Compass Movie

Twice in one day. Amazing huh? :) Kaiya's taking another wonderful nap and so I have a little freedom before cleaning my bedroom takes me prisoner...

I thought I would post this link just as an FYI. I received this same link from more than one person today via e-mail. Which makes it blog-worthy.

http://snopes.com/politics/religion/compass.asp

First Beach Trip

We've lived here 2 months and finally made it to the beach! Tony had a free afternoon last Saturday and even though it was overcast we thought we should take advantage of it while we could. The waves were extremely rough and so we were soaked head to toe by the time we left. Kaiya was very nervous at first but once Tony held her in the waves she decided it was fun. She kept saying -- "More!" "More!" And when the water would hit her Tony would say, "Whoa Kaiya!!" Pretty soon she started exclaiming, "Yai-Ya!!" each time she went through a wave.






It was fun and needless to say we didn't hear much from her on the way home:

And for the record -- it took me 3 washes to get all the sand out of her hair. :)

A Mom's Day...

This is a forward that I received a few weeks ago. I wanted to post it for you - it should make you smile... at least a little bit. :)

The "poppy"

The week after we got back from Indiana, Kaiya started pretending to go potty on her little potty seat. I took the following pictures during her playtime before going to bed. She's gotten good at playing by herself lately, so when I wandered past the bathroom and found this, I had to get my camera. At first she didn't realize that I was taking pictures. After snapping a couple shots I asked her what she was doing and she said, "poppy" -- which translates to potty. :)

If you look closely you will see a little wad of toilet paper in her hand. And notice of course that she is fully clothed in her pajamas while using the poppy.

Love the expression here. Like -- get a life mom. Can't you find something better to take a picture of? Can't you see I'm on the poppy?

And of course, can't forget to wipe! :)

And now we must flush...

The day after the potty pretending, Ruthie sat her on the potty while getting her bath ready. A minute or so later Kaiya said: All Done! and stood up. Ruthie looked down and Kaiya had tinkled in the potty. We had a big party in the bathroom. It hasn't happened since then, but we go to the potty several times a day anyway just to see if she can do it again. It's probably her second favorite thing to do -- next to eating, of course. :)

And mama's favorite part is her announcing in public restrooms exactly what I am doing. :) There is no decency anymore... It's quiet in the public restroom and the minute I sit down Kaiya says loudly, "Poppy?" "Yes, Kaiya. Mama's going poppy." "Poppy!!!" Repeat at least 10 times.

Indiana Round Two

Here are a few more pictures from our trip. As usual, I didn't take enough.

This is Kaiya with Boston.

Kaiya w/ Nanny (Tony's mom)

Kaiya is very into buckles lately. Like the kind on the cart in the grocery store. She can just sit and buckle for hours. The only catch is she can't unbuckle them yet. So she'll get it buckled and then we hear: "HELP!" Which translates to: "Come as fast as you can and unbuckle this please."
The night before flying out we stayed with Austin and Kristina who live in Indianapolis. They don't have a crib, but had a crib mattress that we bumped up against the wall (w/ blue blankets). This was a new one for Kaiya. I wasn't sure how she would do b/c she is a major thrasher in her sleep. I put her down, she went to sleep and when I went to check on her before going to sleep myself, this is how I found her. In the middle of the floor between her mattress and mine! :)
Sweet little thing. I pulled her up into my bed, put a pillow on the other side of her and we made it through the rest of the night.

Indiana

We're back! Kaiya and I flew back to Florida last Friday and have been working at getting caught up on everything that piled up. Bills... Laundry... Ironing... Tivo... :)

The trip was nice and relaxing for the most part. We spent time with friends and family that we don't see often anymore. I'm gonna post these pictures in phases... so here's phase one. The rest will probably come in the next few days.

Caught Kaiya playing by herself. It's just cute to see her entertaining herself and beginning to pretend. And she would rather be naked lately than have clothes on... it's strange.

My friend Bethany and her daughter Enna came all the way from St. Louis to spend a couple days with us! It was a great way to break up our trip and so fun to visit and have the girls play together.

This is Kaiya with Uncle Brent and Aunt Bekah. Posing in front of Brent's new beast blazer truck. Kaiya is way into trucks, so she had to get a close view of it. He bought it when we were home -- Just in time for hunting season!

