First Snow

We had the first snow of the season on Dec. 1st and even though she's seen snow before we're not sure Kayla remembers it. Watching it come down through the patio doors Kayla kept saying, "Snow, go see, snow!" So we bundled up and went out into the yard for a few minutes to investigate the snow. She was really excited about it snowing but decided she didn't like how cold and wet it was on her fingers. No gloves on this time since we only went out for five minutes. We are supposed to get 3"-5" overnight so who know's what she'll think of that!

Growing up

Kayla is growing up a little more each day. Her words are coming along all the time. Sometimes we have no idea where she even heard the words enough to know what they mean. We were at the park yesterday and they have these little tubes that you can talk into and she called them a "horn" which the end of them were belled out like a horn. She's also taken to wearing mom and dad's hats, shoes, slippers, glasses, etc. Here's a picture of her trying on dad's shoes a few days ago.

Pumkin Farm

We went to a pumpkin farm about a week ago and had alot of fun. It was very much geared towards little kids so Kayla enjoyed it all. Some of it was for kids a few years older than her but a good time was still had by all. We picked a pumpkin from their pumpkin patch and then went across the road to their apple orchard and bought some apple cider that was really good and some homeade apple doughnuts that reminded me of doughnuts from London Mills. Here's a picture of Kayla riding one of the Farmall peddle tractors they had for kids. She wasn't quite tall enough to reach the peddles so Dad had to push her around the track.

Grandparents

This past weekend Kayla got to see both sets of grandparents. Kyle's folks came up Friday night and spent most of the day Saturday with Carla and Kayla, Kyle had to work. Then on Sunday Kyle, Carla, and Kayla went to Nana and Papa's and Kyle and Carla went to a movie. Kayla wasn't thrilled to be left behind but quickly got over it. Then yesterday Kayla kept looking out the window and asking, Grandma? Grandpa? When Carla told her no, they weren't coming over she then started saying Nana, Papa, let's go! Since Carla didn't have a reason not to and Nana wasn't busy they headed out there for the day. This is a picture of Kayla from a few days ago. She looked cute in her dress but when Dad was taking the picture all she cared about was dinner and wanting some CHEESE! Right now Carla's packing as a week from today we are flying to Disney!

A New Bed

On Monday we finally got fed up with Kayla not sleeping through the night and ending up in our bed and decided to try a new bed for Kayla to see if that helped. It's not really a new bed, we just took down her crib and moved the futon from the loft to Kayla's room but it is full-sized and has an actual matress. Kayla moves around alot in her sleep so we thought we'd put her in a big person bed to see if that helped. And, worse case scenario, one of us can come lay down with her if she wakes up in the middle of the night and we don't all end up losing sleep because there's three of us in our bed. When we first showed her "Kayla's bed" she said, "no," and pointed at our bed. Not a good sign! When Grandpa and Grandma come up Kayla and sleep in our room and they will now have to sleep in Kayla's room but that's not all bad, now they can close the door and Haley won't be able to come in and bother them!

New Threads

The new raincoat we ordered for Kayla came in the other day and we tried it on to see if she liked it and if it fit. It fit her fine and she really seemed to like it. She was smiling and running around in it until I grabbed the camera then it was, "No pictures please!"

A trip to the zoo

A week ago Carla and Kayla went with Carla's family to Brookfield Zoo. I had to work so I wasn't there but a good time was had by all. Here is a picture of Kayla with her safari hat that she picked out from the zoo last year. Now, everytime we go to the zoo we have to have her safari hat with her for her to wear. Although, by the end of the trip Carla's 9 year old cousin was wearing the hat.

Patience

Here's a picture from the end of July. I was doing dishes and looked into the living room to see Kayla repeatedly putting this bowl on Haley's head. It would stay on for a few minutes then fall off again. At which point Kayla would just put it right back on. Our poor dog cetainly suffers through quite a bit for our little girl!

