My brother Andrew took his first ever solo flight to visit me for my birthday. He wanted to check out a MN winter for himself. The week before he got here we had an entire week with above freezing temps which is VERY strange for February. About 75% of all the snow had melted. Also, Louie, Kinsley and myself were all sick with the flu. I felt bad that Andrew had come on such a disappointing weekend but everything actually worked out pretty well.
I picked up Andrew from the airport on Thursday evening. The next day I picked up the girls early from school (they had an early release day) and we went to our gym to play in the Neighborhood. It's geared for elementary-young teen kiddos and they had a lot of fun. Kinsley had a blast exploring.
Andrew trying his luck in the batting cages.
Andrew bouncing on the individual trampolines.
Brooke showing of her bounce moves.
Rachele practicing her 3 pointers.
Kinsley in the toddler area.
Her new favorite toy... slides!
I think Brooke and Andrew had almost as much fun in the toddler area as Kinsley.
Rachele was sooo over it. :)
Brooke was exhausted after all the fun!
The next day, Andrew, Kinsley and I went to Chuck E Cheese while Louie tried to sleep off the flu. Kinsley was feeling much better and I was not feeling very good but better than Lou. Andrew said he'd go to Chuck E Cheese so Kins could have some fun... funny how he got his tokens and we didn't see him for about an hour! Ha!
Taking a quick break to pose for a pic.
Andrew spent some time on Saturday exploring what snow was left in our backyard. He had to be very careful to avoid all the dog poo! When the snow melts, guess what's left??? An entire winter's worth of Trout, Striper and Hope's little gifts!!
Well, Andrew's prayers were answered!! On Sunday morning, we woke up to a blizzard. We got about a 15 inches of snow over Sunday and Monday!!
The snow was really coming down!
Andrew said he was going to take some snow home with him in his suitcase. :)
Monday was Andrew's departure day. His flight had not been canceled so Kinsley, Andrew and I (carefully!!) made the 1.5 hour drive to the Minneapolis airport only to spend the next 9 hours there. Andrew actually managed to get on his first flight, 2 hours late, back away from the gate, only to have it canceled! He actually took off around 8:30 that evening, 6 hours after his originally scheduled flight. Kins and I got home about 11. It was quite the adventure. It's amazing he got out at all! I guess those pilots are used to taking off and landing in snow!
This was around 1:30 that day. Those are planes out there!
Overall, we had a really good time and we were so glad Andrew came to visit us!! Kinsley just cried and cried when Andrew got on the plane the second time. He's so good with her and such a loving uncle! :)
Miss Kinsley turned 18 months on the 13th. I've been meaning to post her "watch me grow" picture and updates about her development but have been pretty busy lately with family illness, a visit from my brother, Andrew and my birthday celebrations! Sooooo.... I have a lot to blog about but I'll just start with my baby girl and see how far I get.
10 months
1 year
1.5 years
We are having such a blast with our 1.5 yr old. She's silly, and loving, and independent, and just so much fun! It was quite humorous attempting to get her 18mo picture with Trout. Kinsley was an absolute energizer bunny while Trout just sat there thinking "how much longer do I have to do this?!?" Check out the sequence of events below (mind you she was sitting pretty in every one of these pictures just before I snapped the shot):
I love this last picture of Trout. He's looking at me saying "you've GOT to be kidding me!"
At 18 months Kinsley:
-is very independent but also a total mama's girl. She loves to lay her head on my shoulder but also wants to brush her teeth and put on "her" shoes all by herself!
-is finally not eating any more baby food. Took us a while to wean her off of this because she is such a picky eater and the baby food was the only way we could get her to eat fruit or veggies. I sure hope this is not a food texture issue!!
-is saying too many words to count but her current favorites are "okay!" for yes, moon, McQueen, Elmo, cookie, puppy, and button for belly button. She also loves to say animal sounds and count to three (I say one and she says two, three).
-is still between one and two naps a day.
-is in the 90% for height and is wearing 24month/2T clothing.
-loves to feed herself with a fork. Can stab the food and then usually gets the food in her mouth.
-loves her baby, blankie, and pacifier animals and will put all of them in her stroller and push them around like a mad woman! Brooke calls her "Crazy Mama!"
-LOVES books! I often catch her in her room "reading." She climbs up into one of her rockers in her room to look at books. I think it's pretty precious.
She's kissing the caterpillar in this one. :)
-just got her first hair cut. It was definitely needed! Louie said she had a baby mullet rockin'. Here are the pics from that adventure. She was actually very good for about the first 3/4 of the appointment. :)
Starting to squirm.
