Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas from the Caesars!!

Yet another canine

I noticed this evening that Kaylee's top right canine tooth broke through today, just the bottom left one to go and she'll have 16 teeth.

Caesar Christmas

We decided to do an early gift exchange with Kaylee today since we're going to my parents' house on Christmas day and didn't want to feel too rushed. Assuming we've all been good, Santa will still come to fill our stockings on Christmas Eve so we'll have some things here that morning. We're also otherwise busy tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday with family gatherings/gift exchanges, so we wanted to spread it out a bit more.

Kaylee liked ripping into her gifts last year, but she is really enjoying it this year! We thought she might get distracted with a gift once opened, but after a couple minutes of checking it out, she was ready for the next present - whether it was for her or not! We didn't mind the help unwrapping.

Mommy's Little Helper

Last night we exchanged gifts with Kaylee's Baba (Jamie's mom), Uncle Robbie & Aunt Brooke. Kaylee was in no mood to smile for the camera, but would look over with a quick "cheeeeese" when asked. She got lots of Dora goodies, a Mickey Mouse DVD, her very own hair dryer and some books, so she was quite happy!


Today we made a birthday cake for Jesus. Kaylee wanted to use our new gingerbread man pan and it turned out very cute. Here are photos of my little helper stirring dry batter, then tasting the powder that spilled onto the counter and stirring the mixed batter.


Mmm - licking the whisk, helping frost and the finished cake! Kaylee did most of the sprinkles on her own, as you can probably tell by the clumps of them. :)

Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star

When Kaylee wants us to sing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" she says, "twinkle, twinkle." Tonight we were at a Christmas party with her and she wanted the song. I asked her if she could sing it, and she sang the whole thing! (Well, the whole thing being the most well-known verse.) It was bath and bedtime when we got home, but I'll try to get her to sing it again and get a video of it to share.

Update: video posted on the video blog.

The Other Tooth

Tooth update: Kaylee's bottom right canine broke through, with the other two (bottom left & top right) not far behind. Looks like she'll have a full toothy smile by her 2nd birthday! (With the the 2nd year molars still to come.)

Little Miss Bossy

Kaylee definitely knows what she wants (not that she always gets what she wants!), and it's great that she can tell us rather than all of us just getting frustrated. Yay, communication! :) I was wrapping gifts while Kaylee napped, then Jamie got her and took her downstairs while I finished up a few more gifts. I came down and he told me about Kaylee's big snack.

Fade in, scene setting: Jamie got Kaylee up from her nap and they came downstairs. Kaylee was hungry.

Kaylee: Kaylee eat.
Jamie: What do you want to eat?
K: Eggs.
Jamie made a scrambled egg, let it cool in the freezer. Put it on her plate and gave her the plate.
K: Need fork.
He gave her a fork then helped her eat with it (the egg wouldn't stay on the fork well). She gobbled it up.
K: More!
He wasn't sure if she really wanted another whole egg, but made another egg anyway. He put it in freezer to let it cool off.
K: Eat egg now!
He took it out of the freezer and gave her a bite on the fork. She ate the bite.
K: Hot! (while wincing)
She took another bite.
K: Hot! (while wincing again)
She slid the plate over to Jamie.
K: Make cold.
Jamie put it in the freezer for a minute to cool it off, then she ate the rest of the egg.

End scene.
Guess she was really hungry; she doesn't usually eat that much for snacks!

Kaylee wanted her hair in a top knot today and I asked her if she wanted a picture of it. She actually posed for a couple shots, so here they are.

New Dora Ornament

So Kaylee was not too cooperative in letting me take photos of her all dressed up. I got one - ONE - photo of her in one of her Christmas dresses before she ran away screaming. Not even any other blurry shots or anything, just the one photo. Nice. She was a bit more cooperative after an outfit change for some photos by the tree, but was really more interested in looking at the ornaments than posing.



She loves Dora right now and while shopping the other day, I found (by accident) a Dora ornament that she held in her clutches the entire time in the buggy and was very reluctant to hand over to the cashier, who unwittingly put it in a bag, lost in the shuffle until we got home. Luckily Kaylee'd brought Mimi (her favorite stuffed animal blankie w/lamb head...we called it "Lambie" and she couldn't say it, but said Mimi, then we started calling it Mimi...hence we have Mimi) so she had something for in the car, but I did have to hear about her wanting the "new Dowowa o-ment" the entire ride home and had to find it right away. She promptly ran and hung it on the tree then ran back to tell me and take me to the tree to show me. Surprisingly, she'd found an empty spot to fill - there are plenty on the lower branches, but when rehanging ornaments, she tends to clump them. I told her it was the perfect spot and she looked very proud. Anyway, all this to say that the ornament she's holding in some of the above tree photos is her new Dora.

I know there haven't been many picture posts lately! Kaylee is in an anti-posing for photos phase. (See above for refresher on that.) Usually when I get the camera, she just runs over to me saying, "More! More watch!" because she wants to see what's on the screen. And sometimes she just runs away laughing when I try to take her picture. The thousands of photos from her first year will have to sustain us, I suppose. Maybe I should just take photos of her running away, as this second year has been quite a blur. I can't believe she's 3 months from 2! I'll have to start party-planning soon...could be a Dora party in the works, but she could have a new fave within 3 months, who knows? She also loves Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (I love the way she helps them call for Toodles - "Oh, Too-yooys!") and is back to some Tigger & Pooh again lately, too - especially episodes with Eeyore.

