Let the festivities begin

After a trip to Dickinson today for Kynlie's speech, we came home to take in the festivities our community puts on to start the holiday season.

We went to the fire hall and saw Santa, Kynlie didn't want anything to do with him and Locklyn didn't mind him. Kynlie did warm up to him a little bit and told him "I want a meow and sissy wants a Dora"  Santa replied with "cool!" Really, cool?

More than excited to see Santa!

 From the fire hall we went and had some chili, then walked over to the sis-in-law's coffee shoppe and had a coffee and waited for the parade of lights to begin. Neil's business had 3 awesome floats in the parade. I only got decent pictures of two of the floats but the other one was a live manger. This was by far the best parade of lights I have seen in Baker, more businesses than ever put together great floats and handed out TONS of candy and goodies.

Santa's sleigh with real santa!

 After the parade we came home and put on our Santa jammies, only to be surprised by a knock on the door by none other than Santa! Once again, Locklyn didn't mind him and when I went over to pick Kynlie up, she was shaking and wrapped her legs around me so tight that there was going to be no peeling her off me. She did tell him once again that "She wants a kitty cat and sissy wants Dora." Hopefully Santa knows we don't like animals that shed in our house:) She then told Santa that she loves him and may have accidentally said "I love you grandpa- or Santa" I don't think she knew who it was but just said Grandpa out of habit.

 Of course, after Santa left Kynlie was looking out the door for him, and walking around the house saying "HOHOHO, Merry Christmas!"

Looking for Santa

This Christmas is going to be so fun, we are doing some fun activities all month that will be fun traditions to keep going with our kids. We wrapped all of our Christmas books and Kynlie gets to open one a  day, then we get to read the Christmas books. Our elf on the shelf Buddy returned after Thanksgiving and has been causing mischief around our house since then. He has ate some of Kynlie's potty candy, drew on all our pictures with dry erase marker, made a snow angel out of sugar, ate Kynlie's cupcake ornament on her tree in her room and sat around a lot of other silly places in our house.

Thankful

We have so much to be thankful for. We hosted Thanksgiving at our house with my parents, grandparents and some aunts, uncles and cousins. We ate WAY too much food and I think a good time was had by all. Kynlie wanted to stay the night with grandma and poppy so as soon as Locklyn went down for the night, we pulled out all our Christmas decorations and got started decorating.

Helping get ready for Christmas

 The girls each have a small tree in their rooms which they love and have enjoyed looking at all the pretties. Our elf on the shelf Buddy came back this year and Kynlie is really enjoying looking for him every morning and seeing what kind of mischief he caused the night before.

Snuggling while watching Mickey Mouse

 Kynlie is now completely potty trained (finally). She had a couple days where she decided she didn't need to go in the potty, but we took away her Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on my phone and Neil's iPad and she was back to going on the potty by herself in no time!

She is also back to sleeping through the night in her own room now, we just have to keep her door shut. We had a hard time getting her back on track after we came back from Kansas the end of October.

Happy 11 month old girl

 Locklyn is 11 months old today. She is still the happiest baby, although she does throw some good temper tantrums when things get taken away from her. She's got 8 teeth and I am pretty sure some molars coming in. She sleeps through the night, cruises around furniture, pushes her walking stroller and is into everything! She's the sweetest cuddliest baby I have ever been around

Future musician?

 We have alot planned this holiday season, it will be as busy as ever but it should also be SO fun. Hopefully I will be good about posting about our happenings, but we will see!!

JJ the Wonder Pony

It is with great pleasure we introduce the newest member of our family- JJ the Wonder Pony. Cute as a button and friendly as can be, he has already won over Kynlie.

We purchased JJ from a local family a couple days ago and so far we LOVE him!
Kynlie asked again today if she could go ride her pony JJ

Locklyn likes him too

Grandma and Locklyn checking out the chickens
We are glad that grandma and poppy let all of our animals stay at their house!

MT to KS to MT to ND

 The last full week of October Kynlie, Locklyn and I flew down to Kansas City, KS to spend the week with my sister and her family while Neil was elk hunting. The flight down went pretty smooth and both girls were excellent travelers.

 We had a great time down there, we went to the aquarium and did a little shopping in KC, but spent most of our time there at Ft. Leavenworth, where Ken is stationed. It is a beautiful little post and the weather was gorgeous so we spent a lot of time outside playing at their great parks.

