And if I don't have anything else to do...

... I clean marker off the walls, sink, and bathtub. I was out cleaning the kitchen and Kaelyn had been in the living room coloring. And then she wasn't there anymore. I had this sinking feeling when I went walking back to the little bathroom because I had heard her talking and giggling delightedly to herself and I had a feeling I knew what she was up to. I walked in and saw red marker ALL OVER the bathroom and all over her. She had then climbed up on the counter and turned the water on and was attempting to stick her face down under the faucet (yeah, that didn't work out so well for her) to clean her face off. I said, "Give me that marker", snatched the marker away from her, turned around and walked out without saying anymore - I knew I would regret it later in life if she was maimed because of the "red marker" incident when she was four (Kidding about hurting her of course but I was quite upset.) LATER, after some deep breaths, I took some pictures. Actually though, it didn't turn out too badly because the folks at Crayola are geniuses. Washable crayons and markers are probably one of the greatest inventions ever known to mothers! It literally only took some damp paper towels to clean up, even on the regular wall. And here I have been so thrilled that she is starting to take in interest in coloring and things like that that require use of fine motor skills. :)
P. S. If any of you would like a mural painted - more like scribbled actually - on any of your walls, I am hiring Kaelyn out for it. (Sadly this isn't the first time she has "decorated" the walls)


Some of the walls she colored in the shower.


The edge of the bathtub.


The wall and part of the counter.


Sink and counter.


She had gone into our bathroom where she
could see herself in the mirrors and was
giggling as she scribbled all over her face.


She obligingly posed for a picture. I didn't
ask her to grin - I wasn't really in the mood.
But since that's what you do when you take
a picture, she gave me this huge grin, which
kind of fit the whole picture.

Back to school

The "big day" for Kaelyn was today - that is, her back to school day. Though she has been anxiously asking about school for the past couple weeks, I thought she still might cry the first couple days. When we went to the open house Friday, she was excited but still clinging to me. She wanted me right with her pretty much the whole time and when we first walked in, she was hiding behind my legs. Not this morning though. I am fully aware that I might be jinxing myself since both of the other times she started (last Jan. and then the summer program) she was sort of okay the first day but then didn't do so well after that because she knew what was going to happen after the first day (I was going to leave her). I don't really think that will happen this time though. I didn't have to wake her up this morning. When I went out to the kitchen to make sure her lunch stuff was all ready, she woke up and came out with a smile on her face. When we got to school and into the classroom, she was so excited she couldn't stand still - seriously. :) She knew exactly where she was supposed to put her stuff and what to do. Out of the 10 kids who were in her class last year, 4 of them were old enough to move on to kindergarten but the other 6 (including her) are all still four and are all back this year and so far it is only kids from last year in her class. So she knows all her classmates, she has the same teacher, one of the same aides - pardon me, I believe their correct title now is paraprofessional :) - and just one new aide. She was all smiles for the camera this morning and while her smiles are her "fake grin for the camera" grins, her happiness was not fake. Such a relief to a mommy as you can imagine. I couldn't have been prouder of her. Now my only problem is that she is growing up WAY too fast for my liking!
P. S. Check out my cool new quotes and blog facelift. :)


A very similar pose to the one we took of
her on her first day last January (I like
those "progression" pictures).


She was supposed to be "showing off" her
new Tinker Bell lunchbox but I'm not quite
sure she got that idea. Still cute though.


Same backpack - quite a bit bigger little
girl than our last picture like this.


Too big, too fast.


Walking into the school.


Walking into her new classroom. I was
actually going to try to get a better picture
of her with all the stuff on her classroom
door but she was in too big of a hurry to
get inside.


She is very fascinated with days/dates and she loves
that every day they go over what the day, month, and
date is. ("Today is Monday, August 24." She just
doesn't like it when it's a new month and she has
to adjust to learning a new month.)


In front of her picture schedule. She moves
each activity square to the top by her name
as they move from one activity to another.


First one - not smiling...

