Back to Belly!!

Yeah!! Tonight I laid Kaylee down, on her back, on a quilt in her room so I could put away clothes. Kelsey was entertaining her and all of a sudden she rolled over to her belly! I am so excited b/c she has been rolling belly to back for a while now, and she rolls herself over in the middle of the night and wakes up. (She's a belly sleeper) I am praying now that she can roll the other way that she will be able to roll herself back and go back to sleep.

4 month old

Kaylee had her 4 month checkup on Monday. She is 12 lbs 12 oz and 24 1/2 inches long. Her weight has dropped percentage wise on the charts, but Dr. Chiong didn't seem concerned. She did really well, She got her boosters for DTap, Prevnar and HiB. She cried briefly, but I snuggled her and she found her fingers and stopped crying. I am LOVING her fingers!! She finds them in her mouth and is totally soothed :-) We have noticed this past week that she is a much happier baby now and smiles much more often. I didn't have a great picture of her by herself, so here's one of her with Gma McDonald and Kelsey.

We have a speller..

We work on letters and words at home, but I let Kelsey take the lead. If she wants to work on practicing letters, then we do...but I don't push it. So far we've worked on the letter A, B, E. Along with the help of the Leap Frog videos, she has learned about letters and their sounds and the beginning of how to put words together. We have worked on mainly 3 letter words like cat, hat, bat, pig, big, met, set, etc.

This past weekend we were at my parents house. Kelsey was playing nicely by herself with her drawing board. I walked outside to get some water and she told Gma that she had written cat, but mom didn't see. When I came in  heard her say I wrote hat, so I went to see what she had done and was blown away. She did this on her own with no prompting. I'm pretty amazed everyday at what she knows.

1st day of school..Take 2!

It was with a heavy heart hat we withdrew Kelsey from All Villages. The program was 3 days a week in the afternoon and it just didn't work for us. Kelsey still naps everyday for 1-3 hours and she was a mess after school, that along with trying to get Kaylee to nap it was a no go. So hard to leave as Ms. Kim is wonderful and you totally get the warm fuzzies around her and feel comfy leaving your child there.

Last week we tried out 2 other schools: christ Lutheran and Chesterbrook Academy. It was a tough choice on which one to go with. Chesterbrook is more $$, but she would learn soo much there, it was very enticing. In the end I decided (Lou prodded my thoughts, but told me it was my decision in the end) that she's only 3 and I do not need to be worried about academics yet. We've always worked with her at home, and will continue to do so. We may end up switching her to Chesterbrook later in he school year if we decide we want her to go there for VPK. For now she will go Tues and Thurs mornings to Christ Lutheran and her friend Gianna is there with her (Bonus).
They have to have a large backpack at this school with their name on it....Got it on clearance at Target for $5 and added her name. She loves it!

Kayla...

A few weeks ago Kelsey called Kaylee Kayla by accident. I told her that was not her name and she kept repeating it. I told her if she was going to call her KaylA, I was going to call her KelsA. She finds this VERY funny and now all the time says KaylA, KelsA, MommA, & DaddA...we're family!

Aunt Kellie Visits...

Aunt Kellie came down for Labor day weekend. She moved up to DC about a week after Kaylee was born. She couldn't believe how much Kaylee had grown, but said she's still so small. Aunt Kellie was around alot when Kelsey was little and is quite attached. It is my hope she and Kaylee will develop the same attachment even though she's many hours away.

Gift for Daddy

While Daddy was out of town, Kelsey wanted to make him a bracelet. We planned out a design using patterns. We made daddy's orange and blue bracelet and added in some wooden shape beads too. She had a lot of fun and couldn't wait for him to get home to do it.

After she gave daddy the bracelet on Sunday, he took her downstairs and they made a matching one for her to wear. I love my family!!

Rice Crispy Treats

Chelsea, our babysitter, wanted to make rice cripy treats wth Kelsey so she looked at the ingredients on the boxes when he was at the grocery store. She texted me to see if it was ok and I said sure. They use Enviro Kids chocolate crispies, regular and organic marshmallows and K's special non-dairy butter. They had fun and we all got to enjoy them after dinner.

The Potty Chart!

Even though we went through potty training a long while ago, I'd say it has been off and on since a few weeks before Kaylee arrived. We think part of it was daddy traveling and then the new baby and just recently we don't know what happened. I decided to implement a reward system potty chart after a miserably horrible Saturday morning 2 weeks ago. Kelsey earns a star (or other sticker) for each day she has absolutely NO accidents. I found the stickers & calendar chart in a 2 pack at the dollar store. The goal is to earn 7 stickers in a row and then she would get to go to the store and pick out anything she wanted. She did good for 2 days, then had an accident on day 3. The next 7 days she had "Awesome successful" days. I have noticed a total difference in her. I don't fight her to go to the bathroom (except I do still make her sit on the  potty before we get in the car), she just takes herself :-) The next treat is at 14 consecutive days. I really hope we are finishing the climb up this hill. Nighttime is another story as she is still soaked in the morning. I don't know when that's gonna stop so we can take away the "sleeping pants". Anyways, this is a positive post and I am not dwelling on the negative. I took Kelsey to Target yesterday and we went up and down the rows and she kept saying "mommy, I really want that" I kept a mental list and when we'd seen everything I retold her the items she had wanted and she said she wanted the princess. We went back to that row and I thought we were getting the single princess with a dress that was on sale :-). I was obviously wrong, b/c she kept saying "no mommy, I want THAT beauty and the beast. That one!" Pointing at the deluxe set that was almost twice the price....we did promise her ANYTHING she wanted, so I caved! She is so proud of herself and we are too!!

Writing Letters

Last weekend Kelsey asked me how to draw an A. I showed her, she tried and got frustrated. Yesterday I searched and played online and found some tracing practice sheets I could print. After nap she had fun doing the A and asked to then do letter B. We were not as successful with B because of he curved lines and she got very frustrated  and said "I can't do it!" I told her she was "doing great as she had never before tried and that's why this is called practice.) (She learned about practice last weekend when Gpa McDonald was practicing his guitar)

So cute and tiny...

.....when compared to Kelsey. I am using the Bumbo much more with Kaylee since she actually fits in it. Until she's bigger and can kick herself back, it's nice to be able to put her were I am working so I can get things done and keep her happy

Bead Time..

I've been saying for weeks that I need to buy some craft type things for Kelsey to do around the house and use her motor skills. I finally did it, yesterday I walked down the craft aisle in Walmart and went a little crazy. We bought wood beads and plastic beads, a box to store them in, string, clay, watercolors paint, wood dowels, popsicle sticks and pipe cleaners. Before lunch/nap we sorted all of the beads into the storage container. We sorted by color and by shape. Then Kelsey made a bracelet when she was done. She had fun doing it all by herself. After nap, I gave her a pipe cleaner to thread beds on as well. When she was done she had to resort the beads back into the box. This morning she got up and asked if she could do beads again!

So proud of her new bracelet she made!

Check out ALL if the beads we sorted