Daddy, Kelsey, Cami?

Kelsey has been hard for me lately, and if you don't really care why, just skip to the happy video at the very very end of this post. It really is a gem!!
Anyways, Kelsey has been hard for me lately. She is just so two that I don't know what to do. Don't get me wrong, she's still hilarious and makes everything more fun, but man I look forward to nap time (the days it happens ) and bedtime. Every one knows what I'm talking about and I don't mean to complain, its just the first time I've done this so its my turn to vent, right? She is just go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, all the time! 

This girl loves her accessories

I can't keep up. I think I do a good job with new activities but they last like 2 seconds and we have moved on. Most days I just quit and that's not good either. I have a lot of really good examples in my life of "fun" moms and I try to be more like them. I'm not saying I'm a bad mom, because I don't think I am. We love Kelsey and she knows it. We go a lot of places and she has a lot of fun. However I COULD improve on interacting WITH Kelsey. A lot of times, I just let her play by her self and she needs more attention than that. 

With that fun intro, I am able to capture some precious and hilarious moments. Kelsey is just starting to act old. She is very opinionated, but can also understand when she needs to do something as in "eat a carrot to get a chip" and she will. She is terrible at following most rules and just wants to climb and "pay" (play) all the time. 

My favorite things so far have been:

the word "agin" and "okay" and anmals (animals)
she Woohoo!s everything  Me, "Kelsey do you want milk?" Kels, "Woohoo!!!!"
                                      Me, "Kelsey do you want to take a bath" Kels, "Woohoo!!!"
pointing out every color she sees (still trying to teach her that not everything is blue :)

counting as she walks down the stairs (two, two, free, six!)

running to Ethan when she sees him in the distance at school (it also melts the hearts of everyone around)

saying Thank You and Please without being asked (still working on I love you)

asking for certain people like Ralphie, Sadie, Hannah, Holden, Trey, and Noah (Norah)
I love how she can identify most family members now and gets excited to see them

asking to go to "chuch" (church)

when I ask her where something is and she doesn't know, she just holds up her hands and says don't know

getting excited to play with "fiends"

interacting at story time and music time
her fascination with lights. She loves to turn the lights on and off
her obsession with being chased. She will steal what we have and yell gotcha and take off. she mostly runs
         circles around the couch so its always easy to get her but she loves it
when she watches Mickey she goes "OH TOOTLES!!"

wrapping up a baby in a blanket and carrying it around going "Awe..." 

And overall just her communication. She just gets it you know. She just understand whats going on around her. She knows people, she knows songs, she knows words, and it just blows my mind. she just gets it. It blows my mind that these little people are just that, little PEOPLE. 

Discovering ants

Discovering puppies (don't be fooled by this video. We really are trying to teach her dog safety)

Ralphie came to visit and they thought it was the coolest thing to share a stroller. Good thing they are both little

This is how Sadie and Kelsey play. This is actually a hilarious story too. We were all eating dinner and the girls ran into Sadie's room to play. I heard them yelling and laughing and wanted to see what was so fun. I went into the room and saw them jumping in the pac and play. "How did you get in there?" I asked. I took Kelsey out and said "show me how you did that," and this is what I got :)!!! 

With her two like behavior has come plenty more tude than I am ready for. Conveniently, our garbage disposal switch is at Kelsey's level and this is her new favorite game.

We have tried everything to not have to turn it on: tape, blocking it, time out, not reacting, reacting, explaining it, etc. Nothing works. The other day she turned it on when I was using the sink and it scared me. I put her in her room for a couple of minutes so I could cool off before I handled it. Before I could go back to her room, she was yelling and I just thought she was yelling because she was mad. Then we noticed that she was yelling "help!" We went into her room and this is what we found....

 

I have no idea how she got up there, but she was good and stuck. It has now turned into "the place' because another time, Hannah came over and was looking for Kelsey as I was doing the dishes and Hannah found her up here...

Looks like the rocking chair needs to go right?!

Shara brought this to my attention, but ever notice how long toddlers can squat! I mean seriously. Kelsey sat like this for like 20 minutes and every time she fell, she'd go right back to it. (She also just woke up and wakes up like me after a nap hence the happy face)

Again with the accessories. She loves to put her "hats" around her arms now. I try not to get mad because she is ruining them all, so it helps that its super cute. 

Ethan and I are doing great too :) We are getting closer to Chicago and are just ready to go. We are getting antsy. The ward knows we are leaving, school is winding down, and we just want to go. I'm getting more and more nervous all the time and have freak outs more often, but I'm so ready to just get going. I want to pack and clean and go to the next stage of life.
In great news, we were approved for housing in the fall in Provo so we are done with housing 100%  until we graduate. We have housing in Chicago and have housing when we move back and I couldn't be happier. We will be living in the same complex but in the units with washers and dryers!!!!! Hooray!!!

Kelsey took this one. Not bad for someone who is almost as small as the camera. 

I just love both of these so much that I decided to put them both up.

AND look how red Ethan's hair looks. It blew both of our minds. Even Ethan was like, when did my hair get red?! 

And now my FAVORITE new trick, the reason for this post, the source of our laughter. For the past two days Kelsey has been calling me Cami. I knew it would come someday but didn't expect it this soon. It is hilarious. In this video I am pointing to myself when I ask her who this is. Enjoy!

