Tuesday morning

Kayleigh and I ended up having a busy morning this morning. Originally, I wanted to take her to the park to play on the playground, but plans changed a bit. After breakfast, I was getting my shoes on to leave the house. The dogs started freaking out, thinking that they were going to get to go somewhere. Kayleigh feeds off of their excitement, so I asked her if she would like to go to the park, or take the dogs on a walk. She wanted to walk...
And by walk, she means that she wants to sit in the stroller while I push her and am semi-dragged by the dogs when we first leave. We were doing laps around the neighborhood when we came upon a house with a cement truck out front. Hopefully the guys that were working on installing a new driveway didn't mind working with an audience, because we probably sat there for 15 minutes watching them pour and smooth out concrete. We walked a little more after that before Kayleigh started to say, "I'm very hot." Oh yeah, and I'm cool as a cucumber! Back to the house we went.
We came inside and all of us drank some water before Kayleigh started to talk about going to the playground. I asked, "Why don't we play on your playground (AKA swingset)?" It sounded good to her, so she went on the swings, down the slide, and blew some bubbles before I convinced her to come inside for a little bit.
On the way inside, she said she wanted to eat some watermelon. I bought some at the store yesterday, so I cut it up and back outside we went to eat it. After she was done eating, I brought her inside and put her in the tub to rinse her off. What a mess watermelon can be!
Kayleigh is napping now, and it's raining outside, so we had a great morning and hopefully a quiet afternoon.

Dinner with friends

Last night, we went out to eat with our friends, Jenna, Craig and Jack. Kayleigh and Jack are best buds, and have been hanging out since about the time they were born. A two year friendship is a long one when you're their age!
Anyway, after dinner Jenna and I slipped outside with the kids while the boys paid the bills. At first, they enjoyed sitting on the chairs looking at the water (and the ugly road), but then we started posing them so that we could see their faces better. I don't know if you know this, but Kayleigh LOVES the camera, so looks at it and hams it up. Jack is a little more reserved and liked to look away as soon as the camera was about to click. Oh well. We got the biggest kick out of the "prom pose" because we did NOT pose them this way! We were telling Jack to put his arm around Kayleigh again, like the previous picture, and when he walked back over to her, he stood behind her like they were at the prom. I think they're growing up a little too quickly for me! :)

I love you

A while ago, Kayleigh and I were practicing sign language. She knows some signs from before, and she would use them before she could speak. She still does some of them now, and we were reviewing those, along with a couple of new ones. No, I am not trying to make her fluent in sign language, because I can't say that I am. But, it's fun to teach her some things, and it's good for her to know other languages, right? :) Anyway, one of the signs that we were practicing was "I love you". I would put her fingers in the correct position and they would stay for a couple of seconds. Today, I was sweeping in the dining room when she called me to come see her. I did, and was so excited to see her doing the "I love you" sign! Of course, I had to take her picture! I tried to get one of her without the cheesy face. I'm not sure how to get her to stop doing that! I think we're going to have a lot of crazy pictures until I can figure out how to get her to stop doing it. Any suggestions?

"Shake your booty!"

Erik has taught Kayleigh to shake her booty. I finally caught it on camera!



Since starting this post, I heard the following conversation between Erik and Kayleigh:
Kayleigh (looking at me): I want Daddy to wash my hands!
Me: Kayleigh, you need to ask Daddy, not me.
Kayleigh: Daddy, wash my hands.
Erik: Why do you always ask Mommy questions, not me? Is she my boss?
Kayleigh: Yeah
Gotta love it!

Home again

Aaaahh! After a relaxing weekend in Orlando it was time to come home to our "normal" lives. Kayleigh had a blast in the pool, swimming at least once a day. She also enjoyed becoming re-acquainted with her cousins from North Carolina, along with playing with cousin Thor.
Except for some time at Ikea and lunch out, we spent the entire weekend at the resort. There was a lot to keep us occupied. When Kayleigh was awake, we'd get her down to the pool. During nap time, Erik and I explored the grounds and played putt-putt golf. You would think he would let his pregnant wife win, especially after she and a resort employee told him to! Nope. He beat me by one stroke! After winning and his head growing a bit, he challenged me to a hole-in-one competition. We played most of the 18 holes, and were tied at 1 hole-in-one apiece. I was ready to enjoy the tie, but Erik wanted to win, win, win! I taught him a lesson! I had called it quits, and he said, "Let's play one more hole, and if no one wins, we can be done." I'm sure you can imagine where this story is going...I GOT A HOLE IN ONE!!! That, in turn, made him want to play some more, but I started to run to the office to turn in my club while I was ahead.
As I mentioned earlier, we went to Ikea before leaving Orlando. I felt completely overwhelmed when we first walked in. Once we figured out the path, we enjoyed walking through the enormous warehouse. We bought a little baby bed for Kayleigh's dolls, hoping that they will now sleep in it, rather than take up her bed. The other day, she had 2 baby dolls, two bears and a Popple "asleep" with her in bed! We also bought her some little pots and pans for her kitchen set. I got myself a drop-down table that I'll put up in my new scrapbooking area since my old room will soon be a nursery. I'll post a picture whenever we get it done.
Whew! On to today! Kayleigh finished eating lunch and was playing for a few minutes while I finished up. Then, I heard her say, "Mommy, take my picture!" I couldn't imagine why she wanted me to, but I'm glad I did. Here's what I got:

Orlando here we come!

