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.

Wood Duck Prt. 2

Sunday we had lunch out at the campground before heading up to the park. Grandpa and Grandma Hawks met us out there too, but I didn't take any pictures of them with the kids. :(

Kaylee and Papa playing beanbags.

Playing with the uncles. Kaylee got a kick out of throwing the ball in the (icky) water and having Mylie go in after it.

Even though Kaylee doesn't see her uncles much she still loves them and prays for them every night!

I'll end the post with a sweet picture of Conner with Grammy.

4th of July

We did have a pretty good 4th of July even though it rained most of the time and ruined our plans of heading to Wamego for their annual parade and fireworks. On Saturday our neighborhood and a big get together. This is an annual gather around this weekend, but it was our first time attending. It was fun to meet some neighbors farther down from us and there was a ton of good food. There was also a small fireworks show when it got dark. Conner slept through it all in his stroller. Sunday the rain let up enough for us to have our own little firework show. Kaylee and Daddy went on Saturday to pick out some fireworks. Kaylee enjoyed picking them out, but then didn't want us to light them. :) Setting up the firework for Daddy. Running away fast because they are too loud!

Watching one that stays on the ground.

And then after we were all done lighting the fireworks it was time to clean them up. Kaylee thought of the idea to take her wheelbarrow around the yard to pick them up. The wind was just blowing right the night before and we had a ton of fireworks in our yard and a couple on our roof.

Here Daddy and Kaylee are picking them up.

It started raining again so we didn't think Manhattan was going to light their fireworks so we just put the kids to bed, but around 10 we heard the really loud ones going off. It's a good thing these kids are so used to Fort Riley that they slept right through them.

Kaylee's first trip to the dentist

Kaylee had her first trip to the dentist shortly after she turned 3. She went with Steve a couple weeks before when he went for his cleaning. We thought since she is so shy that this would be a good warm up for her. During that trip she got a balloon and toothbrush and was so excited about that so we used that as motivation about her upcoming trip where she would be the one sitting in the chair. Steve took her and as you can see by the last picture (which is the first picture of the day, I just don't know how to switch them yet without having to delete everything) she was not too sure at first. But she did warm up after she got her ballon and let the dentist count her teeth (all 20!) and check for cavitities (none!).

Still figuring it out!

Well I have not been able to figure this all out yet and therefore am still working on posting pictures from our trip to Fulda in June. So for now I am practicing with a couple random photos of the kids.

I'll keep working at it though!