Vacation Pictures

These were supposed to be on my photography blog, not Kyndal's blog. Anyway enjoy these pictures.

Kyndal's first vacation

We went on vacation last week to the mountains. We rented a cabin for 4 nights and we all had a fabulous time.

We went to Dollywood on Sunday with Kyndal's Nana and PaPaw Kennedy and her Granny and Papaw Wilson. We dressed her in her Little Dolly Dress that her Papaw got her for her birthday, we changed her out of it after a little while. She rode all of the rides that she was big enough for ALL BY HERSELF, can you believe it? She didn't cry and she kept wanting to go on the duck ride over again. She loves ducks and can say Duck and Quack Quack. She learned to say Papaw while she was at Dollywood.


We drove the Cades Cove loop. We saw a lot of deer, but no bears.

I guess Kyndal was a little bored.

We thought it was beautiful though.

We had supper that night at the Old Mill Restaurant, and then went out back to see the ducks. Kyndal loved seeing real ducks. We fed them bread and tried to keep the Geese from biting our toes.

Checking them out with Mommy.


We went to the aquarium and Kyndal had a blast. She loved the fishes. She learned to say fishes.
Here she is taking a drink and checking out the fish.

See Mommy!

Dory

What a fun time!

Reflections on my 1 year old

Kyndal's birthday has come and gone and now we officially have a toddler. I am so glad some of you got to come to see her in person for her birthday and get to see a little bit of her personality. She is the best thing that has happened to us. I can't believe how much joy and fun she has brought into our lives. She totally has a personality all her own, or Bret will say just like Momma (he only says that when her temper flares up or she wants to do something by herself with no help).

Kyndal is a talker. She will sit and read her books jibber jabbering as she flips her pages. Her favorite word these days is "that", although she can say many others....Ball, Baby, Shadow(babow), Dada, Mama, Bye Bye, Hello, this, among others. She has figured out that "that" describes everything so she is choosing to use that more and more. I guess we say "give me that", or "do you want that" a little to much to her. I think my favorite thing that she says, is Bye-Bye Dada in the morning when her Daddy leaves for work. I guess that is a sentence, LOL!

Kyndal is also a climber. She loves to climb in her toy basket, although it is a little too full for her to get in since we had her birthday party. She will stand in her little Mickey Mouse bus ride on toy. She opens the lid and climbs in. Today she actually climbed up the little stairs at the McDonald's play place on the toddler toy. She is still as flexible as ever though, the first step was the biggest, when she couldn't climb it she did a split and put her leg up on the first step and pulled herself up.

She is such a happy little toddler. She will laugh at the other babies, sometimes hysterically. She will laugh when we laugh. She will sometimes crinkle her nose when she laughs or smiles too.

She eats anything and everything. We still haven't given her peanut butter. She doesn't like carrots though, never really did. She knows the color and will refuse sweet potatoes at first until I get one in her mouth and she realizes it is not a carrot. She always wants to feed herself. If you even try to put something in her mouth, she will turn or head, or take it from you and put it in her own mouth.

She is still a good sleeper and napper. We were really blessed by that. She goes to bed around 8:15 or 8:30 after some milk and a couple of books. She goes to sleep on her own. She normally takes two naps a day. Most times she goes to sleep on her own for those, sometimes she goes out in the car if it is around naptime and I transfer her to her bed. Other times she need a little song and rocking. She wakes up around 6:30 in the morning. In the morning when Mommy is brushing her teeth, Kyndal brushes hers too. She has a Hello Kitty toothbrush and she reaches up when I get my toothbrush so that she can have hers. She screams when I take it away.

She loves her kitty Shadow. She tortures her, but Shadow loves the attention. She lays on her, gives her kisses, pulls her hair until we stop her.

Kyndal loves to give kisses. She will even give kisses to her doll, stuffed animals, even the books with babies in them she will give a kiss to each and every baby. She will blow kisses too.

She loves to play with the phone (she called and hung up on Daddy once all by herself), the remote, Mommy's cell phone, the doorstop and Mommy's make-up. All things she is not really supposed to have.

She loves other children. Her buddies, are Brooke, Lola, and Emma. She thinks Lola is funny and cracks up at her. She likes to chase Emma around. They are all close to the same age.

She is very social and will go to most anyone. She doesn't cry when I leave her at the YMCA or church nursery. She cries when we leave the room and shut the gate, she hates it when anyone is on the other side of the gate. But other than that she doesn't cry after us when we leave.

