Little Miss Party Planner

Kinley and I spent this last weekend without our Daddy around. Rich was out of town on a "retreat" with his firm. Apparently shortly after Rich left Kinley, became overwhelmed with a sense of missing her Daddy. She immediately began planning a "We missed you Daddy" party. In order to have a "successful party" as she put it, you need to have lots of decorations. She spent about 6 hours water painting pictures and hanging them with yarn for the party. She woke me up at 6:45 Saturday morning and said, "Mom, get out of bed. We've got to get set up for Dad's party." After witnessing her dedication to this project, I am now concerned she may have a bit of an addictive personality. No matter what I tried, I could not get the kid to quit painting. She is such a thoughtful little girl and I'm sure her Dad was super thrilled to see his 37 water painted pictures. Here are the pictures she demanded, I mean asked me to take.

Christmas...finally

So apparently Christmas has come and gone and I have failed to acknowledge it. We had a wonderful Christmas at home. Kinley, like most 4 year olds, wanted everything she saw on television. She finally narrowed it down to a lady bug pillow pet, Polly Pockets, and some blue castle she thinks she saw in a store or on a commercial. She already had a castle, so she got a Leapster instead. The day after Christmas Kinley told us that she is so thankful for Christmas so we can remember that Jesus walked on the earth. Apparently some of the Christmas spirit sunk in. Here are a few pictures to capture our Christmas morning.

Kinley at her best

First of all, I admit, I am the lamest blogger ever. For some reason I have just lost interest in blogging. I would commit to doing better but I'm pretty sure I won't. However, I will take this opportunity to share a classic Kinley comment so it will be recorded somewhere. When we got out of the car today at Kinley's school I commented on how stinky it was outside. Kinley said, "I sure hope it wasn't my bum cause that would be super embarrassing." I told her that if her tiny bum could stink up the entire parking lot there would be something seriously wrong with her.

I was lucky enough to be the parent helper today at school. Kinley is part of a special pre school that is geared towards helping children with autism. Kinley was selected as a "peer model" which she is doing a wonderful job at. There is one little boy with a severe case of autism that absolutely adores Kinley. I was so very pleased to see her playing with him, showing him how to play with babies, building blocks with him, making sure he had something to play with, and just letting him follow her around all day. I have spent a great deal of time trying to teach Kinley to be kind, considerate, and understanding of those around her. Today was one of those proud parent moments for me where it seemed like my child had actually been listening to me. As we were leaving the school Kinley told me that when I was reading to her friends I did the voices wrong and she "was so embarrassed for me". Proud parent moment over.

Halloween 2010

We love Halloween at our house, well, most of us do. Rich can be a bit of a party pooper when it comes to Halloween and costumes. He was gracious enough to dress up as Diego this year, if Diego were to have blonde hair and have a baby tiger pretending to be a jaguar. The plan was for me to be Dora and him to be Diego. Unfortunately I could not find orange shorts anywhere (and Halloween was the week I had a sinus infection and strep throat) so I ended up being a mad scientist instead. Kinley was a fairy for her school party and a "nice witch" for the big night. I think we all had a pretty good time and managed to eat all of our candy in a timely fashion.

Our beautiful little fairy, hairstyling courtesy of our sweet neighbor

Here's our "nice witch" with an awesome face painting job if I do say so myself

I believe the caption for the last picture should read something like "Yankees fans, a symbol of everything that is wrong with America."

Cheer Camp

September was a very busy month for us, especially Kinley. She started pre-school which she is absolutely loving. Then, her life long dream came true, she became a cheerleader. She has been telling me for quite some time that when she grows up she wants to be a cheerleader. Lucky for her our high school's cheerleaders put on a cheer camp. We have a young woman in our ward that is a cheerleader, and is currently Kinley's favorite person, and Kinley was lucky enough to be in her group. Now, if only I could find some type of deprogramming camp to send her to so that she could quit saying the cheers all day. I've been trying to upload a video of their performance but blogger just doesn't want me to. So, pictures only for today, sorry.

Kinley and McKenzie

Kinley after her big performance, and no, she can't just stand normal for a picture

That silly Kinley

As per our usual, Kinley has been cracking us up. Kinley has become a music critic. She absolutely loves music, and just like her daddy, she can tell you who sings every song and then sing about half the lyrics. Last week while we were checking out at the grocery store she began singing. The cashier asked her if she liked music and Kinley responded with, "oh, I just love me some Ke$ha." I should probably be embarrassed that my daughter knows who Ke$ha is, and that she knows a good chunk of the lyrics, but I just thought it was funny.

Now on to my very favorite recent Kinley comment. Kinley and I recently took a quick trip to St. George with my parents and my brother Len. Kinley is now obsessed with Len, she thinks he is just the greatest thing in the world. When we woke up on Saturday morning Len commented that there had been some serious snoring going on in the room. Kinley then says, while pointing to everybody, "Grandpa was snoring, and Grandma was snoring, (then while pointing at Len) and I'm going to spend the rest of the day with you." It was just such a random comment, it makes me laugh every time I think of it.

The very belated birthday post

I would like to blame my lack of blogging on my recent shoulder surgery, however, I had been on a break from blogging even before that. I actually think I have been putting off this post because it's just really hard for me to acknowledge that my baby girl is now 4 and definitely not a baby anymore. Even though I ask her every day just to be my baby again, she assures me it's just not possible. I honestly can't believe that in just another week and a half I will be dropping her off at pre-school. Every day I am amazed by her. I'm amazed at her imagination, her energy, her intelligence, her creativity, and of course, the fact that she has so much to say she just can't stop talking. I hate to break it to her, but whether she wants to be or not, she's always going to be my baby girl.

So, on to the birthday fun. This year Kinley wanted a Despicable Me birthday party. Quite the challenge since no bakeries in town have a kit to make a Despicable Me birthday cake. Thank heavens for the ever so talented Kandis who made an amazing cake for Kinley.
Kinley, being your average 4 year old girl, is obsessed with princesses and Barbies. So naturally, she got plenty of Barbies for her birthday.
Kinley also got this awesome Barbie furniture that her Grandma made for her. She also got this new "princess dress" which is great for twirling in.
Even Uncle Len made it for her birthday. She was pretty excited to have him come for a visit. Kinley managed to get my camera and snap this great picture of Len. He'll be thrilled it made it on the blog. A weekend with Kinley will wear anybody out.