Chasing Sea Gulls

Chasing those dirty rat birds around Canal Park in Duluth last weekend, with Wyatt (Uncle's girlfriend's son). Wyatt and Keifer had a blast...pics to come of them soon.....


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Creations

Speaking of Keifer's imagination, here is what she did in June: she created her own personal "house" on our piggie blanket. She used many toys for the frame/border of her "house" and had us come visit ("c'mon, Mama, come join me in my house"), and got irritated when Kyla tried to disrupt her "house". This was second to her using the small space between the love seat and side front window as her "office/work". This was the beginning of her flash of REALLY actually pretend playing. It delighted me!
**on a side note, yes, it is pathetic how many toys we have- I keep meaning to start cleaning things out, but time....is of the essence right now......eventually.....will.clean.toys........ahhhh!**

This was our girl last week, setting up her own blockade to stop the ambitious Kyla from venturing up the stairs, unattended (which she loves to try and do often!). I thought this was ingenious! LOL. Again, this was all on her own (with a little help from Mama on lugging the chair over!)
Doing tricks on the chair -because she likes to hang upside down, you know
And last month, Keifer making her very own personal calendar. I made her a visual account/calendar of our days for the summer- using pictures from the PECS program I use at my work. I put the days that they visit Elaine on there, the play dates, the zoo dates, the splash park dates, etc. Keifer really likes knowing what is coming, or where we are going, as well as going back over WHAT we did in the past. She also really enjoyed making her very own schedule-complete with her marker drawings and stickers! Again, I was as proud as a peacock in her interest in doing this! So creative (my heart was happy!) I'm not sure why this pic is crooked-but you get the gist of it! Don't you love how she even circled different dates? I wonder what cool and important events were scheduled for her then? LOL

Alternate Identities

Meet Bucket Head:

And Super Girl!

Damn, I knew I should've gotten her that real Super Girl cape on Etsy for her birthday!!! The girl loves to pretend to be a Super Hero- just like on The Incredibles, since it's the only movie she knows about them!

It is SO fun to have Keifer learning how to play with her imagination! She is really coming into the pretend play nicely- lately, she has discovered Barbie dolls. Who knew how much a 3 year old girl could love them? It's really fun to watch, and nice for Mama to get a few minutes down time to actually do things around the house while K1 plays happily with her dollies!

Wordless Wednesday: Headband Girl is back.......

This time it was do-it-herself! (like her peeping sister? :)

A bit more accessories than last time

Little in age, big in vocabulary

"What? What cookies?" CJ went to put Kyla to bed and came downstairs to find Keifer had gotten out the nilla wafers on her own and was helping herself :)

I know, I know. I rarely blog. I have no time! I don't! And I find it much faster to post my hilarious one liners that Keifer girl says on Facebook, rather than log onto blogger...*sigh*. My heart and head are on here, my blog, but time, ahhhhhh....time. It is a precious commodity these days, isn't it?

I thought I'd post a few "Keiferisms" that our girl has been using lately just to remember that she has such a huge mind - I am amazed at the knowledge she does have.

Lately, she is really into talking about who is in our family. Or if we do something, it's "as a family". Last night, she had CJ and I sit with her and do "family cuddles" on the couch, munching on popcorn and watching The Incredibles before bed. Love this girl!

We were driving home from Ballroom last night, as well, and she looked out the windows, saw the beautiful sunset clouds, and said "Mama, look at those nifty clouds!". Yep, they sure were nifty!

On our vacation a few weeks ago, CJ and I would say "we're doing this and then we'll hit the road". Well, to Miss Literal (K1), "hitting" the road just didn't sit right with her. So now, when we talk about going somewhere, we're not "hitting the road" , we're just going to drive there. LOL. So yesterday, when I was driving to Target with the girls in the back, Keifer piped up wondering if we were "hitting the road", and if so, she didn't WANT to hit the road. So I assured her we were driving, and no way would we be getting out to HIT the road! LOL

So many more things that she is doing, but I need to start writing them down more. She is truly amazing. She is so loving, despite having her 3 years old going on 13 sassy attitude. She is my baby still, and I adore her so.

(and if you are on Facebook, and wanna find me and more pictures that I am too lazy to upload immediately to here, please contact me!)

