April 2016

Ms. Sunshine has been giving me great feedback about your behavior at school lately.

You've been interested in some longer books lately so I started reading a few chapter books with you and you were enjoying them.  For the most part I think they are still a little advanced but you love Nate the Great.

You have a strong interest in everyone's favorite color these days.  You talk all the time about the favorite colors of everyone in our family and anything you see in yellow you make sure to tell me is my favorite color.

You spend a little too much time picking your nose and eating your boogers.

You like to watch Mighty Car Mods with Daddy.  I asked you one day what you liked about it.  Is it the guys?  Is it that you get to watch with Daddy?  Is it that they're working on cars?  You said you like that they are working on cars.

You have decided you want to be a teacher when you get bigger.
I found this one day after you had been rearranging your shoes.

We finally got to meet your namesake, Baby Kinley.  She is around 9 months old already!  You thought it was pretty cool that she shares your name.

Daddy was busy one weekend so I decided we should have a fun girls' day.  We started with haircuts.  Your first haircut at a salon.

Then lunch together, your choice.  You picked pasta at California Pizza Kitchen.

Some snuggle time when we got home.

And finally, you wanted to bake cupcakes.

A couple of weeks ago you told me about a dream that my car was in an accident and it was broken in a garage and you fixed it with your tools.  I was excited because it was the first time you've ever told me about a dream, a little concerned that you are dreaming about car wrecks, and amused that you fixed it.  Since then you've told me several times about dreams that my car was in an accident.  I don't know if it's all the same dream or if you've had more than one but regardless I think it seems a little strange.  I hope you haven't inherited my unreasonable fear of car wrecks.

We modified one of your board games and played with action figures for fun one day.

We finally got to fly your kite!  I know Grandma Norma thinks it took me way too long, but I say one month from your birthday is doing pretty good for someone without a yard.  Or wind.

When we got it out of the package we discovered we were missing a pretty important structural component to the kite so we went stick hunting until we could find something that would suffice.  I was pretty proud of us.

We've been on a hot streak with you getting up at 5:30 almost every day.  You're not getting enough sleep in general and it wears on you.  I'm doing everything I can to get you extra rest but nothing seems to be working.  Most mornings you tell me you are tired even within just a few minutes of getting up in the morning.  Just a few weeks ago you were sleeping a little later in the mornings and getting fully rested.  On those days you would wake up so happy in the morning and come running out to see me with your arms pumping.  Those are my favorite mornings.

Another Mommy-Daughter day (what has Daddy been doing, anyway?) and this time I bought us tickets to see the Box Brothers at The Broad Stage.  I've been looking for some kind of live performance to take you to but hadn't found the right thing yet.  When I saw this I decided to give it a try and you loved it.  It was a performance about 4 brothers who lived in wooden boxes.  They used their boxes as drums and it was mostly dancing and percussion, with a story line but very little talking.  It was a lot of fun and you talk about it all the time.  Now you want to see Box Brothers with girls.

You made an appearance in the Malibu Times playing with the baby chicks at school.

We got to bunny-sit for Tickles again this month.

You started your first soccer practice and it's been lots of fun.

Yeah, that's my kid who sometimes prefers to lay on the ball in the middle of the field.

At the beginning of this month we were having a really hard time with dropping you off at school.  You did not want me to leave and I thought it might go better if Daddy took you, but it was just as bad.  It never lasted long after we left but it was still really hard on us all.  It's gotten MUCH better in the past couple of weeks, but at the time when you were struggling you would often tell us, "I want Mommy ALL the time....even at school."

I often ask you when I'm putting you to bed what your favorite part of the day was.  Your recent answer has been "you" almost every day.  It's very sweet, and I love that you feel that way, but when you were still struggling with separation I wasn't so sure that it was a good thing.

You love to swing.  Daddy pushes you higher than I'm willing to.

Baby salon day!

You've been loving the Toy Story movies lately and told me one day you wanted Woody and Jessie toys.  I didn't really think we needed to buy any more toys so I suggested we make some and I love how they came out.

You can even color on them then throw them in the laundry to start over with a clean slate.  Daddy-Daughter coloring before watching one of the movies.

On the subject of coloring, you are starting to color inside the lines.  Or rather, focus your coloring on the image, at least.

All dressed up before we headed out for the Box Brothers.

More soccer....

Who needs a dollhouse when you have a cardboard box and Mega Bloks furniture?

Shhh, the action figures are sleeping.

You think dresses and skirts are for dancing.  When you wear one, you immediately start dancing around the house as soon as I get you dressed. 


Since you've been so excited about them lately, I decided we needed to find somewhere to hang your dresses where you could reach them.  It took several tries but I finally got a rod hanging in your room.  They are out in the open in and I love it.

Homemade solar system.  How does one explain Earth to a 3-year old anyway?

You've started telling me that you see dolphins out the window.  I'm pretty sure you're making this up, which makes me think all the times I try to point out real dolphins you have no idea what I'm showing you.

Wrapping Daddy's birthday presents.

And decorating a sign for him.

You picked out scissors for him.  I love it.

You received a couple of books for your birthday about traveling to different places to collect all the ingredients to make pie (How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World and How to Make a Cherry Pie and See the USA).  Now you randomly talk about the places the girl visits in the book.  "Daddy I'm going to drop you off at the corner of Pennsylvania and Ohio."  "Can we go to Sri Lanka?"

You often tell me, especially while eating, "I just grew bigger."

Conversation while you were sitting on the potty:
me:  Are you pooping?
you:  No, I'm going to pee.
me:  Have you went yet?
you:  No.
me:  What are you waiting on?
you:  I'm waiting for Christmas to come.

Good quote this week:  "I smell brownies on my sleeve!"  You then proceeded to lick your sleeve....
 
Finally, the only time to poop is when I am making dinner, apparently.