Backyard Fun

Sydney has been loving her trampoline from Santa!

Kelli will get on there but she never leaves the blue side part.

Our neighbor Josh has been relentless in getting Kelli to warm up to him. She is pretty shy around strangers, but especially male strangers. Not sure where she picked that up, since Sydney was never shy (even as an infant!). But she is beginning to warm up. Allowing him to hold her - even though it was only for a few seconds - was a HUGE step.

The adventurer. She thought if she just began walking to the park on her own, eventually I'd cave and follow behind her. Nope. Doesn't work that way.

Sydney and her "bff" Julia from across the street. I love listening to these two play together. When you get their little heads together, it's pretty cute. They're a good pair. They both neutralize each other's personalities pretty well. I love watching that all go down. It's very funny!

Kelli has the "little sister, little follower" role down. She really loves when Sydney's friends come over because she feels like she's a part of the "big girl group" and gets all excited and feels special. You hear her squeal and giggle a whole lot more!

Just not when they all get on the trampoline. Kelli loves taking risks, but she doesn't really like the trampoline too much yet. But she'll watch!

My Two Angels!

I had a bowl of chicken & rice sitting on the table and Kelli kept pointing and asking for some. I was going to put her in her chair and have her eat properly but had to go to the restroom first. I came out of the bathroom to see that Kelli didn't want to wait that long.

Thank God for Hebrews National hot dogs, otherwise this kid would be outta luck! She's been craving hot dogs like you wouldn't believe but honestly they are nothing but mechanically seperated meat with fillers and disgusting crap so I prefer they don't eat them. Unless it's Hebrews National brand; which are very good!

I found them giggling and playing "forts" on the guest bed. I love to hear them playing together, it's so so cute.

Can I PLEASE freeze time?

Please?

Before/After

Still a work in progress, but I'd be lying if I said I was not impressed with the results so far. I've been with HEAT since August and my trainers are now getting me ready for the marathon. Initially I wanted core strength to improve my runs, but never realized how pure fitness can really improve everything from lifestyle to energy to my speed in running and endurance etc. So I am taking before and after photos now that I began more challenging personal training in addition to the camps. I really like seeing the transformations of my partners as well, it's really neat!

I'm pretty happy where I'm at, but with more training, I'm sure I'll see more changes and will be interested to look back and compare.

day to day

Sydney decided to make us a mobile for our room to help us sleep well and keep bad guys away. I thought that was certainly a cute gesture from a 5 year old.

This little girl loves her Papa. If she sees him (in fact she doesn't have to see him, she can just hear his voice) she will go running in that direction, arms high up in the air yelling "Papa!! Papa!!!" and his lap is taken for the remainder of our time. Not sure what it is? She just really loves her Papa!

My mom's sister Donnette came down for the funeral (I haven't seen her since I was.... 12?) and it was a special treat. Sydney absolutely LOVED Aunty Donnie. They were two peas in a pod! It was adorable!

Saying Goodbye to Uncle Fred

The last funeral I had been to was my best friend in 1996. I had avoided them ever since, but knew that being there for family and my mom, especially, was important. I was not particularily close to my uncle, but we shared a couple of good moments I'll charish. He was a very philosophical man who liked to investigate every possible path to each thought or idea, and took events in your life to open doors to these ideas and thoughts and would provoke you to do this. He was just a neat man. He was a Lutheran Pastor for most of his life but never lost his zest for life and need for adventure.

His son, John (my cousin) is also a Lutheran Pastor, and in fact was ordained by his father. Which made it all the more special that John do the sermon at his father's funeral. It was very touching and emotional.

Saying goodbye one last time.

Our whole family on the Stenfeld side (my mom's side).

Not Ready for Storytime

I took Kelli to her first "official" storytime today. Figuring this kid LOVES books and sitting down & reading, she'd probably do well at the library (verses book store). At home she grabs books and says "read? read? ok!" then plops down on my lap and we could do that for hours and she'd be happy!

Percent that worked at the library?
0%

She was ALL over the place. On the chair. Off the chair. This chair. That chair. This book. That book. Other kids came and suddenly this is "MINE!" and thats "MINE!" and then there was a fun, colorful pillow thing to roll around on the floor and squeal, books to throw off the shelves, so needless to say our "storytime" was more of a pandamonium and lasted around 15 minutes.

