So much to be THANKFUL for...

Louie and I started our Thanksgiving off with a trip to the pool/beach.  It was close to 80 that day so we figured we should soak up the sun while we could.  Kinsley enjoyed a little Daddy time.  He gives her a tad more space in the baby pool than I do so she was having fun with a little more freedom and was managing to completely dunk herself.  She had a blast!

Shorty and G (Louie's parents) arrived Thanksgiving afternoon from Houston.  Carol whipped up a quick batch of homemade cranberry sauce and we headed down to the pool to have dinner poolside.  I think we all really enjoyed the laid-back atmosphere of our dinner and I would NOT mind having Thanksgiving poolside every year. :)

Some of our Rochester friends joined us and made our Potluck Thanksgiving a success!

Beginning in the front left: Kenzie is in the stroller, Nick, Joy, Garvin, Carol, Louie, Kinsley, Me, Kaia and Hans. Our fabulous photographer, Rachel is taking the picture. :)

The next morning we headed south on 95 to Palm City. It was a 4 hour drive and Kinsley did really well.  The only challenge was Kinsley won't fall asleep unless it's silent in the car (believe me, I've tried to continue talking - it is my favorite thing to do - but she will not fall asleep), so everyone was a good sport and drove in silence for an hour and a half.  Kinsley was much happier after her nap, and we all resumed our visiting, so all is well. :)

Garvin's sister, Maggie, and brother-in-law, Fred, live in Palm City and Louie's grandmother Rogene and her friend Jodie were visiting as well.  Even though the weather had cooled off in Jacksonville it was still 80 degrees in Palm City so it was off to the pool on Saturday.  We really had a grand time eating, drinking, and visiting with everyone all weekend long.  Maggie and Fred are truly amazing hosts and I really enjoyed getting to know some of Louie's extended family better. 

Our view from Maggie and Fred's back porch... pure heaven!

The whole Stryker gang!

(From front left: Jodie, Louie, Garvin, Carol, Fred, Maggie, Rogene)

There was a playground at the pool on Saturday and Kinsley had a lot of fun with Shorty who was being a goof playing on all the equipment. 

(Don't worry, Kinsley moved out of the way before Carol slid down the slide!)

Kinsley decided she didn't need a shovel for the sand, she could just use her hands.

 Miss Kinsley on the merry-go-round.

All the ladies at the pool!

(From left to right: Jodie, Rogene, Maggie, Mary -Fred's mother, and Carol)

I think the ladies enjoyed watching me chase Kinsley around the pool.  She LOVES the water!

Garvin and his sister, Maggie, made a huge, beautiful meal for us.  Maggie taught Garvin how to make paella, which is a peasant dish that originated in Spain.  It had yummy scallops and huge shrimp with rice, red and green peppers and chorizo.  It was delicious!!

Although Miss Kinsley doesn't look very happy, this is a pretty special picture.  4 generations of Strykers!!

We headed back to Jacksonville on Sunday and again traveled in silence for an hour and a half, but I do have to say Kinsley had no tears (just a tiny bit of whining right before falling asleep) both there and back. Yay!

Monday we were able to meet Louie for lunch and walk around a shopping center in downtown Jacksonville. They graciously watched Kinsley this morning while I went to my last Bible study meeting this morning and then we swung by the beach before dropping them off at the airport. 

Kinsley was not happy about having to take a picture because she wanted to be looking at the water, not taking a stinkin' picture! :)

In this pic she's finally getting to look at the water but is realizing she's not going to be able to get in.

Can you tell her grandmother is a little enamored??

Overall, our long weekend was wonderful with the grandparents and are so thankful they came to visit us in our home away from home!! :)

We hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. It's a great time to remember the many blessings in our life. We are so fortunate to have such wonderful family and friends that love us and our little girl so much! 

Love to all!

