We had Evie’s 1st birthday party (ladybug theme) this past Sunday and I think she throughly enjoyed it (especially the cake smashing part). Here’s proof:

At one year Evie is saying these words:
uh-oh, ball, book, bird, baby, bye bye, Kaelyn (“Kay”), mama, dada, papa

She also does the baby sign for “milk.”

Crawling is still her main form of transportation, but her walking has really taken off the past couple of weeks. She’s been taking one or two steps for a while now, but lately she has gotten more into walking across the room. I think it’s only a matter of days before she is walking full time.

She LOVES her big sister, playing outside (particularly the water table and sandbox), and being in the pool. She is amazing at being able to entertain herself. (Maybe it’s a 2nd child ability??) She especially loves whenever she has a few minutes of playtime alone in the playroom without big sister coming in to take her toys away.

I have to watch her because she has gotten into the habit of climbing on things and then standing up on top, for example: Kaelyn’s little rocking chair and the kiddie table. She also loves climbing the stairs.

Lately she is really starting to exert herself more and will be sure (with very loud noises and points) to let you know what she wants. If she doesn’t get what she wants she throws a little baby temper tantrum. She has already had to sit in time out several times.

Speaking of pointing, I love it when that little tiny pointer finger starts pointing at stuff. It’s usually pointing to whatever she wants, but also she will point up in the sky at the sound of an airplane and things like that. It’s just such a sweet little finger.

She loves music and will dance whenever she hears any. She has the funniest facial expressions and the biggest grin that will just make your heart melt. One of my favorite faces is when she grins from ear to ear and scrunches up her little nose and squints her big, brown eyes (sigh).

Evie Wren, Mommy loves you more than you can ever know! I love your determination, your charm, your curiosity, and your sunshiny personality. You have already brought so much joy to me, daddy, and Kaelyn. We are so blessed to have you! Happy Birthday sweet one!

Then we hit another phase when Kaelyn lost all interest in the potty. She would scream “NO – DIAPER, DIAPER!” if I suggested the idea of wearing panties. I didn’t stress about it. We have no deadline, so I figured I would just wait until she was ready to start working on it again. There was no sense in stressing us both out.

Then this past weekend she seemed interested to go on the potty. I had been thinking that I would try working on it again right after the New Year, but since she showed interest I just went with it. That was Sunday and now she’s on her 4th day of wearing panties (except for sleep times)! Yippy!

She has had a few accidents, but really I think she is doing very well. At this point she still doesn’t usually tell me when she has to go – it’s more of me putting her on the potty every hour or so and getting her to go. But, over these past few days I think she has learned to control it and will hold it until I put her on the potty to go. She hasn’t had any pee pee accidents the past two days, only one poop accident each day.

Last weekend when we were talking about using the potty she told me she was “scared to have an accident.” I think that’s why she wanted to wear diapers because she knew she might have an accident in panties. I don’t know if she just didn’t like the feeling or if it embarrassed her, but clearly she didn’t want to have accidents. She even comments on one time a while back when one of her little friends was here and she had an accident in our play room. She clearly remembered that and didn’t like the thoughts of having one herself.

I started a little reward chart to help encourage her even more. I bought Thomas the Train stickers (which she LOVES) and then I found this train potty chart online. The chart is hanging on the bathroom door and every time she goes potty she gets a sticker to add to the chart (1 sticker for pee pee and 2 stickers for poo). When she reaches the end of the track she gets a sucker.

This morning she completed her first track and she was over joyed to get the sucker that she worked so hard for!

I think there has definitely been improvement everyday and I am looking forward to when this is more a natural part of her day. I have stressed about this in my mind for a long time, but she is doing a great job. Also I should mention that Evie is such a supportive little sister – she is always very content to play with toys while I spend a lot of time taking Kaelyn back and forth to the potty. I am so proud of both my girls!

Here is Kaelyn’s first potty chart which she worked so hard on completing:

Here is the new chart we started today with the new sucker she is working towards:

Evie’s birth was actually very, very similar to my birth with Kaelyn. My pregnancy with Evie was pretty much the same too except I didn’t have anemia this time. The doctor figured I’d need to schedule another induction so we went ahead and picked the date of June 4th since it worked for everyone’s schedule. At first I didn’t really like the idea of picking the birth date like that based around schedules, but it all worked out really well in the end. It was helpful especially because our family could plan when to come to town so that they could take care of Kaelyn for us while I was in the hospital. (Just an FYI – my due date was originally June 6.)

So around 6:30am on Thursday, June 4th I headed to the hospital along with Matt and my mom. My dad and brother stayed at home to take care of Kaelyn. They started my pitocin around 8:00am and the contractions started kicking right in. It was about 2 hours later before I had dilated enough (I think to around a 2) for them to break my water. Doctor broke my water around 10:00am and said if I wanted an epidural I could go ahead and order that so I did. I knew after my birth experience with Kaelyn that I was definitely going to get the epidural. I spent all morning just getting up and down going to the bathroom. I think I had to go a lot because they were also pumping me with fluids and I remember that i just felt better to sit on the toilet than to lay in the bed. That pitocin really brings the contractions on fast!

