"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!

St. Patty's By The Beach -- Written By Bel

We have come a long way since our last post! The weather has been so beautiful that we have been lucky enough to make it to a park almost every day for the past week!

One of our most recent trips was to visit Auntie M at her apartment in Bradley Beach on St. Patrick's Day. We went for a nice long walk on the boardwalk and stopped at the park to play for a while.

Kayleigh has learned the art of sliding all by herself. Well, mostly. I still have to put her on it, and even have to help her off it sometimes. But she's doing it all by herself & LOVING it! Bye-bye swings, hello new world of opportunity! I think we might have to put in a slide in the backyard.....nah. Then we would miss our walks :)


Here's a little snippet of what we spent a good 20 minutes doing.....I started to worry that she may never tire of it. LOL.

Day At The Park -- Written by Bel

It's been a while since the weather has allowed us to venture out to our old favorite hangout, a local park. An even rarer occasion that Laura was able to join us! But what a beautiful weekend!!!! We could not resist dusting off the old stroller & going for a walk to the park.

Kayleigh enjoyed the ride in the stroller, especially when the wind came & blew on her face.



When we got to the park, the first thing we did was ride on the swings, like old times. K enjoyed flying around :)



Now that Kayleigh is getting bigger, she was ready to try out the slides for the first time! She wasn't too sure about it at first and I had to hold her all the way down. But eventually she let go & laughed all the way down to either Mommy or Marmy.



There was a big tube slide that I took her down, but I don't think she liked that too much - it's more for the big kids anyway.



All pooped out, we headed back home for supper. Poor Kayleigh started to doze while clinging to her stroller, and then took an almost 2 hour long nap (A rarity these days)!



I hope you all had the chance to get out in the beautiful weather we had this weekend :)

Hide & Seek -- Written by Bel

Kayleigh has been running around all over the place these day & getting into everything! There's so much for her to explore & I love, love, LOVE watching her learn something new. She has a new favorite game - Hide & Seek. Well, the Kayleigh version of hide & seek. Laura hides in one of our bedrooms in the house, Kayleigh runs down the hall to find her & as Kayleigh approaches, Laura pops out of the room and yells "Boo!" You would think this would scare Kayleigh, but she gets a kick out of it! She runs back down the hallway laughing and goes right back to Laura for more. We have gotten some seriously great laughs out of this game.

Here's a clip of Kayleigh playing Hide & Seek, Kayleigh style. She also laughs her butt of when she watches the clip with us!

(*The head bump is not as bad as it sounds - she was fine right away. However, it does get funnier & funnier every time we watch it and even Kayleigh has taken to laughing at it!)

Kayleigh's First Year -- Written By Bel

I cannot believe how quickly this past year has flown by!! So much has happened & so many things have changed. It's hard to imagine that the Kayleigh I have now is the same tiny little girl that we brought home from the hospital over a year ago. I am truly blessed to have such a wonderful angel in my life :)

Walking & Such -- Written by Bel

Yes, yes, I already know that I am the world's worst blogger as I have not written anything since November. And a LOT has been happening since then!! I'll try to post as much of it as I can, but we'll see...

Kayleigh has been constantly growing & changing, seemingly overnight at times. Her hair is starting to grow, she has a total of 6 teeth now, she's eating lots & lots of new foods (when she's not allergic to them!), and her vocabulary is getting larger. She can say about 10-12 words & has assigned meanings to most of them, including pup, Mama, Elmo, shoes, and Harry's favorite, dude.

One of the craziest things that is going on is that Kayleigh is officially walking!!! And not just taking a few steps here & there, but WALKING, walking!! And that happened overnight. One day she just stood up in the kitchen & walked all the way down the hall into her room and that was that. My life has not been the same since. LOL.

Every night leading up to that we would sit in our den & Kayleigh would walk back & forth between Laura & I. It was about 6-7 steps at a time & she would fall a lot. She did this for a very long time. And then last Sunday, BAM! She was walking. And even trying to walk down the steps in the den (or as we like to call it, jumping face-first onto the floor from the steps). Here's a video from January of Kayleigh "practicing". We haven't been able to get a recent video of the walking, but we will post one soon!

