Recent happenings

I haven't been very good with pictures lately, but plan to do some 18 month fall pictures with K in the coming weeks. Things have been BUSY with work and with Zach being crazy busy at work as well. He is teaching a class (World History, 7th Grade) this semester, so that has added just a bit more stress to his life. I am trying to keep on top of this blog posting because otherwise I forget the funny little stages that Kennedy goes through!

I think we are working on some big, bad teeth this week - there has been a lot of crankiness! She already has 4 teeth on the bottom and 3 teeth on top.  I thought forever she would never get teeth, and now she is popping them out left and right! We have started "brushing" our pretty new teeth at night, which is pretty much just a novelty at this point.  I also hold her and have her brush hers while I brush mine if she is around, which I think helps her to understand what I am trying to do to her!

Kennedy loves to climb down our back stairs and try to get outside to play. Thankfully, she hasn't yet figured out the latch on the back door, but I suppose that is not far off! Kennedy is constantly jabbering and learning new words. A favorite now is "house" - which she says when we pull up to daycare (?) - and most recently, "henry" (he-wee). She really loves giving henry cookies and often offers them to him and then pulls back her hand at the last second so he doesn't get it.  Thus far, Henry has been a pretty good sport (i.e. she still has both hands and 10 fingers). She also decided that punching him is a really fun "game" to play.  She also likes to punch ME. This is something I am trying to work on with her, but everything at this point is a game to her... so we aren't getting very far! No report of her doing this at daycare, or with anyone else... not sure why I get to be so special ;-)

This past weekend on Saturday we went to "Alpaca Farm Days" with gma & gpa Johnson.  We visited a very lovely Alpaca farm up in Montague.  Alpacas are really quite funny looking creatures! Kennedy liked it and toddled around the barn. She got to touch an alpaca (they are very soft!) and liked to yell "JAY!" really loud (something she picked up from our time with gma Johnson ;)).  On Sunday gma & gpa Lienau came over for a visit and we went to Art Prize. It was fun to walk around GR and see all the cool projects, but it was VERY busy and hard to get around and see everything.  Kennedy enjoyed the time with her grandparents and visited some art. Here are a few pics:

On Wednesday, I finally went to Shipshewana! I took the day off of work and went with Thara, Aunt Diane, Aunt Deb and Cousins Claire & Justine.  Mom  has been wanting me to go with her for YEARS now and I finally gave in ;-) We only had time to visit the E&S Grocery store and the flea market, but it was a really fun day. I now just have to re-arrange my kitchen cupboards so I can fit all my new goods in! I am hoping to arrange a cooking day (you know, where you cook all kinds of stuff and fill your freezer so you don't have to make dinner EVERY night!) sometime soon here and am really looking forward to trying that out. My mom did this as a kid, and it was not my favorite - many, many mystery casseroles were not good for my picky-eater-self ;-). I guess I am grown up now and realize the wisdom of her ways! Anyway, maybe I will post more about my experiences with that once I give it a try!

All for now.. still on my list to add videos (you know, in my SPARE time!).