Trip to Reno

In September, Joshua had to be gone for 11 days for Airforce training in Georgia, so Kylee and I flew home to Reno. We had a great time there with my parents and were also able to see quite a few family & friends.

The day after got there, the Hot Air Balloon Races were going on, so we drove around so Kylee could see the balloons. She thought they were great.


Kylee at Rancho San Rafael Park


Grandma Betty, Kylee, & Grandpa Wayne


Kylee & Me

Kylee pushing her own stroller!! She loves to do that.

Kylee up at Lake Tahoe

Kylee at Lake Tahoe

Kylee and Keeyan (My friend Erin' little boy)

My friend Debbie & me

Kylee at the park

Kylee playing with blocks that my dad made for Christy & I when we were little

My mom, Kylee, & I met up with my Grandpa & Grandma at Mimi's Cafe for dinner

Grandpa Wayne reading to Kylee

Birthday Party Pictures (a month later)

A month later.....here are Kylee's actual birthday party pictures (her last of 4 1st birthdays). We had 26 people there in our house. She had fun playing with all her little friends and opening her gifts. She couldn't understand why she got all these cool gifts and then couldn't play with them right away, but had to put it down to open another. She had fun playing with all of them later though.
We had chips & salsa, a veggie tray, fruit tray, cake, & ice cream. The theme was butterflies & flowers (just like her room)

Joshua decorated her butterfly cakes. The top of the cakes is actually the bottom part in the picture. They turned out really cute and tasted good also.

Kylee was enjoying her cake. She didn't want to get her hands too messy, so that was funny.

Kylee was playing with a bunch of the balloons from the party.

Lots of Traveling & Birthdays

Kylee turned 1 year old on August 5th. This year has flown by. The last few weeks have been fun. Joshua's dad, mom, and sister came down for a week. It was really nice having live-in baby sitters!!!! I got a lot done that week. We also had a little birthday party for Kylee with Joshua's family. That was her first cake (with more to come). On Thursday night, we left for Nationwide. We wern't qute sure how well Kylee would do in her car seat for 20+ hours, but she ended up doing very well. Here are some pictures.

Here is her first birthday cake. Actually there was a bigger one with butterflies on it, etc, but the big cake came with a small one for the birthday girl! Kylee doesn't really like to get her hands all messy, so she decided to try eating it with out getting it on her hands. It was rather funny.
We finally gave her one of her forks and she was happy about that, but then she thought it was more fun to dip Pooh Bear in the icing and eat her cake that way.
On our way to Nationwide, we stoped with everyone near Amarillo, TX (at the mini Grand Canyon). There was an old visitors center or something like that there and we hiked down to it and took some pictures.
My mom and dad came up for a few days to visit us at NYR before they had to go to another camp. We went to a park one of the days and had another small birthday party for her with my parents. We didn't have a candle with us, so one of her new crayons had to do!!

She finally decided that it was ok to get messy eating. :-)
Kylee with Grandpa Wayne and Grandma Betty
Kylee found a table that was her size at NYR
Levi had a bubble maker and Kylee was having fun trying to touch them.
A cute picture of our little girl.
Kylee and Levi
Kylee and Levi hugging - oh so cute
Us and our friends (Jason, Beth, Levi, and Nate)
On her actual birthday we were in Biloxi, MS because it was Joshua's drill weekend. We went out to dinner with some friends there and then went back to their house for her 3rd birthday cake and some ice cream. Kylee is going to be quite experienced when it comes to birthdays. :-)
Kylee and Mara (our friend's girl who lives in Biloxi)
On my birthday (3 days after Kylee's), we were still in Biloxi, so we went out for Korean food (one of my favorites - if you haven't ever had it you absolutely need to).

Summer

Since I blogged last time (a month ago!), we have been keeping busy. We went to our church camp and had a good week there. Kylee had been in a swimming pool once before, but I took her at camp every day. She didn't quite know what to think of all the water. She didn't cry, but wasn't took excited about it either. Part of it was that we went right before her afternoon nap every day, so she was tired already. She was doing a lot better in it by the end of the week. I'm sure she will get to where she loves it. She really liked playing in the dirt after a little bit. She liked to get cleaned off afterwards though.
Corenne, Michelle, McKayla, & Esther
Tea & Kylee
After we got home from camp and were doing the laundry. Kylee was trying to help by taking the wet clothes out the dryer and I was putting them in :-), and she slipped between the wall and the dryer door and made her lip bleed, etc. I don't do good with blood anway and with it being on my little girl made me think the worst. I was sure the she had broke her nose or something!!! Joshua had to fix her up! She was actually pretty cute with her first owie after it was all done and over with. After it was almost healed up, she fell again and got some scratches on her nose and lip again. This will be never ending, especially if she takes after her Daddy.
Kylee's first 4th of July. Her shirt says "American Cutie". I thought it was appropriate. :-) We spent the day with Joshua's family that live here in Crowley. They barbequed, etc. We had a good day. Kylee was asleep when we went to see the fireworks which was a bummer, but there were some people down our street that were setting off some in their yard, so she stood on our couch and watched out the window until they were done. She really liked those.
Here is Kylee doing her talking thing while pointing both of her fingers at the same time. It's quite humerous.

