Kylee Turns SIX!

I really can't believe that this...

...has already turned into this! How time flies.

I don't feel like it was that long ago that we had this tiny little baby in our home, and now she's so grown up! We went to SEP Conferences at school yesterday, and her teacher had nothing but good to say about her. She has nearly perfect scores on everything, she's way above the first grade reading level, her math, writing and spelling are great, and she listens and follows directions really well. (On a side note - sooo glad we decided to start her in first grade!) She is also such a great sister for Skyler. She loves to play with him, help him get snacks, hold his hand, and talk and sing to him. She is super excited that when the new baby comes, she gets to share a room with him. She's already planning where she can move her dresser so his little toddler bed will fit. I love that she is so excited to have siblings. She really loves to do crafty things, dance, and play with her friends. She's gotten quite a bit more sassy lately, but I think that's part of growing up. She's learning how to have her own personality.

For her birthday, I told her she could choose between a family activity (just dad, mom, Kylee and Skyler...she gets to pick where to eat and what to do), a cousin/extended family party, OR a friend party. She thought about it for a long time, and then decided to draw her choice out of a bowl. I wrote all three choices down, and she ended up drawing cousin/extended family party. She immediately got out some paper and started writing down party plans. She decided she wanted an animal party, so we found some animal things to do. I'm not into the super-fancy parties people throw now-a-days, so it wasn't anything  big, but Kylee loved it and I thought it turned out fun.

This is the cake I made. She originally wanted a zebra cake, but I just wasn't sure about the black icing, so we went with a frog. Found a cartoon frog on google images that was kind of what I wanted, and used it to make up my own. I think it turned out okay!

This is the first year Kylee was finally brave enough to blow out the candles all by herself with no tears. Apparently she is *finally* getting over her fear of fire! Yay!

Kylee also wanted to play "Pin the Tail on the Monkey" so again I turned to my best friend - google images! Found a cartoon monkey that looked pretty decent, and drew it bigger on a poster board. Nobody's tail got on the mark, but later Kylee placed one there just so she could see what it would look like with the tail in the right place!

This sign is actually still hanging on our wall. I have a couple gazillion of these little foamie things from back in the day when non-digital scrapbooking was "in", and recently I've been letting Kylee use some because let's face it...they're just gathering dust in the closet. I decided I might as well put some to good use and make her a sign. Not fancy, but she loves in all the same.

This photo was from the night of Kylee's birthday, after the party, etc. Skyler had gone two days in a row with no nap, and the poor guy was just all partied out. We were all sitting at the table eating dinner, and he fell asleep with spoon in hand and milk in mouth. It was actually kind of funny, because someone made a noise, and he kind of woke up startled for a second, picked up some corn, stuffed it in his mouth, and promptly fell back asleep while still chewing. Poor little guy!

Christmas

 I'm not going to lie, it's kind of nice that my kids are not super early risers. Kylee woke up around 8:00 and then we went and woke up Skyler to come out. He's been wanting one of these Cozy Coupes for a LONG time, and Santa brought it for him. He pretty much didn't leave it for the rest of the day. Kylee looked in his stocking for him, and he opened the rest of his presents inside the car.

Kylee asked Santa for an i-pod touch and "little girl make-up". Santa wrote her a letter back (at school!) and let her know that he might not be able to make and i-pod touch, but he had a few other things in mind for her. She ended up getting a pink Discovery Kids laptop with a bunch of learning games on it, and a make-up set. She was thrilled!

After we were done opening presents she immediately went to put on her make-up. 

Andy thought I she teach her the art of subtlety, but I figure she's just a kid...what's the point of having it if you can't see it?!? We did have a discussion about how little girl make-up is only to be worn in our house, not at friends, not at church, not at school, etc., and she is fine with that. As long as that's the rule, I don't care how much she puts on! She wore the new sweater she got from Grandma Roxy, and did her make-up to match. I think it ended up quite nice. :) 

Kylee's Dance Recital

 This Fall one of my neighbors finished her basement into a dance studio and started teaching dance lessons. Kylee and her friends signed up to all go to the same class, so it's been fun for her. Last Saturday they had their first dance recital, and for being little kids who have only been in dance for three months...I thought it turned out really cute. After the show I noticed that she seemed to have quite a bit of red lipstick smeared around the bottom of her mouth, so I said, "Oops! Your lipstick is a little smeared. Let me see if I can wipe some off for you." She said, "Oh, yeah. Before it was our turn to dance I realized it had came off, so I had to re-do it." Yep. My bad for leaving the bag of make-up in the dressing room! At least it doesn't look too bad (these photos are before I wiped some off). She said she even had to do it without a mirror, so I think she did a pretty good job!