Then around 11:00am the doctor came in to give me the epidural. It was good timing too because my contractions had just started to get more intense. I had to stay in bed after that and I felt totally relaxed so I just took it easy and kind of dozed in and out of sleep.

Around 1:30 I remember feeling a lot of pressure every time I had a contraction. It wasn’t really pain since I had the epidural, but there was definitely a lot of pressure. I told the nurse when she came in to check on me the next time. She didn’t seem to think much of it and said she would check me during her next visit in another 15 minutes or so. Right as she was about to leave the room I had another contraction and I told her again how much pressure there was and that I really felt like I needed to push. She decided to go ahead and check me and sure enough I was a 10 already!! This was around 2:00 or 2:15.

I think the nurse was totally shocked. Evie’s head was *right* there. She told me to hold on and not push while she scrambled to call the doctor and everyone else in. As soon as the doctor came in and let me push Evie popped out! It literally only took one big push and Evie was out at 2:27pm. She weighed 6lbs 15oz and was 20 inches long.

She was perfectly healthy and beautiful! My first words were, “She looks just like Kaelyn!” She was a little bit cold so they had to warm her up under the lights for a few minutes which she really seemed to enjoy. She had the same hair that Kaelyn had at birth and weighed just a few ounces less (probably due to the fact that Kaelyn was born over a week late). Both girls were delivered by the same doctor too which I was happy about.

(One major difference between this birth was that with Kaelyn my water seemed to gush the entire day every time I had a contraction. It didn’t do that at all this time which was so much nicer not to be soaking my bed linens every few minutes.)

Mom cut Evie’s umbilical cord just like she did with Kaelyn. Dad, Jared, and Kaelyn got to come in the room just a few minutes after Evie arrived to meet her for the first time.

I still had some tearing like I did the first time, but other than that it was a pretty easy experience as far as birthing babies go.

A couple of pictures from right after the birth…

PapPap has been here all week visiting and doing some work on his new business. On Friday we also picked up Nana from the airport who is visiting for a long weekend. We went straight to Cracker Barrel for a big breakfast to get fueled up for the NC State Fair. Then we spent the entire day at the fair!! We had a ton of fun!

They had a whole kiddie land with all kinds of rides just perfect for Kaelyn. I wasn’t sure what she would think, but she LOVED the rides – even the ones that were quiet daring for a 2-year-old. I think she must get this trait from me because I love all big rides. She rode the swings 3 times and this one fire truck ride at least 5 times as well as a whole bunch of others.

We had lots of yummy fair food and Matt and I rode a couple of the big rides together. We also saw, petted, and feed lots of animals including a camel! I think I had a permanent smile plastered on my face the entire day.

Today we had Kaelyn’s soccer class, lunch at chick-fil-a, and then the whole afternoon at a pumpkin farm. The farm was set-up so perfectly for kids. They had a huge tube slide, mountains of hay to climb, a corn box (like a sandbox except filled with dried corn kernels), a big corn maize, a kid size corn maize (made of hay bales), a “cow train” ride, hay rides, food/snacks, and rubber duck races. We all just loved every minute of it and Kaelyn didn’t want to leave.

Here are few pics from the weekend….

Feeding the Goats at the Fair

Playing in the Corn Box at the Farm

Everyone on the Hay Mountain at the Farm

A Recent Pic of the Girls Just Playing

And for comparison…one of these is Kaelyn and one is Evie…do you know which is which??

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Evie
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Baby Evie is almost 4 months old already!! She is a little mover and shaker. She is so curious about everything and always so wide eyed. If I put her down on the floor she will roll to the other side of the room in no time. She is much more active than Kaelyn was at this age. I think she is just anxious to keep up with big sister. She loves playing in the excersaucer or sitting in the Bumbo seat and watching Kaelyn play. She’s also grabbing onto everything in sight (especially my hair) and putting it in to her mouth. It’s fun to see her hand-eye coordination developing. I swear sometimes she even pushes up on her hands and knees. I think she will be crawling by Christmas…we’ll see if my prediction is true.

Overall she is a very happy, smiley baby and never gets too upset about anything. She is sleeping great at night – usually about 7:30-7:30 with one wake up time around 4:00am to eat and go right back to sleep.

We had her baby dedication during a very nice service at church last month and Momsie, Papa, Uncle Jared, and friends Dan and Ariel joined us for that.

At Evie's Baby Dedication

Uncle Eric and Aunt Lisa came down for Labor Day weekend to meet Evie for the first time and we all had lots of fun! Right after that we headed to the beach with Momsie, Papa, and Uncle Jared for Evie’s first ever family vacation. She decided that sleeping on the beach to the sound of the ocean waves was very relaxing.