 Kynlie and Locklyn had a great time playing with their cousins. Locklyn started pulling herself up on everything and mastered coming down stairs. Kynlie's speech drastically improved and she can say anything pretty accurately now. Matthew and Lincoln LOVE their baby Locklyn and couldn't walk by her without hugging and kissing on their baby girl.

We flew back to MT on Friday the 26th, the flight home was not so fun. The flights went smoothly but the crabby children were not fun. The fasten seat belt sign was on the whole flight between KC and Denver and Kynlie was not impressed with that. Then she didn't want to put her shoes on to get off the plane and she made sure the whole plane knew she was not happy. We made it back to Billings safely, all pretty crabby and were greeted at the airport by Neil who stayed there after his successful elk hunt to pick us up. We were a little disappointed that we weren't greeted at the airport by most of our family and a pow wow like the native soldier coming back from war got, but we quickly got over it.

We stayed Friday night in Billings and a friend and I ran a 5k race we had been training for. It was Color Me Rad, we started out with clean white shirts and were blasted with different colors through the course. It was a ton of fun and definitely a memorable first race

 We showered after the race and headed back for home. We spent the rest of the weekend unpacking, doing laundry and trying to relax.

We did a little trick-or-treating on Halloween. Kynlie did not like Neil's mask but didn't mind any of the other costumes. Locklyn didn't even mind Neil's scary gorilla mask.

Thursday morning the girls and I got up early and drove through the fog to Dickinson for Kynlie's speech appointment and my PT appointment. They reevaluated Kynlie's speech levels and for expressive speech she scored 85%, which is at the low end of normal. Her pathologist said she could have possibly scored higher but answered "Meow" to a lot of the questions she may have known. Of course, Kynlie was a cat for halloween and had on a hello Kitty shirt at speech. She did however do excellent in the receptive speech area. Where they stopped testing because they ran out of time, Kynlie was at a 4/4.5 age level of what she comprehends. Valerie said she would miss a question or two then get a couple right and she said in order for them to stop the test and get a score, she has to miss 5 in a row.

From Dickinson, we went on to Bismarck to see Dr. Ocejo for Kynlie's 3 year appt. She weighed 28 lb 8 oz and was 38 3/4" long. Her weight is in the 20% and her length is in the 90%.  He said she is pretty much perfect!

October

October has been as busy as ever for us. We had Neil and Kynlie's birthday parties on the 9th. I can't believe Kynlie is 3.  I also can't believe that 3 is worse than 2 but so far it has been. Kynlie does what she wants on her own time and listens to no one. I don't know what to do with the little stinker. I do have to remember that her stubborn ways have a lot to do why she is with us today!

Neil blowing out his 33 candles

 She is talking like crazy. Repeating everything anyone says and everything is pretty accurate. Potty training is not going so hot but we will get there. Kynlie has a love/hate relationship with Locklyn. She loves her a lot but hates if Locklyn thinks about playing with a toy. She loves Dora, Minnie Mouse, barbies, babies, dirt and rocks. I started her in the Recreation Department's classes this fall so she just finished up with exploring sports. They played football, soccer and basketball. She had fun but her attention span wasn't the greatest. They start tumbling when we get back from Kansas.

Kynlie blowing out her 3 candles

 Kynlie and Neil both got super spoiled at their party, Kynlie wanted a Dora party so that's what they got!

Kynlie and Pyper enjoying Dora cupcakes

Trying to get a pic of the birthday buddies but Kynlie is smiling pretty

Then Neil smiled pretty

Every girl needs a pink Jeep

She loves her Dora piniata

Hitting the piniata

Neil taking his turn

 Today we made some Halloween cookies. Kynlie had her own roller and dough to do whatever she pleased with so the majority of our cookies are safe to eat! She was eating the dough right off her roller.

Kynlie eating her cookie dough

And rolling it out

 We carved out 3 huge pumpkins today too, the girls both had a lot of fun doing it.

Carving pumpkins

Locklyn is still a sweet and happy baby. She's got crawling up the stairs mastered but going down is a little rough. She pulls herself up on quite a few things but doesn't have much interest in walking. She will mimic quite a few sounds and has recently learned to do "So big" wave bye bye, and clap for patty cake.

Cutest baby jack-o-lantern ever

Such a happy baby

Locklyn and Kynlie doing "So big!"

