A Plaid-tastic Day

Thanks, Aunt J., for the girls' darling matching plaid outfits! We'll try for another cute photo the next time they wear them, but here's the first attempt:K's friend L. was over yesterday, and it is really fun to watch them play together. He's used to playing with other kids, and is a year older than K, but for K. this is all new. She's just now starting to be interested in actually playing with kids, not just playing near them. They played together with cars and blocks, danced in the music room, and ran laps around the kitchen island.
And I've been poor in taking pictures of N. with her visitors, so here are a couple pictures that I actually did remember to take:
Sorry N. looks so grumpy in photos. Hopefully she'll start her "social smile" in the next couple of weeks.

And I couldn't resist attempting this next photo. Without knowing the dress code for the day, S. wore a red shirt and brown pants to match the girls.

Cookin' Up Trouble

I had K. help me with some baking last night. We made homemade muffins. Well, the muffins themselves are homemade, but not exactly by me--my mom made some homemade mixes that K. and I just needed to add the wet ingredients to. K. was surprised when she helped me break the egg, but she was good at whisking and mixing."I think this egg is the right consistency. We can add the other ingredients now."
"Just mixing. Pretty proud of myself that I figured out to hold the handle of the bowl for better leverage."

"One muffin cup...two muffin cups...three..."

Now K. just has to get to the point where she can cook without my supervision, and I'm turning over dinner duty to her!

Camera Shy

And not to neglect the beautiful K, here are some pictures of her. There aren't nearly as many as of N., which at the moment is because K. runs away whenever I pull the camera out. I think she's old enough to smile on command, but has no interest and says "no" when I ask to take her picture. These candids are the best I could do:

The Many Faces of N

"Get me out of here. There's a crazy guy behind me."

"Are you my mother? You don't look like her."

"You want a piece of this?"

Introducing the Little N!

We welcomed Little N. into our family on November 2, 2009. She is simply wonderful and has been such a joy to us. Her big sister, K, seems to be adjusting fine and really loves her little sister. K. is so gentle with her and holds her often, though only for moments at a time.

"Oh, she's so sweet!"

"And I'm done now. You can take her back."

So I'm way behind on blogging and rather than uploading a month worth of cute photos here, which would take me forever, I've created a web album. You can view it by clicking here.

Catching up on cute and smart things that K. has done in the past month:

• While picking up her toys in the living room, rather than bring the toys to the basket K. realized it was faster to move the basket around to where the toys are.
• She lines up cars, toys, and people.
• She asked Dad to put a diaper on one of her baby dolls. He put the diaper on backwards. She realized it was wrong, and promptly turned the baby's head 180 degrees so it was facing the correct way.
• Before N. was born, K. took a lot of trips to the OB with me. We were playing together in her room and she asked me to lay down. She pretended to measure my belly, then used a plastic toy to listen for the heartbeat. When she was done, she wiped the pretend goo off of my belly and even extended her hand to help me up!
• Today she was playing with her Little People. She set several of them up in a circle on a table, sang "all fall down," and knocked them over. I guess she likes playing "Ring Around the Rosie" more than I knew!

Fly Away Home

K. went Trick-or-Treating again this year, and walked around the neighborhood with Mom. Her favorite thing was carrying around her bucket, and she politely said "thank you" (when prompted) after people gave her candy.

When she first put her costume on, she crawled around saying "bzzzz, bzzzz" for a while. Dad helped her fly, which was so much fun that every time he put her down she said "more?"

Here she is with Mom's big ol' belly (39 weeks today). And going through her loot to show Dad what all she aquired. We actually let her eat a piece of candy (so I'm a little bit strict with her sugar consumption and she doesn't typically get much, if any).

She didn't really ever smile while we were out trick-or-treating, but she didn't seem to have a bad time, either. I think next year she'll be more into it.

"Seriously? Has no one realized how silly people look dressed up?"

Miscellaneous Cuteness

I realized I'm a little behind on posting, so here's a barrage of recent K. photos.

At the park today--it was a beautiful fall day!

And other random cute days:

At the church bonfire this past weekend:

Artist in Residence

K. likes to color, but has developed a particular fondness to painting. Being the non-mess-accepting mother that I am, I don't actually own any paint for her yet. I did find some paint-with-water books, though, that are a good compromise for us. She loves them, and often asks to paint. The other day, though, she didn't want to wait. She moved the chair from Dad's desk over to her table, tore a page out of her painting book, picked up her brush, then called to me to ask for the cup of water!
"Mama, water please!"

Steps to Reading

K. apparently has a new favorite place to read: While I wouldn't normally encourage any type of activity on the stairs (except for walking up or down them), how can you tell a child not to read?
Especially when she's so cute!

She Knows How to Pick 'Em

K. got to pick her own pumpkin this year at the orchard! Last year, she just picked (ahem...chose) from the pre-picked pumpkins. This year, we actually took her into the patch and let her select and pick her own pumpkin. She really liked walking through the dirt and finding the right pumpkin, and her near-obsession with pumpkins confirms my suspicions that her favorite color at the moment might be orange. She picked hers (with a little help from Dad).
And then she pulled it in the wagon. She pulled by herself for a long time while Mom and Dad looked for the perfect pumpkins for themselves.
Once Dad put his pumpkin in, though, K. just went along for the ride.

But what a fun ride it was!

Then she helped pick the pumpkin for her little sister. Sister will miss Halloween, unless she comes early, but she is scheduled to make an appearance two days later. We got her a pumpkin anyway so she's "represented" on the front porch with the rest of us.

Then we rode back to pay for our selections. K continued to clutch the little pumpkins until we removed them from her grip, and even then she insisted on holding one for the trip home.

Orchard Play

At the orchard, we attempted to have a cute photo op. It was a pretty windy day, and it shows in the photo. We're a little windblown (and I'm a lot pregnant--hubby's jacket is in its last day or two of zipping on me). Oh, well.

In the play area, K. had fun sliding down the hay. She was a bit funny about touching it, though. She's more cautious then she was during last year's trip, but I think the wind made her less happy. She was also more afraid of the llama and goats than last year.
The thing she most wanted to do, though, was to climb up in this tractor. We were over by the hay, trying to encourage her to climb, and she turned around and made a beeline for the tractor (her great-grandpa will be so proud)! She played in it a lot the last time we were here, which was nearly a year ago.

Chop Chop

After two years and a couple of months, I decided it was time for K's "first haircut." Since her hair is curly, I didn't feel compelled to try to do anything particularly short or involved, just to try to even up the ends a little bit. My friend S, who is my go-to person for all things curly, came over and trimmed K's hair. K. did great--she sat politely while we combed and snipped
K. is napping now, so I'll have to take some "after" pictures later.

Smiling Rider

I think the actual reason for the grin is not just the joy of riding Neigh, but that I asked K. to go upstairs to take a nap and she ran over to her horse to ride.

Regardless, it's good to see her so happy.

But this is still what happens when I ask her to smile on command. That, or an odd, scrunched up smile with her eyes closed.