First Hair Cut

We finally did it! We cut Kaitlyn's hair for the first time. Nana, daddy, and I created a little beauty salon right in the kitchen. Kaitlyn did really well, but it was really hard to keep her head straight. She kept wanting to look at what we were doing. Getting ready for her first haircut.Nana cutting Kaitlyn's hair. Originally I only wanted to give her a trim with at most an inch off, but it ended up being about 3 inches off. Here is the conversation between my mom and I.

"Is that too short?" Nana (After she made the first cut.)

"It's fine, but it's a little late if it is too short." Nikki

After poses! It is really hard to get a 2 1/2 year old to take profile pictures.

Big Girl Bed

We inherited a daybed from my mom, now that she lives with us. We decided this would be a good option for Kaitlyn's big girl bed. This also allows another room for guests to sleep in or if Kaitlyn isn't feeling well. We can just sleep on the trundle bed. Nate and I my mom put the bed together a few days ago, but we haven't let Kaitlyn actually sleep in it, until last night.

Kaitlyn loving her new big girl bed and bedding.

Kaitlyn being silly while I am trying to take pictures. She is the real "Drama Queen".

Kaitlyn getting ready to go to sleep for the first time in her big girl bed. She only woke up once because she was thirsty. I am hoping for continued success during this transistion.

Updates

Potty Training... so far so good. We have yet to accomplish pooping in the potty, but we can go all day with no accidents. She still gets marshmallows for every successful potty trip and will sometimes ask just for trying. We have been using pull-ups since poopy in the potty is not a big priority for Kaitlyn.

Terrible Two and half's.... Nate will tell you that Kaitlyn is very whining when I am around. I would have to agree, but he claims she is fine when it is just them. This past Sunday we were all recovering from some strange stomach bug. Kaitlyn who had the least issues kept asking for different snacks through out the day. Trying to stay firm with NO. She would throw herself to the ground and cry and ten minutes later ask again. I tried telling her she was driving me bonkers, but she only repeated the word "Bonkers?". Nate and I were pretty tired of listening to the breakdowns we decided that she needed to go to her bedroom to cry. She did this several times with no complaint. One time she came out of her room with her face all red and blotchy from crying in her room. (It was really hard not to laugh.)

Holiday Inn... A few weekends ago, Nate's family spent the weekend at the Holiday Inn by MOA. We visited for the day and went shopping and swimming. Here are some pictures from our day.

Kaitlyn getting ready to go swimming. She had so much fun that we had to tell her get out even though her lips were blue and she was shivering.

Kaitlyn loved jumping into the pool with daddy.

Kaitlyn holding her cousin Gibson for the first time.

A Quick Trip

After several months of planning and organizing we headed to Texas to bring my mom back to Minnesota. Nate, my dad, sister, brother-in-law, and I loaded up in our truck and started the 18 hour and 1300 mile trip. We left late Thursday evening. My dad, sister, and I crammed in the back. (Thank you Anny for taking residence in the middle seat.)

Nate and I did the driving on the way down. My favorite part of the drive was through the southern part of Oklahoma. It has snowed early in the night so the trees were beautifully covered with snow. Once we got to the Texas border I handed over the driver seat back to Nate. We had heard that Dallas just got 14 inches of snow. I was not ready to tackle bad Texas drivers and snow with a truck and trailer. I would say that we passed over 75 cars in the ditches for about a 4 hour stretch.

Here is some cool scenery we saw in the southern part of Oklahoma. It was so pretty.

We arrived in Onalaska, Texas around 3pm on Friday. We were greeted by my mom and aunt and uncle. They took us to dinner and we relaxed by watching the opening ceremony of the Olympics.

Here is my mom's house in Texas when we arrived.

Saturday we woke up and started packing. We were done around noon and decided we needed to do a little site seeing. We drove to the Trinity River Dam that supplies Houston's water supply. On the road again.... Exactly 24 hours from arriving in Onalaska, TX we were on our way back to Minnesota. My sister, my mom, and I in my mom's car and the boys in the truck. Between the 6 of us we all took turns driving through the night. We arrived safe and sound around 1pm on Sunday. Anny taking the first part of the drive.

To recap... We spent over 40 hours in a vehicle and traveled a total of 2600 miles within a 3 day period. It was worth it since we now have our mom and nana so close. (She is living our spare bedroom downstairs.)

Potty Training

This weekend we decided to really focus on potty training Kaitlyn. We started Saturday morning. She picked out a pair of kitty underwear. She was pretty excited about getting marshmallows for having successful potties. We spent the morning asking "Do you have to go potty?" Most of the time she would say yes, so we would go into the bathroom and attempt to have a success. Here are some notes from the day:

1. Kaitlyn loves to go potty just a little each time so she can get more marshmallows.

2. Kaitlyn would get so excited to see if she went potty, that she will get up mid-stream to check. (We spent a lot of time cleaning up the floor.)

