CA Vacation Part 1

Labor Day weekend, I spent with my youngest brother Stephen, his wife Marni and my 21 month niece Kaelynn.  It had been 9 months since I had seen her in person, since her first birthday, and she has changed so much!  She is not a baby any more, but a miniature girl!  She is talking and feeding herself and has very definite opinions about pretty much everything!  She is really a very happy girl. By far right now her favorite thing to do is be "ou-si" (outside) on her swing.  She is a swing addict!  My arm was tired from swinging her, but it was a good tired, and a precious time of watching her smile and laugh as her little feet flapped in the air.  The sun got in her eyes sometimes, so we had to put on her sunglasses.  The regular ones wouldn't stay on because she had sunscreen on (she's very fair so we have to be on that) so they'd slip off.  So we found her swimming ones that wrap around her head.

Speaking of swimming, she had a lesson while I was there.  Daddy was the one to go into the pool with her. While she didn't blow bubbles in the water, which was one of the objects of the lesson, but neither did some of the other kids.  She had a good time, though!  She was sporting quite the combo before she went in, however.  She insisted on wearing her puffy vest over her rash guard swimming outfit!  Here she is watching the "big kids" finish their lesson.  Mommy says she is always watching "big kids" wherever she goes!

Mommy says that for some reason Kaelynn will let her teachers at "school" do her hair (she comes home with all sorts of different hair styles!), but not Mommy!  Well, one day it worked to let her play with the hair ties!

We watched part of "Tangled" (Disney's Rapunzel movie) while waiting for Daddy to get home.  I thought she looked so grown up here, sitting on the sofa, watching her movie, eating her (veggie) chips:

Interestingly enough, Daddy actually makes an appearance in "Tangled" (according to Kaelynn).  Flynn Ryder (Eugene, eventually Rapunzel's prince), is Daddy for Kaelynn.  If you point at him and ask who that is, she'll say "Da-ee", which is how she says Daddy.  True, he's got the brown hair, dark thick eyebrows and facial hair.  I hope Daddy is always her prince.

I should, note, for the record, that she also (on the same day) pointed to an ad for the Monsters, Inc. movie that had Sully, the big blue and purple spotted monster and said that was Daddy, so...!  The mind of a 1 yr old!

Will post more about my trip when I get the chance.  More red-headed cuteness to come! :)