Easter 2012

After this post, I will be completely, sort of caught up. For Easter this year, Casey and I worked in the toddler room at church during service. We had 6 toddlers including Kylie. It was so funny to see all these kids interact or not, like our friend Audrey. She mostly stayed off to the side and stared at the door. After church, we headed over to Casey's grandparents house in Irving. Memaw and Papaw always make a delicious lunch. It was Kylie's naptime, so she wasn't really into socializing at that time. I tried to get her to rest with me, but that only lasted a few minutes. One thing she always loves, is playing with her cousins, Megan, Maddy, and McKenzie. Here are a couple of pics from this family gathering.

Kylie and Grandma Kristy

Looking at soon to be Uncle Casey's (Crystal's fiance) phone.. the battery died later, lol.

Just love those curls!

Playing with cousin Megan. They were twinkies this Easter in their pink dresses!

After lunch, we headed over to Casey's dad's house. We knew Kylie would fall asleep on the way there, so we ended up driving slower.

Once we were in Arlington, we decided to try to lengthen her nap, so we drove around to see some of the tornado damage. It is pretty amazing. You could see exactly where the tornado skipped over the highway and then hit down again right on the other side. Lots of houses destroyed and we saw some damaged churches too. This is less than 1/2 mile from Casey's parent's house. They were so lucky! After Kylie's nap, we ate dinner, had yummy dessert, and Kylie and her cousins had an egg hunt. She loved it! She rather enjoyed a hershey's kiss from one of her eggs as well... you'll see that in a picture below. :)

Opening her Easter basket. Thank you Gigi for my laptop. It never leaves my sight!!

Easter Family Picture

I found one!

She was such a big girl!!

She had so much fun and Mommy loves her dress!

Opening her eggs with Daddy.

Mmm licking the hershey's kiss! One of her new fave things to do is lick everything!! Lol.

The festivities ended with playing kitchen with her cousins. Of course, they were cooking Easter eggs...

We got home late that night. Kylie didn't go to bed until after 9pm. That sure has happened a lot more lately.. Needless to say, we didn't have a whole lot of time for our own little egg hunt. Casey worked from home on the Monday after Easter, so that morning I hid the eggs and we had our own little egg hunt. Now my eggs were much more modest in the candy department. 2 eggs had ONE M&M in them, other eggs had some puffs, all fruit fruit snacks, and bunny marshmellows (her favorite treat!). Not as much yummy stuff as her eggs had the day before, but she loved it all the same. She hid in the office with Daddy and her basket while I hid the eggs in the living room. When she came out, she immediately knew what to do. After each egg that she found, she would yell 'more!' Once she found them all, we let her open them and snack a little. Then we saved the rest in a baggy for a snack later.

Of course, my favorite one of this hunt would not load the right direction.. This is when she opened one with an M&M and was so excited. She then proceded to put it in her mouth and promptly spit it out. Mommy got to eat a slobbered on M&M!

Mmm marshmellow bunnies! She said 'trees' when she opened the egg because her last bag of marshmellows was from Christmas with Christmas trees in it.

Happy Easter everyone! We hope that you were able to spend this amazing day with those you love. Next year, I will make more of an effort (besides reading her children's bible and discussing why we celebrate Easter) to do other activities besides an Easter egg hunt. She will understand so much more next year! There was no way she could grasp that an empty Easter egg represents Jesus' tomb after he died and rose from the dead among others. Next year, my little, next year!

21 months

Kylie is 21 months now. The time just keeps flying on by!! She weighs somewhere in the 24 pound area and is teetering between size 4 and 5 diapers. She is wearing mostly 24 month size clothes, with some 2T's and older 18 months outfits that still fit. She is tall and skinny, as expected.

She is definitely going through some toddlerisms with her choices of foods and decisions about whether to listen to Mommy and Daddy or not. She also has taken to climbing on EVERYTHING. She climbs up in her own high chair, car seat, and even tries to climb up on the counter to brush her teeth. She is very close to climbing up on our very tall bed. She can walk up and down stairs by herself, but we're always there. She 'helps' with making every meal now. She pushed one of the kitchen chairs over to the island, climbs up, and expects to help in some way. We've found that it actually helps get her to eat more of it because she has helped. So I do not fight it, plus it keeps her from tugging and pushing at my legs while I try to get dinner ready. She has very good hand/eye coordination and has the iphone pretty much figured out. If she had her own ipad, we'd be in major trouble!

Some pictures of Kylie having a blast at the park, climbing on everything of course. She loves to go down slides too.

