Be careful what you say....

Just a warning to any of you out there that may have the chance to spend some time with Kinley. You need to be careful what you tell her. Why you ask? Simple, she remembers everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING. Recently, Kinley was spending some time with my dear, sweet mother. My mom was telling her how she and my dad go to the prison once a month to work with an inmate. My parents do "Family Home Evening" with a prisoner once a month. My mother, with the best intentions, told Kinley all about prison and what it's like to go there.

Well, let's fast forward to today. Kinley and I were paying for our groceries at Walmart when the checker told us that somebody had been caught shoplifting. She then told Kinley what that meant and that shoplifters have to go to jail. Kinley responded with, "You want to know something awesome? My grandma has to go to jail all the time. She walks in through a big door and it shuts behind her and she is locked in there. But she likes it because there is a church she can go to." I was trying so hard not laugh while I explained to the checker why my parents were going to the jail all the time. I really feel like it was one of Kinley's better moments. I wonder if my mom will too?

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.