

Kaylee has started attending Sunday School. She has been wanting to go to school for a long while now, so we thought she would be pretty excited about going to Sunday School. But she has had a couple meltdowns about going even before we leave the house. The first Sunday we got her all clocked in and settled down playing with play dough and we able to leave without incident. But during the sermon our pager number flashed up front so I went to see what the mater was and she was out in the hall with a teacher really upset. I took her and asked her what the matter was and she said that they started singing! If you've been at her birthday parties you know that she starts crying when everyone sings Happy Birthday to her, but I was surprised that she did this at school since the attention wasn't just focused on her. Well I got her settled down and sat with her for a little while and then I was able to go back to the service because she was okay eating a snack with the class. She was excited to get a paper to take home and every Sunday after we get home we go over what she learned by reviewing it.

Here she is showing off her special necklace and bracelets that she gets to only where on Sundays. (Well the blue one she can wear anytime.)

And here she is showing off her "homework" and her bracelet.

Saturday at supper I asked her what she thought she would learn about at Sunday School tomorrow and she said, "Maybe about Dora!" (She only knows Dora by a book that we have, she has never even seen the show.) I asked her what she thought she would learn about Dora and she thought about it a little bit and said, "Maybe we'll learn about Dora and Jesus." So overall she is pretty excited about going to school and loves to tell us all about it in the car on the way home.