I'll leave you with a couple of videos the night Kinsley discovered her belly button. They both crack me up! I apologize for the length. The one in the bath tub ends with quite a boom, literally! :)
Louie had a Chicago and Charlotte interview last week so we decided to make it into a family trip. I had never been to Chicago and I'll take pretty much any excuse to go south of the Mason Dixon. :) We left on Tuesday morning but before heading out, I met with my AM Bible study ladies and learned how to make authentic German brezels (pretzels). They turned out yummy and were a lot easier to make than I thought.
This one was my "prettiest" but I think that's bc it looks more like an American pretzel. The others were shaped with a very thick bottom and thin on top.
CHICAGO:
We left Tuesday morning and our first stop was Chicago. It was VERY cold there (same as Rochester) but we didn't rent a car so we were outside a lot. We were prepared for the cold and bundled up Miss Kinsley well.
She's so funny when she has mittens on because she won't put her hands down. She just holds them out to her side.
Side note: My dad and Leigh Ann bought Kinsley a GREAT coat for Christmas. I love it! Unfortunately Kinsley has decided it's the devil. If I even pull it out of the closet she starts to cry. Not exactly sure why but I think it's because it's too big on her and she can't move very well in it. We've got two more winters out of that coat so I'm hoping by next winter she'll be over her strange fear of the coat. In the meantime, I bought a cheapie on super discount from Gymboree. I needed something for our trip to Chicago and this one worked well but does NOT match her hat or mittens. Guess I have to get over that... but it does match her stroller. You win some you lose some. :)
We hit up the Cheesecake Factory when we arrived and yummy Chinese at Ben Pao that night. Kinsley was really tired after dinner and decided she was done when we got back to the hotel. I was warming up some milk for her and this is what I turned around to discover.
She got her blankie and froggy from her bed and made a new bed on the floor.
The next day was Louie's interview so Kinsley and I met up with an old med school buddy at the Shedd Aquarium, which is fabulous!! (Her husband was interviewing with Louie.) I cannot believe I forgot my camera! I got a couple of pics and videos on my phone of Kinsley but none of Alice. It was so great to see Alice and her THREE kids!! She had Anna, who is now 6, 3rd year of med school. It was fun to catch up with her and meet the rest of her family.
At every exhibit, Kinsley kept saying feeesh and wowwww!
That evening we had some authentic Chicago style pizza from Giodanos Pizza. It was a little strange because not only was it SUPER deep dish but the toppings were backwards from what we're used to. It had the meat on the bottom, then about an 1 1/2 in of cheese and then the sauce on top. It was very filling and I'm thinking I'll stick with my thin crust. As much as I like cheese... that was a little too much mozzarella but we had fun none the less.
Love this picture of my two favorite people! :)
CHARLOTTE:
The next day we headed to Charlotte. We really loved this town. It was not too big, everyone was friendly AND they were complaining of the cold and it was in the 40s. Wohoo!! We were soaking up the sun and the "warmth."
While we were there we ate at some delicious restaurants and hit up a park and children's science museum.
This was at Freedom Park in Charlotte. She was quacking at the geese. We're working on learning to honk.
At that same park. The weather was beautiful!
At Discovery Place Science Museum in Charlotte.
She did not want to pose with Mommy. Let me play!!!
The last night we were in Charlotte, I felt Kinsley and thought she was warm. She had been kind of grumpy the past couple of days but we thought it was from all of the traveling. The "packing queen" (that would be me!), of course had a thermometer and so I checked her temp. It was 102.5! :( We gave her some Tylenol and crossed our fingers that we could make it back smoothly the next day. She did well considering she was sick. She has a pretty nasty sounding cough and is sneezing up a storm. I'm glad to be home so we can focus on her resting and feeling better.
Louie's interviews went well... at least we think so. We'll find out if/where we matched for fellowship in April. It's a 12 month fellowship that begins in August of 2012. The interviews are almost a little tease because we still have a year and half left of residency. We spend more time getting ready for the fellowship than actually completing the fellowship. Oh well!
In other news, HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY! Kinsley was very excited to open her Valentine's card from her Great Grommie this morning. How fun! Thanks Grommie!!! :)
I will post another update soon because Kinsley turned 18 months yesterday! This year is flying by!! I feel like we just celebrated her 1st birthday!
Lots of love to all our family and friends on this {HEART} day!!
