This post is all about my little/big girl Kayla! About 3 days before Kayla turned 2, (which was on Sept 6th), I decided to try the potty 'challenge' again! I tried once earlier in the year, and she used the potty a few times, but quickly lost interest. This time it has really stuck! She has been wearing underwear at home all the time and wears pull ups when we go out and to bed, just in case! I have to say though, not one accident in over a week!! She is very conscious about going. I took a proud picture of her in her My Little Pony undies. In the background you can see the potty sitting in the corner of my living room.. I really think that was the trick! I think that not having to take her away from us or what she was doing completely helped her realize that she could go potty and go right back to what she was doing. Having a potty out in my living room is a small price to pay! Over the past 3 or 4 days, she has become all about using the big girl potty.. she runs in there and LOVES flushing the toilet! I am SO proud of her!!



A few days ago, we took down the front side of her crib, so that it looked like a mini daybed. She cried a lot when I put her to bed the first night, she really seemed confused and out of place. She slept on it for the past few nights, getting up once in a while, but no thuds! I still have the video monitor in her room, so I watched her a few times during the night, and I last night when she was crying, I ran in there to find her shaking. She was so lost! I don't think she realizes that she can climb right back up on the bed. Today, we decided to just take down the crib completely and set up our spare daybed in her room. WHAT A CHANGE! She was excited about it from the beginning! She LOVES her big girl bed!! I can't wait to buy her new sheets and a new comforter!! So... maybe as a Christmas present! Here are some pictures of her!



One last little thing about my Kayla. She loves to mow the grass... on Jim's shoulders that is! She sees him put on that green shirt that he wears every time he mows, and she runs to him and asks him to put her on his shoulder so she can mow too! And the best part is.. he does it! Once, Jim mowed our entire front and back yards and the neighbours with her on his shoulders! Ouch!!!

DANG MOSQUITOS!
We were outside cleaning out Jim's car and from one minute to the next, we started getting eaten alive by mosquitos! I had to hurry over to Heather's house to get the kids who were playing in their back yard and bring them back to the house to get them inside! These mosquitos are awful! They move in swarms and they are HUGE!
I had to post this blog.. Jamie joked earlier about how Jim must have kept hitting himself on the head trying to kill them!! Well, she was right! He kept smacking all these mosquitos off of him, especially his head! We came inside thinking we were safe, not thinking about all the mosquitos that followed us in.... And here we are, sitting on the couch, just watching them fly around, trying to see where they land so that we can smack them, and all of a sudden, I hear Jim smack his head again.. I turn to look, and sure enough, there was a mosquito on his head! You all know me by now.. I had to take a picture!

So everyday, when Kayla lays down for her nap, we have quiet/nap time at my house. I took this picture today to let everyone know just how serious I am, even our 2 dogs and 2 cats have to follow the quiet time rule!! Priceless isn't it?!

We have had a wonderful week. Jim's dad and Stepmom came to visit especially for my Citizenship Ceremony. We have had 3 days of FUN! Shane got to stay home from school for 3 days!! I can only imagine what his teacher may be thinking! It has been SO worth it though! Jim took vacation time as well, so we had 3 days to spend as a family!!
On Tuesday we went out to Deanna Rose's Farmstead. I took the kids there earlier in the summer along with some other moms, and they loved it, so I thought it would be a neat place to go as a family. Everyone had a really fun time. The weather was just absolutely beautiful! As usual I took lots of pictures. The kids got to fish, feed the goats, go mining for stones and ride on the hay ride. Shane also got to ride on a horse twice, since Kayla is still too small. For dinner we went to Texas Roadhouse. Dinner was really yummy and Kayla even got to go dance with the waitresses!!



On Wednesday I had my Citizenship Ceremony in the morning and were done at around 11:30am. We were really hungry since we had no breakfast before we left. For lunch we went to one of my favorite restaurants.. Olive Garden!! It was delicious! We came home for a quick rest and to lay Kayla down for a nap. After she woke up, we went to Dave and Busters at the Legends. The kids had a great time playing with all the games and winning all those tickets! After we left, we hit Coldstone for some ice cream!!



