Busy December

Like always, things have been busy this month. What is it with holidays, I thought they were supposed to be relaxing, family fun, but it seems the complete opposite. All we do is go, go, go. First, we welcomed my brother's baby, Cam, December 3rd. He is such a little sweetheart. He was born without a left hand, but there was more to his little stub than what the doctor's had expected. Compared to his other hand, his palm is about half the size on his left when we thought it would end at the wrist. Ryah is in loooove with him. I can not believe how much she wants to help out when Cam is around. She asked me the other day when she's going to have her baby brother.

The girls and I hit up the Festival of Trees...they were great and loved the performers. Kes has a little shake on her and can't keep her legs still when music comes on, it is too cute. We took the girls to Cookies and Milk with Santa at the Treehouse Museum. Now, everytime we hit up Toddler Time Ryah asks if Santa is going to be there. They both enjoyed it. We had the Kay Family Christmas Party at WSU Bowling Alley. It was the girls first time bowling and they liked it for their first 3 turns and then wanted to play on the game machines and eat food. Lastly, we went took the girls to see the lights at Temple Square. The weather has been "awesome" for December so it wasn't too much torture being out in the cold. :)

Belated Fall Post

Wow...where has the past month gone? I can't believe Thanksgiving has come and gone and Christmas is right around the corner. I really slacked in a bunch of posts for November (and Halloween) so here is a brief re-cap.

For Halloween, we had a party at Jared's parents the night before Halloween and my parents the day of Halloween. We hit maybe 5 houses Halloween night because of the crappy weather. For a few days after Halloween, Ryah would say, that house give me candy, mom. Ry was Snow White and Kes was Minnie Mouse. Jared and I were ourselves, boring, I know. We will definitely make up for it next year. :)

My cousin Dylan left on his mission to South Africa. I was able to play the piano at his farewell and my Grandpa was asked to speak by Dylan's bishop (who is my cousin) even though my Grandpa isn't in the same ward, it was awesome...my cousin was definitely inspired. It basically turned out to be a "family" sacrament meeting, but would you expect anything else in Delta??? Haha

My cousin Christy got married the 12th ...CONGRATS!!! This one has been a long time coming and we were so happy for them. I had the privilege of being her escort, what an awesome experience it was. :) Her hubby was involved in a spelunking accident the Saturday before their wedding. A boulder fell on him and he broke his left arm extremely bad. He got out of the hospital Wednesday night, she took out her endowments Thursday, and they were married Friday. Ben was a trooper and acted as though he was in no pain. We also had a bachelorette party for her the week before her wedding. It was so fun getting together with all the cousins...we have all stayed pretty close to each other, luckily.

Lastly...my girlies, what more can I say. They are awesome!!! A year ago I don't think I would have said that about parenting. I seriously thought I needed to be in a mental institution some days, but now I would not trade it for the world. They are my favorite and we have so much fun with them. Ryah is so silly and talking like crazy. She switches from wanting to be a baby to a big girl. She wants to be a baby anytime we are at home, but when we are ready to go somewhere she wants to be a big girl because she thinks it is an out to be able to sit in the "big" girl seatbelt. She looooves to dance, be the teacher, color, play babies, etc. We sing songs and dance 24/7. Some of her favorites are Hokey Pokey, Head/Shoulders/Knees and Toes, Here's a ball for baby, I Love You, and lots more!!! She corrects me if she thinks I sing a song wrong, for instance Mary had a little lamb is Mary had a little man according to her. She also has her own rendition of I am a Child of God, it's pretty cute. She is continually asking when she gets to go to school...seriously, is staying at home with mom that bad ??? :) She is bugged her dad hasn't put Christmas lights on her house and asks him why he hasn't got out his Christmas stuff.

As for Kes, she is too cute. Her vocabulary is flourishing like crazy; however, her favorite word right now is, No...it is so annoying, but at the same time so cute. :) She loves to copy Ryah and Ryah eats it up. I can't imagine what's going to happen the day Keslee realizes it isn't as fun to do everything your sister does and/or tells you to do. That is definitely going to be a sad day in the Kay household. She has been teething like crazy the last couple weeks, poor girl. Molars on top and bottom, plus two other bottom teeth. She hasn't been the happiest camper, but that's expected. She's growing out of her chubs and is slowly gravitating toward a little toddler, it makes me so sad. :( I don't know what we would do without her little penguin waddle trampling around.

Gymnastics

Keslee started gymnastics a couple weeks ago and it is so silly. I didn't know what she would think about it at first because she is definitely more timid than Ryah. I thought gymnastics would be a little out of her "comfort" zone. The first week she stayed behind the scenes, now she is all the sudden out of her shell and is doing more than I ever thought she would.

Way to go Kes!!!

