Little Miss {21 months}

I thought I'd better get this up before she actually turns two!!  Still way behind, but 2 more weeks of school and I'm going to get some much needed catch up time!  So these pictures were taken when she was around 21 months...

My sweet Kerigan... how is this the last post about you before you are TWO!?  Time has just flown these past {almost} 2 years.  You continue to light up our lives and bring more joy than we could have ever imagined.  Your sweet little smile lights up the room and your feistiness and sass make us laugh and we just love every little thing about you!

We didn't go to the doctor this month so I don't have your actual weight, but you are getting heavy!  Sometimes when I pick you up I feel like you and Andrew feel the same!  Ha!  You are still a pretty picky eater, but you will usually try most things if I tell you I will give you "knuckles" (fist bump!)  You love to give us all knuckles all the time.  So I use it to my advantage!  Ha!

You wear mostly size 2T, some 3T and size 6 shoes.  Still a size 5 diaper but you could probably move up.  We are hoping you will be potty trained soon because you show lots of interest and you have been waking up dry most mornings.

You and your brother are two peas in a pod.  Most of the time you get along, but you definitely fight back now!  Andrew will always protect you and give you kisses and hugs if you are getting a consequence from us or if other kids are naughty to you- but he is the first to pick a fight with you as long as he's the one starting it!  Ha!  I think he enjoys that you can play with him now and you two can communicate.  He likes it when you get grumpy and mad sometimes- he laughs at your grouchy faces and when your personality shines through!  You are his little shadow, and you always have to do everything he does.  You want to eat what he's eating, if he gets dressed you want to get dressed, if he's taking a bath... etc... you get the idea.  This can be helpful at times, but other times not so much.  Ha!

Let's talk about shoes... they are definitely your favorite thing.  I brought my shoes along for this photo shoot because I knew you'd love to put them on (and they matched your outfit- bonus!)  You love every kind of shoe, mommy's, daddy's, Andrew's, dress up shoes, boots, etc... it doesn't matter what they are!  You are obsessed.  You always bring shoes to us when it's time to go places.

(I was going to edit out the "owie" on your foot but it seemed appropriate to leave it since you got it wearing a new pair of shoes with no socks!)

Ga Ga bought you this adorable pair of Cinderella glass slippers and you think they are the greatest things on Earth.  You want to wear them all.the.time.  On weekend mornings when you wake up, there's no time for lounging around in your jammies- you take them off right away because you want to wear shoes (and the feet in your jammies just don't work with shoes!)

Lately I've been buying you some adorable "hand me down" shoes in bigger sizes to save for you, and you want to wear them immediately.  You say "I yove (love) it mommy!"  It just melts my heart.  You like to pick your shoes out in the morning and you don't like me to choose for you.  You definitely have a mind of your own.  I can see clothing battles happening in our future!  Ha!

Side note- you love Cinderella too.  You sound so adorable when you say her name.  You always ask to "watch Cindereyya on the big tv!" Yes, you also speak in full sentences- as in more than 5 word sentences.  Your daddy and I can't get over how smart you are and how much your language is growing by the day.  We give most of the credit to your amazing day care center (don't even get me started on how sad I am that we have to leave this place when we move).  You have been in the two year old class for almost 5 months now and you certainly know things most two year olds know.

You have learned the ABC's with only a few omissions, you can count to 10, and you know lots of shapes and colors.  The other day you were playing with a bead on my necklace and you said, "It's an oval mommy!"  I almost fell over.  It was most definitely an oval.  You continue to amaze me every day.

You learn so many songs at day care and you come home singing them all the time.  You think it's kinda cool that I happen to know the songs too!  Ha!  You get this funny look on your face like, how do you know that??  You love Itsy Bitsy Spider, Twinkle Twinkle (which you always start singing when you are on the potty and I tell you to tinkle!), I'm a Little Teapot, and lots more.  Here is a little clip of you singing- it's kind of quiet but you can still hear it.  Pause the blog music at the bottom.

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I love how your brother is helping you when you get camera shy!  Ha!