The other night I went rock climbing with some MBASA friends and it was one of the funnest things I have done in a long time. I'm so glad they set this up and got me to go with them. I was terribly sore after but I'm so glad I went.

 

Snow

December 2013 has been very snowy and VERY cold. No freezing. I'm so glad I don't have to walk to school. I feel so bad for the students. There are too many days when it is in the single digits and there they are, plugging away to school. Regardless, the snow has been a huge hit at our house. We can't stand being out too long, but we go out a couple times a day, and sometimes even go on a walk to bring Dad home. Kelsey LOVES it! She loves to just walk through the mounds of snow. Every time she falls, she just sits and waits for me to come pick her up. She never cries (unless snow touches her skin bc that is no fun for anyone) but just sits and waits. She is so happy in the snow! I just wish it were a little warmer so we could enjoy for longer, but hey. What'd you do! 

18 months

This post has taken me a while because I just don't know how to capture all the emotions of 18 months. The more I have thought about it, the more I can easily say that so far, this stage has been the funniest and the hardest all at the same time. Kelsey is adorable and hilarious! She definitely has her own personality, loves to have fun, teases us, and loves to have fun, but she also wants to be big, can do everything by herself, never wants help, and still can't really communicate 100% and gets super frustrated when we don't understand. Being her mom is so rewarding but so tiring! I just can't keep up. Heaven bless on those wonderful moms out there who do this with multiples! 

Kelsey just loves to play. She loves when we go places and she can just run. Our poor little apartment doesn't give her enough space to run, but we find other ways like climbing up over the couch, falling on the cushions, and doing it again.
She loves to dance, loves music, still loves to climb, loves to "race", crawls on her hands and knees to chase us, loves to be chased, loves to be tickled, and loves her parents. She favors dad when we are together, but as soon as I leave, she leaves the room going Mom? She just has to check that I am still there too and then goes back to dad.
Kelsey is making lots of friends and although they still just steal each others toys and no one knows how to share, we have way more fun when friends are around. Like dancing Sadie here.

Despite the face, Kelsey LOVES LOVES LOVES nursery. She was crying because we wanted to take a picture and wouldn't let her go. Typically she says amen, jumps down and runs to the door and knocks until they let her in. It is fantastic. I love that she loves nursery.

Kelsey at 18 months is a TERRIBLE eater. We can not figure her out. Things she will eat on Monday, she won't touch on Tuesday, and things she has never liked she chows. For example, yesterday she wouldn't eat Mac and Cheese, but started eating raw onions. WHAT?! What I'm I supposed to do?! I can't wait for this stage to be over. We are patiently waiting, but it gets super annoying.  Along with eating, Kelsey always has diaper issues. It is mostly sad because there is nothing we can really do except watch her suffer. She has a steady diet of apple juice and that seems to help a ton. She still also is a bad sleeper but I think that is more a neighbor issue than her. The cars in the morning shine right into her room and it wakes her up every time.

Kelsey loves to read. She has gotten over bored books and now wants to turn pages. She loves to flip through pages especially our wedding album and our Disneyland book. She still loves herself, loves babies, and tries to "mother" crying babies by telling them to shh. Super cute.

Kelsey is an awesome talker. She can copy most of her Aunts and Uncles and some of them she can just say on her own, like Hannah and Pappa. She is also getting really good at copying things we say. Most recently she copied love you which made Ethan's day. The other day, Ethan and I were talking and Kelsey was jabbering away and it was kinda annoying because we needed to discuss something. Ethan turned to Kelsey and said something along the lines of "Kelsey, say I'm sorry I'm interrupting, I just want to talk to mommy so badly." (Something like that) Kelsey then turned to me and goes "Jaberyhhadkbd andb andg ewth  Mommy!" It was hilarious! She loves to talk and can communicate pretty much everything she wants. Food she wants or does not want, if she's tired, wants to go outside, dirty diapers (which is the BEST), wanting to read books, wanting to brush teeth or take a bath etc. It is getting pretty awesome because I no longer have to guess. She just tells me.
Kelsey loves to help vacuum and most recently loves to help do the dishes and cook. When she hears me go into the kitchen she runs in, grabs a chair pushes it over and starts playing with the water. She still loves to sweep too. She loves to take baths, loves to brush her teeth, always pulls out her hair so its breaking and so it is a static, straight mess that drives me bonkers but whatever, and loves to play with shoes and clothes.
I'm so grateful to have Kelsey in our life even though it is getting more and more challenging all the time. Its funny. I never thought something could be so hard and so easy at the same time! I love you Smooch! Keep learning and growing like you already have.

Some Random Thoughts

I just needed to have this down on paper before I forgot. I loved my house for the fall season and apparently so did Kelsey. There were about 30 of these pumpkins and now 26 of them look like this. She knows they are not food, but it became some ridiculous game that she loved so much!

Kelsey has started "helping" around the house and her favorite is when she gets to vacuum

She just looked adorable!

Ethan went to Oregon and Western Washington to meet with some of the big companies over there. It was a long and sad week for us here, but he had a great time and met with a lot of people. His favorite was obviously Nike so he took some pictures to capture his manhood while he was there. 

There is a ping pong table in the club house and we like to play as much as we can, which is not a lot, but its still fun. We play and Kelsey runs around like this:

Its actually pretty disgusting but Ethan made me take one picture before I took the ball out! 

If you are going to eat, why not eat with a giant spoon! 

Mom, you are ruining my life. Just let me mix the bowl