Kylie goes to the ZOO!!!

We have had a couple busy days. I worked Friday and Saturday, Craig was home doing a great job being Mr. Mom. Highlights from the past few days... we have been enjoying the beautiful weather and spending time outside playing in the sandbox, on the front porch with buckets of water and next door with our neighbors. Kylie continues to become more vocal, we have also started teaching her more sign language. Most recently she has learned how to say please and milk. She is such a sponge right now, it only took us one day and practicing the signs for her to understand and use them. She still loves throwing things in the trash, wearing necklaces and carrying purses. We have seen some cute dance move the past few days, squatting and turning in a complete circle being the top two.

Today Kylie had her first adventure to the zoo! Craig and I both had the day off, so we headed to the Orange County Zoo in Irvine Regional Park. She enjoyed looking at all the animals, she got to pet a couple goats, ride a little train and play in the grass. It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed spending time together as a family. Craig works the next few nights so we were glad to spend some family time today. I hope you enjoy the photos :o)

Natalie

Kylie loves her "Auntie Sissa"

It was wonderful to have Graham and Jess come to visit, thanks again for the cute dress and Giants shirt.

Showing us Misheel's ear

Misheel understands her daddy's humor more then Kylie does.

Naked water time on the front porch, gotta love the warm weather.

She was happy to watch while daddy fed the goat.

Pointing out the goat's nose...

then cheering for herself for getting it right :o)

Not exactly the best place to take a little rest.

Kylie's first kids train ride through the park, she really enjoyed it.

No trip would be complete without spending some quality time nursing.

Kylie chased the peacock around a little bit, now we know what noise to make when we read our book that says to "yelp like a peacock."

She slept for most of the drive home and still passed out in bed, longest nap ever, just over 3 hours! The Zoo wore her out today. We have to admit, the Zoo wore us out too, we both enjoyed a nice nap when we got home also.

Kidspace Museum Trip

Over the past couple days Kylie has spent some time with Mimi and Papa while I take some photos, she has taken it upon herself to walk next door when she wants to pay Sarah and Misheel a visit, we visited great-grandma Gloria and Papa took her to Barnes and Nobel story time. She gave us our first little scare on Sunday night. She was playing on my parents front porch and reached to grab something on there little table, she lost her balance and hit her head on the edge of the table as she fell. It sounded worse then it was, but she screamed and got a little bump between her eyes. I was so worried we would be making an ER trip to get some stitches, but not yet, thank goodness.

 Last night was interesting. We got her completely ready for bed before I went to the studio to teach my line dance class, she fell asleep for Melissa but only slept for about 30 min. When I got home it took be about an hour to get her to fall back to sleep. Usually she wakes about every hour and I have to pat or nurse her back to sleep, last night she didn't wake at all. It was 12:30am when I was getting ready for bed and I heard a very loud thump and she started to cry. She had fallen off the bed! :o( She has never come close to falling off the bed and, until recently, our bed mattress has been sitting on the floor just in case. However, as fate would have it, she was sleeping on our queen bed that we just put on a frame, so it was actually quite a big fall. I turned on the light and ran in to pick her up, she was sitting upright between the bed and wall. I have no idea how she got there, but I don't think there is any way it was head first. As soon as I picked her up she stopped crying, settled in and was back to sleep within minutes. My heart was racing, I felt so bad for her, but after taking a good look at her, I decided I should try to relax and actually sleep also. I nursed her and fell asleep, I didn't wake again to nurse her until about 5:30! It was awesome, I kept wondering how long she would have slept had she not fallen off the bed? I am eager to see what tonight holds, maybe we are making a changed for the better when it comes to sleeping. Although, now that I have said something tonight will probably be horrible :o/

Kylie had a very busy day today. She woke up bright and early (a little too early for mom) at 7am. We had a yummy breakfast and got ready for the day. We went to music class, her classmate Zander was on vacation again for it was just Kylie, Mommy and Miss Teresa. Kylie got to play her first true instrument, and she loved it. After class we hoped in the car and made the hour long drive to Pasadena. Kylie slept for the whole drive and woke up as we pulled into the museum parking lot, it was perfect. We met up with my friend Jess and her little boy Zach, there were a couple other families all with little ones about Kylies age. We enjoyed an amazing 3 hours as an awesome kids museum. They had a lot for children under 5 years old, she explored some shells and rocks, played outside at a water table, inside jungle gym, she got to pet a snake and watch some fish in a fish tank. And of course the best part was spending time with other kids her age. Almost everyone in the group had a little one between 12-15 months, it was so fun. We got back in the car at 3, and 20 min in to the drive she was asleep. She woke when we got off the freeway in Redlands, I could not have worked out more perfectly. We had a fun night of visiting with Mimi and Papa, delicious dinner (thank you Craig), then rode the bike to market night to get some fresh vegetables. Home for a bath and bedtime. Right now I am in bed next to her, just want to make sure we don't have an mishaps.

