January:

February:

March:

April:

May:

June:

July:

August:

September:

October:

November:

December:

“Mommy take my picture!”

This is how most of my pics came out. This is ghost Haley passing out gifts.

The girls in their matching PJs.

Quincy also enjoyed Christmas at the Morris’s!

Afterwards all 4 classes sang together.

I couldn’t find Kinsey on stage since I was standing in the back, so I zoomed in and looked around. We spotted each other at the same time, as she’s waving at me.

I tried getting a pic of her class together, and saying Merry Christmas, but this was the best I could do!

Kinsey is very excited for Christmas, but not too fond of the idea of Santa in the house while we sleep. I just don’t mention it now, since it always warrants the question “Is he going to go upstairs?”. We’ve assured her he’s in and out super fast and won’t go upstairs, he has other boys and girls to get to!

The face we usually get when we ask her to smile.

Most of the pics turned out to be blurs of people, with everyone jumping and flying through the air.

No party is complete without cake and presents! As usual Kinsey wanted nothing to do with the cake, so she opened presents while everyone else ate.

One always needs help opening gifts!

Once we got home Kinsey got all her gifts out, scattered them all over the living room while playing with them all, then got into Lee’s lap and promptly did this!

Your Baby:

• Weighs about three pounds and is 17 inches long. Since most full-term babies are between 20 and 22 inches long at 40 weeks’ gestation, your baby will pack on more pounds than inches in the 10 weeks or so.
• Is starting to get a little crowded in there, but still has room to wiggle and roll and punch and kick.
• Is sucking up every drop of calcium you can provide as his or her bones continue to harden and become more…uh…bone-like.
• DID I MENTION THE POINTY JABBING? WITH THE SHARP LITTLE BONES?

You: 

• May feel like you’re gestating a pissed-off housecat rather than a chubby wittle baby at this point, with some movement and kicks causing ACTUAL PHYSICAL PAIN.
• Might start noticing a resurgence of first-trimester-type symptoms like heartburn and other gastrointestinal issues. Things are getting a BIT crowded in there, and the lack of room means slower digestion and more gas and constipation and woe.
• Are gaining weight. I don’t know or care to look up what the “recommended” amount is at this stage, but most likely you are starting to notice a steady upward movement of that little thingie on your doctor’s scale. If you’ve been using pregnancy as a dietary sweet tooth free-for-all, now might be a good time to start reining it in and focusing on healthy foods and portions instead of “BABY NEEDS CAKE AND A TUB OF FROSTING ON THE SIDE.”

Oh Yeah, THIS: Heartburn! Terrible, hideous, words-cannot-describe-it heartburn. There really is nothing quite like the heartburn one gets when one’s torso is simply too crowded to contain both a stomach and a stomach with food in it.

New This Time Around: That said, I don’t think I ever had heartburn bad enough last time that I thought I was dying and should consider driving to the hospital, nor did my husband ever attempt to TIME MY WAVES OF HEARTBURN because he said I was acting exactly like I did when I was in labor.

She would love to have something active to do every week night, especially now that’s it dark when we get home and she doesn’t get to play with the neighbors very long if any. We thought about signing her up for basketball since it is offered in the winter, but a practice and a game each week is probably too much for all of us to handle in January/Feb with a newborn making an appearance.  I think as long as she isn’t changing poopy diapers she will be OK, we like to tell her she will just for the dramatics it provides.

Halloween afternoon started off with Kinsey not wanting to eat her dinner, she was SO hyper. Not sure if it was from knowing we were going to her friend Harry’s to trick or treat, or from her party at school. Of course, she said at her party they had chips, cookies she didn’t like, and mustard. She also sang us the ‘trick or trick smell my feet’ song that Harry taught her at school. Her version was hilarious though – “Trick or Treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat. If I don’t, I don’t care….I’ll pull my underwear down”. (She paused trying to remember that last part, and just knew it had something to do with undies being down).

Harry and Kinsey, aka Captain America and Jessie from Toy Story:

We found a red Power Ranger!

We spent 2 hours trick or treating around Harry’s neighborhood. They go all out there, with over the top decorations, haunted houses (Kins avoided some of those), and block parties complete with popcorn and margarita machines. Kinsey is a bit strange about candy – she does NOT like candy corn or M&Ms, to name a few, so if there were any in her bag she wanted them out ASAP. Oh darn, Lee and I had to eat them! Kins was done after about 1.5 hours, but we still had to walk back and hit a few more houses on the way. By the time we got to the car she was whining for her bed. And a snack, thinking she could convince me that candy is a snack. Didn’t work! Little does she know I stole an embarrassing amount of candy for my own afternoon work snacks! Baby boy “needs” candy, duh.

The whole gang  – Harry, Megan, Ava, Kinsey, Grayson

Amy went as a Toddlers and Tiaras kid, wearing a Power Rangers mask on her head.  She found a spooky person to pose with, although with flash he wasn’t very spooky!

I found the perfect outfit, no matter how big my pregnant belly might be. Sumo wrestler! Although Harry thought I was a frisbee and a couple others thought I was a cow. Why yes, I DO feel like a cow these days but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a cow in a diaper?

The point is to let them scoot themselves along and learn to balance without needing training wheels when they move up to a bigger bike. Kinsey has gotten super fast on hers, and decided a few weeks ago she wanted to try her ‘big bike’, which is Haley’s old bike we have. She got on and started pedaling away! Lee ran beside her since she’s new to braking and that scared her. She’s a couple inches too short to really stop and then hold the bike up herself, which got her super frustrated after a few tries. She told Lee to ‘get away!’ a few times, little Miss Independent. Phone video:

http://youtu.be/gUayhuSRSmE

So I looked on Craigslist and found a smaller bike for cheap, and only 3 miles down the road. We picked it up on our way to pick her up from school and then spent the afternoon watching her zoom around the neighborhood like a pro. She didn’t want us anywhere near her, she wanted to turn, go up driveways, and stop all by herself. It looks small next to the bigger one, but for now it’s a perfect fit.

And when she outgrows it I can resell it on Craigslist! It’s a girl bike so we won’t be keeping it for baby boy, but we did get the balance bike in a gender neutral red so we could reuse that again. And now that I’ve seen the plethora of nice yet cheap bikes on Craigslist our poor kids might not ever get a brand new one! they can just blame my mom for my frugal self.

Oh and as Kinsey was learning to ride the bigger bike, our 6 year old neighbor boy had to inform us that he rode off right away with no help. And that he was 4 at the time. Then he realized Kinsey is still 3, and quickly said he was 3.5 when he learned.

We think her next ‘toy’ might be a scooter, we had the neighbor’s Saturday afternoon and Sunday since they left it out and she was riding that all over the neighborhood. She was trying to learn to scoot it with her non-dominant foot at one point and was getting frustrated that it was harder than her other foot. It’s funny how determined she is to accomplish some things!

Halftime!

After halftime the diva decided she needed her sunglasses. Can you tell she is not a fan of the whistle?

After her game we took the girls to Kinsey’s gymnastics studio for their open gym. They jumped on the trampolines and swung on a rope into the big foam pit. I really wanted to play on the the uneven bars, vault, and rings but figured people might freak out seeing a pregnant person on them. (For some reason all the pics we took in there were dotted like this).