Thursday, May 22, 2014

Three and a Half!

 Kylie Bean is three and a half years old!

It is still so hard for me to believe that my little, preemie, peanut is a walking, talking three and a half year old. She is an actual human being, with actual thoughts and ideas, and her very own personality. I knew it would happen someday, but I didn't expect it to catch me by surprise so frequently. Kylie is a sweet, sensitive, thoughtful girl. She thinks of others and likes to try to make people happy. She asks about our emotions. "Are you happy?" and "Why are you sad?" are common questions. She is a great helper, and will typically do what we ask her to do without much of an argument. She is such a joy!

Kylie has a lot of favorite things, and is enthusiastic about them. She likes going to the park, running on the path, riding her scooter, playing with her friends, and doing gymnastics, which she calls, "kymnashtics." She likes to pick out her clothes and shoes, play catch, snuggle, watch TV shows/movies, and read books. Her favorite TV shows are Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, Doc McStuffins, and Sofia the First, and her favorite movie is Frozen. She has several favorite foods/drinks including milk and water, cheese sticks, apples, grapes, mandarin oranges, lunchables, PB and honey sandwiches, peas, corn, carrots, pizza, meatballs, waffles, pancakes, cereal, and pop tarts. She adores her brother and tries hard to make him laugh when he is sad.

There are also a few things that upset her on a regular basis. The most difficult part of her day is being woken up both in the morning and after nap. If I have to wake her, she is a crying mess for at least 30 minutes. If she wakes herself up, on the other hand, she is as happy as a clam. The most logical thing would be to let her wake herself up all of the time, I know, but the blessing of it all is that she will sleep forever if I let her! She is also developing some irrational fears (I have no idea where she got that from.) like bridges and parrots. Parrots are definitely her biggest fear. She will cry and shake and want to be held whenever there is a parrot around...Thankfully, it's not that often. She is also starting to get a little picky about food. She doesn't like (won't try) pickles, brussel sprouts (she actually swallowed these whole so not to taste them), strawberries, oranges, and any type of melon.

Kylie is still changing and reaching different milestones regularly. Her vocabularly is still noticebly increasing. She uses words all of the time that I didn't even realize she knew. She recoginzes all of the letters and knows numbers up to 17. She can spell her name out loud, but is still working on writing it. She loves puzzles, and can do 48 pieces well, and has done a 60 piece one with a little help. She can color mostly in the lines when she is feeling patient. She has taken a recent interest in some new sports so we are working on some new gross motor skills (happy PE teacher here). She likes to practice throwing and catching and kicking. She also likes to work on skipping and walking on the "balance beam" (aka, anything that is slightly elevated and a few inches wide). She loves trying the monkey bars, though she just hangs, and likes to swing, but doesn't pump. She is still slighlty uncoordinated, but I like to think it's because of her height. Maybe wishful thinking!? She is tall though...like taller than most 3 year olds, and a lot of 4 year olds. People always seem to think she is 4. She is about 39 pounds and holding steady. She wears 4T and 5T clothes and size 10 shoes. She still takes a decent nap (1-3 hours) most days, but skips it about once a week. I am not looking forward to the end of that!

We feel so truly blessed to have such a precious daughter. We love watching her grow and change from a toddler to a sweet, little girl. She is amazing! We love you, Kylie Bean!

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

San Antonio!

This month has picked up the pace on the busy-ness scale, but we are loving it! This past weekend we packed up and headed south to San Antonio, Texas for a three day visit with our friends, the Hartzlers and the Strykers! It was a jam packed weekend of fun in the sun...Just the way I like to vacation! :)

We started out with some crazy rain in Philly, which delayed our flight by an hour. Not bad, except that we missed our connection in Dallas by about 10 minutes. We were a little worried that we might have to rent a car and drive the 5 hours to SA, but thankfully it all worked out. We were magically put on the next flight, which was just an hour later.