...Second one - [fake] smiling but distracted
by other classmates coming in. Oh well. :)

School News

We just got a call today from Kaelyn's teacher from last year. She is going to be back this year and she will be Kaelyn's teacher again. (She was thinking about retiring because she has enough years so we didn't know whether Kaelyn would have a new teacher or not.) We are VERY excited! I let Kaelyn listen to the message on the phone and I explained to her that Miss Marilyn will be her teacher again this year. She started jumping around and saying, "This is going to be fun! This is going to be fun!" So... I know that means nothing to any of you but I feel so relieved. She is so great with the kids and Kaelyn just loves her.
We have open house Friday afternoon and then school starts Monday for Kaelyn. She is ready to get back into a routine and has been asking about school for the past couple weeks so I'm hoping it will be a much easier transition then her first time. She does have a new classroom which I know will throw her off a bit but I think she will be fine since she will have several of the same classmates and the same teacher.

And a random picture since I think blog posts are more interesting with pictures and I never posted vacation pictures (other then a handful).

Snapshots

These are just a couple of snapshots from a couple weeks ago. We were on our way home from Chick-fil-a on family night and Kaelyn was exhausted. Even though it's not that long of a ride home, she was out of it before we made it home about as soon as we put her in the car.

Kevin's princess birthday party

Wow! I had a burst of blogging energy for about a week and then it all went away. :) Oh well. These pictures are from a few weeks ago. If you are on facebook you might have already saw my posting about this but without the pictures. This year was the first year Kaelyn has understood what happens on a birthday - cake, presents, etc. She has never really understood or cared in the past. Of course she had her birthday back in May. When it was Kevin's birthday at the end of July, she was thrilled that we were having another "birthday party". Kevin chose a carrot cake as his choice for a cake for his birthday. I tried several times to explain to Kaelyn that it was "Daddy's birthday" not hers but she just didn't get it. She was absolutely fine with the fact that it was his birthday and he got presents and we sang to him but she really thought that it was her birthday too. She was jumping up and down and just beside herself with excitement at the idea of a birthday party. When she saw the cake come out after dinner, she got very excited. She ran to the drawer in the kitchen where we kept the princess toppers from her birthday cake - I didn't even know she knew they were in there. She was insistent on putting them on the cake. Then she wanted candles on it. Kevin was a great sport and just went along with it. He held up his princess cake so we could get a picture, then we lit the candles so he could blow them out. She was okay with that but as soon as he had blown out the candles, she asked us to light the candles (not the way she put it but...) so SHE could blow them out. So we lit the candles a second time and she took a turn blowing them out. :) It was just all so funny because you could tell she really had no clue that it was not her birthday again.


Putting the candles on the princess cake.


The cake was small and of course not really made
to be decorated so it looked quite amusing to have
the 3 princesses crowded onto the top of it. :)


She was so anxious for us to light the candles and as
you can see was very intent on the whole cake thing.


The cake after Kaelyn was done with it.


The birthday guy with his princess cake.

Kaelyn taking her turn blowing out the

candles.

Attempting to cut the cake. She just knows

what's supposed to happen with a birthday

cake now so she was so anxious to put the

toppers on, light the candles, blow them

out and then cut the cake.

I'm so excited!

So look what was brought to my house this week:











I haven't lived where I had access to one in years and
I have missed it so much. I usually only get a chance
to play once in every few months so I'm overjoyed!
I am THRILLED TO PIECES! That's pretty much
all I need to say.

Pooh - as in Winnie the Pooh

A few weeks ago on a Saturday, Barnes and Nobles had a meet and greet with Winnie the Pooh. It was actually the classic Pooh so it looked a bit different then what Kaelyn is used to it but she still knew who it was supposed to be. The store actually has a little platform area in the kid's section for story times and the background wall is painted like the Hundred Acre Wood from the original Winnie the Pooh books. Kaelyn seems to love anything in costume whether she knows who it's supposed to be or not so of course she loved this.


A quick hug

And another "great big hug" (that's how

she says it) before he had to leave.