Relaxing on the Beach

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Kaelyn
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Now for the biggie – Kaelyn turned TWO in August!! I can’t believe my first-born child is already 2 years old. She is not a baby anymore but her very own, independent little person. I always knew that babies changed a lot from age 0 to 1, but I think they change just as much or even more from age 1 to 2. At age one Kaelyn was only crawling and saying a few words. By her second birthday she was running everywhere and speaking in complete sentences (usually several complete sentences at a time)!

This year has been so amazing to really see her little personality develop and to be able to find out what is going on in that brain of hers. I know I’ve written it here before, but she really does amaze me every single day with the things that she says.

By 18-months she knew her alphabet and numbers up to 20. She knows all her colors and shapes, many songs, and can tell you what the opposite word is to probably about 30 different words. Her favorite thing at the moment is to point out every traffic light and stop sign along the road as we drive. She will describe the stop sign, “It’s an octagon shape, and it’s red, and it has the letters O, P, S, T.” She will describe all the lights on the traffic light, “Red means stop, green means go, yellow means slow-up.” Seriously, she amazes me.

I don’t mean to brag so much, but that’s what a mommy is supposed to do, right?

Kaelyn continues to be an awesome big sister who is so loving, kind, and caring towards baby Evie. She’s always wiping the spit-up off her face or sharing her toys. I think it says a lot about Kaelyn’s heart in general which I think is so very loving in all ways. She honestly cares about other people and wants them to be happy.

She’s now fully into two-year-old mode and we are just starting to work on potty training. She’s getting more and more independent and is always saying, “Do it by yourself.” (Meaning she wants to do it by herself.) She still enjoys reading books as much as ever, loves being outside and playing with friends, and she is already taking soccer classes with Daddy on the weekends.

Here’s a comparison for the past year:

WOW – I am so truly blessed! I LOVE both of my wonderful, beautiful little girls.

In the morning we decided to go strawberry picking. I was a little nervous that Kaelyn would just want to run right through the plants, be more interested in bugs, or try to eat all the strawberries. I explained everything to her on our way to the strawberry patch, and much to my delight she behaved perfectly! She loved helping us find the red strawberries and she would put them right in her little bucket. Unfortunately the crop hasn’t been too great this year so we didn’t get very many, but it was still a fun time. We came home and ate all of our strawberries – yum yum! Here are the pics.

After enjoying our strawberries we took Kaelyn to Snip-Its to get her first hair cut! Again, I wasn’t sure how she would handle the experience. She’s not a big fan of getting her nails trimmed and things like that so I was afraid she’d be very wiggly and upset. Again, she surprised me and did wonderfully!

I think she liked the atmosphere at Snip-Its – it is made for kids and so there were many things for her to look at. She got right up in the little kid sized chair. Her chair happened to be hot pink which was a bonus for her. She just held right on to the little handles and sat perfectly still. We had to make her look down for a bit while the lady cut the back of her hair. Matt used one of their magna-doodle things and drew letters and pictures for her and held it down low so she would look down at it. She never really smiled during the whole process, and a couple of times she gave these looks like “what the heck is going on here?” but she never got upset at all. I was so proud!

The hairdresser kept saying what a good job Kaelyn was doing. At the end Kaelyn got to go to the prize machine where you exchange a piece of your hair for a prize. I also gave her a sucker when we left as an extra special prize – it’s one of her favorite treats. Here are the pics.

Before with stringy, baby hair in back and long bangs in her eyes:

After with trimmed bangs and a cute little bob in the back:

In the afternoon I put Kaelyn down for her nap like normal in the pack-n-play. She crawls out of her big girl bed at nap time (but does great at night), so we have been using the pack-n-play for naps. I went to take a shower and as I’m standing there washing my hair in walks Kaelyn with this big grin on her face. I hollered for Matt who was downstairs at the time. I thought he must have gotten her out of bed for some reason, but nope, apparently she learned to climb out of her pack-n-play all by herself. AHHHHH!!! So now we are back to square one on getting her to take naps.

It is pretty amazing to us to that she can climb out of the pack-n-play. Matt put her in the pack-n-play so he could see how she climbed out. Apparently she holds onto the corner and kind of walks up the side and then she kicks her legs over and shimmeys down the outside. We should try to get a video of our little monkey.

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In other news we got our new crib last week. We had to get a new one because the one we used for Kaelyn was recalled. It came in a really big box which Kaelyn and I turned into a super cool fort for a few days. Matt and I stayed up late one night last week taking the old crib down and putting the new one together.

New crib…

There are also some new Kaelyn pics added for April and for May.

It was becoming quite stressful (especially for me) because I really wanted to know her name. I wanted to be able to get things monogrammed, wanted to put her name up on the wall in her room like we did for Kaelyn, wanted to start calling her by name so Kaelyn would get used to it, and I definitely didn’t want to wait until we were in the hospital to decide (that seems like too much pressure and stress for me).

