"I See..." -- Written by Bel

Most of you know that Kayleigh loves, loves, LOVES reading. She will "read" pretty much anything. And by anything, I mean, anything that remotely looks like a book or paper. Magazines, coloring books, instruction manuals, junk mail. You name it, she'll bring it to you and demand to be read to.

While she will listen to anything, she does have her favorite stories, one of which being, "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?". I think it's a great book because it can cover so much more than just the story. You can do colors, animal noises, counting, facial features....tons of time on one book. She likes it SO much, that I would say that between Laura & I, we read it to her an average of 12 times a day. Not kidding. It is read so often that I can recite it from memory. Kayleigh too now knows what is coming next and can imitate most of the animal noises (including the fish lips!).

Here's a clip of Laura doing a "speed-read-through" of the book with Kayleigh, and some of K's antics. This time she mostly only said, "I see!" a lot. LOL.

Kayleigh & Kira -- Written by Bel

As most of you know already, Kayleigh has a BFF named Kira. She is my friend Kristin's 2 year old daughter. Most of the time they get along just fine - they laugh & play & talk with each other like normal kids.




And then the hugging starts. At first, it's cute. And gentle. And then it gets a little....rough.



















Here's what happened at at little Matty's Christening party today:

Elmo's World Dance -- Written by Bel

We don't let Kayleigh watch a whole lot of TV. Basically it's just Sesame Street every once in a while, and most of the time she gets bored with it after a few minutes anyway. However, whenever the "Elmo's World" segment comes on, she stops whatever she's doing & perks right up! Lately, she's started dancing & shrieking at the TV as soon as she hears the song. It's been hard trying to catch it on film, but here is a more mild reaction.

New Dance Moves --Written by Bel

So my mom has this stuffed animal dog that plays music. Since Kayleigh was an infant, she has had an infatuation with this thing. As soon as she could she learned how to press the button to make it play music. Then she started carrying it around everywhere. Then she realized she could start & stop the music as well.

The other day, she was playing with this dog with my mom & started sporting some never-before-seen dance moves, which were hysterical. I guess she learned them from Laura....

The Baby Wipe Incident -- Written by Bel

We all know how much K loves baby wipes. Playing with them, destroying them, eating them. Pretty much everything about them. I literally turned my back for about 3 seconds to go to battle with our insurance company, and this is what I turned around to see. I guess it could have been worse. At least it wasn't the garbage!

Kayleigh Plays The Drums -- Written by Bel

We knew it was just a matter of time before it happened, but Kayleigh has discovered Laura's drum sticks & most recently her drums, and she knows what to do with them!!

The other day she found a pair of Laura's drum sticks in the dining room & started walking around with them banging on things. So Laura brought Kayleigh over to one of her small snare drums & Kayleigh knew to hit it with the drum sticks! Needless to say, Laura was thrilled & sat down with her to play for a while. Here are a few video clips :)

Time For A Bath Seat -- Written by Bel

I think it's time we purchase one of those seats for the bathtub because Kayleigh is out of control! She keeps wanting to stand in the bathtub & when we try to sit her back down, she kicks her feet, flails around & giggles. Our mistake was laughing in the first place because now she thinks it's a game. But can you blame us?! How cute is this kid!

Eventually we did get her to sit back down, and she was safe for the rest of the bath.

The Beach -- Written By Bel

Today was Kayeligh's first trip to the beach & she LOVED it!!! At first I wasn't sure how she would fare with the sand, since it took her about 2 weeks to adjust to walking on grass or mulch at the park. And add to that the fact that she hates having dirty hands, I was expecting a bit of a struggle. But I think it was love at first sight!!

As soon as I put her little feet on the sand, she was intrigued. She squished her little toes right into it and started running around. Then she picked up some sand in her hands & I could see her taking in the texture of it as she let it slide through her fingers. Then she dug around for a while as she sat in it. When we covered her feet & legs with the sand she kicked it around as she laughed with delight - she couldn't get enough of it!! I'm only sorry we didn't have any shovels or buckets to make sandcastles!!

Needless to say, I am VERY excited about the onset of summer - I think we're going to have a great time at the beach!!

Here's some pictures of Kayleigh exploring the sand with her BFF, Kira :)

Lady Gaga, Pants On Your Head & Tired Dancing -- Written by Bel

A lot of people want to know what a day in the life of Kayleigh is like. They wonder about her personality, her likes & dislikes, and how she acts. Here are a few examples of typical Kayleigh:

1. Lady Gaga is her current favorite singer. She will dance & laugh at ANYTHING Gaga. Here is a video of her dancing to "Bad Romance" with Laura. But she's a ham, so she pauses to say, "hi" to the camera for a moment :) Laura also brings out K's crazy laugh towards the end.




2. Kayleigh now has opinions on what she wants to wear. She will bring you an item of clothing & want you to put it on her - even when it doesn't make sense! Her latest love is putting her pants on her head. And yes, she did it herself first. But she got aggravated when she could not put them back on her head, so we helped her out :) She also frequently requests to have her jacket put on her and then says, "bye-bye" once she is wearing it.



3. Kayleigh also loves to dance. This is her "crazy dance", as we call it, because it's basically stomping around like a crazy person :) But since she loves to fight sleep so much, a lot of the time she goes from dancing around & acting silly right to curling up on the floor and getting ready for a nap within a few seconds of each other.
**Just a note - I had no idea this video was being taken, so I was mid-conversation with Laura when it happened - Ignore what I'm saying.**



So, that's a glimpse of Kayleigh :) We love our silly little bean!!

Please Touch Museum -- Written by Bel

This past Monday was rainy & miserable out, so K & I went to the Please Touch Museum in Philly with our cousin, Kirsten. And boy did we have FUN!!! And I mean all of us! There was so much for Kayleigh to see & do and they still make it appealing for the parents. I like that they had separate play areas for children 3 & under so that K didn't have to try to keep up with the big kids the entire time. And it was nice to let her roam around and discover on her own. There should definitely be more places like this!!


There was one section called "Wonderland" that was dedicated to the Alice in Wonderland stories. There was a section with white rose bushes made of lights and the kids could "paint" the roses red with little paintbrushes. When the paintbrushes hit the roses, the lights turned red!! One of the cool effects was that the area by the bushes actually smelled like roses! And there was a tea party with The Mad Hatter where kids could dress up as different characters. Unfortunately, all of the costumes were too big for K, but we did have a seat anyway :)


And one of Kayleigh's (and my) favorites was the miniature grocery store - They had kid sized carts and mock groceries, some of which were very believable! And the kids could work the registers if they want to as well (but K didn't really pay much attention to that part).


And the day ended with a ride on the carousel (which went MUCH better than the one at Smithville!) She said, "Oooooohhhhh" for pretty much the whole ride!

All in all, we had a great time & can't wait to go back!