I work the next two nights and a few hours on Monday, I hope the weekend goes well :o)
Here are some photos from the past few days...
-Natalie
PS. Our good friends Tim and Cathy moved their lives to Oregon today. We will miss them so very much, they have become part of our family, it will be strange to have them so far away. We love you both and miss you already. Thank you for being such a big part of Kylie's first year of life :o) We will have to find time to come visit!

Kidspace Museum

Big girl just running around the house looking cute :o)

Music class

Sharing shells, thanks Zach

Learning how to ride the little bike at Kidspace, it was the perfect size made me was to go buy her one, she loved it.

Uncle Graham and Auntie Jess here to visit...but where is Daddy?

Kylie has had a very busy couple days. We had a wonderful visit with my friend Liz and enjoyed meeting her new little bundle of joy, Zachary. Kylie did really well on the car ride home, well she slept for almost 2 hours, which would have been enough to get us home had we not spent an hour in traffic, but none the less we made it back. Kylie came with me to teach my line dance class at the studio on Wednesday. She was not interested in staying with Auntie Melissa the whole time, so I did some of my teaching with a baby on my hip :o) Thursday we went to music class and spent some time cleaning the house and getting daddy ready for his trip this weekend. Uncle Kyle arrived Thursday night and Kylie decided that she wanted to get up and spend some time with him around midnight, silly girl. Friday morning Craig got home from work and he and Kyle packed up and started their drive to SF. Kylie didn't wake up in time to say good bye to her daddy and she did spend a little time walking around the house later that day saying "da da da da."

Kylie and I finished cleaning the house just in time for Uncle Graham and Auntie Jess to arrive. They have not seen Kylie since before Christmas, before she was even crawling! She has changed so much in the past couple months, not only is she mobile, she is talking up a storm. "Yes, No, Mama, Dada, Eyes, Trash, Ouch, Bowwow, Baba" and a few more I can't think of. She also gives very purposeful hugs and kisses, will try to lift your shirt to see your belly button and if you are female, she will try to reach down your shirt to feel your nipple. We had a wonderful BBQ with the family, Kylie showed off all her tricks, including going down a little slide in the backyard and throwing a little fit anytime I was not an arms reach away. She had been a little fussy the past few days, we tried to facetime with Craig this morning, it went well for a couple minutes then she started crying, big tears, she didn't understand why daddy was in the little box and not home. She misses him so much, this evening she asked again, "da da da da?" and when I told her Dada was not here she got very sad and gave me a very long hug and whimpered a little bit. It just breaks my heart, I miss Craig too, we can't wait for him to be home hopefully tomorrow night.

So today Kylie spent some more time with all the family, we had brunch together at Mimi and Papas. It was a hot day today (high 80's) and Kylie got to wear her new dress that Graham and Jess brought her from Thailand. It has an elephant on the front, it's oh so cute. This afternoon Kylie attended a Preggie-Mama self care event with me. I was there taking photos and Kylie did a great job playing while I got some good shots. This evening we all got dressed up and headed to the dance studio for the Spring Showcase. I did not dance in the showcase, but we had a great time watching some of the routines. We made it through the first act and a couple dances of the second act before Kylie yawned, I asked her if she was ready to go home and go nigh-night, she nodded yes, and we were out the door. She seemed to really enjoy watching the show, she tried to get on the dance floor almost every piece, she would dance along with the music and clap at the end, so cute!

Sorry these updates are so long, I should just write more often :o)
-Natalie

Sporty girl in the yoga pants and Giants gear!

First time she has seen a full length mirror (at the hotel during our trip to see Liz). She kept giving herself kisses...

and hugs...

but couldn't figure out why she couldn't walk to where that other baby was.

and after about 30 minutes she was pretty frustrated.

Matt and Craig putting the babies to sleep, what good daddies

Kisses for baby Zachary.

Don't worry, it's empty.

Breastfeeding buddies

Kylie wanted to be part of the family photos shoot.

Bubble time with daddy is so fun!

She was actually able to blow her own little bubble, she is such a smart girl.

Kylie at the Preggie-Mama event, wearing her cute dress from Graham and Jess and enjoying making noise with the shakers.

I remember when we got these PJ's as a gift when she was first born, I just couldn't believe we would have a little one that would actually fit in them and be walking around, and now here she is, it's going by so fast!

On our way home from Liz's house we stopped at Subway, Kylie got her own kids meal and was so proud of her little bag, she carried it all around the store.

We finally got a king size bed! Of course it arrived Thursday when Craig had to work, then he was gone all weekend, so we still haven't slept in it all together yet, but Kylie sure thinks it's fun/

Graham and Jess holding Kylie's hands walking down the street.