She has switched mostly from saying da-da to dad-dy, emphasis on the /dee/ part. The second either one of us leaves the room, she is yelling out our names. I mean yelling. It's adorable, but I'm sure we need to stop thinking of it that way soon before it gets worse. She is learning new words each day and has started some toddler 'sentences'. She will use several words and gestures to get a full point/story across, says 'all done' (sometimes) and we're working on 'help please' to try to get her 'help' to sound less like 'apple.' Haha. She recognizes a couple of letters (especially 'o') and knows 1, 2, and 3 (she tries to do it with her fingers; we've got one down!). We have a lot of learning to do, but it is amazing to see just how much she picks up on her own without explicitly being taught.

Nap times are hit or miss. Sometimes it takes a couple of hours even for her to get a wink of sleep, sometimes she's out in a few minutes and sleeps for a couple of hours, other times she's out the second we're in her room yet only sleeps for 40 minutes. She has always been a finickey sleeper. Once we think we have it figured out, it changes. At this point, I'm happy with some kind of nap each day. We know she needs a nap. Without a nap, she can't make it passed 5pm without being the crankiest child around. She is just miserable the entire evening and it is much more difficult to get her to sleep for bedtime later because she is so overtired.

Oh how we do not love you 2 year molars. A couple of weeks ago, Kylie started cutting her 2 year molars. The bottom right one came in first and is about 3/4 of the way through. Her other bottom one is working itself out. You can see most of it just underneath the gum. It seems like the beginnings of each tooth are what give her the most problems. She is super fussy, has trouble sleeping, and doesn't eat/drink much while the tooth makes it's way up the gums and then initially cuts. With the bottom ones, as they were coming up, her gag reflex set it. It was like she thought there was a foreign object in her mouth and couldn't get passed it. She would gag and eventually throw up. We had one really bad night of it as the 2nd one was coming up. She has gradually figured it out and hasn't been throwing up, but still gags on occasion. Poor thing gets that from me... look out, it will be years of trying to learn to swallow pills baby girl! We're hoping her top ones don't have the same effect since they aren't as much in the back of the throat as the bottom molars are. Cannot wait until all 4 are in. We will be home free for years!!!

This post started out as 21 months and Easter.. Easter got the boot! I ended up talking your ear off! Looks like post #4 will be Easter.. this catching up thing is not easy! I will leave you with this sneak peek of Easter! Kylie loved looking for Easter eggs! :)

Austin Weekend March 30th-April 1st

We took a family trip down to Austin to visit my family and celebrate all the Kramer kids birthdays. My brother Andrew's birthday is March 2nd, mine is March 25th, and my sister Sarah's is March 31st.

Funny Story, albeit sad because half of the chocolate cake was gone. While waiting for Kylie to go to sleep and for Sarah to get ready, the birthday cakes were sitting on the kitchen counter. All of a sudden, we heard a weird noise coming from the kitchen. Yes, Stella (my sister's weimeriner dog) ate half the chocolate cake before any of us had any. She must have thought it was her birthday.

Luckily Chelsie got a picture before the massacre... ;)

After Stella...

Mmm Cake!! Thanks Mom!

We drove down Friday afternoon and made it just in time for Mommy to go to the movies! I hadn't been since last July... I went to see The Hunger Games (LOVE all the books!) with my sister, mom, and dad. Casey and Kylie stayed at my parent's house playing with all the animals. Oh how she enjoyed that! Dogs, fish, and a cat.. pretty much Kylie heaven. ;)

Andrew and Chelsie, along with Zorro (Kylie's favorite family dog), arrived late Friday night. We all woke up Saturday morning and headed off to the Austin Zoo. We planned an outing this weekend because we don't do nearly enough of them when we get together. It was hot, yes, but fun. I love seeing new things through Kylie's eyes. Here are some of the pics from that day.

Daddy held her most of the time. It was too hard to see everything from the stroller.

She loved the turtles!

After many attempts...

Having fun with daddy and the crazy  goats!

I love this one.

Kylie and Daddy

Family pic taken by a random photographer there. He's right, it did turn out better than my camera's..