At one point a few weeks ago Matt had told me that I could go with “my” name for baby girl since I was the mom/pregnant one and all. Then he added that he would be disappointed “to see the letters go up on the wall.” That’s when my heart just broke! I wanted the naming to be a happy decision for both of us.

So we moved onto another strategy of going back to the drawing board and trying to think of another name, a third option, that we could both compromise on and be happy with. We spent hours pouring over names on the internet. We even went on a date to the bookstore one night and sat and read through baby name books. The problem was the more we looked at other names, the more we kept coming back to our original two names.

Somewhere along the way last week I was thinking about names and for some reason my mind started to look at things a little differently. I still loved both names, but for some reason I was feeling more and more drawn to the name that was Matt’s top choice…it just seemed to “fit.” I didn’t say anything to him because I wanted to give myself some time to think it through in my head, and I didn’t want him to be disappointed if I changed my mind.

By last Friday I had 99% sure made up my mind. I called my parents who were on their way for a visit to see us and had them stop by the store where we bought the letters for Kaelyn’s nursery and pick up the appropriate letters for the new nursery. Once I saw the letters I knew for sure that I was 100% happy with my decision. So on Saturday morning while Matt went out for a jog we quickly hung up baby girl’s new name in her room.

When Matt came back this is what he found:

At first he said “did you buy other letters?” thinking I had bought letters for all the names we were considering just to see how they looked. I told him that, no, I had only gotten those. He kept asking me if I was sure and I said definitely. Then he sat down for a while and just kind of stared at the wall -I think he was in a bit of shock (a good shock).

So that’s our naming story. It was stressful for a while, but I think it ended up being pretty special for both of us which I was extremely happy about. Now we have been having fun calling baby girl by her real name: Evie Wren Miller

We can’t wait to meet you very soon little Evie!

(p.s. We’ve had the middle name picked out since the beginning – that was the easy part for us.)

BUT as of yesterday everything seems to be quickly changing! I don’t know if two times is enough to say something is happening or if it’s just a coincidence so I guess the coming days will have to tell, but here’s the story…

Yesterday Matt noticed Kaelyn sort of holding herself and she told him “business.” He wondered if she needed to potty so he put her on her little potty and sure enough she went #2!! We were so excited and made quite a big deal about it. Then we thoroughly laughed at the fact that she called it “business.” I think sometimes when we know she is going #2 in her diaper we will make some comment about her “doing her business.” I guess she has picked that up and recorded it in her little brain somewhere along the way. It is amazing what kids learn!!

So this morning she was sitting in her highchair eating breakfast and she says again “business.” So I put her on her potty chair and she did it again!! I couldn’t believe it!

Sorry if you didn’t really want to know about Kaelyn’s bathroom habits, but I just had to share and write this down as a memory for myself. I’m so proud of my big girl!!

Easter 2009
April 2009
March 2009

Also created a new album for baby #2 which includes weekly shots of my belly. You can compare baby girl #2 belly shots to my belly shots with Kaelyn if you are really bored.

Kaelyn is now 19 months old and baby girl #2 is 32 weeks developed in my belly. We still have not decided on a name for baby girl. I’m not sure what we are going to do or how we are going to make that decision, but we are SO ready to just decide! At the moment it is still between Lila or Evie.

Kaelyn is really talking up a storm these days. She knows all her ABCs like I mentioned before and recognizes all of her numbers from zero to ten. She is just starting to count on her own as well. For example I was counting her toes this morning “1, 2, 3, 4, 5″ and then she adds in “6, 7, 9, 10.” Nevermind the missing number 8.

It seems she can say pretty much anything she wants and will repeat everything you say (watch out!). She is stringing together two and three word phrases as well. It is so fun to hear what her little mind is thinking about and also helpful to know when she wants something. Here’s a cute example…the other night Matt heard Kaelyn saying something in her bed and he went in to check on her and she was wrestling around saying “leg stuck, leg stuck!” Apparently her leg was wrapped up in her covers and she couldn’t get it out.

Kaelyn LOVES to be outside and enjoyed several egg hunts over the past few weeks. We spend lots of time at the playground these days where she is getting more and more brave every time we go. She is also a dancer. We go to a music time at a local coffee shop each week and she will stand right up at the front and just dance and dance the entire time and do all the motions to the songs. If I turn a CD on at home she will dance for the entire length of the CD.

Kaelyn is such a fun and loving girl. She is really sensitive and cares deeply for others. I think she is going to be an amazing big sister! Just this morning we were at library story time where we just moved up to the next age level and I wasn’t sure how she would like it. It is longer than the baby story time and has activities that require more focus. She just listened and listened, and I was impressed that she focused for that long. One of the things they did was a puppet show. The puppet show was about this rabbit who had her kite stuck in a tree. All these other animals came along to try to help the rabbit get the kite down but none of them could help. Kaelyn was so sensitive. She literally started crying every time the animal would leave without helping get the kite! Finally a wind came along (all the kids blew) and the kite was rescued.

