Girls will be girls

There's been a lot of wrestling in our house lately between a certain two year old and one year old. Thankfully, the wrestling is accompanied by lots of giggling, hugs, tickles and cuddles, so I know it's all in love. These girls just love to play rough together, but as long as they are both having fun and no one is in danger or getting injured, I have no problem with it. In fact, I think it's adorable. Kylie even lets Eve tackle her, although I think that Eve is starting to figure out how to hold her own. Even when it's Kylie who is doing the tackling, she is pretty gentle with her little sister. I guess "gentle" is a relatice term when it comes to wrestling, ha! That last picture is a hug, although it does kind of look like Kylie was putting Eve in a headlock. Maybe she was just prepared in case Eve decided to do a surprise attack.

Kansas City Zoo

We bought a year's pass to the Kansas City zoo. We spent about three hours there last Tuesday and didn't even see everything. It was lot of fun and I can't wait to go back to visit the parts we didn't have time to see.

Before we left, we asked Kylie what animals she wanted to see. She told us "worms and snakes." I was on the lookout for worms, but I never did see any. We did see some neat snakes and she was very happy about that.

Check out who discovered sliding doors that open when you run toward them. That kept this little 13 month busy for a little while:

Recent Dr. Appts

We had two doctor appointments this week: Kylie's dermatology appointment at Children's Mercy Hospital and Eve's one year checkup.

Let's start with Kylie:

It went pretty well. We now have two different steroids gels to put on her twice a day: one for her body and one for her face and around her eyes. We are also supposed to cover her skin in vaseline (petroleum jelly) twice a day. Along with the steroids, they prescribed an allergy medecine similar to Zyrtec to give her once a day. I'm so glad her insurance covers it; those over the counter allergy medecines we were buying for her weren't cheap. It's been about 5 days now that we've started this new treatment and her skin looks fantastic! The only thing that I don't like is that the gels and vaseline have a tendency to somehow get in her hair and make it look really oily like we haven't washed it in a month. We are learning little tricks to keep it out of her hair, but it's not always successful. At least her skin looks and feels fabulous, it makes the hair issue not so important.

They also weighed her at 27 lbs (40th percentile) and measured her at 35.5 inches (still almost 3 feet, I swear she has been stuck here forever! 75th percentile)

Now on to Eve:

She is 13 months now, but the doctor's office didn't have her vaccinations at the time of her birthday, so we had to postpone her appointment for a month. On her first birthday, I weighed her on Wii Fit and it said she weighed just barely over 15 lbs. This followed her previous growing curve very well, so I'm pretty sure that was right. However, there was a week after her birthday where she seemed to get significantly bigger every single morningI got her out of her crib. Other people noticed it too and told me how much bigger she looked (for Eve anyway!). Well, at the doctor's office, just five weeks after I weighed her on the Wii, she weighed in at barely 17 lbs. (For some reason, her doctor always has us leave her clothes and diaper on, so without it, I think she would have been almost 17 lbs.) So she really did gain some weight this month! She is still in the "less than 3rd percentile" area, so I don't know her exact weight percentile. She was 27.5 inches long, so exactly at the 3rd percentile. So, she's pretty tiny, but I feel like she has gotten bigger based on her own little bitty growth history.

Jason stayed home with Kylie to do some homework, while I took Eve to the doctor. It was so much fun to go out with just my little baby. Now that she's one, her personality is staring to show and it's so fun to watch develop. I will have to write a whole other blog post sometime about this little Miss Ornery; for now I'll just stick to how funny she was at the doctor's office. She was walking all over the waiting room, walking up to every person to look at their face to try to get them to pay attention to her. She was squealing and giggling all while paying attention to who was watching her. She had so many adults laughing at her and she was loving it. She was honestly working the room and it was cracking me up. If anyone smiled at her, she would giggle and prance about. Seriously, prancing, with her little hips shaking and little hands waving at her side. When no one would pay attention to her, she would do her little fake cry. It's obviously fake because she can't even keep a straight face while doing it. A mom next to me even asked me if she was fake crying. What a silly girl. I'm glad to see her start to break out of her shell and becoming less attached to me. I do love how much of a momma's girl she normally is (most of the time, I need a break once in a while though!) but it's nice to see this side of her as well.

Potty training while...

... watching TV, reading the Bible and making silly faces.

We took a long break from potty training. I was ready to give up until Kylie realized she was the only one in middle school who still used a diaper. Thankfully, for Kylie's sake, Jason helped us get back on track. There is absolutely no way I could do this without his help. Now, we are finally at a potty success rate of going in the potty over half the time. I don't know the exact numbers, it would be weird if I did know the actual rate, but it just feels like we are finally making good progress. Thanks Jason! Kylie will thank you too when she goes off to school diaperless.

Jason also bought that toddler Bible for Kylie a couple weeks ago, It's a great collection of Bible stories appropriate for young children. It has great pictures and the stories hold the short attention span of a toddler while still holding their biblical integrity. Anyways, Kylie has learned that God made all the animals, all the people, the sun, the moon... She will often tell us: "God made the birds!" (or any other animal, but it's usually birds) "God made mommy. God made Kylie" It's pretty cute. There is a drawing of Noah and the arc on the title page of the Old Testament and she's convinced that the picture of Noah is a picture of God. I've told her that it's Noah, but since she has two different friends from church named Noah, she didn't believe me. Oh well, she'll figure it out eventually.

A couple more park pictures from yesterday

Look at Kylie climb all over the big toys! She was definitely the littlest kid up there and I heard parents warn their kids "Watch out for the little girl!" This cracked me up because she was holding her own and even being a little agressive herself. She made friends with a lot of the "big" girls who just loved playing with her.

Eve wanted to follow her up the big toys too. Ummm I don't think so, but it made for a cute picture:
Eve did follow her into all the smaller toys, like this one (and somehow she even managed to climb up there by herself a couple times):

Look at my little monkey swinging:

She was really sad that she couldn't climb this, but I promised her she would be big enough someday and she was excited about that:

You should have seen some of the looks that Eve got for climbing all over the playground and walking everywhere. I kept getting asked how old she was and all the grade school aged girls swooned over her. Grade school girls always fall in love with Eve and want to pick her up and carry her around. The only problem is that Eve does NOT want to be picked up by anyone but Mommy and she would rather walk around on her own. It's hard to believe that she really is a year old since she only weighs 15 lbs or so. I don't know about her weight right now, but I think that this last week, she has really gotten longer which helps make her look more her age. (By longer, I mean longer for Eve, which still isn't that long but just not so insanely short).

This face cracks me up:

Absolutely BEAUTIFUL (and it kind of shows that big belly she has, well big as in proportionally big to her tiny body):

See-Saw

Taking the girls to the park is so much easier, and much more fun this year now that Kylie is two and Eve is one. Kylie can do everything on her own, so I don't have to follow her all over the playground equipment carrying a newborn baby. Well that's what makes it easier, what makes is more FUN is that the girls play together a lot. They are really turning into best friends which is so much fun to watch. The pictures above are the girls playing on a see-saw together. Kylie loved making it bounce which just made Eve giggle and giggle and giggle.

My one year old is finally teething!

And no, that is not an April fools day joke. I can feel one sharp little tiny bottom tooth just barely sticking out. Her gums are also swollen and she lets me know that they hurt! We tried pears in her mesh food eater and that soft texture seemed to be really soothing on her teeth: she ate an entire pear by herself!

No pictures of the little tooth yet, you can't see it, but you can feel it if you stick your finger in her mouth.