This sweet little smile just melts my heart.  This picture is getting made into a giant canvas and will hang above our bed in our new house.  You just have a sweetness to you that I can't explain.  You are a perfect mix of sweet and sassy.  Your eyes are just captivating.  

We painted your nails for the first time at a friends house.  And wow did I love that mother-daughter time!

You were totally into it and loved getting all fancy!  You knew we were doing something special and girly.  I just loved it!

You held really still and watched my every move.

You were so happy looking at your "pretty" nails!

This was one of those moments I couldn't wait to share with my baby girl.  I just love having a sweet daughter to do these girly things with!  I needed you more than you'll ever know, sweet girl!  Daddy and Andrew can watch sports and my girl and I can have our time!  Ha!

Baby, you are growing up.  Soon I won't be able to call you "baby" anymore.  Where does the time go?  It seems like just yesterday I was holding you in my arms for the first time, or snuggling with you at midnight feeding time while watching marathons of "family feud!"  You have grown up to be a pretty amazing 21 month old.  I just want to freeze time because I love this age so much!  But I know we have only more fun and memories to come, baby girl!

And I can't wait.

great wolf lodge: crafts, tatoos & goodbye

This is what we all looked like the next morning!  Don't we look beat??  Ha!  Poor Kerigan fell out of bed in the middle of the night and hit her face on the nightstand.  We obviously need to figure something else out for when we travel because she refuses to sleep in her pack and play anymore.

We hit the waterpark one last time on our last day.  The nice thing about the GWL is you can check out and then still use the waterpark and other things around the hotel for as long as you like.  It is also like that when you check in- you can start using the hotel even if your room isn't ready.

Kerigan was surprising me so much with these slides!  At first, she wanted me to walk up the stairs with her and have one of us catch her at the bottom.  But when one of us had to stay with Andrew, she discovered she couldn't have it both ways (one of us at the top and bottom) so she decided to get brave and walk up and go down on her own.  I couldn't believe she did this.  She did not stop.  She would have gone all day long if we had let her.

Andrew climbing the nets again!

The big bucket at the top fills up and dumps water out every few minutes.  Andrew loved it!

After swimming we made a stop at Cub Club- Andrew could pick a craft from his paw pass so he picked a magnet.

He took his time and did a good job painting!

This was such a nice area, they had crafts and toys, books, etc for the kids to do.

We were the only ones in there at the time and we were so surprised Violet walked in!  We got our own private character meeting!  How about that?  Ha!

Kerigan was happy until I suggested she sit on Violet's lap!  Look at that lip!  She wasn't having it.  I thought for sure she'd warm up to her by this time.  She got a stuffed animal of Violet and she just loved her!

One more trip to the arcade to use up the rest of the points from our paw pass.  This game is always so entertaining!

I loved this story.  Andrew is obsessed with a lot of things (ha!) but one of them is the movie "The Croods."  He adores this tiger from the movie- it's his favorite character.  They had those ridiculous claw machines where you are supposed to guide the claw and grab the toy you want and it's supposed to just be easy to "pull" one right out!  Yeah right!  Craig and I have tried more than enough times and we have never, one single time, gotten any toy to come out of those machines.  The problem is, they always have really neat toys in them of all the characters Andrew loves.

So he was beyond excited when he saw his favorite tiger inside, so daddy used some points to play and of course, never got it.  Andrew was very disappointed but he accepted it (even though I'm sure he wanted to cry and throw a fit!).  He just stood by the glass and stared at the tiger the whole rest of the time!  Ha!  I went over and asked this nice young man if I could just buy the darn thing.  He was watching us and saw Andrew and how much he loved it, went over with his key and opened it right up and just gave him the tiger!  Now how many times would something like that ever happen?  I had to get his picture because he was the nicest guy ever.  He was honored I wanted to take his picture!  I just love when you meet a truly kind person with such a big heart.  

One more thing on the GWL bucket list (ha!) was a tatoo.  It was included in his paw pass too so we figured we'd wait until we were leaving so it didn't rub off in the waterpark.  He picked Wiley and he was so excited!

It was a glitter tatoo, which was really neat!  It lasted a really long time.