Okay, I’m sure I could keep going and going and thinking of more stories to share, but I didn’t intend to write a book here. I will hopefully do better (at least for the next 8 weeks) on sharing the updates.

Without further ado, here is Kaelyn Rose at 18 months saying all the letters of the alphabet with her flashcards:

We always let her choose a few books from her shelf to read before nap time and bed time. Lately her two favorite picks have been books from her Nana (Matt’s mom) and her Momsie (my mom). She will pick out “Buckeyes Big Game” (a gift from Nana) and hand it to me and say “Go, Go, Go!” and she’ll pick out “In Grandma’s Arms” (a gift from Momsie) because she especially likes the pictures in this one.

She has always loved reading and apparently she is also developing a love of football as well.

I’ve neglected to post much lately, especially about the fact that we are having another baby, but I figured most of our readers knew about that already. We had our ultrasound today and everything looks great! Still on track for a June 6 due date.

Kaelyn is excited and has already learned how to say “sissy” so she is well on her way to being a great big sister!

We might have our hands full in about 12 or 13 more years, but that’s okay. A girl house will be lots of fun I’m sure. Plus we already have all the girl stuff from Kaelyn so it will make things easy for now in a practical sense.

Now the selection of a name begins….

Around mid-October last year Kaelyn would stand and take 3 or 4 steps occasionally. She did that for a few weeks and then completely stopped. She hasn’t seemed interested in trying to walk at all since then. She would walk as long as she was holding on to someone’s hand, but the moment you let go then she would sit right down. I was starting to get very worried, but everyone (including her pediatrician) assured me she was just fine and would walk when she was ready.

Well, this evening, January 11, was a momentous occasion! Matt, Kaelyn, and I were sitting around in the living room floor watching Finding Nemo. Kaelyn was crawling around playing and semi-watching the movie. At one point I looked over at Kaelyn and she was just standing there all by herself. I quickly told Matt to look at her and we were very happy just to see her standing like that. Then all of a sudden she just took off walking over to me!!! I could not stop my tears!!! My heart was so proud and overfilled with joy. I had been waiting for this moment!

Then Kaelyn walked over to Matt. Then she walked over to her rocking chair, and back to me, and back to Matt. You get the idea! For the rest of the evening she walked all over the living room as if she had been doing it for months and it was no big deal.

I guess she was just waiting until she was good and ready and really knew what she was doing! It was like someone just turned on her light switch because the change was completely sudden and out-of-the-blue.

I’m sure walking will bring its own challenges of chasing her down, but I am so excited for this new milestone! My baby is turning into a big girl!

Here’s video evidence:

II EE (in a squealing fashion, for a monkey)
Arf, arf, arf (usually for a dog, but sometimes for a bird too)
Roooaaarrr (tiger)
Room, room (kind of a grunting noise really, for a car)
uck, uck (duck, not sure if she is trying to say duck or trying to quack)
eeeooowww (cat)

She does a few baby signs now. The most common is an arm sweeping motion that she uses in her high-chair when she is “all done” eating. She recently started doing the sign for butterfly which is super cute. She can also recognize and point to a few body parts: nose, hair, her whole self, and bellybutton.

She loves to climb…up and down the stairs, up and down off the couch, up on the dishwasher (when it’s open), and up and down the inside of the refrigerator. The other day I had the fridge open while I was busy cooking dinner. She usually plays with the bottles in the door. On this particular day she was climbing up onto the fridge and she had found a bowl at the back of the bottom shelf. This bowl contained watermelon and was covered in saran wrap. She had managed to pull the bowl to the front of the shelf and take off the saran wrap, and there I found my little lady very proudly eating some juicy watermelon.

She is so enthralled with the world. She is always making her mouth into this little “O” shape and she points at everything and says “oooohhh” like she is in such amazement. She loves seeing her baby friends, airplane, food, her wagon, and the list goes on. She will just get so excited and point and “ooohhh”. One of her favorite things right now is candy corn. I try not to let her have too many pieces each day, but every time she sees me having a piece of course she wants one too. I guess she is doing a good job of making sure I don’t eat too much candy.

I’m sure I could go on for pages about Kaelyn, but I do have a couple of other Miller news items. One very exciting thing is we just got a new tv last week. Now this is very exciting because our previous tv is literally the tv I got from Santa when I was in the 5th grade. It still works, but everything is kind of green. Our new tv is a big, shiny, flat kind with HDTV. It’s amazing how much better everything on tv looks. I had to call Matt into the living room the first night we had it because I was so excited about how pretty the colors were on “Wheel Of Fortune”, haha. Matt has really been enjoying watching football on the new tv all weekend.