"Happiest" Place On Earth...one of them

We were able to take our first Disneyland/CA Adventure/Beach trip a few weeks ago. I wasn't sure if the girls would know much of anything since they still are so young, but Ryah has since asked if we can go to Mickey Mouse's house again on Sunday. (Sunday happens to be the only day of the week she ever talks about, so everything happens on Sunday in her world.) Ryah loved the princesses and Keslee was content as long as she had food in the stroller. Keslee was asleep when we reached the beach, but Ryah thought it was pretty fun. She loooved building sand castles with Grandpa, seeing the big waves, and chasing the birds.

Ryah always seem to run off when we were about to take a picture which is why she isn't in a lot of them...little stinker.

Our beach attire wasn't the best of choice, but it was a muggy day and we weren't going to stay. Tiff chose the best beach shoe by far :)

Thank goodness for the iPad on the way home. The piano game kept her entertained for a while until she had an accident on my lap. Yeah, one of the most uncomfortable plane rides I have ever endured. Those last 45 minutes seemed to take forever. She was miserable and I was miserable. All in all, though, we had a great time and made some great memories. :)

On a side note, congrats to my cousin Jolie who won Disneyland Ambassador for this next year!!! You will be awesome.

The Girlies

I am really enjoying the stage both my girls are in right now. I feel so blessed and honored to be their mom. Some days are still a little crazy and I wonder how I make it through the day, but in the end it all pays off. I am fortunate they get along so well and Ryah is such a good big sister to Keslee and Kes adores her big sister. Every morning when Keslee wakes up (she's turned into a sleep-in child, it is only 8ish, but that's pretty late around here) Ryah goes in and in a precious little voice says to Kes, "Hey Beautiful, did you sleep good?" It melts my heart every time I hear it. We then start breakfast, where Ryah think it is fun to touch Keslee's barstool with her feet and anyone knows that you don't touch Keslee's chair because she freaks out, so yes, the teasing does happen, but for the most part they are good 1 and 2 year olds. :)

Ryah's vocabulary has been flourishing like crazy the last couple months. She's picking up on things I didn't even think she listened to when I talk to her about them. Here are some of the things she's been saying/doing lately:

-She likes to put medicine on her "pitsarms" after her morning bath aka deodorant on her armpits.
-She tells me she is so proud of me when I wash her jammies.
-She insists on sleeping on the floor and not her bed. Every night we have to put the big blanket on the floor and make her a bed.
-Asks me every morning what we are doing today? I usually ask her what does she want to do and almost every day, without fail, she says, "I just go to Grandma Tammy's and you can just leave me." She also asks me to leave her at the park, the shopping cart store, etc. She tells me she will stay for just 2 hours, then I can come get her.
-She has some fetish with knowing what time it is. Sometimes she seriously asks every 15 minutes what time it is. I usually round to the nearest hour and say 1 o'clock, 2 o'clock, etc. The other night she asked me and I said 7:30...she looked at me and said, no 7:30 o'clock.
-She loves the moon and gets concerned why she can't see it during the day. I've tried explaining that the moon comes out at night, so that's why we can't see it during the day and she still insists it should be out. I now tell her it is hiding behind the mountain, that answer has lead to the request of lets go over the mountain to find the moon. I mean, seriously, I run out of things to say and she's only 2.
-She tells me when she likes or doesn't like my shirts, hair, etc.
-Loooooves the color pink.
-Tells me thanks for dinner, thanks for doing her hair, etc. She definitely uses her "magic" words.

As for Keslee, she is getting a little personality, too. Just watching her penguin waddle and her smile, I get all giddy inside. She is such a sweetheart and I love that she loves to cuddle because Ryah is not much of a cuddler and never has been. Numerous times throughout the day, Keslee will grab my hand, walk me to the couch and say up because she wants me to sit on the couch and hold her. It is so precious and has been great for me because I tend to go, go, go. Here are some of her funny things:

-Says up, mama, dad, nnnnnnac (aka snack and she really does accentuate the n, it's so cute), dink (drink), out (outside), bak (walk...this one has gotten frustrating because she thinks she needs to walk everywhere like Ryah. There's no more hurrying, well trying to hurry :) in and out of the store for me because her and Ry hold hands and walk like two peas in a pod), baba (blanky or bottle), bumbumbumbum (usually says this when she wants her bum changed.)
-When I ask her a question like do you want me to do your hair, or do you want your bum changed, she runs off and shakes her head no.
-Holds the babies and while feeding them their bottles makes the sucking noise with her mouth, it's so cute.
-Loves to sing If You're Happy and You Know It and Wheels on the Bus. She does all the actions.
-Loves to play the piano. She knows what button turns it on.
-Loves food...this girl is a great eater. I've been weening her off the bottle, so I am glad she eats so good, sometimes a little too good. :)
-Loves her dad. She will push my hands away if I try and take her from him which never usually occurs. She adores her dad.
-Has crazy hair which is why I gel with rock hard gel, hairspray like crazy, and use the blow dryer. You can tell from the pic below.

Thanks for being such awesome kids... :)