Determined ...

All that effort for nothing more than a food wrapper! Kelsey Paige, you are quite the wiggler and a chore to hang on to, but I sure love your determination and persistence!!!

Who Needs Toys ...

. . . when you have an empty water bottle!

Feeding Sissy

Since Kelsey nurses 99% of the time, Kaitlyn hasn't gotten many opportunities to feed her little Sissy. But with the recent need to add prune juice to her diet, Kelsey has been getting a bottle a day.... a prune juice - breast milk cocktail! Kaitlyn was thrilled when I asked her if she wanted to feed Kelsey ... and she did an EXCELLENT job! What a proud moment to watch as a Mommy!

BabyTime!

We took Kelsey to Babytime at our local library in June. Kaitlyn brought along her own 'baby' - sometimes Monks, sometimes Elmo - and had a blast following along and doing the motions that I did with Kelsey. Kelsey very much enjoyed the class and giggled and smiled during many of the rhymes and motions we did. The class was very, very small and in fact we were the only ones there for the first class - but we loved it none the less!

I Spy ...

... the remote!

Victory!

Ponds!

Even though its summertime, Kaitlyn and I are still having fun playing some learning games. In June we spent some time talking, reading and playing games with a Pond theme. We played a frog literacy game, hopped in a circle like frogs in a cake-walk type game, worked on some more word families with a frog and lily pad game, learned a duck themed finger play and made a turtle craft! I love having fun and learning with my sweet KK-Bear!

Happy 5th Birthday, Josh!

In early June we got invited to a party to celebrate Kaitlyn's friend Josh's 5th birthday. Kaitlyn had fun helping me make a very cool card for him. We traced her hand and then fan-folded a piece of paper to staple behind it so that when Josh opened the card it would give him a 'high five'. Then Kaitlyn wrote on the inside - 'High 5... you're 5!" So cute! Kaitlyn's favorite part was trying to break open the dinosaur pinata!

100 Pieces!

When I agreed to buy Kaitlyn a 100 piece puzzle, it was with full intentions of us completing the project as a team. Never did I expect her to finish the whole puzzle on her own. Well much to my amazement, she did just that, and she has repeatedly done it a dozen or so times in the month of June. We now own three other 100 piece puzzles and she has done them multiple times as well. Her Great Grandma Vlietstra is quite the puzzle guru and enjoys tackling 1000 piece puzzles at the very 'young' age of 86 ... I think Kaitlyn is going to follow in her footsteps!

Caterpillars and Butterflies

Kaitlyn decided that she and her sister needed to dress in clothes with caterpillars and/or butterflies on them on this Saturday. She eagerly picked out outfits for both of them and happily posed for a picture once they were dressed. Oh how we love your creativity, Kaitlyn, from head to toe!

Four Month Shots

We postponed Kelsey's shots to a week later than the rest of her well child visit, as she was having some problems making messy diapers and we didn't want to make her any more grumpy than she already was. But with the help of some 'diet coke bottles' as we called them (not really diet coke, but prune juice!) things were 'moving' and she was ready for shots the following week. She did great with her shots - cried a bit less than the first time and stopped crying to nurse immediately. I made Jeff come this time and help hold her down so this appt was much easier on me than the last one - I just got to be the 'rescuer!' :) But she got Thrush again, a few days after the shots so we were back to taking more antibiotic. This time we got to start right out with the 'good stuff' - Diflucan - and thankfully her mouth was cleared up in 10 days. We were also very happy that she made it through this round of shots, and the previous, without running a fever, praise the Lord!

Sporting her camo band-aids.

Keeping Her Eyes on the Prize

Around 4.5 months, Kelsey started a water bottle fetish. You could watch her eyes fix on one from across the room and she would reach and squirm towards it and very happily grin and chew on it once it was in reach. She also started to try and grab the bottle from Jeff or I as one of us attempted to drink from it. Too funny. Who needs toys when you have remotes, crinkly food wrappers, phones and water bottles.... those are all of Kelsey's favorites!

Success!

