Adventures of the Roberts Family: No longer two ... now two and a half!

How old are you K?
"Two ... half!"

How in the world are we already crossing the two and half year mark? I barely remember life without you K, and I certainly never want to experience life that way again. You are so incredibly sweet, when you want to be and are always sassy. You are an independent yet needy little person all at the same time. You love to cuddle and still love being a Mama's girl, yet are becoming quite the Daddy's girl. We love you sweetpea!

Could she cheese any bigger?

Daddy's girl{s}

Kherington now weighs 28 lbs, 3.5 oz and is 36 inches tall! She is in a variety of clothes depending on the brand, but is mostly 2T to 3T. She wears 2T/3T big girl underwear or pull-ups and is in size 6 baby dry diapers for night time. She is now wearing a 7 toddler shoe. K is still happy as a clam in her crib and we are even happier clams that this is the case.

Sleeping at school ... half on, half off the cot

"wash bottles"

These two melt my heart
Ellie thinks the world of K

During this past month you have been such a big girl and such a good little helper in the mornings with Mama transitioning back to work. You also have done a great job in the evenings, as Daddy has been travelling quite a bit. Unfortunately, with Daddy's travel schedule, I have had to tell Kherington that I am only one person and there are two of them {K and Ellie} so she is going to have to be patient and wait. She is obviously catching on, as when I tell her to wait or just a second, she will reply "one person?" She also tells Elliana when she is crying, "Mama, one person." Good, bad or indifferent, it is what it is. We have had our challenging moments, but for the most part, K has done so well and Mama is so proud of the little lady she is becoming.

Life is SO hard as a toddler

With those challenging toddler moments, a meltdown usually ensues. A lot of time, this happens when I am with Elliana, whether it be for a diaper change, or when I need to feed her or pump. I read an article that spoke to this and I thought I'd give it a try. Anything is worth a shot right? For the most part, Kherington has responded beautifully to this. Sometimes the "I feel sad Mommy" gets old, but I always want her to know she has a spot on my lap, a shoulder to cry on, and an ear to listen. I hope this is the start of an open line of communication for all the years ahead. And overall the melting into the floor episodes have lessened. Win win!

Daddy's brave letting her lay on him in big girl underwear!

We need to work on being a lady obviously

We continue to venture further and further down the path of potty training, and you continue to get better at realizing when you have to go potty and verbalizing that to us. Most of the time you are wearing big girl "underwears" at school with few accidents. We did take a step back last weekend as you and sis both were fighting some kind of bug and Mama and Daddy decided it was best to keep you in diapers. You have been doing great with going #1 for a long time but #2 has been hit or miss. The cutest thing {in my opinion-others might be offended} you say when you happen to have an accident, but realize it is "it's coming out!" She also loves to wash her hands after going potty. Daddy made her step stools to use in the half bath with the pedestal sink and upstairs in her bathroom. She loves to use soap and tells me as she is scrubbing between her fingers, that is how Grandma taught her to wash her hands.

Building with blocks

Kherington had her 2.5 year well check visit this past week and everything looked great according to Dr. Adams. They have us fill out a development evaluation prior to her appointments. It was quite extensive this time and glad the Schoenberg's gave us a heads up about this. Kherington probably thought we had lost our minds when we were going through the questions asking her to do things like, "find a book and put it on the table" or "find a shoe and put it under the chair." One question that made me pleasantly surprised was "does your toddler use three and four word sentences?" At first I was like, I'm not sure she is, and then I started paying attention. She is using four, five and six word sentences most of the time. And for the most part she uses proper grammar, with the most trouble being with me versus I.

She loves to read and loves her A to Z farm book

Her babies needed to know the Pete the Cat story too

Maybe being a teacher is in her future

Kherington continues to learn new words and phrases and is constantly making her Daddy and I laugh. She started saying "dude" one weekend. After ignoring her most of the day regarding this, I asked her, "Kherington, where did you learn the word dude?" She responded, "umm....on TV." She also loves saying "Oh. My. Gosh!" which she told us she learned from school. Not surprising. When you ask her what she is doing she loves to respond, "umm, nothing." Little stinker. Heading into her doctors appointment, we were crossing the parking lot. She proceeded to tell me, "Car coming. Run you over!" She cracks me up!!

Painting a masterpiece

Dance class with Ms. Emily

Who knows?

Peeking in the window

Such concentration

Painting

She loves tracing her hand

Alayna and K
They've come so far from K biting her in the face! Yikes!!