Headed for the stairs in a hurry

Crazy

Things have been crazy around here lately.

 

 I started working a day a week at my sis-in-law's coffee and gift shoppe. Kynlie goes to a small in-home daycare with a couple kids that are close to her age, Locklyn goes to work with me:)

 

Our recreation department has some amazing exercise classes that I have started attending and am loving. My grandma comes to the house a couple mornings a week to stay with the girls and I have an awesomely sweet high schooler lined up to come over a couple evenings a week to stay with the girls until Neil can get home from work.

 

We have had a couple playdates and are hoping for a few more. They are SO great for Kynlie's speech, just her hearing other kids talking does wonders for her.

 

Kynlie started going to the recreation department's Exploring Sports class last Friday. They played football type games, with a little game of flag football at the end of the class. Kynlie stood there and watched all the other kids stretching and wasn't quite sure what to do. I am hoping she will come out of her shell a little at the classes and join in with the rest of the kids without mom having to tell her exactly what to do!

 

We are still going to Dickinson for speech therapy once a week. It is still working wonders, we are really just trying to get Kynlie to say her words more accurately now. Kynlie's favorite phrase now is "I Kinney, YaYa (Locklyn) just a little baby" She is pretty much speaking in sentences now and is spouting out quite a few new words and phrases daily.

 

She is breaking my heart with how big and independent she is getting. She's pretty self sufficient anymore. Potty training is going pretty good. She still won't tell us every time she has to go but she's getting better. She is sleeping in her big girl bed exclusively so that was another big fight we finally won.

 

Locklyn is absolutely the sweetest and happiest baby ever. If she's crying it's because Kynlie took something away from her or something is really wrong with her! She is crawling all over the place, up stairs, pulling herself up on smaller objects. She is obsessed with dog food, paper, phones and my cell phone. She will play and keep herself entertained for quite long periods of time, which is SO nice. She loves her sister and puppy and they always bring a smile to her face. 

 

Neil is still busy as ever. Last weekend was spent putting new siding on our rental house. He can't sit still. There is still a weekend or two of work left. He is in HEAVEN because football season has started ( I HATE FOOTBALL!) I can pretty much guarantee he will be home Monday nights though! He is excited for the hunting seasons to open and has a hunting trip or two planned for this fall. The girls and I are flying to Kansas to see my sister and her family when Neil goes elk hunting so we are looking forward to that. I'm a little anxious about flying by myself with both the girls but we will make it!

Labor Day

Our Labor Day weekend was a great weekend. We went camping at Fort Peck lake with Neil's brother, sister-in-law and their girls.

 

My always happy baby

 Locklyn turned 8 months old. At 8 months, she weighs 20 lbs, is wearing size 12 month clothes, size 4 diapers, is crawling, has 6 teeth, sleeps all night, is the happiest baby ever!

Kynlie has to dress herself now

 Kynlie is getting more independent by the day. Her speech continues to improve daily, although only I can understand a lot of what she is saying. She is sleeping in her big girl bed (finally), we are still working on potty training, she gets herself dressed and undressed and likes to pick out her own clothes. She loves babies, barbies, Minnie Mouse and Dora. She picked out Dora for her birthday party in a month (I am looking forward to taking a swing at the piniata, I can't stand Dora)!

 Kynlie was in heaven at the lake. The girl loves the water and LOVES the sand. She spent a lot of time in her giant sandbox!

 She had fun watching her bigger cousins on the hot dog and the tube. She did ride the hot dot with mom and uncle Bruce and as the bigger girls were saying to slow down, Kynlie was screaming to go faster!

"Someday that will be me!"

 Locklyn spent most of her time on the boat sleeping. There is something about the motion of the water that makes that girl pass out!

Shelby, Kynlie and Uncle Bruce

 Shelby had her birthday party there and we camped by some nice people from Miles City that had a couple girls close to the nieces' age so they came over for the party too.

Trying it out by herself

 We boated, ate, relaxed, played cards, went to check out the damn, went to a flea market, napped, got the flu:( and had a blast.

Shelby, Kynlie, Madison, Neil and Kacee on the big tube

 Kynlie absolutely loves her cousins and seems to get all their attention.

Playing in the girls' "hot tub"

She heard mud is good for the skin!

Making sissy giggle

Daddy and Uncle Bruce buried Kynlie in the sand

Then she had to take a bath in the lake

Everyone was wore out

No one made it through the movie