Today Jim had to make a quick run to work for a lunch party, so we let the kids play outside since the weather has just been so nice. For her birthday, Kayla got a Dora tricycle from grandpa and grandma Patti, and although her legs are still a little too short to reach the peddles, she had a great time trying to ride it!



We are planning on taking the kids to the Royals game today after Jim gets back. I am sure we are going to have a great time there as well!!!

It is official! I am an American Citizen!!
I got to take my Citizenship Oath today! That officially makes me an American! I am so happy, excited and relieved! It was a really nice ceremony! There were 48 other applicants from 28 different countries. I felt like I was in High School again! We had a few different speakers, took the Oath, said the Pledge of Allegiance and sang the National Anthem... at the end, they called us up on stage and gave us our Naturalization Certificates.

Jim took a few pictures of me with the kids. I really wanted these because they really are too young to understand how significant this was for me. Someday I can show them the pictures, and tell them they were there with me!



This is a picture that Jim took after I received my certificate. Kayla was on his lap, and made it difficult for him to take too many pictures during the ceremony.

So all week long I have been trying to download my pictures on my laptop to an xdrive online because I called Dell, and they think there might be something up with one of the softwares on it. It needs to be reset back to the way it came to me originally, so I need to make sure to save anything I want to save on it. Let me tell you, I have a LOT of pictures!!! I had to ask the lady who was helping me out to call me back on Monday so that I would have time to move everything over. What a pain!!

Shane had his first soccer game of the season yesterday. His team scored 2 goals total, and one of them was his! At his age, its still a lot of running around just chasing the ball, but I can't help but be proud of him trying! I am happy to see that he still enjoys soccer. He also got to go to Chucky Cheese to celebrate his friend's Ethan birthday. He had a really fun time! Ethan is in his Kindergarten class and sits at the same table as Shane. They bonded quickly and Ethan gave Shane the biggest hug when he saw him and said, "My buddy is here!"

Happy 2nd Birthday Kayla!!

My little girl is officially 2 today. I guess that means that when she acts up I can blame it totally on the "terrible two's!" She is very girly and is just soaking life up. She makes me laugh and smile so much! Thank you God for such a blessing!!
Here are some wonderful pictures that I took of her over the past few days!

Today I woke up with the potty training bug. I started potty training Kayla a few months ago, and she did very well, but lost interest quickly. I changed things up a bit today. She has been in either a pull up or underwear all day. I moved her little potty to the corner of the living room and so she is constantly aware that it is there and runs over when she feels like she has to go.. I am SO proud of her!! She does this hilarious little dance when she is done.. I think its really her copying me! Ha ha! I will try to tape her for everyone to see.
Ryan came over to play this afternoon and as usual the boys had a great time. I wanted to post a couple of pictures I took of them playing dress up. Today they were the "snow guys"! They found all of Shane's snow suits and boots and got all dressed up and Kayla joined them in her new princess outfit grandma got for her for her birthday. They had to go rescue her!

Labor Day!! Nothing like having a long weekend and having Jim home one extra day! We went to the Santa Calagon Days in Independece today, and got to walk around and look at lots of craft booths and Shane got to play some carvinal games. We were there for 3 hours and it made for a fun morning/early afternoon.. the weather was hot and muggy, but we still managed to have a great time just walking around and there was a lot of free water being passed out.
While Kayla took her nap today, Jim and Shane worked on the bird house that Shane got on Saturday. He got to use his own tools and pretty much got to screw and nail in all the parts and pieces with Jim just holding the them down for him. Shane had just started painting it, when Ryan called and asked him to come over to play for a bit. Of course Shane went to play, so Jim told him he would paint the harder parts of the bird house for him. Jamie asked if we wanted to join them for dinner at Texas Roadhouse, and so we joined the McNeel's on another yummy dinner! When we got back, Shane finished the rest of the paiting, and it turned out great! Shane is SO proud! I love seeing him so excited about something he got to work on!!

Here are the pictures I took of the process and the final product!!