This is how Kerigan felt about leaving!  Ha!  She plopped down in front of the clock where all the animals are and just stared at them.  She kept asking to "go see the animals."  She wasn't happy when we had to leave!

Goodbye GWL!

We will definitely be back!  Andrew wants to come back with his cousins for his birthday!

This happened about 5 minutes after hitting the road!  She was wiped out!

That week Andrew brought this writing home from school.  I love how he gets to pick what he writes about and he chose to write about the GWL and his Tiger from the Croods!  Ha!  (It says "cruise" but that's because that is how he sounds when he says it and I'm sure his teacher had no clue what he meant!)

The GWL is such a fun, family vacation!  I love that there's something for everyone.  You really never have to leave because there are so many fun things to do (even though there are so many fun things to do in Kansas City!  We just love it there!)  We can't wait to go back!

great wolf lodge: waterpark, mini golf & dance party!

The best part of the GWL was the waterpark!  There was really something there for the whole family to enjoy, even Kerigan.

She really grew fins this trip and turned into a little fish!  Normally, she is a little more fearful of things (much more than her brother ever was!) so I didn't expect her to want me to even put her down in the water, but she kicked and wrestled loose until she was on her own!

Andrew was so independent this time.  Notice the huge play structure in the photos above... well he went flying off up there somewhere and the only way we could ever find him is when he came flying down the slides.  He would speed past us so fast to do it again that we couldn't even catch him!  I normally panic at these kind of places because I feel like they will get lost, or I will never find him again!  One of us pretty much stood at the bottom of the slides to keep tabs on him!  Eventually he'd always come down!

Here he is climbing up the net- he loved getting up there that way.  I think it'd be pretty tough!

He loved standing under this!  Ha!

Here is a picture of he and daddy coming down the big "adult" slides.  Believe it or not, they even let Kerigan ride these with one of us.  I was worried she'd hate it, but she absolutely loved it.  She wanted to go again and again.  I have no pictures because I am the only one who will touch the camera inside a waterpark (Craig thinks I'm nuts!)

Getting ready to get drenched in the lazy river!

Kerigan was so funny when we went outside.  She loved the fountains that pop up in the zero entry pool.

She kept stepping on them and would laugh and squeal when it popped back up!

As I was taking these pictures of her, one of the workers came up to me and told me she was the cutest thing he'd ever seen!  Ha!  He told me I should submit one of these photos to their facebook page and we could win a free stay!  I might have to try it!

I have to admit, she was pretty adorable!

Grabbing lunch at the waterpark- loved the paw straws!

We enjoyed the view of the pool from our balcony.

This picture just cracks me up- Kerigan stepping on Andrew's foot!  Stinker!

One evening daddy and Andrew went mini-golfing.  Andrew really had a good time, and they got a pretty good score!

Kerigan liked to "help!"

It was a cute little course, the kids enjoyed the funny statues of the different animal scenes.

One evening we took a break from the GWL restaurant (because they just have one and we had eaten there for every meal since we had arrived!)  We had to venture to our favorite shopping area- Legends.

Kerigan did better with the T-Rex cafe this time!  I think it's growing on her!  Ha!

It was so fun to see my high school friend, Jackie.  They live in Oklahoma and just happened to be in Kansas City the same weekend and staying at the GWL!  I love how Facebook connects people, because we would have never known that if we weren't facebook friends!  We enjoyed having dinner with their family.

I always like to take a picture of my kids by this fountain.

They look so innocent!  Don't be fooled!  Ha!

When we got back to the GWL after dinner and some shopping at Legends, we got there just in time for story time and a dance party!  Violet was meeting kids and I made Kerigan sit on her lap!  I know, I'm so mean.  I've got to break her in, because character meetings are one of our favorite things!  Ha!

Andrew was a little embarrassed to have his picture taken with Violet, but he did anyway!

They have a fun dance party where the kids all dance and the characters come out to dance!

Dancing with my boy!

Daddy and Kerigan were groovin!

Violet took Andrew's hands to dance with him and he was so embarrassed!  It was so funny.

We headed back to our "den" a little early because we were all so exhausted by this time!  Especially after a day at the waterpark.  We had a great day!  One more day left... coming soon.