9 and 10 months

How can 9 months already have gone by?!? People have always said that time goes by so fast and it does!

Your nine month check up was on April 26th. It was a Daddy/daughter date to the doctor and they both survived the shot too!
You weighed 14.75lbs and were 26.5 inches tall, which puts you in the .72 percentile for weight and 6.57 percentile for height. Little skinny Minnie must get her twiggy-ness from her Dad. The doctor said she is growing good!

We are still rocking the size 2 diapers and six month clothing.

You do not show much interest in learning to crawl. When put on your belly, you get mad and rollover to your back. Then you look to someone for help to sit up. You like to sit up! I feel like you could do it for days. You also love to stand up though! You haven't quite discovered pulling up on things other than our hands but I don't feel like that is too far behind. You have a little walker that we stand you at to practice that I feel like you are going to take off on soon too!

Well, since I have dropped the ball on posting the 9 month update... we will just move on to 10 months!

You love to be behind your walker! Now if we can just teach you how to turn it around when you get to the tile. You are a pro at standing yourself up at it. It is amazing how you know if you are too close to it and need to scoot it forward or too far away to reach the handle. You have really started enjoying the noises it makes too. You like to reach around to press the little sun as you walk behind it. You love, I mean l.o.v.e!, to open and close the barn door. "Let's play hide and seek." And before it can finish saying that you have already slammed it back shut.

We still don't have a crawler. You scoot your self around so much that Tobie is constantly relocating to avoid the loving tugs in her hair. After a few moves, she will forfeit and go to the 'lake house' and hide under the bed. Tobie has also not take our "watch out Tobie! She'll run you over." warnings before getting goosed with the walker.

Food wise, we are very adventurous. Well adventurous in what is in our menu. You have had mashed potatoes, pancake, various flavors of yogurt, bites of Hamburger Helper, cheese, bread, tortilla and queso at Ted's, chicken, broccoli, corn, banana, and more. If we eat you, you will try it. You are down to a bottle in the morning and one at night. You love to drink water out of your cup. You always sign milk when we get it, or a bottle, out. We are slowly learning 'more' too.

You are still a champion sleeper. Occasionally, you wake up at night and cry a minute but can find your pacifier and head back to dream land. May 24th, I woke up and looked at the monitor to find you sitting up in your crib. We lowered your crib all the way to the bottom that night. You had just started figuring out how to sit yourself up and I mentioned that we needed to lower it before you figured it out. You beat us to it though!

We are officially on summer break! We spend time every day pulling the little baskets of remotes off the end table, looking through the Hallmark Dreambook or Parents magazine, banging on the coffee table, walking the room and pulling up and standing at the coffee and end table. As soon as you notice I have put the remotes back, you scoot over there and pull it off again. Now that we are home all day, we tend practice, "no!" with Tobie's food dish.We also say "be gentle" A LOT. I can't imagine why your sister doesn't just love you grabbing a chuck of her fur and pulling.

One day, you stayed with a teacher friend while I went to the dentist. She said about 10 minutes after I left, you looked around and then said, "mama" before getting all weepy. I think you were easily distracted and you survived the whole ordeal, just as I survived the trip to the dentist on my own. May 26th was your first trip to the nursery during Sunday School. They said when you noticed we were gone you again said, 'mama'. And the got a little weepy. But, you lasted the whole time, you big girl. :) {I would like to note that you say mama a lot more than dada, even though Baby Ruth was working on the dada word.}

I think on a daily basis, we say, 'so, what do you want to do for Kinley's birthday?' but that is as far as we have gotten. I can't believe you are almost a one! It has been a very blessed year as your mama and I think God daily for that. You truly are the light of our lives and loved so very much!

It the little things that can make you :)

The birdbath gnome is growing some pretties. Well, one at least.

Silly kids!

While my own baby is super cute, adorable and changing nearly daily.... Her posts take me more time. I don't want to leave anything out and find that I can't just post about her on whim as easily as I can my kids at school. I also think that at the end of the year {have I mentioned there are only 10 days of school left?!?} I need a reminder, through all the busy, as to why I do like my job

I really do feel blessed about the group of kids that I have this year. I mean, they have really gone with the flow with me being gone the first fourth of the year. They are a bunch of tattlers, oh my do they tattle, but they are also very affectionate towards each other and me. One little guy tells me nearly daily as we enter the classroom that he thinks I look pretty or compliments me on my shirt. It is really sweet. Another friend tells me that she thinks I am the "best teacher ever. And I'm not just saying that!" Even another will sneak up behind me while I am sitting in the little kid chairs and just hug me.

Through all the sweet there are still some funnies!
I sent a friend to the bathroom. He was gone for quite some time so my assistant went to check on him. When she returned, she said, "he was definitely in there. (meaning he was in the stall not just using the urinal). When he came in, I asked why he was gone so long. He kind of tried to brush me off and keep walking so I grabbed his shirt, stopped him and asked again why he was gone so long {and she I say gone so long I am talking about 15 minutes}. His first answer was a mumble jumble of words so I told him to speak up. He said, "I was afraid from the toilet." Of course I question exactly what that means. Again, the answer was some what mumbled but I was able to make it out... "I thought there might be creatures in it." Ummmm, okay. The answer just really caught me and my assistant off guard. I then told him that "the next time you are afraid at the toilet to come tell me because I was worried.

The first picture of a picture was done while I was out one day for a training. My assistant documented and kept it for blogging purposes. You can thank her. :) The job was to sound out and draw a picture of a W word...

"Wolfing... You know, throwing up."