Today starts this year's Eikeland family vacation. Our core family can only go through Monday since Erik used most of his vacation time when we went to Europe. We do want to see the North Carolina Eikelands since those visits are few and far between. In all, there should be almost 2 dozen Eikelands in Orlando! Whew! I'm sure the city doesn't know what's about to hit them!
Since check-in time isn't until 4PM, we have some relaxed time before we leave. Erik was going to mow the lawn this morning, but of course it's raining. Oops! We're going to be the bad neighbors with knee high grass when we come home. Kayleigh was playing with her baby and bear this morning. We have a broken camera that she's allowed to "take pictures" with. She had bear and baby on the couch and chaise lounge taking their picture (and showing them the finished product, of course!). She called me over to take a picture of her with her toys, so I hurried up to get the working camera and got this picture:
Too cute!

Then and Now

Okay, here is a picture of me pregnant with Kayleigh at 27 weeks:






















And here is a picture of me at 27 weeks with #2:


I think I look bigger this time, but it could also be the shirt. In my mind, I can only imagine the end of the pregnancy with Kayleigh when I was HUGE, so it's funny to me to see the first picture when my belly isn't so big. I must have really popped at the end!

Library and doctor visits

I finally was able to get Kayleigh over to the public library today for their story time. It was really fun and something that I hope we can do again. The man that ran it this morning would sing maybe 3 songs, read a story, then 3 more songs, another story, more songs and be done. In all, it was about 30 minutes, and you could tell that the kids were getting restless at the end. I think that's the perfect amount of time for the kids. I think we'll go again next week, and then they're closed for the 2 weeks after that as they "get ready for the school year". I'm not sure what that means, but I'll take their word for it!
This afternoon, I had another doctor's appointment. I was VERY excited to learn that I've only gained 8 pounds in almost 28 weeks! I was unhappy to learn that I failed the glucose test by 1 point. Luckily, the doctor gives some leeway, and since I've been healthy so far in this pregnancy and was healthy when I was pregnant with Kayleigh, she's letting me get out of taking the 3 hour test. Whew! She measured my stomach today, and even though I'm not quite 28 weeks, I'm measuring between 29 & 30 weeks. That's to be expected--I measured ahead the whole time I was pregnant before. And, did I mention I've only gained EIGHT pounds??? :) I just looked at the post from when I was 27 weeks with Kayleigh, and I had gained 14 pounds at this time with her. I think I'll have Erik take a picture of me tonight and post it later, since I know that you can compare between last time and this time.

On the phone

This morning, Kayleigh talked to both Daddy and Grandma on the phone. She was sitting in the cutest positions while talking, so I had to get pictures of her. It's funny because Kayleigh will try to describe what she's doing to the person on the phone, but if you don't know what she's doing exactly, it doesn't make sense. For example, while on the phone with Grandma she said, "Couch. Like baby." After seeing the picture, it makes perfect sense, but try to figure that out while you're a couple hundred miles away!

A slow week...

After such a busy weekend last weekend, it was nice to just hang out this week. Erik had a full work week, so we didn't have any family fun days planned. Other than a couple (yes, a couple) of trips to Target and the grocery store, we stayed at home. Oh, now that I'm thinking about it, we went to visit Kayleigh's friends at her old day care on Tuesday. She has so much fun seeing those kids, and thankfully the teachers and staff don't mind our visits. It gets both of us out for a little while and allows her to see some kids her own age. I did sign her up for swimming lessons in a few weeks. It'll be Monday-Thursday for 2 weeks. I'll feel better about Kayleigh being around the water so much after swimming lessons. Part of the lesson is helping parents learn how to teach their kids swimming techniques, so I'll be more prepared to have her in the water, too. Thanks, Dad (Abuelo), for the lessons!
Kayleigh got her first fat lip this week. She was lying on the couch next to her doll and just rolled off. The ironic part was that we had just been talking earlier in the day about her rolling off and that being the reason that she had to go upstairs to take her nap rather than on the couch. I couldn't get a very good picture of her lip, but I tried! (In case you can't tell, it's the left upper lip.)

















Finally, as I'm looking at the pictures I just downloaded onto the computer, there is a cute, short video of Erik and Kayleigh watching the Roddick/Federer tennis match on Sunday. Erik was cheering for Andy Roddick, and Kayleigh got into the chants with him. Enjoy!

4th of July weekend

We decided to take Kayleigh to a museum yesterday to see a lot of the Florida wildlife. She enjoyed looking at all of the animals, but it was H-O-T!! We made it through the museum in an hour and a half and were happy to leave when we were done. When Erik and Kayleigh posed behind the bat stand, I had Kayleigh looking at the camera and she must have moved as soon as I clicked the button. Ugh! So annoying! When you look at picture #3, she is saying "whoo!" to the owl that she saw. At the end of the slide show, she is pushing her stroller with Erik's sunglasses on. It was bright and she wanted to wear them. I thought she looked so grown up with them on. In the close up picture, that's the face she makes when she puts on sunglasses. I don't know if she thinks that it'll help hold the glasses on her face or what!

Erik ran a triathlon this morning. He beat his time from last year, but I'm not sure that he's super pleased with the results. After the race, we went to John and Chaille's house for lunch and a little swimming. Kayleigh adores her cousin, Zac, and he has a shadow most of the time that they're together. She wanted to do what he was doing, like jumping into the pool and getting out when he did. She also enjoyed dipping her chips into the salsa and wearing the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles mask. It's been a busy day, but it's always fun to hang out with family. Here are just a couple of pictures from our day today.