Marker time

Mario was admiring her finger painting

Practicing gluing her shapes

Craft time

Play-doh it appears

She is looking shy here

She loves building

I love this face
Such determination

Putting noodles on a pipe cleaner to make a caterpillar

Painting
Why the use of the left hand again kid?

Coloring {again lefthanded .... noooo!}

She loves playing ball as well

Kherington still loves school, which I am so thankful for. This is an incredible environment for her to foster her love for learning. I love the playing while learning concept and think this is key for their short little attention spans. I love hearing her talk about school, her friends {and not so friends "me no like Matthew Bennett"} what she ate for lunch, where she played that day etc. Thank you Goddard for taking such wonderful care of her {and Elliana}.

Matching her colors

You continue to be a little sponge, soaking up all kinds of things. You are progressing rapidly with all things learning. You are consistently able to count to 11 without any help and can count the rest of the way to 20 with help. You love singing the ABC's and can get to "G" all by yourself. You love looking at Mama's watch and asking "time is it." You know all of your colors and almost all the shapes. You love singing in general and are getting really good at "apples and bananas," "rock a bye baby," "twinkle twinkle," "five little monkeys" and "wheels on the bus."

Typical

I love our short time in the car in the mornings and in the afternoons going to and from school. I love hearing what she says. They have been doing construction on the high school for a few months now and she is obsessed with finding the crane. She also loves tell me "red means stop, green means go." We also "enjoy" waiting on the 35+ school buses if we happen to time our mornings wrong.

Singing and driving her tricyle

Love her

All smiles in the cozy coupe

One day when we were driving to school, Garth Brooks' "Rodeo" came on the radio. I immediately turned it up louder than I normally have the radio, as this song takes me back to Saturday mornings growing up and cleaning the house. I turned back to look at Kherington and she was looking at me as if I had three heads. It made me chuckle. In that moment I knew we needed to get some more Garth Brooks in her life, as there aren't too many things better in life.

Ellie is going to deck her one of these days
She loves pinching her cheeks

Checking out sis at school

Sisters saying hi through the window

These two have an incredible bond already

Mama's girls - K trying to give E a kiss

A couple of weeks ago, as we were driving to school, Kherington asked me from the backseat, "baby in belly." Although, I could have taken this to mean I was looking a little prego that day, I knew we had been having this conversation off and on since Ellie was born and I didn't take it too personally. Here's how the rest of the conversation went:
Mama: "No"
K: "Ellie in your belly?"
Mama: "Yes, Ellie was in my belly. And you were in my belly before that. And you have a baby
brother or sister in heaven that was there too."
K: "Two baby sisters"
Mama: "That's what Mama thinks too, K."
This immediately made me tear up. She is such a sweet little girl and I absolutely love the innocence of this age.

Checking out the fish in the bubble window

Watching the scuba diver

"take my picture"

The orangutan LOVED Ellie

Zebras

Mr. Bear enjoying a snack

Tiger picture

July 2013 {look how little she was!}

Daddy and K before the dolphin show

Such concentration

Our normal Steak-n-Shake trip after the zoo

Look how adorable she is

We celebrated K's half birthday at one of her favorite places, the zoo. It was a beautiful day weather wise and everyone was in good spirits. K seemed to be extra interested in the animals and we spent nearly four hours there, our longest trip yet. We had another cool experience this trip at the orangutan exhibit when one of the females {I think it was Katie} came swinging over to the window. Her and Ellie had a moment and just stared at one another for a couple of minutes. It was really neat and made me wonder if she had a baby at some point. Kherington also enjoyed watching Charlie, a large very hairy male outside as he was going in and out of his area. Kherington loved running back and forth watching him. K also enjoyed pointing out that the rhinoceros was pooping and the bears had pooped. She liked that there was a zookeeper in scuba gear cleaning the sea lion exhibit. And we finally got to watch the dolphin show, although Kherington just wanted to go slide. She did like clapping for the dolphins though.

Nana and K playing with some silly putty

Grandma and her girl

Madie and K with matching popsicles

Couldn't have had a nicer day

These two crack me up

Swinging high!

Kherington is a lovable little girl and is so blessed to have a wonderful family. She had so much fun this past month with grandparents and an awesome playdate with Madie. Which she tells me every night before bed she is going to have sweet dreams about Madie and Addison {our neighbors little girl who she adores}. Love those too!