Lake weekend 2009

Last weekend we went on our 3rd annual trip to Cedar Creek Lake with some of our college friends and their kids. We had a great time catching up, watching all the kids play together, and playing on the lake. We were able to enjoy ourselves a little more this year since the girls are older and also since they slept better (even if they woke up at 6:30 Saturday morning, at least they slept hard all night and took long naps that day!) The worst part of our whole trip was that Kendall was NOT a fan of her life jacket and of the fact that she did not have her lovey on the boat. She cried just about the whole time on the boat-- which was a whipping for everyone I'm sure. But she had so much fun swimming and playing on the beach, so I guess it was worth it. Sunday she kept looking out the back windows and saying, "I want swimming," and getting upset when I told her we couldn't. Avery had a great time playing with the other kids, especially Mick and Alexis's little boy Graham. She was so sad that he had to leave Saturday night. When we were on the boat Sunday she said, "It's not very fun without Graham." She is such a little "people-person." We all had such a good time and we feel so lucky to have the kind of friends where you can just sort of pick up where you left off. Hopefully we'll be able to keep the annual mini-reunion going for years to come!

Avery and Graham liked to snuggle up and watch cartoons together

all the kids (minus Harrison Kennedy who was staying w/ grandma)-- poor Graham was upset that he was about to leave

Scott putting his karate moves on Avery and Graham

Graham helped Avery put on a blue-haired fairy costume

Scott and Avery tubing on the way back from the beach

hanging out on the dock

Avery and Abby Holm

Kendall and I swam in the cove while Scott and Avery rode the jet-ski

First Day of School

Avery- 3yrs. 5 months- starting "Jr. Pre-K" as Young Children's World calls it

Kendall- 19 months- starting in the Toddler class at YCW

Last Thursday was Avery and Kendall's first day of school (Mother's Day Out) for the year. Avery was so excited to go back. She has been asking me since the week after school got out when she was going to get to go again. She has lots of the same kids in her class as she did last year, and she was excited about making new friends too. I was really impressed with her teachers at Meet the Teacher night. It sounds like it is definitely going to be more like actual preschool this year and I am excited to see what all she learns. When I picked her up Thurs. afternoon, her teachers said she had a great day and that she was a very smart little girl. I knew I liked her teachers right from the start :)

I had been kind of anxious about Kendall starting school and questioning my decision to put her in 2 days a week. My original thought was that maybe she would adjust more quickly and get more out of it if she went twice a week and really got into the routine. Plus, I remembered that when Avery was in the toddler class, she missed out on a lot of neat activities since she just went once a week in the fall. Well, Kendall started bawling when we dropped her off, which obviously didn't help my anxiety about the whole thing, but I just stayed really busy all be day and kept telling myself that she was in good hands and was probably having a lot of fun. And when I picked her up, they said she had a GREAT 1st day and was just so happy and played so hard and slept the entire nap time, no problem. So hopefully she'll continue enjoying it and stop crying when we drop her off at some point. As for what I'm going to do with my new-found freedom, I am going to be helping Scott out at the office a little bit here and there, cleaning house, running errands, and enjoying a little me time. Scott and I have even talked about how on Mondays we could sneak away to a matinee movie every now and then since he doesn't see patients on that day. Will that ever really happen? I don't know, but it sure is nice to know we could!

This year I was smart and took a few pictures on Meet the Teacher night. I always take the camera on the 1st day, but it is always WAY too crazy to take any pictures. So now at least I have some of their teachers, classrooms, etc at the beginning of the year other than what gets put in their "Me" books.