3. Kaitlyn went "big poopy" on Saturday in the potty. During this trip to the bathroom she decided it was a private matter and asked that I leave the bathroom. I am surprised she didn't ask for a book or newspaper. She was rewarded several marshmallows for her success.

4. Kaitlyn had only one accident on Saturday evening while waiting for daddy to come home.

Sunday started the same. No accidents and several trips to try to go potty. We explained that if she needs to go potty that she can just go and we will come in when she is done. Let's just say that we spent most of our awake time in the bathroom checking for more potty.

Here is Kaitlyn's potty chair. She has decided to take both potty chair types and make them into one comfy "extreme" potty. It does create a little more clean-up, but it works. I am hoping that we can transition onto the "really BIG potty" soon. I am not a big fan of the whole dumping process.

Happy Birthday Daddy!

We celebrated Nate's (aka. Daddy) birthday on Saturday. Kaitlyn woke him with her rendition of Happy Birthday. It was really cute! Here is a reenactment of her morning performance with some added material.

Nate, my sister Anny, Randy, and the Eggiman's came out for a nice birthday dinner at Osaka's. We had a lot of fun having dinner as adults without tending to children. (I am not sure all our behavior was adult like, but we had a great time.)

Here are some pictures from the night.

Group photo! Nate (aka: Birthday Boy) is the one in the mask. I think Steve was a little confused on what was going on that moment.

You can't tell, but there is a stream of Saki flowing into Steve's mouth. It got a little messy, but it was fun to see everyone have a "shot" at it. (Aimee and I opted out of the fun.)

Nate's attempt on the Saki shot... or stream. Not exactly sure what to call it.
Anny didn't do to bad!

But the winner of the longest Saki shot was....

My soon to be brother Randy.... He keeps going and .....

....and going. If you notice the cook now has to squeeze with both hands!

Little Miss Talks Alot

I have been having trouble loading videos on my blog for the past few months. Our friend Zach came over and helped me make my video files smaller and now I can load videos. Yeah! Here is a video of Kaitlyn a few months ago.

Miracle in the Family

This past Saturday our Nephew was born. Nate's sister Mel and our brother-in-law welcomed Gibson Samuel into the family. He has been a long awaited miracle to our family. My sister-in-law spent 15 LONG weeks on bed rest to ensure "Little Man" would wait to join the world until he was ready. After a long 35 weeks of waiting, he decided it was about time to come and meet his family.

I was able to be at the hospital when he was born. Nate's other sister Mandi, cousin Sara, Auntie Tammy, and a few others waited outside the hospital room door just waiting to here him cry. He weighed in at 6lbs. 5 oz and was 17 inches long.

We want to welcome our newest member into the family. Gibson you are blessed with some amazing parents that have waited a long time for you to come. We are so excited to have you as part of our family. Remember we are your favorite distant Auntie, Uncle, and Cousin.

Play Date

Kaitlyn and I met up with our friends Diane and Hailey for a Saturday play date. We decided to take them to an indoor playground. This was Kaitlyn's and I's first time at the indoor park, so we were happy that Diane and Hailey were with us to show us the ropes.

I didn't take a picture of the actual play area, but just image a 3 story maze of tunnels, slides, obstacles all enclosed with netting. It is really funny to see adults trying to maneuver through the tight spaces. The good news is that Kaitlyn loved it. Her favorite part is the 2 different jumping areas. She would have stayed in there all day if we would have let her.Kaitlyn, Nikki, and Hailey (Diane was taking the picture!)

Kaitlyn in the jumping area with all the other kids.

Here is Kaitlyn and Hailey in part of the indoor play area. Diane and I were right behind them as they made there way through the maze of levels. A few times I wasn't sure if we would make it through. I did manage to lose my camera while crawling through a tunnel, but a nice adult behind me saw it and gave it back.

After we left the park, we went back to Diane and Hailey's for lunch. Kaitlyn found a Santa hat and kept it on the whole time while the girls played playdough. To be honest, all four of us played with the playdough.

Thank you Diane and Hailey for a great playdate! We had a lot of fun!

Christmas

As most families, our Christmas celebrations started a few weeks before Christmas and ended just this past weekend. Kaitlyn loved opening presents so we had to hide them all until it was time to open them. Thomas our cat was the only thing under our Christmas tree this year. This Christmas was also a little snowy. (I wonder if I can say that 12+ inches is a little snow?) Nate spend most of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day either plowing or sleeping, so we had to do some rearranging of our plans.

Santa was in Mora and Kaitlyn wanted nothing to do with him, so we decided to make this a family picture. Kaitlyn was not too thrilled that she was close to Santa, and Nate and I were trying not to laugh.
Kaitlyn and Cousin Hailey during our McNeilly family Christmas in Mora.
Kaitlyn showing off her dance moves with her new Tutu she got.
Auntie Mel and Uncle Sam got all 3 cousins computers with their names on them. They all had to open them before we could move onto more presents.