Sunday morning we woke up expecting to leave fairly early to take bluebonnet pictures. It never fails, the water went 'out'. More than likely, with the rain Austin got recently (the lake went up 15 feet), the water pipeline got kinked and stuck underneath the dock. There was a lot of air in the water and we couldn't use the water for a couple of hours. I hadn't showered yet, Kylie needed a bath, etc, etc. My dad, Casey, and mom went down to the lake and fixed it.... So we got a late start. Once we finally left, Kylie was already exhausted and needed a nap. She managed to get a few minutes sleep in the car on the way there, but woke up abruptly once we were at Old Settlers Park. She wasn't the happiest baby and we really didn't get great pictures. Still, I'm glad we went. I'm not sure if we'll have another chance to take bluebonnet pictures. Here are some 'memories' from this excursion.

Quick nap with Aunt Sarah

Notice how tight her feet are holding on to my leg..

Family pic

Waiting ever so patiently.. mom and dad were going to bike back home from the park, hence the bike shorts!

I will not touch those blue things!!

...and we're done... yes both of us are done!

Sleepy baby on the way back to Dallas

We had a great trip! We will be back for mom and dad's MS150 bike ride in a couple of weeks! They will be riding from Houston to Austin. Go Mom and Dad!!

March 2012: Kylie's Favorite Things

It's been awhile since I've posted something, so there will be several 'new' posts to try to catch up. This post will be about March and the things Kylie loves right now.

Kylie loves getting dressed up and will run to show Daddy how pretty she is.

1. The Library: We've been going to the Arlington Library for Bouncing Babies Storytime for a couple of months now. I wish I started going earlier. She absolutely loves it and looks forward to it each week. This storytime is for ages 0 to 2 and soon we'll be trying out the toddler class that is just before this one. The 'librarian' (I don't know what else to call her... lol) guides us through songs, fingerplays, and stories for the first 20 or so minutes, then there's the parachute, and block/shaker play time. When the parachute comes out Kylie gets all squealy and excited, the other kids seem to follow suit after she starts it up. The first few times during 'playtime' Kylie was protective over the toys and wasn't fond of sharing any item. Now she is SO much better, a little of it comes with age, but I really think going each week for social time has helped her learn those much needed skills. So glad, since baby sister is well on her way! There have been a few kids that noticably look sick (i.e. snot all over their faces) and a biter/hitter at a more recent one, but overall it has been an amazing experience for her. I just try to steer her away from those said children.. :)

2. Music/singing songs: Kylie cannot go a day with out music. It is such a big part of her life. She will look at us and start making the hand motions to a particular song she wants to sing and then we're off! Most of the time it's The Itsy Bitsy Spider, but there are many others as well like Row, Row, Row Your Boat, Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes, Twinkle, Twinkle. It is so cute to watch her version of the hand motions as we sing. She is also very fond of the Barney song. That was the only way I was able to shower the other day. I showered while she was in the bathroom with me forcing me to sing that I love you, You love me song over and over and over again, until I was finally done. Cute, yet sometimes Mommy has to call it quits. There are only so many times I can handle the same song over and over again.

3. Drawing/Coloring: She loves to draw. She loves to ask us to draw specific things like fish and dogs. She will use anything: pencils, pens, markers, crayons, chalk, magnetic doodler, tub crayons. She surprises us and is very good at staying on the paper and has an amazing pencil grip. She even puts lids back on people! It's nice sometimes having a type A child... other times not so much. Once again a daily experience...

4. Toy Collection: I have no idea what else to call this. She loves to bring toys to whereever you are in the house. It ends up being ALL of her toys, but she has them laid out in specific spots. It's funny and cute, however a pain to clean up. Luckily, she helps clean up now.

not sure why it turned this pic... you get the point though.

5. Caring for Babies/Stuffed Animals: She is such a sweet little girl. She loves to take care of her babies and stuffed animals. In the beginning, it was changing diapers and that gradually turned into feeding them, which turned into letting them sit in her highchair and buckling them in for safety, and now she is even bouncing and shushing them to sleep and laying them down for naps. It is so neat to see her do this. I hope this plays out well for when sister gets here! She also sleeps with one (we make her pick ONLY one, preferably one that doesn't have a rattle in it) and she likes to bring one sometimes a couple if Mommy feels like it in the car when we run errands.

Notice how the dog has on a pair of pajamas...

Loves her sunglasses and will keep them on.

On another note, we started remodeling parts of our house to prepare for the arrival of our next little girl. I'll show pictures later, but here's an example of why Kylie's nap schedule has been off for a couple of weeks. (besides the time change.. that's another story). Hence, Kylie loves to take naps on Mommy if there is no other way to stay asleep! Mommy enjoys it if she needs a nap, but the baby tends to kick Kylie the whole time and it's not as comfortable as it used to be with my growing belly...