Avery with her teachers, Mrs. Patty and Mrs. Christy, at Meet the Teacher night

They took a parent/child picture for Kendall's "Me" book on Meet the Teacher night (hopefully the one w/ their camera was better of Kendall)

Kendall made herself right at home in her new classroom on MTT night

Labor Day

I don't know what most people do on Labor Day weekend, but we often spend part of it doing something to celebrate my birthday, which usually falls on that weekend. This year Scott took me out to Trulucks, which is a really nice steak and seafood restaurant in Southlake on Saturday night. We had such a nice, quiet dinner at one of those cozy curved booths like you always see on TV and movies. The food was amazing too-- I had crab and corn chowder, proscuitto wrapped Mahi-mahi, some of Scott's Texas stone crab claws and sweet potato fries, and then we made a weak attempt at a slice of ice-cream cake they brought for my birthday and the slab of award-winning cake carrot that came with our "date night" special. Monday we had a little family get-together at my parents' house. When you're 32, you don't care much about having birthday parties anymore, but your kids sure have a lot of fun eating your cake and helping you open cards and presents :) We had another delicious meal, more ice cream cake, and a fun time hanging out.

After lunch we all got a little crazy playing with this little pop-up tent that my parents had found at a garage sale. The girls kept going in there and laughing and squealing, and then Scott went in and lifted Kendall up through the middle to peek out. So then Avery wanted to peek out, and then she wanted us to do it, so we all had a turn being silly. The things we do to amuse our children!

"Peek-a boo!"

my "tent dress"

Avery was just tall enough to poke her head through

silly Scott

Kendall was also being silly with some reusable face-part stickers that go to a little sticker book. At one point she had like 10 of them stuck on her face, and then she kept putting this mouth sticker over her mouth and laughing. She's at that age now where she knows when she's being funny and she likes to show off sometimes. She is growing up so much. In just the past week or so, she has gone from single words and some two-word phrases to spouting off these little sentences. Just tonight she said, "I want Avey (Avery) come" when we were going outside, and also she said "Mommy, I drinking milk."
The girls also had fun playing with the toys that my Mom got at the consigment sale we went to recently. Avery's favorite was the vanity with jewelry and accessories and Kendall's was the baby dolls and stroller--surprise, surprise. Aren't they lucky (and spoiled) to have such fun toys at their granparents' house? No one they never want to leave!

Pigtails

Avery is really into playing Star Wars right now. Her Daddy got her hooked on it by watching little snipits of it whenever it comes on (which is a lot!). And of course now that we switched to AT&T Uverse, we have all 6 of them recorded on our DVR. According to Avery, her favorite princess right now is Princess Lea (sp?). She's has been asking me to do her hair like Lea's, but I have told her numerous times that it would have to be really long for it to work right. When she kept asking me today when her hair was going to grow long enough, I decided to give in and told her we would try a similar hairdo. So here's what we came up with--pigtails w/ the ends tucked in the rubber band to make a loop.

Then Kendall decided she wanted in on the pigtails. Avery was flicking hers w/ her hands and then Kendall said, "I want pigtails," and started running toward Avery's room to the drawer with all the hair accessories. She actually started crying when I was putting them up, but Avery and I were able to distract her and eventually get her to smile for some pictures. Then she actually left them in almost until naptime when one fell out because she was doing her upside down, standing on her head routine. I thought she looked like such a big girl w/ them. I can't wait until her hair gets thicker and longer so I can fix it more!