We arrived to the Hartzlers' house in the middle of the afternoon, put the kids down for a nap, and enjoyed some cool, southern adult beverages and homemade tacos on the patio! It was perfect...Just as I imagined! Later that evening, Catherine came over with her kiddos, and though the three of us haven't been all together for almost 2 years, it felt as if we had never been apart! I love that about great friendships! :) It was the same for the kids as well. They hugged and started playing as if they had seen each other yesterday!

Saturday morning, Rob and Sari made delicous rainbow colored pancakes for everyone, and then we headed out to watch Witten and Kinsley play soccer. I didn't get to watch a whole lot, because my own little 18 month old thought he needed to be on the field as well. So I spent most of the game wrangling him, but the little I did see was very cute! I love pee-wee sports!

Saturday evening we went to a BBQ restaurant that had a playground attached to it. Seriously, this is the best invention ever. The adults can sit back, eat, drink, talk, and watch their kids all at the same time. The kids can run and play, and everyone is happy. The food was good too!

On Sunday, we enjoyed some church time, and lunch at another restaurant with a playground attached! I guess it's common down there. That evening, we wanted to check out some of the tourist attractions. We visited the Alamo...and by visited, I mean, looked at it. We also had dinner at a Mexican restaurant on the Riverwalk. The food and margaritas were amazing! I want to eat there everyday! The Riverwalk was very cool too!

We took the kids back home around bed time, put them to bed, and enjoyed a few more hours of friend time. Monday morning, it was up bright and early to the airport and another long day of travel. We made it back to Philly around supper time, ate and put the kids to bed an hour early. Brooks slept for 13 hours, and I woke Kylie up after 14 hours! They were exhausted...I think that's a good sign of a wonderful vacation! When Kylie woke up on Tuesday morning, she said, "I want to see my friends all day and all night, all by myself." Me too, my sweet girl. Me too! :)

We loved visiting with the Hartzlers and Strykers. It made me miss seeing my friends on an everyday basis! It was so much fun! Thank you for hosting us and showing us a great time! We WILL be back again soon!

 Sipping drinks on the patio.
Notice the longhorn!

 Cute, baby Hugh!

 Reunited!

 The kids are getting so big.
Witten, Aubry, Kinsley, Kylie, and Helen

 Can you tell she enjoyed her Blue Bell ice cream?

 Breakfast time!
Hugh, Brooks, Kylie, Helen, Witt

 Rob and Jon enjoying some man time.

 These two!

 There was a balloon animal guy at the BBQ restaurant.
The kids sat so patiently as they each had a balloon made for them.

 Sari and I drinking our Shiner beers by the Shiner sign.

 Jon reading bedtime stories to two of his favorite girls!

 This tortilla chip was heart-shaped.
Only in Texas!

 The Alamo!

 Dinner at the Riverwalk.
Brooks, me, Sari, Jon, Kylie, Helen, Witten, Rob, Hugh, Catherine, Cade

 Just chilling in a hammock.
Witt, Kylie, Helen, Hugh.
Brooks was not having it.

 Friends!
Catherine with Cade, me, Sari

 Candid of Jon at the Riverwalk.

 Three amigos.
Helen, Kylie, Witt

 Checking out the baby duck.

 My sweet girl!

 Witten and Kylie.

Monday, May 12, 2014

Mother's Day!

This year's Mother's Day was wonderful! I am so lucky that I actually kind of had an entire weekend of Mother's Day activities. Jon had a research day on Friday, so I snuck off to the hair salon during nap time for a much needed hair cut. It was so relaxing! Friday night, Jon and I had a date night. We had supper at Percy Street Barbeque, which was pretty much a fancy Famous Dave's! We felt right at home! :) On Saturday, Kylie had her last day of gymnastics, which was sad for her. We also took a walk around Rittenhouse Square, and I got in a long run during nap time. Sunday, Mother's Day, we went to church, hung out as a family, and had dinner at Marathon on the Square, our favorite kid-friendly neighborhood restaurant! :) It was a perfect weekend!

 Jon and I had to take a selfie on our date night!

