My trip to see the redheads...part 1

Originally, I was to go out to San Jose to see my youngest brother Stephen, his wife Marni, their newborn daughter Alyssa Jane and big sister Kaelynn when the baby was about a month old, August 9.  Well, things at work were crazy and I was going to have to work the whole time.  In addition, I was still have fairly frequent migraines and didn't want to spend my time with them feeling miserable.  So I did what I've never done before and paid the change fee to push the trip back.  It was so worth it.

 

It was a vacation in the truest sense of the word.  I didn't work and I didn't study.  I just enjoyed the family.  Kaelynn, 2.5 yrs old, is so funny.  She is adjusting to being a big sister very well and says the funniest things!!!

 

She likes to push Baby Alyssa in the swing (though she needs to be reminded not to swing her too hard...) 

 

 

She loves to get down on the floor with the baby and touch her - usually before anyone is looking.  She's getting better about not touching the baby in the face.  Usually she wants to tickle the baby!  :)

She looks concerned here, but she's just thinking about her lunch order...we were in Monterrey on the bay and it was a seafood place so it said "chicken and chips" on the kids' menu.  She loves potato chips, and that's what she thought she was getting.  We had to explain in this instance, chips meant french fries!!  She loves to wear jewelry, but she doesn't like to stop lond enough for Mommy to turn the necklace around so the heart will face out. :)

This was the beginning of the day, before hair was combed and socks were on.  She has had an iPad almost a year.  They try to encourage that more than the "big black box" as my brother calls it, since the iPad is much more interactive and they are all learning games she had on there.

 

 

And here is ever-alert (when she's awake) baby sister.  She loves to be out and about and most days the week I was there, took her morning nap in the carrier while we were out.  She likes the car, as long as it is moving!  No red lights for her!  She is very much like her sister in that.

 

 

Doing water colors with Daddy.  Notice the liberal use of blue (her current favorite color).

 

 

First batch of funny Kaelynn-isms:
1) When the baby would cry, she would say - "hold on, baby Alyssa, I'm coming!" (as if she could do something about it!)  :)
2) Baby Alyssa gets hiccups a lot and at one point I said "poor thing".  K can't say "th" yet, so her echo came out "poor ting"  :)
3) When she was finished with a page, painting, stickers, coloring, whatever we were doing, she would say "dare, perfect!" (first word rhymes with and is substitute for "there")  :)
4) We listened to the "Frozen" soundtrack back and forth to Monterrey (about an hour and a half).  K knows the movie so well that she knows the part in the music where Elsa hits her sister Anna with an ice ray and hurts her.  K stopped singing every time at that spot and got serious and said, "that not ok, right, Daddy?" (instead of "no", at school they say "that's not ok") - and Daddy would say (every time) - "that's right, big girl.  It's not OK to hurt your sister.  Elsa did a bad thing."  Then K would go back to singing.

Stay tuned for more bald and red-headed cuteness!  :)