C

Our toddler- 15 months

I know every parent goes through a moment when they realize their child is no longer a baby but a toddler, but that doesn't make it any easier when it happens to you.  Kinsley is changing so much every day.  She is learning new words, she understands what we are asking or saying most of the time, and she is starting to use her imagination.  Vrooom-ing the car or making the baby doll dance... it's so much fun and very adorable but it is all so bittersweet. She's not a baby anymore and a part of me has to mourn this loss. At the same time, my goodness, what a precious little toddler she is! 
At 15 months Kinsley:
-wears size 18-24 months
-size 4-4 1/2 shoe
-size 4 diapers
-says ball, duck, bath, moon, more, mama, dada, mimi, tickle-tickle, doggie, and queen for "Lightening McQueen" (I know I'm forgetting some...)
-loves to kiss everything. Real kisses too!  Closed lip,with a mmmmm followed by a smack.  It's pretty sweet when she unexpectedly decides to give me or Louie (or Striper) a kiss. 
-she's walking, running, climbing, hanging
-loves to climb up on her stool and brush her teeth (This is a new development. Yay for not having to fight her to brush her teeth!)
-is into Veggie Tales and "sings" and dances along.
-says "oooh, oooh, ahhh, ahhh" (yes, like a monkey) when I go into to get her out of her crib every morning and aftter nap time.  Not real sure about this one but it's cute. :)
-waves to everyone. Strangers at restaurants, to the dogs when it is night-night time, to cars driving by, etc.

Since we've been in Florida and Louie has been on this lighter rotation, he's continued to get to know her even better and I've witnessed him falling completely head over heels for her.  It is truly one of the most amazing blessings in my life watching Louie with Kinsley.  He says, almost daily, "she is so precious" and I have to agree.
Okay, enough of the mushy stuff. :)

I'm embarassed to say I still haven't taken her 15 month "Watch Me Grow" picture with Trout but I'm a little out of sorts. We don't have her crib and her quilt so I've been trying to decide when and where... I should just take the picture already. I'll post it as soon as I do. In the meantime, here are some recent pictures of our latest adventures.

Checking out Sunshine Playground with Daddy.

She loved the slide.

That toothy smile is contagious!

At the Museum of Science and History.  I thought it was interesting how these turtles decided to get into a single file line.

Watching the other kids at the water table learning what to do.

She liked it!

There was a dinosaur exhibit with all of these motorized dinosaurs. I thought it would freak her out but she loved watching the moving animals. Here is a clip of her checking out the exhibit.

I'll leave you with a silly night we had recently. Kinsley wanted me to tie her blanket around her.  She kept trying to drape it around her shoulders and then finally brought it to me to help her. For the next 15 minutes, she was a flash of pink.  The best part was she was wearing shoes that squeak.  I caught some of it on video.  (Don't worry, the squeakers comes out of the shoes. =)).

 

Disney World!

We took a family trip to Orlando the weekend before last.  It was our first family trip since Kinsley was born to visit anywhere other than Houston or San Antonio. Although we love visiting family and friends, it was great to get away just the three of us and relax. :)
We stayed at a wonderful resort called Reunion Resort and it was heavenly.  They were having a fall special, half off their room rates, so we decided to put Louie's "Funk Me" award money towards our hotel.  The villa was amazing. It had 3 bedroom/3 bath and a fully furnished kitchen.  We didn't need 3 bedrooms but the price was the same between a two bedroom hotel room or a three bedroom villa so we went with the villa. I didn't take very many pictures of the villa but here are a few of Kinsley exploring.

Daddy cooking breakfast.

Kinsley exploring the upstairs 3rd bedroom.

Our view from the balcony of the Palmer golf course.

Part of why I picked this resort was because it's a family friendly golf resort.  It was too cool for the water park and the pools but it would be fabulous to return at a later time and enjoy the fun family activities.  There are three golf courses to choose from. Louie played the Arnold Palmer course and had a wonderful time.

We arrived Thursday evening and hit the grocery store. We saved a little money by eating in for all meals and Louie, the family chef, enjoyed the cooking time. Friday morning we went to Animal Kingdom.  Kinsley really enjoyed all the animals, a couple of parades, and a fun triceratops ride.

This is called the Tree of Life. It's located at the center of the Animal Kingdom.  It's HUGE!!

Here is Louie and Kinsley standing at the base of it!

We went on an African safari and Kinsley loved it!  There were so many animals for her to see.  That's an elephant off in the distance.

She's pointing at the rhino.

She was pretty fascinated.  She's still a little confused about what animal makes what's sound and makes the monkey sound for 80% of all animals. "Ooh, ooh, ahh, ahh."

This guy was pretty impressive.  Louie took about 15 pictures of him but I'll spare you all the lion pics. :)

Louie figured out the Ergo is pretty handy, especially because Kinsley is so happy in it.  Here they are looking at some fish.

My sweet family.

Louie had a 1:30 tee-time so after Kinsley woke up from her nap, just the two of us headed back to see more of the Animal Kingdom.  This is her having a snack and waiting for the parade to start.