Off to Central Market for a playdate with her little friend Maya (and I met with a couple friends there as well). We got there early so we shopped for a few things in the grocery section.

Per usual, we cannot get through the grocery store without eating everything in sight.

After lunch and playing (and the rucous at the library) I had one zonked out munchkin!!

Just me & Kel

Still having a Mom-Kelli week, hanging out doing Mom & Kelli things. She is loving all the attention! I can tell. But now and then she will whine a little whine "su-ssy?" for her sister.

we ran errands (and I forgot how much easier it is with just one! I usually have to find a time to go without either, or when Kelli is napping etc. Always a strategy!) and she was a champ! We ducked in a kids store to look around (playlegos) but she was more interested in trying on sunglasses and shoes.

The school accidentally gave her real milk today.
Can you tell?
LOOK at that belly!!!
I used the gift cards from Mona to get new throw pillows (ours have holes and stains in them, and we've had them since before we got married). Well the gift card didn't work but our pillows arrived. Oh well. I won't bother Mona with that but we got nice pillows out of the idea.

We had met my parents at the Cracker Barrel for brunch after church on Sunday and Kelli picked out this little baby doll (her size) and would NOT put it down. It was $3 so I got it for her and we took it back to the table and she kept 'feeding' it everything from our plate. They've been inseparable since! She's a good mommy!

Same drill. Before bed we change, read books, play little people, and then she has to get all her blankies and cuddle and roll around on the white rug in her room!

Night night!

Morning!

I tried to get her downstairs for breakfast but she was searching for Sydney and got distracted by the playroom.

We got a COLLLLLLLD FRONT here, it was 37 when we left in the morning.

Our little friend who visited us last night. This kitten was SO loud, it had to have woken up the neighbors. Sheesh, I couldn't believe how loud it was. Sounded like a woman giving birth to quads. It'd dart in the house, grab a piece of turkey then dart right back out. Couldn't tell if it was a stray or belonged to someone. So I just left a bowl out there and opened the garage a little for it to come in. It was FREEEZING outside and the thing was shivering.

Edward Maya & Vika Jigulina - Stereo Love (OFFICIAL HQ VIDEO)

this is the most boring video on earth ever, but I LOVE this song!!
It's so versatile to me. I love having it on when I am running or working out, just driving, or relaxing. I was listening to it in the car with Sydney, though, and she said it hurts her ears.

Kelli Discovers Her Shadow

We had a Kelli & Mommy day! I only dropped her at school for a few hours so I could run a couple errands, then picked her up and we spent a good chunk of our day at Dick Nichols Park in SW Austin. One of my favorite parks.

I've taken both girls here plenty of times, but it was the first time with just Kelli & I so we got to focus on just her favorite things: throwing rocks, climbing UP the slide, and off course collecting acorns!!!

This place has no shortage on acorns.
You can imagine how long we were here.
Everywhere you turned! "a-cooon!"

There are about 121 billion here, but she really is picky about her acorns.

Her hands were getting full and we didn't have a bucket to keep them all in.
Naturally, Mommy's boot is the second best choice.
I mean, obviously. Right?
She thought so.

Um.

What the .... Mom this creepy thing keeps following me and doing what I do.

Hey! YOU! stop it!

Kelli, that's your shadow.
Leave me alone shadow!
(she was getting very angry at her shadow, and a bit freaked out)
I am so sad I didn't video this. But she began hitting it and yelling.
Eventually she just turned the other way as if thinking that as long as she cannot see it, it cannot see her.

we are now lining up the acorns and picking the winners.

These decisions take a while. I actually took like 400 pictures here.

On our way home we stopped at Baby Bugaloo. Sidewalk sale!!
I browsed while Kelli played "mommy". It was cute watching her pick up each baby and pat their backs, then set them down for the next one's turn.

Then we met up with Aunt Jenny at MeMaw & Papa's house for dinner.
as you can see, Kelli picked out a new hat.
(and looooooves it!)
My tiny munchkin has quite the favor towards accessories. She just loves shoes, hats and sunglasses. Hats are her favorite though.

Papa magic. They watched Diego while we looked at old photos of our ancestors and waited for the meatloaf to finish. Kelli stuffed her face with meatloaf and sweet potatoes! Then Jenny & Mom came over to my house to look at more ancestor photos and talk wedding stuff! I felt bad, as I nearly had to kick them out of the house by 10pm... I was falling asleep!