Big Buds

Kensley's buddy, Joanna, FINALLY came back into town and BOY are we THRILLED! They thought it would be nice to ditch us for 6 weeks and brave the ALABAMA heat - I mean accompany Randy to a class in AL. It was fun for all of us to get together again this past weekend as neighbors and just shoot the breeze, catch up, and "chill." We are always in awe of Joanna's ever-evolving skills. The physical milestones come so easily for her, while Kensley uses vocalizing from her bag of tricks. Together, they play and explore and provide us with the comedy routine we need at the end of the week. Our barstools - an endless source of entertainment! Just playin' We share with our friends.

Big Girl Comin' Through!

Hey! I see you!

OOOoooooooooo! Hmmm. I've never noticed that before?

It has become quite the strain to put Kensley in the carrier carseats, now, even with leaving them in the cars. It was also time that we began looking for a carseat that big girls can sit in. We didn't want to purchase a new carseat every year, so we opted for the grow-with-me type of thing. Mike installed it for us today. She is 2 months shy of having it forward-facing, but definitely exceeds the weight requirement - shhhhhh, don't tell.

Hindsight being 20/20, I should have carried the video camera to capture all of Kensley's ooooo's, whooooooaaaa's, and wow's... which are standard sentiments coming from our little person. Big girl seat = a hit!

Uncle Wa and Aunt Nay

Uncle Rob and 'Aunt' Renee came to visit us this weekend, showering Kensley with hugs and kisses and ...presents. Uncle Rob thought since he hadn't showered Kensley with an abundance of gifts lately that she deserved something new. It is a singing and giggling giraffe with some kind of roly ball maze. (Mike and I really like it, too!) See, Kensley is a dancer. I don't know how, I don't know why. Mike nor I would consider ourselves talented in that department, but Kensley loves music and loves to dance to it. She can hear a commercial and start jamming, so the giraffe is a perfect addition. Dance with one hand! Whooooo! Boogie, baby, Boogie! Wuv you, Wa. Kensley looooved crawling to Nay and being so silly with her. See? Put the balls in giraffe's mouth and they roll down the chute. It is also a good lesson in probability.

Oh! She's Getting So BIG!

Kensley changes all the time. In front of my face, behind my back, over time, and instantly. It is soooo wonderfully rewarding (and downright EXHAUSTING!) to be 'at home' with her.

Kensley blows kisses, smooooches and hugs us, plays with Libby, and works really hard on her words. You can see the little wheels just-a-spinning when she tries to repeat something or to sign it. She can sign and 'say' (very loosely) 'ALL DONE, THANK YOU, MORE, and MILK.' Kensley also nods her head appropriately in response to questions. She gives the impression that she really does get what is going on. (Wouldn't you, if the world revolved around you?) She is also quite the social butterfly.

As soon as Kensley started crawling, she was pulling up. She even attempted it a couple of times before crawling which made us suspect she would skip crawling...not so. EVERYONE has said that I would be sorry for wanting Kensley to be mobile. With as much respect as possible: that's just not true for me. I am so thankful for the milestones Kensley makes. Of course, I am much more tired at the end of the day, but at least we get this opportunity to see Kensley change so much in this special year! With all this said, here are some random pics that I have taken since we have been back. This mama-stuff is cool. She's EVERYWHERE!

Kensley plays up-down peek-a-boo on the barstools. And then zooms off from the barstools to play with the buffet only to return to the barstools!

Little Stinker likes to play around our table. She just cruises all around it with the chairs and the table, etc. That's all good and fine until she bonks her noggin. She IS learning to duck, and that is just funny. Here she is under the table peek-a-booing waaaaaay past bedtime, but she got to stay up to kiss Daddy goodnight after his class. They ended up wearing each other down.

BONK! I told you to duck! It hurts, but mostly makes her mad that she bonks her head. I totally feel her!

What's mine is yours. Share and share alike, Mama.Kensley likes to eat the grass...whatever.We LOOOOOOOOVE books! Pop-up and sing-alongs are the BEST!

Fun Times with the Fam - Part 2

For people who have never really lived all that far from their families, they just don't understand how it is completely impossible to see everyone that you want to see when you go 'home.' Those of you reading and experiencing this get it, right? Lucky for us, we have family members who are able to come up this-a-way in order to sightsee and spend some time with us. It is usually an open invite for folks to visit. With all this said, Aunt Unie (Aunt Linda), Uncle Grumps (Uncle Larry), Aunt Mammy (Aunt Marilyn), and Aunt JuJu (Aunt Judy) took a road trip north to see my cousins in DC and to spend a week with us up here. Aunt Marilyn and Aunt Judy try to make it annually - and have since we have been here. We had some of the best fun and Kensley assumed her role as entertainment while we weren't trekking all over the tri-state area.

On Monday, we went to the base and watched Andrew and one of the falcons work. The base uses falcons to naturally move unwanted birds away from the runway. Generally speaking, wildlife in an engine isn't such a good thing. Pictures are scarce after this because the battery died from the little camera and we can't find the charger since our trip to ATL. If you've seen a bluish Canon charger...it's ours.

Tuesday we went to Atlantic City, where Aunt Linda was able to win a whopping sum of Trump's cash to pass on to her grandchildren.

Wednesday, we went to Lancaster, PA. We ate at GoodNPlenty, which is a hotspot. It was good and definitely PLENTY!

Thursday we were supposed to visit Rob in NYC, but since NBC went to Beijing, we just hung out and waited for Rob to make a grand appearance at Casa de Marlatt. We went nearly two whole months not seeing Rob to seeing him TWICE in one week! We could get used to the latter.