Teething Troubles and Fun Song

K. pretending to be happy despite teething unhappily:

She always comes over to me to look at the camera after I've taken her picture. Note: that's my big belly she's snuggled up next to in this photo.

K., with a face that describes how she's actually feeling at the moment:
Here K. is singing a song. Her tunes have started to become recognizable, though the words are often past her vocabulary (I mean, she doesn't really do sentences of more than 2-3 words--how can I expect her to sing entire phrases in a song?) So in the car on the way home, she was singing "This Old Man" and to make it easier, I suggested she just sing using the word "car." As she is whenever I pick up the camera, though, she gets distracted before she's done and comes over to see what is on the camera. Oh, well. Here is the car song:

123 to the Zoo

K. had her first trip to the zoo today with our friend B. and her son. I love animals and anticipated having a great time, and hoped K. would be similarly interested, as she's always intrigued by the ones she sees at home. Well, she was definitely not sure about the big animals we saw near the beginning--there were some monkeys that creeped her out a bit. Then we moved on to the cutest pair of brown bears who were wrestling and playing and romping. I figured "hey, she loves her stuffed bears more than anything else at the moment. I bet she'll love these!" Yeah, I was wrong. She was Not Happy about watching the bears, though eventually she unburied herself from my shoulder to take a look at them.

She softened a little when we got to the lemurs and flamingos (along with some ducks--exotic!). And we distracted her a little with a snack of goldfish crackers. But then we found something that really interested her and moved her to the edge of her seat:
"Nunnies!" "Hi, nunnies!" K. exclaimed. They wrinkled their noses at us and hopped around, and she was in her happy place. We walked by some other cute animals in the kids area, which she greeted also (and she said goodbye to the llamas when we walked away).

And we went on the carousel. I figured with the bear episode that it would be best to skip the pony rides (real ponies) and wait until she is, like, eight and requests to ride. But this was her first time on a carousel animal that went up and down. She giggled a couple of times, but it was always that laugh that might turn into a cry. It never did, and I think she had fun.

Then my camera ran out of battery juice, but we had lunch and went to the dolphin show. She had a blast! She smiled hugely and giggled and clapped through the entire show and was enthralled! After that we walked through the aquarium section and she looked at the fish and walked up to the shark tank where she almost pet a shark! Hmm...I seem to remember her aunt going through a "shark phase" in childhood. It turned out to be a most enjoyable trip!

Phonics Phun with Phriends

The following happiness has been brought to you by the letter "I."

K. had been playing the alphabet song on the refrigerator magnet, and she and her friend L. started dancing. Too cute!

And the video thereof:

Then L. was trying to teach her how to do a somersault:

And how to do a hand stand against the wall:

K's try. She actually did have both feet on the wall at one point, but my camera missed that.

Sorry about her PJs--she actually was dressed in a cute dress this morning, but is in a phase of liking to dress and undress herself, so she took it off and replaced it with something else--the only thing she can get to in her dresser. I'm proud that she picked out a matching set!

I'm also proud that, when she has friends over now, she actually sometimes interacts with them as opposed to just playing in a similar location to them.

Mall Play

I went with a friend to the mall (briefly, as there were children with us). We stopped at the play area to let the little ones run around, and K. had a great time. She's really started to be interested in running and climbing, and sat in the car (the red one in the background) and pretended to drive. She climbed up on this pig all by herself, which reminds me of a cute story that I need to add to this blog...So her friend S. was over (he's 8 months old) and K. was playing sweetly with him. At one point, she grabbed his cute baby toes and said "wee, wee wee!" Awww--and a reminder to me again that she really picks up on everything that we do!

The Many Faces of K.

K. was watching TV the other day ("T.T!") and completely lounging in the chair. I didn't want her to loaf too much, so we started fooling around.
The goal, of course, was to get a really cute picture of her--smiling.

This is as close as we came:

But the outtakes are pretty cute, too.

