At the beach!

So we made it to the beach with Kaylee before she turned 2.5. She often doesn't like getting her hands dirty, so I wasn't sure how she'd react to the sand, but she loves it! Luckily, as we're here all week. We're here with my cousin Stephen, wife Stephanie, kids Ethan and Brennan and my cousin Jason, wife Kimberly and son Ryker. Here are a few photos of our first beach outing...Ethan and Brennan are in one of the photos with Kaylee.

Fire Truck Party

Kaylee had two 2nd birthday parties on Saturday! And they overlapped. The first was our neighbor, Caroline's, and Kaylee had fun playing with Caroline's baby stroller and baby dolls, as well as various other toys (she was still talking this morning about the baby Stella doll with the magnetic pacifier and bottle :) ). She played a couple games - stick the nose on the clown and Simon Says, but we had to go after the games. After leaving Caroline's party early, we arrived at Nate's party a little late, but just in time for the fire truck and 3 firemen to show up! The birthday boy was so excited to see the truck - he ran out there saying, "fire truck! Oh my gosh! Holy moly! Fire truck!" Then he got about 5 feet from the truck and did not want to get any closer. It was very cute. Here are some pictures from that party. (I forgot to take the camera to Caroline's! :( )




Kaylee was the first one to sit in the fire truck and the last one to sit in it. Not saying that other kids didn't get in, she just got to take two turns because she was so excited about it. Maybe we'll have to see about having a fire truck come for her next birthday??




And here is Uncle Jerry (aka Grampa) with Nate's sister Emily!

Dressed Up Cutie

A neighbor was going to donate a bunch of outgrown toys, but let us and another neighbor look through and bring some home for our kids. Free goodies for us and less for them to haul to goodwill! :) So Kaylee now has a bunch of dress up dresses, a new doll stroller and a shopping cart with some food. Yesterday she spent quite a bit of the day in various dresses, and the way she was tearing through the house with her shopping cart I thought maybe she was practicing to be on the gameshow "Supermaket Sweep."




Here she decided she needed to wear a second dress as a wrap:


This was from this morning, when she got ready to go to the pool, "all by myself!"

Cake!

Grampa's birthday was a couple weeks ago, but we didn't get to celebrate with him until this past weekend. Grampa, Gramma, Uncle Mike, Aunt Sharon, Memaw & PawPaw came over on Saturday for a birthday lunch and cake. Kaylee helped decorate the cake with sprinkles, and enjoyed helping blow out the candles and eat the cake! Happy birthday, Grampa!

Play!

Last Wednesday Kaylee and I met some friends at Play - an indoor play place for kids. They had fun playing at the rice table (sand table, but filled with rice instead) and with some other toys, but once we went into the gym area it was running and jumping galore!

Kaylee was at least a foot above the blue air mat when I took this picture. It's hard to tell at first, but if you look at her reflection in the mirror, you can see she was pretty high up! She was jumping up, then sticking her legs out in front of her to "plop" down on the mat.


More jumping - with Lane, and on a trampoline. In both of these pictures, I managed to catch her looking like she was about to fall...but she didn't - she's just a crazy jumper! :)


She loved the "squishy blocks" (as she calls them). She couldn't get out of the pit on her own, so I'd pull her out, then she'd want me to toss her back in. Repeat, repeat, repeat!


One worn out kid on our way home!

19 & Counting...

I noticed earlier today that Kaylee's 19th tooth (top right 2nd year molar) has popped through her gums a little. Just the top left one to go and she'll have all her baby teeth!

Lake Chatuge

A couple weeks ago we went to Lake Chatuge for the day to celebrate Poppy's birthday. They rented a pontoon boat and we went out on the lake for an hour and a half or so. Kaylee had been on a boat a couple times, but it was a year before at my aunt/uncle's house in Maine.

Out on the dock:


Fun on the boat:


Kaylee tried to skip her nap, but it caught up with her on the boat - she was zonked for 45 minutes while my arm fell asleep under her!


Happy to help drive, then refueling after all that work:


Happy birthday, Poppy!