Wordless Wednesday: Drama girl's portfolio of faces

* a note on this Wordless post to let you know this was during our 4th of July holiday at CJ's Uncle & Aunt's cabin up north*

Home again, home again......

A preview of our recap of our (over) a week long family caravan vacation across the plains of North Dakota. Wide Open Spaces, anyone? It was fun, memorable, hot, exciting, HARD, and we are so happy to be in our own beds again.
Yes, a preview with snapshots of pictures that CJ took on his new Iphone 4 - we have (guessing) about 500 pics or so to upload on our camera alone. How do you NOT take that many pictures when your daughter wears a cowboy hat and is in love with her big cousins?
We started on July 3 with a trip to CJ's family's cabin in Detroit Lakes. We stayed there until Tuesday and then spent a night in Bismarck, N. Dakota. On the road at noon to Medora, N. Dakota - where Keifer was enthralled with their nightly Medora Musical. We enjoyed seeing real wild horses, eating at the Pitchfork Steak Fondue, and riding the train trolley car around town. We were there until Friday, and ended our week with CJ's extended cousin's wedding in Jamestown, N. Dakota. Whew. Came home last night and we were ALL excited to be home!

Cowgirl Keifer, trying to decide if she really wanted to take a Shetland Pony ride or not (she decided NOT once we were upon the actual pony, "Romeo"

Trying on Sis's cowgirl hat

Nana & Keifer at the musical - where Keifer though she should get on stage and sing and dance!
Family minus Kyla (home in bed) pre-musical

Stopping at Painted Canyon with the girls and Abby

She just woke up- not a happy cowgirl

the cousins

Keifer at the cabin with her beloved Abby

The extended cousins on the 4th of July!

Kyla vrooming around the cabin!

As I said, MUCH MORE to come!!!!!!!!

A beautiful day for Lake Superior

Our trip home to Duluth to visit Nana & Papa also included a trip down to Canal Park: to see the bridge, watch boats pass under, watch the crazy seagulls (tourists are so dumb: do NOT feed the damn birds, they are GROSS!), and throw rocks in the BIG LAKE: Lake Superior. It's all Keifer could talk about. She also wondered if she could SURF in the lake. Um, not til you're older honey - and I think an Ocean might be better for that kind of sport!

Our poor girl had a 102.5 fever, little did we know, but she toughed it out. We wondered why she was such a crank- well, you can see in pictures she wasn't herself. Kyla had a ball hanging out and taking in the sights, being pushed around and handled by her favorite personal attendant: Papa Dale. He really had a hard time taking care of her (ha ha ha).

The Aerial Lift Bridge Keifer posing for mama in a tourist picture spot!
adding baby sis to the mix

Mama & K1 ready for the rock beach

cruising the canal

watching a sail boat go under the Bridge

Kyla was waving at the boat!

Our girl 2 years ago only, but so small- on the SAME rock front beach:

And this past Sunday- now 3 years old, with a rock in each hand, ready to throw!

THROW!!!!

Reflecting on her thoughts on the beach? Or simply NOT feeling good?

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Play Front Park

The past weekend, I survived hellish nights with just the girls up North at my parents house. Although K1 was super thrilled to go up and sleep in her "big girl bed" at Papa and Nana's house, well, suffice to say, that didn't happen. She fell OUT of the bed two times, despite the rails (she managed to slip in between them while sleeping) and then contracted a 102.5 fever the day we were at this park. Lovely. Kyla Whitney- usually my EASY PEASY baby? Yeah. She didn't want anything to do in the nights with the Pack and Play we had her sleeping in. So mama was split in between sleeping with two girls in two beds- thank God for Papa and Nana's help during the nights, especially the night Keifer was sick. Between the two of them, we were pretty much up all night. Oye.

However, we did manage to see some family, have some fun play times, and enjoy Duluth's newest Park (newly rebuilt, I should say), before being struck down by fever. You can tell in the pics that Keifer wasn't herself- well, she wasn't. But she did appear to enjoy the park and we have plenty of more pictures to come in posts just as soon as Mama can squeeze in the time to upload and narrate!

One third of the new park- this is the "younger children" area

Papa was in heaven with his 2 precious babes
Kyla's first park experience on a "jiggly" ride

Peek-a-boo! I see you!

Swing time with Nana Di

She looks SO OLD here *sob* Where is my baby girl?

Papa and Kyla enjoying the shade and sharing a snack