Just a cutie pic of Kaiya in a basket. We had a girls night with Rachel Kratzer, Jen South & Molly Ryall -- all went to high school with Tony and married Tony's friends. Anyway... Kaiya and I had yummy salads with them and hung out for a couple hours. Kaiya played with Jen's little guy Boston. Pics of that to come... in phase two. :)

Rain and trips

Yesterday after church we went out to lunch with some new friends. While eating, a huge thunderstorm rolled in. We stood outside under and awning hoping that things would lighten up. While Mama and Daddy were visiting with friends, Miss Kaiya was singing in the rain. :) She was all dressed for church in dress, socks & shoes, but she just couldn't help but run in the rain. She was twirling (which she does on a regular basis now) and having a wonderful time. Little drips were falling off the ends of her ringlets and she was soaked. The rain never did let up, so when we decided to brave the dash to the car, we first undressed her and then made a run for it. She of course decided at that moment to fill her diaper with poo and so we had a stinky drowned rat. :) I changed her in the car and then put her in the only article of clothing I had in the car. A shirt I bought at a garage sale this weekend! :) She looked so cute in it I had to get a picture before getting her into her own clothes.

Speaking of church, this is where we are going: http://myfirstorlando.com/ It's huge. Massive actually. But we love it so far.

Well, I'm off in about 30 minutes for the airport. Tony's mom is traveling overseas unexpectedly and needs me to stay at her house while she is out of town. So... Kaiya and I are making the trip. I don't know how long we are going to stay... haven't booked the return flight yet -- I'm thinking 9 days or so. Just depends when Tony's mom gets back -- I'd like to stay a few days after she returns so Kaiya can see her. Pray that I don't lose my mind being with Kaiya by myself! Or on the airplane today. :) She is very into airplanes right now, so hopefully that will save me.

Okay... what am I doing blogging?! Back to packing...

Our New Address

Here are some pictures of Kaiya taken recently. The first are from our garage sale adventures. Clearly, she is pleased with the stroller. :) She has been into babies quite a bit lately and we were at the mall and saw a mom with a toddler and the toddler was following the mom around pushing a little stroller like this one with a doll in it. I saw Kaiya's eyes get as big as saucers -- she never knew there was such a thing! :) Later that week we were at a sale and she spotted this one. We had to get it. It came as a deal with the little lawnmower -- both for $1. I've never spent 50 cents so well in my life. My carpet has little wheel marks in it from her racing all over the house with her Bear.

She really wanted to try the lemon. We warned her.... :)
Wearing Mama's hat and breaking into Daddy's tool box.
The shirt says it all. She's been wearing this hat all around the house lately. Love it with the curls...

Tony's Graduation

I'm finally getting around to posting these pictures from graduation a month ago. :) Can't believe it's been that long. It was a beautiful day and we were able to start it out great with a nice breakfast with Austin & Kristina who had driven over from Indy to celebrate with us. After breakfast we went to the school and waited for graduation to start. We had great seats and a perfect view of everything. Tony walked right past me during the processional so I was able to snap this great picture.

This is Dr. Montgomery -- he helped immensely during my pregnancy with Kaiya. I visited him regularly for adjustments from beginning to end and he was great. He is smarter than my OB.

After graduation ceremony with Maurine & Hannah

Dr. Free & Dr. Hyser

After graduation we all went over to UNO's Chicago Grill our favorite restaurant and had lunch. Here are some pictures of everyone who joined us for the lunch. After that we all had to face the music and go load the truck, finish packing and clean!

Rachel w/ Brian & Julie Katerberg (friends from church)Jackie Thies and Jake Wyllie - small group friends minus their spouses.

Tony's mom & cousin Becca

My parents

My sisters who sweetly babysat Kaiya during graduation so I wouldn't miss a thing.

Tony & his dad

Scorpion on my ARM!!!

Okay... I seriously am going nuts from these bugs. Today while sitting in the sun with Kaiya by the pool I felt a little creepy crawly on my upper arm. Look down and see a SCORPION!!! This is my second scorpion sighting in a week. I can't take it. :)

I flicked it off -- Kaiya is meanwhile yelling from the pool: BUG! BUG! BUG! and stomped it with my flip flop. Dirty little bug.

Anyway... it's gross. We have sugar ants in the kitchen that I can't get rid of. I have the most spick & span kitchen I've ever had in my life and they still keep coming. I sweep every other night, I soap out my sink and put all dishes away and still they come. So... we are bringing out the big guns this weekend. Ruthie and I are on the hunt for BUG KILLER. We think they are coming in from the garage so that is where we are going to first launch our attack. I'll let you know how it goes.

