Kenley turns 2!

Kenley turned 2 last week! Can you believe it? I can't!

She's such a sweetie pie, and we're loving her emerging personality. She is talking up a storm and still loving on her stuffed puppy. She's interested in keeping tabs on her brother - and also bossing him around a bit. She loves to wrestle with dada after bathtime and wants to help feed Sadie every night. She's also buddies with our 18 year old kitty, Cleo.

 She loves having company at our house, and loves spending time with her cousins and grandparents and aunts and uncles. She has several super-sweet babysitters, and happily plays with them whenever they visit.

She loves being in the water - in the sprinkler or by the water table in our yard, and also at the pool this summer. She's not too keen on our new play structure, since it makes her nervous to walk on the sand - and she's not a big fan of swinging.

Her favorite toys are project-oriented - the pop beads that she can take apart and put together - similarly the Duplo blocks that she stacks and unstacks for long stretches of time. We've also gotten hours of fun from a $5 giant pack of plastic cups for stacking.

She loves Curious George and watches the cartoon in the morning, then reads her George board books multiple times during the day. If you're around her for more than a few minutes, you'll be sure to hear her sing the "Scooby Doo" theme, which is pretty hilarious. She picked up on it since Lachlan is a fan of the show and we have the theme on a cd in the car. She even got Scooby Doo crocs for her birthday, and loooves them. 

She sleeps through the night from around 8 pm to 6:30 am, but the daytime nap is more unpredictable. She's still in her crib but we'll be transferring her to her new twin bed any day now. She's in a picky phase for eating, but will always go for a cheese stick, some yogurt, berries, or a slice of "sa-ma-mee". We're hoping that the pickiness will ease up once the last two canine teeth poke through. We're also hoping to be able to ween her off the "bee-cee" (pacifier) once she is done teething.

We had a little birthday lunch for her last Wednesday. I made strawberry shortcake and she learned how to blow out a candle from her brother and cousins. On Thursday I took her to the pediatrician and she checked out great. Height and weight are right on the 50% line, so she's growing just perfectly.

Sunday morning we hosted a birthday brunch to celebrate with the rest of the family - and a couple special babysitters and our friends from down the street. She loved the attention, of course, and enjoyed singing the birthday song and opening some special presents. We had beautiful weather for eating outside. I made this coconut cake, which was moist and delicious. The only bummer was that Bill was sick in bed for the party (hence his absence from the photos).

It was a pleasure to celebrate K's birthday, because she brings so much joy to us every day!