That's so COOL!

One of Keely's newest tricks is to ask what you're doing and then say "That's so cool!" Its pretty hilarious what she thinks is cool. Everything from crushing garlic for dinner to brushing teeth.

But in the last week Keely has started singing along with songs. I've really been waiting for this because we listen to Raffi a lot in the car and I wanted to hear her sing along! After our bear hunt in the car I've started playing Dr Jean for her at home, including the bear hunt song. She started singing along with that and hasn't stopped singing since. Her favorites are twinkle-twinkle and the ABCs. Last night at the kitchen table she said "Its raining cookies!" When we looked at her curiously, she said "I singing" and I recognized the song from the Sesame Street we'd watched that day.

Today I took the Flip recorder into the car with us on the way to school. I got some cute footage, and here are two clips. A bit more is on my picture website.

Keely singing Twinkle-Twinkle.

Itsy-Bitsy Spider

A Bear Hunt

Today on the way to school while we were driving through downtown Lenoir City, Keely told me “I see bear.” I kind of laughed and said that I didn’t think so. She replied, “I see bear, far away.” I told her that was good. Further down the road she said again “I see bear, far away. It’s running.” We spent the next 10 minutes talking about if the bear was scary or nice (scary), if it was going to catch us when we stopped for red lights, etc. I’d gotten used to her telling stories about things she’s done, but this is the first time she’s told a full-blown imaginary story. I LOVE IT! On the way home from school today she started saying that she saw a bear in the tree and then said "bear hunt." I bet I know what song they've been singing at school this week!

Sorry for the lack of pictures lately, I’m waiting on Daniel to get a few edited and I’ve been putting in a lot of hours with work lately. 

Snuggle Mommy

Last week Keely went through a not wanting to sleep phase. She didn't take a nap longer than an hour all week (most days no nap at all) and still fought bedtime. We've changed out bedtime routin a bit and it seems to be working. One change is that I play music for her. The other is "snuggle mommy" time. This started in desperation to get her to sleep one night. I broke the rules and went in when she was crying at bedtime. I scooped her up and sat in her chair and rocked her. Now this sounds like a great plan, but I knew it would be bad eventually because she WILL NOT fall asleep if someone is in the room (she's laid awake in our bed for 2 hours in the middle of the night before). So i rocked her for about 15 minutes then put her back in bed, to much tears. But then she fell asleep quickly. So the next night she asked to snuggle mommy so I told her we'd do it for THREE songs on the radio. That went much better. Now its a habit and I LOVE IT. I'm happy to have this little piece of my baby needing me when so often I look at her and wonder where the heck this big girl came from! These are the moments moms cherish.

Oh Crap

Ever since Keely was born I've been nagging Daniel to watch his language around her. And he'll admit he's pretty bad. On the other hand I've done really well with at least replacing curse words with non-curse words. Cussing Lite maybe? We figured we'd be getting an uncomfortable phone call from her school some day and it would be all his fault. Funny how things turn out...

So today Keely was eating corn and kept talking while eating so pieces kept falling out. I said "we're just going to recycle this crap." To which Keely promptly replied "Crap."

Well Keely repeats a lot of words that we say without any understanding of how to use them so we just tried to ignore it. We were afraid if we made a big deal about it it would make the word more important in her mind. Hopefully she'd just forget it?

No luck. A few minutes later she was looking in her basket of fake food, apparently for something she couldn't find because she said "Oh, crap!" 

The Beach!

So life has been pretty crazy here, but I finally finished my online course (on how to teach an online course) and we're done traveling for at least 2 weeks. I'll make a couple of posts this weekend to help 'catch up'. We went to the beach for a week (May 14-21) with Nick. It was really wonderful! Megan was even able to come down for the first Saturday and acted as our official photographer. Keely loved the ocean and playing in the sand. She keeps asking for the beach and the ocean again. I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story!

Keely rocked these glasses everytime we were at the beach. I love the "thug" look!

Her very first sight of the ocean!

First steps in the sand

This is one of my favorite pictures! What a priss!

In this picture she is running towards Megan yelling 'Meh-meh'!

Megan and I showing off our new shirts. These shirts are part of a pretty hilarious story from high school. 

Apparently I'd labeled a page in Megan's senior year-book "Heather's Page" and then I never signed it. Whoops? She only half filled out my yearbook.

Keely rocking out to some music on the TV.

There are a TON more pictures, so please visit our picture website (in the bar on the right) to see more. There are also 2 videos that will get posted on the shutterfly site SOON.

In other news, Keely's language skills continue to grow at a crazy pace. Wed after her first day in her summer class (mon and wed mornings) after we came home she told me "I put sticker on box". (They decorated treasure boxes.) While sentences and story telling isn't new, it IS new that she is putting together stories that we haven't coached her with. Like telling her that she was going to go on an airplane, and then she'd say "I go on airplane." And just a few minutes ago I sneezed and she said "bless you." I love it!