Onto the more exciting things in Florida...

Hilarious story from today. So Tony was up late watching football and up early checking his fantasy football online and was running late to work. He comes home for lunch and I notice that he is sporting kind of a different look with his hairstyle. It's all kind of spikey this way and that. So about halfway through lunch I ask -- "Are you trying something different with your hair?" He looks at me strange and then touches the top of his head. "Nope," he says. "Just put gel in this morning and forgot to comb it out." We start cracking up - Kaiya too, but only because at this point in life she is a follower. :) He gets up to go look in the mirror and he's laughing. He fixed it before going back for lunch. We decided the new look doesn't help him out in looking old enough to be a doctor. :) I wish I had gotten a picture.

Water fun pictures... Thanks Uncle Austin & Aunt Kristina for the wonderful beach kit! Kaiya loves playing with all of the buckets and shovels and wagon outside in the water. :) Ruthie bought a pool that we set up on the back patio and we've enjoyed it every day this week for a little bit in the afternoon. Can't stay out long though -- this sun tans you quick! Twenty minutes and we all have lines from our swim suits. K's getting a cute little criss cross on her back from her suit and it makes her seem so much older to me for some reason. She will tan well, I think. Anyway... here's the pics.

New Guest/Smart Girl

Tony here.....I haven't posted in a long time so I thought I would give Rachel a break and tell you a couple of stories that happened recently. Most of you know but we moved to St. Cloud, Florida for a year so I could take part in a training program. From there, we are planning to move to Charlotte. I joke with rachel that in our first 6 years of marriage we will have lived in 4 different states! On top of that, most of our kids will be born in different states! Below is the picture of our 26 ft moving truck. When you add in the cab and Ruthie's car that we were towing it was almost as long as a semi. I drove the truck with Roger and Rachel, Ruthie, Kaiya and lu-lu and moneybags all followed in rachel's car. The trip down wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. The only exception might have been when we were trying to keep costs down we had stopped at a hotel that only cost 39 dollars per night. Well the old adage "you get what you pay for" came into play. You could barely breathe b/c it was so musty, there was a big spider in the bath tub, the bathroom lights didn't work and no one was looking forward to taking their shoes off or sleeping on the beds. After about 2 seconds of deliberation we decided that this wasn't the place for us and we asked for our money back. The rest of the trip was uneventful.

Anyways, on to the stories. First: We typically think of ourselves as welcoming people. We enjoy having people over as guests to our home. As the story continues, keep in mind the key word in the previous sentence is "people". The other night we had put kaiya to bed and rachel went to take a bath while I was checking my email. After about 5 minutes I hear rachel yelling my name. With kaiya being asleep I'm high tailing it to rachel so that kaiya isn't woken up. I come into the bathroom to see rachel (from the bath) throwing a used diaper at our cat money bags. Moneybags had picked up on our welcoming demeanor and was entertaining a new guest. Below is a picture of our new guest; needless to say, I wouldn't categorize it in the "people" category.

I figured since money bags could be welcoming... so could I. From there I made the formal introductions between Mr. Scorpio and Mr. Snee Kerr and Old John Crapper as pictured below:)

Okay, I know... a little corny. It was an interesting experience to say the least. We have kept our eyes open in case their were others but thankfully our search has been uneventful!

The second story happened today. Kaiya woke up early so we decided to bring her into our bed and try and snuggle her in between us. Of course she wanted "up". Still being a little groggy, we decided to let her roam around a little while we laid in bed. She was gone no longer than 10 seconds when we hear this noise. Nothing menacing but enough to make us think "what is she getting into now?" Another 15 seconds go by and kaiya comes strolling back into our bedroom with some dried banana chips. The funny part is that they were on middle of the table. She had to move the chair, climb onto the chair and probably the table to reach them, somehow get them down to the floor without spilling them (the box isn't easy for her to manage" and then carry them into our bedroom. On top of that, she was only gone long enough for her to actually accomplish this. It wasn't like she was out roaming and just saw them; she can't even see them from the floor. We just got a kick out of the fact that she actually had to have the idea while in our bedroom and head directly out there on a mission. Below is the picture of her when she came back into our bedroom with her newfound treasure!

These pictures are from the afternoon we spent with Connie and her kids. I didn't take as many as I should have (this always happens to me), but I did get a few. We had fun playing outside
in the sprinkler and playing inside. And I enjoyed the little bits of conversation that Connie and I managed to get in during all the activity around us.