The following video clip is of the parade starting.  It was very overwhelming to her, especially when the giant orangutan from The Jungle Book came over to say hello. Just before I turn the camera off, you can see the fear in her eyes.  Don't worry, as soon as I picked her up and started dancing to the music, she was happy.  She waved to Minnie and Donald.

She can just see the tail end of the parade so she was not interested in posing with Mama for a picture.

Here is a second parade/show that we caught just before we left.  Here is the proof that she actually enjoyed the characters.  :)

The next day we headed to the Magic Kingdom.  It was a lot more difficult to get to.  After the 10 min drive from our hotel, we then took a tram from the back of the parking lot to the front of the parking lot, then waited in line for about 20 minutes to catch the monorail, then after a 10 minute ride, arrived at the Magic Kingdom.  After all that I decided we weren't going to be able to come back after her nap so we decided to push her a little longer that day.  She did really well.  I was not nearly as good about taking pictures on this day, but here are the few I did get from Day 2 of Disney.

This was on the "It's a Small World" ride.  She loved it!  I think it was the highlight of the entire trip for her.  Below is a (pretty dark) video of her on the ride. You can just make out her dancing to the music.

I promised my sister, Sarah Marie, we would get a picture of Kinsley with Tigger.  The meet and greet line was about 45 minutes, so we cheated! This as close as we could get Sarah, sorry! :)

This is that evening back at the hotel.  She's telling me all about her exciting day!

So I'll conclude our Disney trip with one of our breakfasts before going to a park.  Daddy had made eggs and Kinsley thought they were Delicious!

C ya real soon! (Last Mickey comment, I swear!) :)

Soooo far behind in the blogging world!

I'm sorry I'm so far behind with my blogging!  The good news is it's because we've been so busy with trips and family fun.  I'll start with our San Antonio trip.  Kinsley and I went to San Antonio over Halloween.  The reasons were two fold; One, like I said in the previous blog- Louie was on call so it worked well to celebrate Halloween at Papa's house. Two, my brother John and his wife, Sarah were in town from Germany and their baby shower was on the 30th!  It was a super fun shower and they got some great loot!  Here are some photos from the shower:

Diaper Cake

I love this one bc I made them pose prom style but with a baby bump.  Too cute!

They're having a little boy.  A cousin for Kins from my side of the family. :)

The hostesses with the most-ess. Leigh Ann, Sarah's mom, Lonnie, and my mom.

Here are just some random pictures from San Antonio:

When we landed in San Antonio, I couldn't get the car seat installed facing backwards.  She meets all the requirements for facing forward so after about 20 minutes of grunting and sweating, I said FINE -forward it is!! She was one happy camper! She loves facing forward.  She'd get this strange look of confusion every so often because she could see out the front windshield but other than that she was giddy.  You'd never guess she had been traveling all day.  She's getting to be such a big girl!!

Kinsley is a little obsessed with glasses. We stole a fun game from our friends Sari and Witten. When you put on the glasses you say "wow" and kind of stretch it out for emphasis... wooooooooowwwww.  So here she is putting on my mom's glasses looking like a total dweeb. She says "ooooooowwwwww" with us.  It's pretty darn cute.

So Kinsley's new hobby is giving kisses. She gives kisses to everything.  I caught her kissing Striper's rear the other day (don't worry- just on Striper's lower back!).

This is a picture of Kinsley kissing Great-Grommie's Halloween card.  It had glittery sparkles all over it and she LOVED it.  My grandmother sent it to my mom's house so it would be there for Halloween. 

Thanks Grommie!!

Facebook has helped me to reconnect with some of my long-lost friends.  Before our trip I reconnected with a good friend from jr. high and high school, who happens to have a fabulous name.... Catherine. Any who, her son Owen and Kinsley are about 8 days apart and they just might be destined to be friends for life. They had so much fun together and I had a blast catching up with Catherine.  Yay for Facebook!

Below is just a silly clip of Kinsley as we all chased her around the house trying to get a photo of her in a cowboy hat.  She put it on herself and then proceded to walk (rather blindly) all over the house. Of course, as soon as I turned on the camera, off came the hat. Oh well!

I realized that I was not very good about taking pictures of Kinsley with the family.  I have no pictures of Kinsley with any of the grand parents, including Louie's parents who drove in from Houston for the night to see us.  So sweet!! We had a really good trip to San Antonio visiting with everyone. The only thing that would have made it better would have been if Louie came with us.

Okay.... that's all the blogging for now.  Kinsley is waking up and I still have to get in the shower. Yikes! Next post: Disney Trip!