Summer Fun

Jensen Beach (the town where Kaelyn goes to school) has a cool park that is right on the Indian River. They have a small beach area but the water is much calmer then the beaches by the ocean and it is shallow for a good ways out. They also have a "jumping fountain" place for kids. Best of all, it's a lot of fun all for free! During July, Kaelyn was in a summer program Mondays through Thursdays till shortly after noon every day at the same place she goes to school so one day we went to this park after I picked her up. She LOVED it and it will definitely be a fun activity to do in the future - especially since we'll have warm, summer-like weather for oh, another 5 months or so. :)


There are 2 rings of fountains around the big
fountain in the middle. The center fountain
shoots water higher then I have ever seen a
fountain like that shoot. Kaelyn pretty much
stays on the outer ring where the smaller
fountains are.

Kaelyn wanted me to walk over to the fountains

so she could watch her reflection in my sunglasses

(yeah, just a funny little thing of her's). I had al-

ready done it a couple times so I finally got her

glasses out and tried to show her how she could

just hold them up and see herself. She ended up

just putting them on. A couple minutes later,

I looked over and she had them up on her head.

When I went over to get a picture she said, "Look,

you look like Mommy." I was surprised because

I didn't even know she knew or could explain

(verbalize) the concept of looking like something

or someone. Obviously, I thought it was the

cutest thing ever.

Taking a break and enjoying some nice, cold water.

Ready to go home. The cock eyed glasses

on the head of course was all her doing again.

Yep, that's her "grin for the camera" grin. :)

More blogging as promised :)

A couple weeks ago for their family night activity, Chick-fil-a had Disney night. Since Kaelyn already has a Tinker Bell outfit, we dressed her in that. Kevin and I had discussed trying to dress up as Beauty and the Beast but I'm not sure either one of us had the nerve to do it if we would've been able to figure out how to do it. As it turned out, we were very glad we hadn't as almost no one dressed up (that we saw anyway) except for Kaelyn and a couple of Rod and Betty's kids. Kevin and I ended up wearing Disney t-shirts. What we didn't know was that if you had any kind of disney stuff on, you still got your entree free even if you weren't in full costume. They had the cow there, Disney coloring sheets, a prize wheel, etc. I won a free waffle fries and Kevin won a free desert (from spinning the wheel). We knew Kaelyn would get her meal free because of being dressed up but we didn't know that some of our's would be free also because of our shirts. Between the free entrees and the coupons we won, we spent around $4 for all 3 of our meals. We were happy about that of course. Kaelyn was NOT impressed with being in costume but she wore it long enough to get there and get her food (and get a couple of pictures). Besides, she got a cool "goody bag" with all kinds of princess stuff in it since she was the only one dressed up. So... here are pictures from Chick-fil-a's disney night:


Don't believe the fake smile - trust me, she
was not smiling most of the time when she
was dressed up. After much cajoling, we got
her to "grin" for a picture so that she could
"go inside and get her food, then take the
dress off".


Thinking about whether it was worth smiling
for the picture so she could get inside and get
the crazy costume off.


They had this inflatable "Mater" - you know like
Tumater without the Tu (sorry couldn't resist)
from the "CARS" movie. Under normal circum-
stances, Kaelyn would have been much happier
to pose but there was the whole dress thing.


Even the cow couldn't cheer her up because
of the evil costume she was forced to endure.


Britt and Jessica Brown


Coloring Disney pictures - the cow actually
did color and quite well for having ginormous
"paws". He did better then I do without
all the garb on.


Kay-Kay and the 3 youngest Brown children coloring.





After she got her clothes changed, she was
much happier and wanted to dance with
the cow - don't ask. Okay, you don't have
to ask, I'll explain anyway. :) The first
time she ever saw and fell in love w/the
cow, (at the Christmas parade last year)
he held her and danced with her because
she was just so taken with him. So of
course now, she always has to dance with
the cow. Gotta' love the way that brain
of her's works.


Most of you will probably not understand
this but it is pretty amazing that she will
sit and color now like this - great progress!