Cuteness Potential

This had the potential to be a really cute post with pictures of K. and her friend L. sitting at the kitchen island waiting patiently for a banana snack. Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, the cute photo never quite made it.
So we have these instead.

Cute kids, though!

Feeling Crafty Crafty

I found the cutest fabric (in corduroy, my favorite!) that just begged to be made into a dress for K. I finished the dress yesterday. The pattern I could find in the silhouette I wanted was short sleeved, so she'll wear it over a top with sleeves. Maybe a brown top, but perhaps this one. So she's a bit obsessed with bananas at the moment ("nanny!").
And I might make it a tad shorter, but she's a growing girl and I want her to wear it this fall and winter, so she'll deal with the current length.

And I made one for her sister, too:

Skills Practice

K. is in a phase where she repeats things over and over. It's her way of learning. Here she is changing baby's diaper (actually, this is "doll"--she distinguishes between her two dolls without hair and the one with).

Our friends passed along some dress up clothes and a pretend makeup kit, which K. loves! She has been using the hairdryer non-stop. She turns it on, dries doll's hair, then turns it off and combs it. She has spent some time "drying" her own hair, and Dad was lucky enough that K. dried his as well.
"See, look how pretty you look now that I'm done with you!"

I thought it was really cute when K. held this mirror up so she--and doll--could see themselves in the mirror.

Leggo my Legos

The other day K. was playing with her legos (thanks, K. Senior!) and she made a huge tower of all of the similar blocks. I'm pretty proud of her!

On the Porch

After church, K. took some time to enjoy the porch of her new house. "Well, it's time to go in for lunch. I hope you've enjoied our little time outside."

Moving

So we've moved into our new house! K. is doing great--I think she's young enough that the move didn't seem to effect her too much. She's spent some time at friends' houses while Mom and Dad moved boxes.

K. has been really helping Mom and Dad with the move, and even has her own tools to use.

And she's also had a good time showing the dogs around their new place. And the dogs both sat so patiently while K. tried to clip the leash onto their collars. She doesn't quite have the clasp down yet, but liked to pretend. When it wasn't successful, she just grabbed their collars and lead them around. The dogs are saints and so kind and patient with her.

Friendly Interaction

K. and I had our friends over to the new house, and S. is getting to the age where he's pretty fascinated with kids. K. had a great time 'playing' with him, and he thought that she was hillarious!

Second Birthday Bash

Since we're in the midst of moving, we didn't have a huge birthday party for K, but we did have the immediate family over for lunch and cake. K. had fun opening presents this year, and Dad was the designated "opener of toys out of their boxes." K. really seemed to enjoy her day. She didn't quite get the concept of a birthday, or that she's two now, but had a good time nonetheless.
She doesn't look too pleased in this photo, but I think it's because there's food in front of her and she is not eating it at that moment.

As the cake is moved closer, happiness ensues. And for the record, she successfully blew out her candles!

And then she took the biggest bite of cake I have ever seen--and loved it (unlike last year).

Babbling and Mowing

At times she is quiet, but sometimes K. is quite the chatterbox. Today she sat in her dad's desk chair and talked for a while before I started taping. At the end of the video, of course, she realizes I'm taping and comes over to look at the picture on the camera.

K. has really started to live vicariously through her dolls and stuffed animals. Sure, it's called something else and is an important stage of development, but that's the best way I can describe it. She will use her dolls' hands to point at things in books, and today I caught her teaching Bear about outdoor work:

Future Golfer?

Perhaps golf is in K's future. I do think the requisite preppy style of dressing would suit her well. Hopefully she has inherited her dad's eye-hand coordination.

And why is she always so serious?!

Here she is reading at our friend S's house. The real reason for this photo, though, is to show her adorable French braid pigtails, courtesy of my friend. I hope to master this skill sometime, but for now I'll leave it up to the pros.

Awwwww...cute!
Sorry about this picture being out of focus. It's still cute!