Also last week I decided to start a part-time job for a company called Freedom Managers. It is a completely work-from-home job and very flexible. I hadn’t been looking for a job, but this opportunity came up and it seemed like too good to pass up without at least trying it out. I just worked on my first job assignment this weekend and I think it went really well. I’m excited about doing a little professional work again and making some extra spending $$$.

We went to SC a couple of weekends ago for my high school reunion. It was really great to catch up with some old friends. I also got to take Kaelyn to her first Clemson home game with my brother and my friends Lisa and Michelle. We also had a bunch of family and friends over one afternoon to have a mini-birthday party for Kaelyn since most of my extended family couldn’t come to her big party in August. It was a busy but very fun weekend.

Squeeeeek No More – this is one of the BEST products ever invented. If you have any squeaky spots in your floor, please spend the $20 for this tool. I promise you will not regret it. Matt and my dad used this on some spots in our floor last week and it has been amazing! We had a couple of really loud squeaky places right in the middle of Kaelyn’s room and another at the top of our stairs. We always had to be extra sneaky getting in and out of her room at night, but not anymore! Btw, it’s really easy to do, but a little hard to find at the store. Lowe’s and Home Depot don’t carry it, but we found it at our local Ace Hardware.

Kaelyn has a few stuffed animal toys that sing songs when you press their belly. She loves to push their bellies and dance while they sing. In fact, she will push many bellies at once and have a whole little chorus of singing animals (all singing different songs of course). She loves doing this so much that she goes around to any stuffed animal trying to push its belly to see if it will sing or not. It’s so cute! I’m waiting for her to try pushing my belly…I think I’ll sing if she does.

I forgot to mention in my last post that as of her 1-year doctor visit she weighs 18lbs 11oz. and 28 inches.

It’s been the most amazing year of my life. It’s hard to even remember how life was without her.

Happy Birthday Kaelyn – I love you more than you’ll ever know!

Love,
Mommy

Also, if you say “Tada!” she will throw both of her arms up in the air in a tada pose. Too cute! I think she says “duck” also, but it sounds more like “uck”. She said that just this morning when we were reading a book and she saw a picture of a duck.

She can walk pretty well behind her little walker now. She hasn’t attempted to walk by herself as of yet, but she is definitely comfortable standing and climbing on anything including all the way up the stairs and onto the open dishwasher.

She continues to be such a good eater. Today I gave her a whole plum and she just ate the whole thing up skin and all (well, not the pit in the middle)!

I can’t believe she is almost a year old!

Making eyes at Daddy

Fun in the bath

11 month picture

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Today at Ultimate we were sitting on a blanket under a big shade tree with our shoes off to the side. A few minutes after we arrived I realized that a bird had pooped right on my flip-flop. I told Matt, “Uh-oh, I hope we aren’t in a poop zone.” He had no idea what I was talking about. But sure enough about an hour later another bird pooped on our frisbee right where my shoe had been sitting before. (You thought I was going to say it pooped on my head, didn’t you?)

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I haven’t met a person yet who doesn’t enjoy playing this game. It’s one of my most favorites. It says the recommended age to play is 8, but I think we’ll have Kaelyn playing much earlier than that.

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Kaelyn has discovered how to cross her fingers…you know like when you were little and you told a fib and you thought if you crisscrossed your fingers then it meant it was okay. I wonder if kids still use that same trick these days?

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I have infectious lips. Hmm, wonder how many weird google hits that will bring to our website?

So I had what I thought were really bad chapped lips for over a month. Cracked, bleeding, horrible lips. It looked like a seriously botched botox job. I was using (no exaggeration) about 3, yes, 3, tubes of chapstick a week to not be miserable.

I felt really silly calling the doctor for chapped lips, but I had finally had enough. I went to the doctor on Friday and he said I probably had a lip infection. Not really sure what caused it in the first place, but could have been a sunburn or mild allergic reaction that got infected. The doctor gave me steroids and instructed me to use that and aquaphor. Seriously by the very next day my lips felt a million times better!!

The worst part is I am not supposed to use any kind of lipstick/gloss for about the next month. I don’t think I’ve ever gone two days with out lipstick or glass, but it’s totally worth it to have my lips back. Hooray for (legal) steroids!

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That’s all for tonight. I’m signing off to watch The Business of Being Born documentary. We are now official Netflix subscribers.

It was almost impossible for the entire group to do anything all at once since there was almost always someone napping or eating at any given time. We spent most of our days in the swimming pool at the house. We went to the beach a couple of times, took some long walks, rode bikes, and enjoyed some good seafood. Kaelyn especially enjoyed riding in the wagon and the golf cart.