My sister found this super cute Christmas dress for Kaitlyn. Kaitlyn called it her Santa dress!

Christmas morning while Daddy was plowing and we were waiting for everyone to come over, we took some pictures with the timer on the camera.

We had to wait until the afternoon on Christmas day to open our presents and stockings from Santa. We didn't want to have daddy miss out on all the fun.

My mom made her a super cute scarf and head thing. (It has some sort of weird name that I can't remember.)

The snow stopped just in time for us to travel to Mora for our last Christmas Celebration. Here are all the cousins.

This is my favorite picture of our niece and nephew. They are growing up way to fast.

Here I am with my sister-in-law Mandi after we enjoyed a yummy drink.
Kaitlyn was a lucky little girl this year. I think we need to buy a bigger house to fit all of her new toys. Here is one of her favorites from her Bopapa! A new bike.

It's That Time!

The other day when I picked up Kaitlyn at daycare I was told that Kaitlyn climbed out of the crib after nap. Daycare has tried to have her sleep on a little cot but Kaitlyn just thought it was play time. At home Kaitlyn had never tried to climb out of the crib, so I knew it would only be a matter of time.

Today Nate called me around 8:20 to ask if Kaitlyn was awake when I left for work. I said No! He said he woke up and when he checked the monitor she wasn't in her crib. So, he got up and she had climbed out of her crib, opened her bedroom door (which is a new trick too) and was down in the entryway with Cody.

So, we might need to go shopping for a new bed very soon. Maybe they will have some after Christmas sales on Twin size beds.

Baking Cookies

This weekend was the perfect weekend to get all our Christmas baking done. Saturday morning I headed to the grocery store for all the supplies. After Kaitlyn's nap we began baking. We made 4 dozen on Saturday evening and another 6 dozen on Sunday. Kailtyn loved adding ingredients, mixing them together, and watching mommy do the rest. She was a big help.

Getting ready to start making cookies. Kaitlyn was very excited to help mommy in the kitchen.

Here is Kaitlyn mixing the dry ingredients. She did a great job. Mommy actually made a bigger mess than Kaitlyn.
Here is Kaitlyn watching mommy mix all the other ingredients.

Mommy and Kaitlyn having fun making cookies together. A few hours later we had to keep daddy away from eating all the cookies we made.

Kaitlyn is almost 2 1/2 and has really began to start testing more of her boundaries. This weekend she learned how to climb up her dresser to get to her nukies. She is only allowed her nukies at bedtime or in the car. Nate found her in her bedroom with the door shut a nukie in her mouth and her laying on the ground with 5 more in her hands.

Kaitlyn also started putting herself on time-out. One time I asked her why she was on time-out and she said it was because she wasn't listening. After a couple more times of her putting herself on a time-out we had to tell her she can only go on time-out when mommy and daddy tell her too.

McNeilly Recent Happenings

I can't believe that November is over and Christmas is just a few short weeks away. We were certainly busy in November. We were in Mora for 3 weekends for Deer Hunting. Nate got a nice 8 point buck on opening morning. Kaitlyn and I spent the weekends hanging out with Nate's family. We went to a few craft fairs, raked leaves at Mel and Sam's, and played with my niece and nephew.

Kaitlyn, Cousin Darren, and Cousin Hailey hanging out at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

Thanksgiving we spent the day in St. Cloud. I stayed overnight to experience the great joys of shopping on Black Friday. Nate's 2 aunts and my mother-in-law and I got up at 3:30am to start our shopping adventure. We found some great deals and I got all our Christmas Shopping done in one day.
We brought in some of Kaitlyn's outside toys for the winter. She insisted that we bring her car upstairs while she watched a Veggie Tales movie. It entertained her for about 20 minutes before she got bored.

Fall Leaves!

Sunday was a beautiful day. We woke up after having an extra hour of sleep and headed outside. We spent a good part of the day mowing and racking up leaves and sticks. Kaitlyn loved helping by jumping in the piles, putting leaves in the bags, picking up sticks, and riding with Daddy on the lawn mower.

Kaitlyn hiding in the leaves.
"Look at me mommy! I am laying in the leaves!"
"Cheese!"

Little Miss Talker

Kaitlyn is quite the little talker. She loves to repeat everything you say. She also remembers a lot of things. She points out several things while we drive places. She loves letting us know when she sees Semi Trucks, Dump Trucks, School Buses, Aimee's Van, Water (which are Lakes or ponds), Boats, and Motorcycles. (If we don't respond to her she will keep repeating it until we confirm what she saw.) Here is a little video I took the other night. We needed to coach her on a few things, but I am pretty sure you will understand it.

She also loves to talk to people on the phone. Most of the time I have to translate for the other person, but all in all I can pick out enough words to know what she is saying.