More Teeth

Kaylee's been working on her canines for a while now, and at least one has finally broken through. I saw/felt the top left one a couple days ago, and the bottom right looks like it's close, too, with the other two not far behind. Once those are in she'll be up to 16 teeth with just her 2 year molars left as far as baby teeth go (I think those usually come in sometime during their 3rd year). Pretty soon she'll have a mouth full of teeth!

More food craziness

So tonight for dinner I made stuffed peppers (well, not so much "stuffed" as "cut into squares and mixed with other ingredients" as it cooks better and you don't have to cut while you eat. But that's beside the point...). I used ground beef and turkey, rice, tomatoes and red peppers, with some seasonings. Kaylee did eat a few bites, but was very squirmy and just in a "let's play" mood (as opposed to her not wanting to eat because she didn't like the food). After her first few bites, the conversation went something like this...
me: do you want to eat a bite of red pepper?
K: no!
me: do you want to eat a bite of rice?
K: no!
me: do you want to eat a bite of worms?
K: YES!
(ate that bite)
me: do you want a bite of cow? (I figured at least I wasn't lying to her that way ;) )
K: YES!
(ate that bite while I mooed)
me: do you want to eat a bite of turkey?
K: YES!
(ate that bite while she gobble-gobbled)
K: eat SHEEP!
me: you want to eat sheep?
K: YES!
(eats more and proceeds - with more crazy conversation - to finish all but about 2 bites of her dinner, then got down for a bit more playing)

I suppose that's success?

Yummy Eyeballs?

Last night for dinner we had Beef & Barley soup. Kaylee insisted that the barley was eyeballs. At least she ate a lot of eyeballs! Jamie said he thinks it's time to put away the Halloween books (we have one where there's a witch's stew with worms and eyeballs in it...think that's where she got the idea).

We went to my grandparents' house for dinner tonight and we had black-eyed peas, which she didn't want to try. So I told her they were eyeballs, too, after which she tried a couple bites, but apparently didn't like them and just shoved them around on her plate the rest of the evening. Well, she tried it. :)

Video Blog

Here (and to the right under "Other Fun Blogs") is a link to Kaylee's new video blog.

In looking into possibly printing out Kaylee's blog as a book, I realized that the posts about/with videos would - obviously - not work in printed format. So I decided to create a separate blog for videos and will post those there. I'm migrating all the older video posts over (I'll date them as they were, so the timestamps will be correct). There are links to the other site in the right sidebar on each, so you'll be able to click through back and forth.

Enjoy! :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving! We're currently at my grandparents' house awaiting the food comas to set in while flipping between football and a Bond marathon. Below: 4 generations of women - Kaylee's Gramma, Memaw, Kaylee & Mommy, and Mommy, Kaylee & Daddy.

Halloweek

Yes, that's HalloWEEK! Kaylee's Kindermusik class had a dress-up day on Wednesday, then we trick-or-treated on Halloween night, then had a dress-up neighborhood fall festival on Sunday. She wore her GT cheerleader outfit on Wed and Sun, and was a cute little bear on Halloween. Worked out well, laundry wise. Didn't have to rush to wash anything for re-wearing the next day. Hey, a girl's gotta have options... On to the photos!!

"Does holding the megaphone this way make my voice softer?"
(caption thanks to her Great Aunt Sharon)


Kaylee & her cousin Nate the monkey. She had to be restrained from going back for 4th's (5th's?) at one house! She was being encouraged to take all the candy - think someone didn't want leftovers!


Kaylee's Hello Kitty treat bag is from Baba (Grandma Barb). While we were out we saw 4-year old Kayleigh (she lives down the street) and she, too, had a Hello Kitty treat bag! Same style, but a white one. Thought it was funny that Kaylee & Kayleigh (pronounced the same) had similar bags.

Elmo...the headless trick-or-treater?!?? :)


Neighbors trick-or-treating: Lane/Elmo, Mason/dinosaur, Shaun/puppy, Kristin/Dorothy, Kaylee/bear, Hunter/Batman & Mackenzie/Batgirl


After trick-or-treating, checking out all her loot! The fam at the neighborhood fall festival in our coordinating GT cheerleader & fan outfits.


The one photo she posed for that day, and checking out her new witch tattoo she got at the festival

Mick-O-Lantern

Kaylee picked out our pumpkin carving design and I made it happen. No photos of the process as it was just the two of us, but she watched while I carved. I had her stick her hand in the pumpkin when I was scraping out the guts, but she wasn't too interested in helping with that part. She called it messy, watched for a bit then left for bigger and better things (i.e. toys and books). Here are a couple photos of the finished product.


And a couple more fall photos from Sunday...

Getting down to business

Working from home, where every day is casual day...

Pumpkin Farm: Take 2!

This morning we went back to the Kinsey Family Farm with my cousin's wife Margaret and their 15 month old son, Nate. Basically the kiddos ran around a bit, we took a hayride and fed the fish. It was chilly out, but seemed warmer than during our visit last weekend!



So the photo above is a fraud; would you have guessed? I didn't actually get a very good shot with them both looking at the camera, so I combined the two photos below...not too bad of a job... :)






After the farm, we all went to lunch. Here are some cute shots of Nate. Love the one in the middle..."hey, baby, what's your sign?"