We also went into downtown Charleston one day to do a little sightseeing. This was quite and interesting day. I won’t go into all the details, but due to the insensitivity of the carriage ride company and through a series of events Kaelyn ended up with sunscreen all in her eyes which resulted in about an hour of screaming thus cutting our day in Charleston short. Poor girl couldn’t even open her eyes because it hurt so bad, but she still really wanted to eat her cheese doodles…

Another fun day was when Kaelyn ate her first lollipop. Not just any lollipop, but one of those GIANT kind. I originally intended for her just to suck on the outside of it, but soon discovered the red lollipop juice was seeping through the plastic wrapper. So I went ahead and took the wrapper off and…well…see for yourself….

She was on a sugar high for like three days following this. I think this might of been her first AND last lollipop. It sure was fun watching her enjoy it though, and, yes, I managed to wash it completely out of her clothes!

Pappap stayed behind at the house to watch over the sleeping babies while the rest of us enjoyed watching the 4th of July fireworks on the beach. All in all it was a really fun trip and a great chance for Kaelyn to spend time with some of her extended family.

In other news…

• She crawls “regular” style now and is cruising on all the furniture
• She plays peek-a-book all by herself (hoping to get a video of this soon)
• She can climb all the way up the stairs
• She has 6 teeth with a couple more on the way

And lots and lots of pictures…

• June
• July
• Isle of Palms

We arrived about 10:30 and stayed until around 4:00. We walked LOTS and Kaelyn loved it all. She especially loved the small animals that moved around a lot, such as the meerkats. She also liked the exhibits where you could see what was happening underwater, such as the fish and sea lions. The pictures from our fun day are all here. We have some videos uploaded here.

A couple of other updates. Oh my goodness – Kaelyn LOVES lasagna. I swear she can eat an entire adult sized portion. She also really loves cheese and anything that taste like cheese, has cheese in it, smells like cheese, etc.

She is pulling up and cruising around on everything these days. Miss Busybody is always getting into something so I am keeping very busy. It’s fun though to see her gain more independence and watch how she uses her new found freedoms to explore new things. She especially loves standing at her bookshelf and throwing all the books in the floor.

In the past two weeks both of Kaelyn’s grandmas have gotten to visit and also my little cousin Daisy. Kaelyn had so much fun spending time with all of them. We stayed very busy but we loved every minute!

I’m also looking forward to a new Bible study that started last week. My friend, Ariel, and I are co-leading a mommy/baby study during the day. It’s nice to be able to bring the babies without worrying about finding a babysitter or distracting everyone else. We are studying Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World: Finding Intimacy with God in the Busyness of Life by Joanna Weaver. I’m definitely a Martha by nature, so hopefully through the course of this study I’ll learn to be more Mary like or at least strike a good balance between the two.

Also, my brother has started a new blog that is shaping up to be pretty entertaining. Maybe if I post the link here for everyone to see then he will be encouraged to keep the blog up and not let it die like his previous two blogs.

And finally a post would not be complete without at least one picture:

p.s. One little thing to add – I highly recommend the Target brand diapers. They work very well for us during the day and are 1/2 the price of Pampers. We still use Pampers at night because they hold better for the long haul over night, but the Target brand is great for day time.

• SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT!!! – I didn’t want to get my hopes up right away, but after the most difficult week of my life of CIO (crying it out, for all the non-parents out there) Kaelyn is finally sleeping through the night. For the past five nights she has slept from 7:30 – 6:30. I’ve had my first full nights of sleep in over a year!! (Over a year because the last few months of pregnancy I was up every two hours going to the bathroom.) REJOICE!
• Claps her hands – so cute when she gets excited.
• Gives high-fives – she thinks this is particularly funny.
• Clicks her tongue.
• Pulling up on things more and more – which lead us to install our top-of-the-stairs baby gate and put baby-proofing stuff on our kitchen cabinets.

We’ve put up a few new pics and videos.

Ready for our Memorial Day cookout

Just checking my email

Swimming with Mommy

Admiring Daddy’s handiwork on the baby gate

Don’t mind me, I just want to read some books

• She is crawling all over the place now. She has adopted the “army style” crawl for now.
• She pulls up on things sometimes as long as they are short enough. Her favorite thing to pull up on is the laundry basket. She hasn’t started pulling up on the furniture yet, but I’m sure that will come any day now.

• She has 4 teeth (two top and two bottom).
• She went to her first ever wedding when my cousin, Julie, got married on May 17.

• She just got back from her first ever vacation. We went to Garden City, SC for the week with my family. She loved the beach! (More details about our vacation to come.)

• She can get herself into a sitting position now. We discovered this one day when we put her down for a nap and when we went back in to get her she was sitting up smiling at us.
• She sometimes does a bye-bye wave kind of thing, and we think she sometimes does the baby sign for “milk.”

She has her 9-month check-up later this week and I’m looking forward to get her new height and weight measurements. And of course just like every month before she managed to grow more adorable than ever! Everywhere we go people always say “Look at those big eyes!”