Avery decided to share her headband for the second pic

18 months

Kendall turned 18 months old last week! She is really growing up, but I sometimes forget to treat her like the big girl she is becoming because she is just such a little thing, and I guess also because she's the youngest. At her checkup she weighed 22 lbs 8 oz (just under the 25%), and was 32 in (50-75%). Other than the fact that she still takes Zantac for reflux, she is a healthy, growing little girl. She can feed herself with a spoon, is beginning to run and climb, and can follow directions really well. She knows the colors purple and pink, lots of body parts, can count to 5, and knows a circle and triangle. In the past month or so her vocabulary has really exploded. She says new words every day and is using some 2 word phrases and short sentences like "I see Doda (Dora)!", "Hold you", or "It's Avey (Avery)." I never want to sound like I'm bragging about my kids, but the speech pathologist in me just really likes to keep track of their speech and language development. I always feel like they should be doing well in that area too since they have a bit of an advantage. One of Kendall's favorite things to do is to read books. She really enjoys being read to and also likes to read to herself. It's quite funny actually because we will often find her in her room or Avery's room with about 10 books on the floor around her and she is just jabbering away nonstop as she looks at the pages. Most of it is nonsense, but she will usually stick in a real word or two describing something she sees on the page like "pincess" (princess) or "puppy". Although I would like her articulation to improve so people can understand her better, I will miss some of the funny ways she says things like "Missy Me" for Minnie Mouse and "ooks" for ears. Lately she and Avery have been doing this thing where they go lay down by each other somewhere and "talk". Sometimes Avery sings to Kendall and sometimes they really do talk, although the conversation is kind of one-sided since a lot of Kendall's is jibberish. It's really cute. Some of the other things she enjoys doing right now are swinging, playing in the sand, getting horsie rides from Daddy, playing hide and seek, playing with all kinds of dolls, having pretend picnics, painting and coloring, and listening to music. She will start "school" in about 3 weeks with Avery at Richland Hills C of C. Hopefully the transition will be a smooth one since it is already a familiar place to her. She does fine when we leave her with relatives and at church, so we are hoping that she will get used to it quickly and really enjoy all the activities. This time around ( asw opposed to w/ Avery), I already know I will tear up when they hand me her "Me Book" at the end of the year and I see how much she has grown and see all the precious pictures of what she did in her time away from me. Although sometimes I think the terrible twos are already setting in and wishing we could skip over some of that, I'm looking forward to seeing what the future holds in store for Miss Ken!

Top Dentist reception and Friday fun

Last night Scott and I attended a reception for his "Top Dentist of 2009" award given by Ft Worth magazine. Since we didn't get any pictures of ourselves on our 10th anniversary a couple of weeks ago, we had my Mom snap a couple of us all dressed up before we left. The reception wasn't a huge deal really, just a little gathering with all the award winners and some schmoozers (sp?) from Ft Worth magazine. But we did get to go to a nice country club, eat some delicious food, and enjoy adult company for a few hours. Can't ask for much more when you spend most of your nights playing pretend, giving horsey rides, and wrangling two little girls into pajamas!

Today the girls and I were playing in the backyard after lunch and as I was pushing Avery I had one of those moments where I just wanted to freeze time and remember her at that exact moment. It sounds a little hokey, but she just seemed so carefree and full of life-- singing and laughing with her hair blowing as she swung back and forth. Only a professional photographer (or at least one a lot better than me) could have captured the monent the way I wanted to, but at least I made an effort to come inside to get the camera and snap a few pictures. After Avery finished swinging, she decided to join Kendall in the sand box and they had so much fun that we pushed back nap time a little bit and just enjoyed the moment-- sweltering heat and all!

Cousin sleepover

cute cousins- Brooklyn 6yrs, Avery 3 yrs

This week my 6 yr old niece Brooklyn came spend the afternoon with us and then stayed the night and half the next day. Avery was excited to have her first sleepover guest, and Brooklyn was excited to have her first sleepover with someone other than her grandparents. Brooklyn called it her "practice sleepover" to help her prepare for sleepovers at her friends' houses. For the most part, the girls all played great together and had a lot of fun. It was actually pretty nice to have an older child around to keep the boredom away and teach my girls some new games to play. Brooklyn even helped out some when we went to Braums for ice cream and to the park the following morning. It was greatness! I think she was getting a little tired of Avery following her around and wanting to do everything she did by the time she left, but I think they did pretty well considering the age difference. The girls stayed busy playing hide and seek, tickle tag, doctor, giving "makeovers", making a secret hideout, and doing some crafts Avery and I had picked out at Michael's. It was a nice little break in our usual routine and a good first sleepover experience for everyone I think!

decorating princess crowns

Brooklyn and Kendall

Avery getting stick-on earrings from Brooklyn's "Glamour girl" suitcase

applying lip gloss-- Avery also got eyeshadow, roll-on body glitter, and toenail polish

Brooklyn read Avery a bedtime story--"We're Going on a Bear Hunt"

they all wanted to sit by each other at breakfast the next morning

playing with the wooden dolls they colored

showing off their creations-- the snack cups were the dolls' crowns