Indoor Snowball Fight

Its been over two and a half years now since our friends Mr. Jim, Ms. Amanda and Garrett moved from our neighborhood to Florida but despite being so far away, we love them still the same! They came for a visit in early June and we had a very fun playdate while they were here. Kaitlyn and Garrett had fun building a cruise ship and a log cabin fort but I think they had the most fun having an indoor snowball (cotton ball) fight! After all, whats a trip to Michigan without a taste of snow?! Hope to see you all again soon!

Teething ...

... has begun. Ugh. Kelsey is drooling like crazy and she will gnaw on anything in site. Her favorites are a blue elephant toy on her exersauer and a pink diaper pin shaped teething ring. We've tried putting the teethers in the fridge but she isn't a fan of the coldness yet. Praise the Lord for Orajel and Tylenol ... although we recently found out that Tylenol has corn syrup in it and that is one of the things that bothers Kelsey's stomach. And ... my bottle of 'dye free' tylenol, which thankfully doesn't have corn syrup in it, is almost gone and of course there is none to be found anywhere thanks to the huge infant medicine recall of that. But despite the pain, Kelsey is still quick to crack a smile with a grin that will melt your heart!

Another Kaitlyn-ism

I had just finished giving Kelsey a bath in her baby tub. I asked Kaitlyn if she wanted to give her doll a bath in the tub before I emptied the water. Here is her reply: Yes Mommy, I want to give her a bath. But you and Daddy need to come and stand around the tub because she is gonna get baptized in there. Too cute!

Recent Kaitlyn-isms

Playing restaurant with Kaitlyn ... "Mommy, would you like organic milk or regular?" ... I'm amazed at how she picked 'organic' up from listening to me tell others about my 'Kelsey Diet'. "Daddy ... when do we get to go to Florida again?" "Mommy, I don't want to get my hair cut again until its as long as Ariel's (Disney Princess Ariel - who has hair down to her waist!) "Mommy, let's make a deal - I'll play with Sissy and you pick up my toys." "Mom, can we go to the ice 'blink' again?" aka - ice rink! :)

4.5 Months Old!

It is truly miraculous to watch my littlest princess change so much each week. In the last two weeks Kelsey has gone from reaching for and happily grabbing any toy you hand her to lunging herself forward toward an object that she desires ... which is usually not the ones in front of her. Yes, my princess has figured out how to tell us just what she wants to play with. . . and no, it isn't baby toys. Its water bottles, pop cans, crayons, game instructions, cameras, cell phones and her favorite of all - the tv remote! She will be playing with a toy - mostly she just chews on everything - and if she spots the remote, she will stop what she is doing and her eyes will just focus on the 'jackpot'. She'll pause a few seconds and then thrust herself towards the remote. Gone are the days when I could multitask, playing on the floor with Kaitlyn while holding Kelsey on my lap because if I am not at least half paying attention, she would do a 'face plant' as Kailtyn calls it when Kelsey does those big lunges. I hope we can capture one of these episodes on video ... they are priceless! Kaitlyn just loves the fact that Kelsey now constantly reaches for and tries to 'eat' your face when you put her in front of you. In fact each morning now when Kelsey and I go in Kaitlyn's room, Kaitlyn won't get out of bed until Kelsey gives her a good morning 'kiss'. So precious! I doubt it will be that fun in a few weeks when Kelsey starts really grabbing KK's hair and tugging! Kelsey continues to make great strides towards sitting. I would call her a 'supported sitter' at this point. She has great balance and doesn't easily wobble from side to side but instead just leans too far forward and then gets stuck with her face just inches from the floor! She loves when I sit with her on the floor right next to her toy bin and let her reach in and grab the item she wants. Of course she also loves to grab at anything that Kaitlyn is playing with too. I am a bit apprehensive at what life will be like once she masters crawling. Speaking of crawling - Kelsey continues to enjoy time on her tummy as well. During the day Kaitlyn and I have fun 'challenging' her to reach for items that we put out for her while she is on her tummy. We also like to push on her feet while she is lying there and watch as she will scoot herself forward. Kelsey defied the odds in the last two weeks and decided that she wanted to be one of the very few exculsively breastfed babies that gets constipated .... yah ... fun .... not. Luckily things seem to be going okay now with just the addition of an ounce of prune juice a day. Enjoy these pictures of my growing girl!