We take Kindermusic on Tuesday and I take her to the YMCA on Wednesday for my Zumba class. We are in a MOM's group now so we have plenty of activities to do each week. When she dances she sways back and forth. She gets to dance at Kindermusic a lot because there is a lot of music and singing. She wants to be in the middle dancing though instead of sitting in Mommy's lap like the other babies do. I think she thinks it is all about her.

Kyndal of course has a temper. She will get mad if something doesn't work like she thinks it should and sometimes throw it. Like if her sippy cup is empty.

She has a ton of balls in the house, more than most kids I have seen, even boys. And she sure can throw.

Oh, Bret is thrilled now that if he tells her to go get something for him she will. Just like a Dad, LOL! Of course it is mostly, go get "that" and pointing to the object. No wonder her favorite word is "that".

Kyndal wants to go go go, she is not as content just sitting in a high chair or shopping cart any more. So sometimes that is a challenge when we go out to eat or grocery shopping. It seems like now that she can walk good that is all she wants to do.

Well, I know that I can go on and on, I guess I just did. Hopefully that will make you all feel a little bit closer to this precious precious 1 year old.

Yes and No

Somewhere Kyndal has learned how to shake her head yes and no, and it actually seems like she knows what it means because she does it at appropriate times. This is not something I have been teaching her, so she must have just picked it up from observing us. In these videos, I was not prompting her to do it either.



p.s. I am trying the new video feature of blogger. Let me know if you like this or youtube better. ***Edited. The blogger video wasn't working, so it is on youtube now.***

Birthday Video's

As promised, here are a few birthday videos. The first two are a couple of cake videos and the other is of Kyndal enjoying her new cell phone and just acting silly.

Kyndal's Birthday Pictures

I finally have a little time to post these. Daddy and Kyndal are in Cookeville tonight with Nana and PaPa McConaha so I am all alone. The house is finally clean again and here are some of the pictures. There were so many great pictures between what Jill took and what I took, so here are a few (actually a lot). Enjoy.

Kyndal on her Birthday. Mommy and Daddy bought her this outfit, she would not keep the hat on.


The welcome table.

The birthday banner, I asked people to write a note to Kyndal on the back and it is going in a time capsule for her 18th birthday.

The kitchen all decorated.

The cupcake tree

Trying on her birthday dresses and having a fashion show for the people in the livingroom


Guess she wanted in Daddy's lap

We had nametags for everybody. Their name and relation to Kyndal. Kyndal's was the "Rock Star"

The gift table

Kissing her new baby doll

The touching moment when we found out that we were getting my old books. I gave Courtney a big hug.

Kyndal playing with the musical card

The little cake that Mommy made her


Yummy

Kids working on the pinata

Silly Daddy

Ace in the birthday hat



Jill in action

Want some candy Mommy?


Coming soon...some video clips...

Kyndal turns one!

Kyndal's first birthday has come and gone and now we have a ONE YEAR OLD! We can hardly believe it. We had a party on Saturday to celebrate. It was great. We had a ton of family and friends over to join in the celebration. We mingled a little and went outside to eat. We had hamburgers, hotdogs and chicken and well as some other food.

It was nice to see some old friends as well as have some newer friends over. Then it was off to the livingroom to open presents. Kyndal got some wonderful gifts. Lots of toys and beatiful new fall and winter cloths. All of the Mom's of little boys had a chance to shop for girl clothes for a change. The best gift was one that Kyndal's cousin Courtney got for her. She asked her Daddy to find the read along Disney books that I had as a little girl and I gave to my sister for her babies, now I have them for my baby. Kyndal loved the singing card that her Nana and Papaw Kennedy gave to her and the baby doll that her Nana and PaPa McConaha got for her. She also got some Little Dolly dresses from her Granny and PaPaw Wilson. PaPaw has been wanting to buy one for her since he found out we were having a girl (The first girl great-grandchild), but he wanted to wait until she was walking, just in time for her birthday.

Then it was cake time. I made cupcakes and homemade icecream for all of the guests, two different kinds. Kyndal had a mini strawberry cake that I made and decorated for her. The first thing she did was go face first into the cake. She played with it and ate a little. She did get messy.


We got her bathed while everyone enjoyed cupcakes and icecream. Then the kids did the pinata outside after a brief rain shower. The adults played Kyndal trivia and did a Kyndal find a word puzzle. The winner of Kyndal trivia was Granny Wilson and she won a Kyndals' biggest fan T-Shirt with a picture of Kyndal on the front, it matched the shirts that Daddy and I wore, Kyndal Aune's Fan club President, and Kyndal Aune's Fan club vice president.

It was such a great day. I have a ton of pictures to post. I will do those later, but for now just one that our friend Jill took of Kyndal.