BBQ ribs at Percy Street Barbeque!

My Mother's Day flowers and card!

Thank you Jon, Kylie, and Brooks for making my Mother's Day extra special! You sure know how to make a mom feel loved! I love you all!

Mia's Visit.

My sister, Mia, came out to Philly about a week and a half ago for a long weekend visit. We stayed busy and loved having her! Here are some highlights from her visit...

She arrived late Wednesday night, and the kids were super excited to see her when they woke up on Thursday morning. The weather was awesome, so we immediately headed out to the Philadelphia Zoo! It's a pretty cool zoo with all of the typical zoo animals. One thing that we thought was unique was that there were peacocks seemingly running free throughout the zoo. Here's a close up...


Mia and Kylie in the car wash play area.

Flamingos.

Giraffes.

Brooks loved the "eesh."

That monkey looks a lot like my daughter! :)

Jon was off on Friday, so Mia and I decided to drive up to NYC for the day without the kids. Mia had never been there, so it was our goal to see all of the major tourist attractions...and we did! Some might call us the ultimate tourists! :) We started out on the north end with a visit with Rebecca and her girls. I had never met the twins, so I was so glad we were able to hang out with them for a little while. 

Then we walked to Central Park. We got a hot dog from a food stand and ate while we explored. After that, we walked down along 5th Avenue to Rockefellar Plaza where we got scammed by a hat salesman. He said he was giving away hats with a recommended donation of $10 that would go directly to feeding the homeless. We fell for it, and he made $20 off of us! :) We walked over to Times Square and Grand Central Terminal. We walked past the Empire State Building and down through Greenwich Village to see the Freedom Tower and 9/11 Memorial. The actual Memorial had a line that stretched on for miles, so we stopped in the store instead and watched a short video. We rested our legs and grabbed a quick bite to eat at a pizza place. Then we saw The Statue of Liberty and Wall Street before taking an accidental detour through Chinatown, which was interesting. At this point we had walked close to 15 miles, so we caught a cab back up to Dylan's Candy Shop. We bought a couple of pounds of candy, and stopped by Rebecca's one more time before heading back to Philly. It was a crazy fun day!

Central Park.

Me and Matt.

M&M Store in Times Square. 

Times Square.

The Freedom Tower.

The Empire State Building at night...on our way out of the city.

Saturday we pretty much did our normal Philly routine with the exception of the Broad Street Run Expo. Mia, the kids, and I picked up a few goodies, and had our picture taken! :) Kylie was all ready for gymnastics, in her leotard again!


Thanks for a fun visit, Mia! We had so much fun! :)

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Philly Happenings.

Here's a little picture update from the past couple of weeks...

My little daredevil always takes the slide head first!

We made a quick, unexpected trip back to Minnesota a couple of weeks ago.
My Grandpa Don passed away the day after Easter.
Obviously, we were very sad to have to say good-bye, but so thankful to have been able to make the trip.
Kylie and Brooks got to spend some quality time with their cousins while we were there.
Here's Kylie and Emmit hanging out!

Both kids did really well on both flights.

We did the March of Dimes walk in Philadelphia.
We walked in honor of our little preemie! :)

The Art Museum/Rocky steps.
This was where the walk started.
I haven't run up them yet, but I plan to before we leave!

Kylie in the bounce house!

Pillowcase doubles as a sleeping bag during nap.

Kylie took these two pics with my phone!
She's getting good!

Playing "baker" with play doh.
She takes it very seriously.

Our friend, Joe, and I did the Broad Street Run last Sunday.
It's a super popular 10 mile run in Philly.
41,000 people ran it this year! 
It is a straight course that is pretty much all down hill!
It was a fun run and a perfect day for running!
This was at the start.
There were so many people that it took me 12 minutes to cross the starting line!
My fans!
Joe's mom, Kylie, Jon and Brooks.

I played on a ladies quads volleyball team this winter.
We played for the championship and WON last weekend!
I had a blast playing VB with these girls!
L to R: Bri, Amber, me, Lynn