Bucket Screaming -- Written by Bel

This is one of Kayleigh's favorite new pastimes. There's not much else to say about it...

Kayleigh's First Halloween -- Written by Bel

This year was Kayleigh's first Halloween & we made sure to have a blast! Our cousins Kirsten & Marissa were visiting us for the weekend so they got to go trick-or-treating with us & share in the fun :)

The day started off nice & relaxing.

It was REALLY warm outside but it looked like it was going to rain any minute, so Mommy & Kayleigh got our costumes on & headed out for trick-or-treating. Kayleigh even sat for a few minutes so that we could take some pictures!

My Friend Jim's parents' sent us a trick-or-treat sack that had Kayleigh's name printed on it! We couldn't wait to try it out! Thanks Mr. & Mrs. Fedor!!

Kayleigh wasn't too sure what to make of everything, but she held up pretty well. It looks like Reeses PB Cups are her favorite!

About halfway through, we decided to give Kayleigh a break & stopped at the park that we normally take walks to so that she could have some fun in her swing. Look out for the flying devil!!!

By the end of it, Kayleigh passed out & it started to rain. Can't wait to see what next year will bring!

Trip To Smithville -- Written By Bel

This weekend our cousins Kirsten & Marissa came for a visit and we took a trip down to Smithville to check out the shoppes & do some fun fall exploring :) It just so happened that we walked into an Irish festival that was going on that day! I took advantage of the chilly weather & bought Kayleigh a shamrock hat to keep her little head warm.

Kayleigh went on her first train ride throughout the historic village. It was all decorated for Halloween & it was a beautiful fall day out.

After the train ride, Kirsten & I took Kayleigh on the carousel. We had a great time, but I don't think Kayleigh liked it too much! Maybe next year...

Elmo & Talking -- Written By Bel

Every once in a while we will put Sesame Street on for Kayleigh. Most of the time she doesn't pay any attention to it at all. However, recently she discovered that she absolutely LOVES Elmo! Whenever he comes on, she will stop whatever it is that she is doing and look at the TV and laugh!! I thought it was just a one-time fluke thing, but she does it every time!

In general, she has become a very vocal and interactive baby. She can say Mama (me), Mom (we think is Laura), she waves hello, says "buh-buh" and waves good-bye, claps her hands & has even started to dance and/or bounce!! She is crawling like a pro now and will trample over anything that gets in her way, including people. Haha! She crawls to the couch & walks from one end to the other, she has mastered getting back down to the floor from a standing position (without falling flat on her face), kneels, and is still learning to get back down the one step in the den.

Her latest favorite activity is to crawl up the stairs in the den, attach herself to the gate we have up there, and sing, scream, talk, babble, dance, for a good long while. Sometimes I'm afraid she's going to climb straight over the gate! It is very hard to get a clip of it because as soon as we take out the camera, she becomes preoccupied with that and stops whatever cuteness she has been exuding at that moment. Here's a little snippet of it, and hopefully we'll be able to get more of it soon. (Don't judge me on my lack of Lady Gaga lyrical knowledge - I'm surprised I know the song at all!)

Kayleigh's Baptism -- Written By Bel

This past weekend Kayleigh was baptised into the United Methodist Church! Laura & I have been attending services there since May and ultimately decided that this was the church we wanted to bring Kayleigh up in. Her Godparents were my sister, Mary and our closest friend, Matt, that I have known since high school.

Kayleigh was a perfect angel throughout the church service and the baptism itself. As part of the service, the pastor walked Kayleigh throughout the congregation to introduce her to everyone, and I think everyone was happy to get to see her up close too :)

During the party afterwards, Kayleigh wasn't as happy because her top 2 teeth decided to shove their way through that day, so she was in a bit of pain :( She now has a total of 4 teeth!

Thank you to everyone who came out to celebrate with us that day. Our little angel is blessed to have so many people that love her in her life.