Getting Caught Up

Well it's been five months since we've updated the blog and I'll try to get us caught up from those past five months as we do our one month count down to Disney. Kayla's been pretty busy with swimming classes, classes/playtime with the park district, etc. Kayla turned two last month and has become quite the precocious little girl. She is talking more and learning new words all the time. With her new words she has started mimicking/mocking mom and dad too. Just this morning she threw a piece of apple on the floor and when Carla said "Hey!" Kayla shook her figure at mom and said "No, no!" like she knew she wasn't supposed to throw food on the floor and that's what mom was about to say. A few days ago Carla decided to paint Kayla's toe nails and here's the result. Kayla couldn't wait to show dad her pretty, but "stinky," feet (to Kayla everyone has stinky feet, thanks Nana and Papa) when I got home.

Ready for the 2026 Olympics

I know the Winter Olympics ended a few weeks ago but here's a pic we took of Kayla right about the time the Olympics were getting over. We decided she was getting ready for the 2026 Winter Olympics as a snowboarder or downhill skier. At first Kayla didn't seem to enjoy watching the Olympics but after a while she either warmed up to them or resigned herself to Mom and Dad watching the same thing for two weeks straight!

Trip to the Museum

I've been on vacation for the past week because Carla's birthday was Thursday and so I decided to take some time off because we had tickets to Disney on Ice on Saturday and the Super Bowl was on Sunday. By the way, way to go Saints! On Monday we went to the Museum of Science and Industry and Kayla seemed to have a good time looking at the model trains but I think she had the most fun sitting in the John Deere's. They have a farm section of the museum and you can climb up in the tractors and sit in them. There sure are alot more switches and gizmos in them than I remember way back when. Shoot, I remember just wishing for air conditioning. The combine had a computer screen and all sorts of things in it that I couldn't even guess at. A good time was had by all though and the drive downtown wasn't that bad at all.

Busy times

On January 23 I got home from work around 10pm and went to check on Kayla. She'd been sick with a cold for a few days and hadn't been sleeping very well. Her breathing was extremely labored to the point where we rushed her to the ER. We were there until early Sunday morning when Kayla and mom got an ambulance ride complete with lights and sirens to the Central DuPage Hospital where she was admitted to the Pediatric ICU. Long story short she got better and was released on that Wednesday. We also now own our very own nebulizer breathing machine. She had what they called broncillitis (spelling?) and was also diagnosed with Reactive Airway Disease (RAD) and all that combined with her cold made it so that she wasn't getting enough oxygen into her lungs. We can give her treatments with the nebulizer whenever she gets whezzy and we think she's having trouble breathing. She had the same thing back in November but less severe. I wonder if she has these problems since she was born early and her lungs never got a chance to fully develop? The doctors said she could grow out of it or she might some day have asthma (spelling again?) Anyways, after we got home we all proceeded to get sick to varying degrees and then pass it along to most of Carla's family. A parting gift from the hospital I'm betting. What fun!

Disney inDecember

We went to Disney World the week before Christmas with Carla's mom. Kayla had a great time and loved meeting all the characters. She insisted on giving each one of them a kiss and a hug and wanted Mickey to pick her up! She was scared of the princesses though. Characters are fine, real people are scary! It was a blast and seeing Disney decorated for Christmas was awesome.

Halloween

I'm trying to go back and get us all caught up from when we stopped doing this in October. Here are some pictures of Kayla in both her costumes for Halloween. One Mom picked out and the other Dad picked out. You can probably guess who picked which one. Kayla didn't really get the whole Trick or Treat thing but she loved the chocolate we gave her!

A Long Time

It's been a long time since we've posted anything on this blog I know. The holidays came and we took a trip to Disney before Christmas... It's been a busy few months. Kayla has changed so much over that time. She is more steady on her feet now although she still falls over several times a day. She is learning more words all the time. Unfortunately we still struggle with bedtime. She will fall asleep just fine in mom and dad's bed but does not sleep well through the night which means mom and dad don't sleep well either. She screams when we put her in her own crib but if she can fall asleep she'll usually sleep through the night. Speaking of her crib she actually fell out of it last week! She managed to get mostly over the railing and that was it. It scared us all half to death! Needless to say she spent the rest of the night with mom and dad and the next day we lowered her crib bottom and took out the stuffed bumper that she stood on to give her another six inches. Here's a picture of her in some new pajamas that may be past the season but still are cute. I think she looks alot like Aunt Mindy especially with Mindy's new haircut.