Yesterday evening, we drove to Bay St. Louis, Mississippi to see out niece Tana who was down here for a missions trip helping out with stuff from hurricane Katrina. On the way, Kylee was playing with an old cell phone and was trying to talk on it. It was backwards and no one was on it, but she thought she was doing a good job talking on it. Too bad she doesn't do so well when people are actually on it. She would rather listen than talk when someone is on the other line.

Here is Kylee and her cousin Tana.

There wern't very many places to eat that were open. The town is still not in very good condition. Anyway, we took Tana to Sonic. Kylee enjoyed eating outside. Here are all of us.

Here is Kylee being the little diva that she is! I think she knows that she is cute.
We are keeping a piano for some friends until they get their house built, so Kylee was having fun on it this morning.
Yesterday she learned to say Moo. She doesn't always perform on command, but I got her to do it for the video camera finally. Also, you ask her what the ceiling fan does and she waves her arm in circles. Just now, she learned to say Papa (what she calls Joshua's dad).

Joshua's parents are going to be here next week, so that will be fun. We leave for NYR next Thursday night. This will be Kylee first really long trip since she was 1 month old. She is used to going on 4 hour trips, but not much longer. Hopefully she will do good. We are going to switch her carseat so she is facing front so that should help. We will get to see my parents while we are there so that will be fun.

Kylee's first birthday is coming up on August 5th, so I will try to post pictures etc after that if I don't blog again before that.

Kylee's New Kitten

Well, so much for blogging once week. We moved back to Crowley, LA the first of June. We have been busy getting settled back in our house and with the church. VBS was the fist week we got back. It went well. I think our biggest night was about 125 kids. The theme was Fiesta. Our neighbors across the street have a million cats. Maybe I'm exagerating, but they have alot. Anyway, one of them decided to have her kittens over at our house. One of them had a bunch of stuff in her eyes and couldn't get them open, so Joshua cleaned her eyes up, and now she follows us around whenever we are outside. She is so tiny and Kylee thinks she is pretty exciting. We are hoping that maybe she will stick around our house so Kylee can play with her when she is outside. We named her Serendipity. Kind of a big name such a tiny kitten, but I am sure she will grow into it. Our friend Dianna is staying with us for a few weeks and going to camp with us. Kylee has lots of fun with her. She was excited here because we let her play with a cup. Why do we even have toys for her??? She would rather play with paper, pots and pans, cups, etc.!!!!
Kylee went swimming for the first time yesterday. She didn't really swim of course. She didn't really know what to do with being in the pool and had a blank look on her face most of the time, but we got a few smiles out of her toward the end. Maybe by the end of camp she will love being in the pool.

We are headed to our church camp next week. This will be Kylee's first time at camp, so it should be fun.

Joshua Graduates

Joshua graduated from Tech School on May 12th here at Keesler AFB. He was going to have to do some on-the-job training, but the reserve doesn't have the funding for it right now, so they are sending him home. Now we just come back for one weekend a month and 2 weeks in the summer. We are packing up this week and will move back this next weekend. Below is a picture of Joshua's short ceremony that they do for them. There are always classes graduating, so that is why it's not a huge thing. They did let me come and watch, so that was nice.Here is Joshua and the class that he graduated with.
Last week, we took Kylee to the beach a couple of days and took her 9mo pictures. It gets too expensive taking her to a portrait studio every 3 months! Anyway, here are some of them. The wind was blowing quite a bit the first day, so her hair was going everywhere!
She has been into clapping normal now lately. She thinks everything is exciting and claps!She likes the new bucket and pail that we got her, but she would rather get the sand out of it than put it in. She likes to take everything apart (she must take after Joshua in that!!)

First Step!!!

Kylee Paige is 9 months old today. Wow! She has grown so much. She took her first step on Sunday night. She actually took two steps, but at different times. She hasn't done it since, but I know that time is coming sooner now (that's kinda cool, but scary!!).
Joshua is graduating from Tech School on Friday!!!!! That means that he can live with us again. He had to help with the Special Olympics this weekend that take place on Keesler Air Force Base. It's not bad, except for that he doesn't get to leave base until Sunday after their (Joshua & his roommate) Special Olympian leaves. Oh well, he is almost done living on base anyway. After that, he will probably have some "on the job training" that he will have to do before we go back to Louisiana.
These pictures are from this week when I was with a friend of mine and her twin daughters. We took them and Kylee to a park on the Navy base where she lives. Kylee got to play in the sand for the first time. She didn't quite know what to think of it, and wasn't extremely excited that it wouldn't come off of her hands, but thankfully kept her fingers out of her mouth. That would have been interesting. She had a good time.
She also tried watermelon today and didn't know at first what to think of the texture, but soon wanted more. I knew she would take after me with loving watermelon. She didn't have a chance with how much I ate when I was pregnant with her last summer!!