The next picture is in preparation for Truck Touch thank you cards. I asked my kids to draw a car and write "Thank you" on their picture. Sweet friend sounded out what she heard when saying it but every time I look at it I see something different...

"thank you"

Funny! Ha! Ha!

I have a little comedian in my class.

What does a jalapeño do?

Give up?

It gets jalapeño business!
{get it? all up in your business!}
Another part that made it even more funny was the presentation. As he told the punch line, he did this little shake, like he had to groove with the answer. It wasn't just a one time shake either. I had him tell the joke to at least two others and the shake was always there. :)

This was also the day that a little friend of mine said:
K: Mrs. Snow, I like your rings!
Me: Thank you.
K: Is that your family ring and those are your wedding rings?
Me: Well, this is actually my wedding rings and sure, those are my family rings.(talking about the rings I wear on my right hand)
K: Well, I like your wedding ring!
Me: Thanks. Mr. Snow did good, didn't he?
K: Uh-huh. It looks like a police officer badge!

Some other silly words I have heard....
*spilrs {pronounced spy-lers} are spiders. the job was to sound out the word for the picture
*tetop {pronounced tee-top} is a teapot
*wolfing {pronounced as you would think... wolf-ing} means to throw up. the job here was to spell a word that starts with w.

To finish off this little school post, I'll say that I HAVE A CHICK!!! There are more to come but one hatched today! My assistant was in the room and went to pick up the kids from library early so they could gather round and watch it push out of its egg! (i missed it... but how exciting for my kids!) It was also exciting because now this chick shares a birthday with a kid in class! :) Some names that were suggested for the little guy were: Cody, Brian, and Chick-e Love Diamond.

excuse the blurry picture of a picture

8 months

{I suppose I should post this since we are almost to her 9 month birthday!! AAHHHH!!!}

We don't go back to the doctor until 9 months so we have to wait one more month for a height and weight check (although the scale in the produce area at Wal-Mart says she weighs 15-16 pounds).

On Sunday, February 24, we dove back into foods... with peas. I think it is appropriate to say she didn't really care for them and we got a taste of the faces we were looking for with the other eating adventures. I assured her that she didn't have to love them, or even like them, when she got older as they are not in our family menu. However, peas were on the menu Monday night. She still made some surprised faces and would stick her tongue out with the peas on them as if she were saying 'get these off of here!' Tuesday was peas again. Every day she did a little better and finally got used to them. Did I? Ick. The smell is still terrible. It makes me cringe a little just feeding them her. We made it through a week of peas with no bumpies so we ventured on to squash again.

By the first of March, we noticed Kinley seemed to master holding her own bottle. Where is our little baby going? She is still eating every 4 hours during the day. Sometimes on the weekend she will go a little longer but 4 hours helps keep us on a schedule. During the week, food feedings take place in the evenings. On the weekend, she may get cereal in the morning and later in the day or food in the middle of the afternoon. It just varies weekend to weekend. When eating out one Sunday after church, I tested Kinley on sucking out of a straw. I held some water in it with my finger to see how she would do and she used it like a pro.

Saturday, March 8th, we ventured to Stillwater for a basketball game. The first basketball game Kinley went to, we sat in the suites so it was pretty calm. It was also at the beginning of the season when they were playing non-conference games. This game was the first in the stands, where it is loud and wilder. She did really good though. After half time, we went on a little walk on the concourse and then found a chair tucked in by the stairs to sit down and rock in. After about 7 minutes, she was out. I waited a little longer and then went and stood in the doorway to test if she would sleep through the cheering. She did and continued for another 10 minutes. It was almost like she sensed the end of the games so she woke up to see the end.

Excuse the poor, picture of a picture quality. :)

My School Friends are Growing Up!

Before spring break, I was able to see how much some of my friends have grown.

Being the day before spring break, we celebrated St. Patrick's day. It was a first, but a leprechaun visited our classroom. They are messy little boogers, pulling lots of green things into a pile in the middle of the classroom, turning chairs over, making a pyramid of chairs on top of the table and leaving a leprechaun trail of green glitter all over the place... but left each kid a piece of gold in their crayon pouch. {all of which I did not have to pick up or even ask friends to help clean up. they just started on their own!}

At one point, a friend thought the leprechaun forgot him, which I am positive he didn't. S was telling me this when another friend went over to help him check his crayon pouch. I had also been over to check and definitely didn't see one in there but I let them continue looking saying,"it must be there. He wouldn't leave someone out." {While also going to grab another piece to sneak in there sometime}. When S kind of gave up hope, K looked at him and said, "Here you can have mine. I don't need it." Of course now I need to sneak the piece into her pouch as if the leprechaun knew of her nice deed. So I did.

She turned back to her seat and kept working one her paper. Then, the moment came when she reached into her pouch searching for a crayon. She fumbled around and then it caught her eye (mind you this was merely minutes later) and she looked up with a puzzled look and said, "Mrs. Snow! Guys! A piece of gold!" Some of the kids looked at her like 'duh. We all got a piece.' So I said, "what? You just gave that to S. did he give it back?" She looked at him and tried to ask if this was the piece she just gave him but when she did she saw him still holding the piece of gold and turned in shock to me again. She turned and looked at me again. 

A couple of the kids around her said, "Huh. Why did she get two pieces??" I explained that I had just seen her give her piece away so she didn't have two. We just chalked it up to the leprechaun knowing how selfless she was.

After we returned from spring break, I told her mom of her kind actions and she was very proud of her. She also told me their family made a trap to try and catch the leprechaun but they were unsuccessful. It is so nice to see how much my little school friends are growing up.

Happy Easter

From our little bunnies!