So much to be thankful for

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We have many things to be thankful for - family, friends, a home, jobs, good health, education, the list could go on and on, so here are just a few more. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

Two beautiful girls.

A quiet moment here and there.

Trips to the zoo to see how much the baby animals have grown.

Spending time together.

Wonderful hosts and a delicious meal.

Let's talk about...

Kennedy's favorite phrase right now is, "Let's talk about..." We have entire conversations based around this. "Let's talk about birthdays." So we do. "Now let's talk about our family." "Let's talk about not letting go of the panties (referencing the panties down the toilet incident)... Let's talk about rules." It goes on and on. Let's talk about school. Kennedy is loving school, and it sounds like her new teachers are really great. I miss seeing what's going on in the classroom because I don't do the drop off or pick up anymore. She brings home some beautiful art creations and has cute stories to tell about her friends Lucy and Mae Mae. Sometimes I have to hear the stories (or more details) from her grandparents. The other day she and Lucy got to school at the same time and they held hands and skipped down the hall together. The next day when Grandpa Brent was picking Kennedy up, she wanted to hold Lucy's hand again, but Lucy wasn't interested. Apparently that hurt Kennedy's feeling quite a bit, but luckily she doesn't hold a grudge. Now Kennedy is very excited for Mae Mae's upcoming birthday party at the Little Gym. She'll be able to show off all her tricks to her school friends.

The one thing that she asks to talk about over and over has been what Pamp's tracks would look like in the snow. When we got to my parents' house on Monday we saw some bunny tracks in the snow. Then Kennedy was looking at the difference between Woody's (cat) tracks, Grammie's tracks, my tracks, and her tracks. Then I asked her what Pamp's tracks would look like if he walked in the snow. He would have two small circles for the crutches and how many footprints? She figured out that he would only have one since he's just walking on one leg!

Let it snow!

Saturday we had our first good snowstorm. Luckily it started after we got home from our morning outings to the Little Gym and the grocery store. Kennedy was so excited to go outside with her dad and help shovel. Macy and I watched (and took pictures) from the warmth of the kitchen window, while those scoundrels threw snowballs at us.

Now it's back to sunny fall weather. Good thing because we still have lots of leaves to rake!

Potty training woes

We've been working with Kennedy on using the potty for about three weeks now. I thought she should be ready to move out of diapers when she turned two, but that was a mistake. So we waited until she showed signs of being ready - a much better idea. Some days she does a great job, and other days we go through lots of changes of clothes. She had been doing really well until the last week. For some reason she will now only pee in the potty, which means that we have lots of messy pants to clean. Last night she had another accident, so Jake made her take off her panties and swish them around in the toilet. He warned her to hold them tightly, but she didn't have a good grip... and they got flushed down the toilet. Kennedy was very surprised that this happened, and she kept saying, "I'm sorry my tinkerbell panties went down the toilet." Did she learn a lesson? No, we were back in there swishing out another pair a few hours later. The good news is that she does really well at night, and wakes up with dry underwear (except for the last two nights, when she had her first overnight accidents). Hopefully I have now learned a lesson, and next time I'll be more prepared to change sheets and jammies in the middle of the night - ideally without waking Macy up.

Terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

Yesterday was a bad day (well, not all of it was bad). Jake had the day off for Veterans Day, so I took it off too. We took Kennedy to get some snacks to take as leader of the day and then we dropped her off at school. Then we went to get Jake's car inspected. It failed, which he was expecting because of the crack in the windshield, but they also found something else wrong. We took it to the dealership for repairs, where they found another part that needed replacing... $1,000 later we have an eleven-year-old car that runs like new.

The hardest part of the day was taking Macy in for some tests at the hospital. I knew it would be bad because I've been through this twice with Kennedy. Jake was along for the first time. She had an ultrasound, which went great. Then she had the VCUG, where she cried through the entire test. It was the saddest thing seeing her on the table trapped by the x-ray machine, pinned down by her dad, and her legs all bundled up. Macy kept looking up at us like she was saying, "I am miserable! Why don't you do something?" I think this must have been the worst day of her life, but she was happy again as soon as the catheter came out and she was free from her restraints. Everything appeared ok, but now we wait for the doctor's report.

We picked Kennedy up from my parents' house, where she was taking a nap. She then continued to sleep for another two hours, not even waking when we moved her from the bed to the car and then from the car to her own bed. We rounded the day out with some Chinese take-out, Jazz basketball on TV, and a yummy cranberry-pear upside down cake that I made. It was nearly impossible to get Kennedy to bed after that long late afternoon nap, and Macy woke up crying three times. I went in each time because I'm not quite ready to let her cry it out, especially with Kennedy in the same room. Just the other day a friend at work said something like, "Maybe tomorrow will be better - at least it will be different." Here's hoping!

Macy's 6-month checkup

Macy has hit the half year mark. To celebrate, we took her to the doctor's office! Not really - you can't call five shots and a catheter celebrating. She is doing very well with her development, which we already knew. She's 15 pounds 15 ounces and 26 inches long. That puts her at the 50th percentile for both (and for head circumference, too). No sign of teeth yet, but she is loving all the new foods she's tried: rice cereal, squash, sweet potato, applesauce, pear, and banana. We'll have to start introducing the green vegetables next. Kennedy has been saying lately that her favorite food is broccoli. Hopefully Macy will be as good an eater as her big sister. At the end of the appointment, Macy was very considerate and picked out a "Lightening-the-Queen" sticker, from the movie Cars, for Kennedy. She was so excited to get the sticker and kept telling Macy thank you!

Kennedy can pick out her own sticker when we go back in a few days for her H1N1 and flu shots. Playing with the doctor's kit is one of Kennedy's favorite games right now, but cute as it is, the plastic set just doesn't prepare you for the real poke of a needle. How big was Kennedy at 6-months? 26.25 inches (50th), 17 pounds 8 ounces (75th) and 43 cm head (65th).

More Halloween

Kennedy and Macy have both made good use out of their costumes. Friday they wore them to visit me at work for our potluck lunch. That night they wore them again to a carnival at Kennedy's school. We all had a great time - the kangaroo had her nose painted and then she and dad did the ring toss, went fishing, decorated a pumpkin and a cookie, and went through a spook alley (very short, but the darkness and fog machine still managed to scare her). A witch read Kennedy a story and then we all enjoyed a puppet show.

Saturday, Halloween, they dressed up again for the Little Gym class. That night we went trick-or-treating at Paul and Sara's new house - they just moved into our neighborhood. Kennedy was frightened when they opened the door in costumes (a nerd and a rapper), so we decided to head straight to the party at some friends of my parents. We had a nice time, but we didn't get the memo that costumes were supposed to have an Alfred Hitchcock theme. We dressed as some type of tourists on safari in the outback. We finished the night with a visit to Grandma Sue and Grandpa Brent's. When we got home we found that the bowl of candy we'd left out had hardly been touched!