Here's a video I made of their dance. In case you can't tell, Kylee is the one on the far right when you're looking at the screen. I didn't really pay attention to what I was taping because I wanted to actually watch the dance in real life, so it's not the greatest video in the world. 

These are just some other random photos from recently. This week Kylee came home from school one day and informed me that the next day was "Elf Day" at her school, and they were supposed to wear Christmas colors and an Elf or Santa hat if they had one. She wanted me to make one for her, so I pulled up Google and found this. It took like 5 minutes, and she was thrilled. Later that evening she decided that Skyler must be feeling left out because he didn't have an elf hat, so she made him this one all by herself. After she finished she said, "Well, I guess it looks more like a reindeer collar, but I don't think Sky will mind, do you, mom?" I thought it was nice that she even thought of him, and she's really quite creative. She even measured his head to make sure his hat would fit before she stapled it together.

I don't really remember taking this photo, but I thought it was cute, and I rarely have photos of Andy, so here we go! Skyler is like Andy's little shadow. If he is home, Skyler is attached to him at the hip. This little guy sure loves his daddy! (Though he still doesn't really know how to SAY daddy, which is weird. Sometimes he'll say "Da!" but usually it's "Mom! Mom! Mom! Mom!" over and over and over again.)

Christmas Tree

Immediately after Thanksgiving Kylee informed me that it was time to put up our Christmas Tree. Most of her friends apparently put them up ON Thanksgiving, so we were behind the times. After Connie left on Wednesday, we did ours. Skyler thought he was so helpful. We convinced him to just hand us the glass ball ornaments, but when it came to the other things he wanted to put some on the tree. Most of his looked like this: 

He doesn't get the concept of 'hanging' them on the tree, so he would just lay them on a branch. Most of them fell off, but he just kept trying!

Here they are admiring their work when it was all finished:

Back in October I found this cute idea for homemade hand-santa ornaments, so when Connie was here Kylee, Skyler and Pax made them for their daddies. We didn't save them to give him for Christmas because they needed to be hung on the tree! I obviously did Skyler's, but Kylee painted her own and wrote her own name, etc. on it. I helped her a little bit with the black marker (she had me do the mustache and hat fuzzies), but most of it she did all by herself. Super easy, super cheap, and I think they turned out really cute!

Skyler

At first you might be wondering why there is a random photo of the entryway of our house. Well, it's because this is Skyler's new favorite place to sit. One day I couldn't find him anywhere. I walked all over calling, "Skyler! Skyler?" and nothing. Kind of freaked out, I'm not going to lie. Finally I heard a typical Skyler-like grunt coming from near the front door, and found him sitting on top of the heater vent in the corner, hidden behind his carseat! Yes, in this photo, he is actually back there...you just can't see him! A few days later he disappeared again, but this time I knew right where to find him. 

 I don't know if he likes it because the heater vent blows warm air on his bum, or what, but he takes his cup and his shoes and just sits there.

Usually Kylee and Skyler take baths together, but one night last week it was really close to bedtime and I realized Kylee needed a bath. I wanted to just hurry, so I didn't invite Skyler. Apparently he had other plans. He climbed over the side. I heard Kylee yelling for me and sure enough, he was standing in the tub. Luckily he realized his mistake and instead of sitting down, he climbed back out. After that I took off his jammies and let him get in.

With the recent snow storms we've had, Kylee has been out sledding with her friends quite a bit. The other day Skyler was really upset that he didn't get to go, so I convinced Andy to take him out for awhile if I got him all bundled up. Once he got out there he wasn't so sure about it, but I think he had fun. He's a little bit sick right now, but once he feels better we're going to try sledding. He probably doesn't remember doing it last year as a baby!