*Edit: just as I was about to post this blog I went to get Kaelyn up from her nap and found her standing up inside her crib! I guess it’s time to lower the mattress down. My baby is growing up!

• She has eaten ALL kinds of things now including macaroni and cheese (the real kind), banana pudding, cottage cheese, baked ziti, Wendy’s frosty, pancakes, waffles, Chick-fil-a chicken nuggets. Don’t worry – I do give her healthy things too like peas, carrots, black eyed peas, and bananas.

  She is good at chewing so I always try to give her some of what we are eating (“table food”), but she still also eats the regular baby food in the jars. Her favorite is prunes.


• She is pushing up on her hands and knees. She’ll probably be crawling anytime now. She does manage to get from Point A to Point B by using a combination of rolling and scooting. I think she’ll be pleasantly surprised to learn how much more efficient crawling will be. Time to baby proof!
• She still doesn’t sleep through the night, but she does take much better naps. Hooray! She used to take about two 30 minute naps, and now it’s more like two 1-2 hour naps. Oops, I just gave up any excuse I had for not being a better blogger.
• Two words: Swinging Rocks!

• She babbles ALL the time. I’m starting to think she is getting the idea of what Mama and Dada actually mean, but maybe that’s just wishful thinking. We are taking a Baby Signs class, so maybe we’ll be communicating more clearly soon.
• She loves to point. Her two little pointer fingers are always sticking out looking for something to touch, poke, scratch, and explore. Exhibit A:
  

Hmmm, I’m sure there are more, but that’s all I can come up with for now. A few of Kaelyn’s “firsts” the past couple of months include:

• A Clemson baseball game
• A train ride
• Getting teeth (she has 3 now with 1 more on the way!)
• Her first 5k race

I personally think she is getting more adorable and precious and amazing everyday even though I didn’t think it was possible. Sometimes I just want to squeeze her as tight as I can until she just mushes into me. It’s like I just can’t be close enough to her. Sometimes I just want to kiss off her entire face. She is Daddy’s joy and Mommy’s girl.

Nanny was orphaned at the age of 6 and grew up in an orphanage. She outlived 2 husbands – my great-grandfather who died when I was 2 and then another wonderful man she married when she was in her 80’s. Despite life’s difficulties she was the epitome of a Godly woman. At her funeral it was said she truly displayed all of the fruits of the Spirit which is very true. How many people can honestly say that? She was strong, loving, caring, giving, thrifty, wise, funny, and the list goes on. I remember during her last years how they said she would fall asleep each night with her open Bible on her chest. What a role model! Above all else she absolutely loved her family more than life itself. In fact, her last words on this earth were, “Who is going to take care of my babies?”

Of course all of her family will miss her here, but I am happy at the thought of Nanny reuniting with her mother, her husband, and Christ all in heaven. As we were leaving the cemetery yesterday we laughed as we thought of Nanny and Papa having a fun night of finally getting to sleep next to each other again after all these years. Nanny would have laughed at that too.

One of my favorite parts of the funeral were the flowers. There were these amazing purple irises draped on top of the casket and purple irises in many of the flower arrangements at the funeral home. All of these flowers came from Nanny’s garden. They have been around for years and were first planted on the family’s farm where all of her 10 children were raised. Now most of the kids all have off-springs of the irises in each of their yards as well. I’m hoping to get some for my yard next time we visit.

After the funeral the entire family (there were lots!) went back to the church where I grew up and where my Nanny last attended. The church had cooked a wonderful, southern meal for us all. “Funeral green beans” as my Mom called it. I really do love the loving nature of the south. It was nice to have that extra time to spend with extended family who we don’t often see. As I thought about it, at first it seemed sad that it took such an occasion for the entire family to get together, but then I realized that’s exactly what Nanny would have wanted – all the family simply being together and loving on each other especially while being well fed. I’m sure she was looking down on us with a big grin from above.

My parents put in a swimming pool at their house when I was in middle school. I was so hoping the diggers would find something buried in our backyard when they dug the hole – you know like buried treasure or dinosaur bones or something. I don’t know why I’ve always thought it would be so cool to find something like that. One of my favorite things growing up was to go on scavenger hunts around the house or yard following clues until I found some prize at the end. Sometimes I wonder things like “how many people in the history of the earth have stood on this exact spot that I’m standing?” Well, when Matt was digging our tree hole, he came across this:

I have no idea what it is, but I love to imagine it was for something very interesting like old farm machinery or a Civil War weapon or something. Any idea what it might be? I know the land where our house is used to be tobacco fields, so maybe something related to that?

We posted new pictures of Kaelyn in the gallery. There are pics from Sophie’s birthday party and pictures from March.

Kaelyn does this really funny thing with her toys where she will put one in her mouth to chew and then just leave it there while she goes about playing with other toys. I call it her puppy dog look. Here’s an example of the puppy dog at bathtime…