Buried

Where’s Myla?







Oh, there she is! And Kinsley too! Of course, Myla had a big hand in the pillow fortress since Kinsley mostly just sits there, unless she gets gutsy and throws a toy behind her and then tries to retrieve it but ends up on her tummy or her back and that’s no good. She seems more interested in trying to stand by herself than crawling. She can almost get up right if her legs push and her arms pull in unison.   Sometimes she gets really ambitious and spreads her legs really wide to get a toy that’s just that a touch too far away.  She’ll conquer that.

I don’t think there is anything Myla can’t do. She loves to help with everything which requires a lot of creative thinking on our part to include her as much as we can. She helped me take the back panel off an old LCD TV I’m fixing even though her job was mostly pretending to take out the machine bolts and then put them back in….She has an amazing imagination. I love hanging out with my girls during the week for a couple days! We go to the pet store, a.k.a mini-zoo, and the play park and other stores sometimes. But we also play at home.  Myla helped me plant an acorn in a pot so we can grow a tree someday, if it takes.

Kinsley and Myla giggle and talk together everywhere we are. It’s so sweet, they seem to love each other a lot.

My New Favorite Halloween Decoration

Glenwood Springs

Last weekend, we took a couple of days off and took the girls on a little family vacation to Glenwood Springs.

Myla didn’t really understand what was going on until we got there, she just knew that we were in the car for a long time.  Of course, duck had to come with us.  Kinsley… well, lets just say Kinsley didn’t notice.

First stop when we got there – the swimming park.  Inside the hotel.  There was a big and small waterslide, a rain tree and a water basketball hoop.  Myla was in heaven.  We went swimming all three days.  On the last day, she went down the big waterslide with her daddy and loved it so much, they did it again, and again, and again, and…

Kinsley got in on the waterslide action too but had a better time just sitting and watching and babysitting the duck while Myla swam.  She kicked some and we swam around the pool for a bit chasing Johnny.

The next day we went up the gondola to Iron Mountain and visited the sights.  Myla and Johnny went on the alpine slide and even went pretty fast, I’m told.

Kinsley and I made record time in the human maze – 8 minutes! – and we had lunch with an amazing view of the valley.

We did a little hike that afternoon up to Doc Holliday’s grave marker.  Myla did a good job keeping our pockets full of “secret buried treasure” on the way up. 

We had a really great time, but the girls were glad to be back in their own beds.  We made lots of great memories and enjoyed being able to just play.  Thanks Glenwood Springs!

7 months now

Kinsley changes so much every day, its good that I’m (trying) to capture these month-iversaries.  Seven months old now and all of a sudden she has a neck.  And its very ticklish.  She does this funny breathless laugh when she’s happy, or excited – especially if it’s a bottle headed toward that eternally hungry mouth.  She loves to do action songs – like patty cake, or head/shoulders/knees and toes, or the itsty bitsy spider.  Her favorite thing is still to watch Myla and I think that sometimes she tries to get her attention in the car so that she can see her.  Just in the past few days, she’s started to lunge off to the side, another hint that she’s going to be off and running, okay, crawling soon.

Myla and I went to see a children’s production of Alice in Wonderland on Saturday.  There were a few parts right in the middle when she said she wanted to leave, but I’m glad we didn’t, because when we left, she thought it was so great, “mommy, I loved seeing Alice with you.”  Ahh, it could melt the hardest heart.  Today, she was the white rabbit, running around the house saying, I’m late, I’m late!  But tonight, we were pirates matey, sailing on the seventies (seven seas) and looking for treasure.  The rest of the time, she spends jumping and stomping so she can become taller in time for Halloween.

Oh how these two melt our hearts!

Ambition

The weather can’t decide what its doing – 80, 60, 80, 60 – but we don’t mind.  It gives us a chance to explore and learn new things.  Who has more ambition - Johnny to try and teach Myla checkers, or her to want to learn?  Myla’s little sponge has grown since she started school, even though she takes a while to tell us what she learned.  They have been focusing on shapes and colors this month and she’s had a lot of fun going.  She’s also wasted no time in getting a cold which forced her to miss a day or two, but she’s loving it.  She’s also been going to gymnastics every week and today she was so excited to tell me what she did, I couldn’t believe it.  I think the whole month has made her grow so much.

Kinsley has been using her own ambition in lunging forward after a toy or a Myla or a kitty.  Still not rolling over, and she can’t quite figure out how she got on her tummy once she gets what she wants.  This little action makes me think she’s not going to bother with the whole rolling thing – let’s get straight to crawling!  She’s not yet, but will in no time I’m afraid.  She too caught Myla’s cold but she’s been doing better a little every day.  No teeth, but she’s not letting that stop her – the basic baby food, or a little bit of biscuit, or cheese, or puffs.  She watches the spoon go to our mouths and sometimes smacks her lips.  She’s ready!

We celebrated Johnny’s birthday this week with some cherry cheesecake and time with his girls.  They think he’s pretty awesome – and he’s a little smitten too!

A Ducky Day

Anyone who knows Myla – even maybe in passing – knows that she is a lover of ducks.  I’m not sure how she became such a collector, but she has ducks of every kind and sometimes they like to come with us as we travel.  So when my sister told me that  there is a rubber duck race in Breckenridge, it was a no brainer – Myla had to see it.  The treck up the mountain took a little longer than expected due to traffic (holiday weekend, who knew?) but once we got there, she was in duck heaven.

We met my parents and watched a smaller race first.  They threw out some ducks of which Myla got three new ones – they came to dinner with us – and then we moved a little up river.  When the big race (like 5,000 ducks) got to where we were, she could not believe how many ducks there were.  “A waterfall of ducks!”  “So many ducks, I don’t know how they will catch them all!”  “There were five ducks mommy!”  She even got in on the action to throw some of them back into the main stream after they got stuck.  She played in the water and with ducks and was soaked and happy. 

Preemie Reunion 2011

Last Saturday was the annual preemie reunion at the hospital.  They had a cowboy and cowgirl theme this year with face painting and games and a stick horse race.  Myla won – what else – the duck you see in the picture by catching ducks in the pond.  She had a good time I think.  There weren’t as many of the nurses there as we have seen in the past, but the few that we did see thought she looked beautiful in her blue jean dress and asked if she was having fun being a big sister.  She was mostly shy, but gave her little smiles that let them know she was good.  Unless you asked about the ice cream face paint she got – now that was a big deal.

Kinsley has moved on from just milk and cereal to scarfing down vegetables.  She didn’t flinch when she first tried green beans or make the slightest face with peas like Myla did.  Some of the time, she gets very upset when she eats it all gone, like she wants more.  Tonight, she worked on the whole hand-eye thing with some cheerios from her tray.  Most of them got fed to the dog, but there were a few that made it into her mouth.

We are excited for the long weekend ahead.  Its always nice when I get to turn off my alarm and get up at 6:30 instead of 5:00.  Man, I remember when I used to be able to go till 8:00.  Maybe I’ll ask for that for my birthday…