Nothing too exciting going on around here lately. Kaelyn has been just pure joy the past week or so...she's just been so happy & interactive & fun. We've been having a great time with her - she's so funny & makes us laugh so hard each and everyday. I don't know if this is true or not, but it almost seems like she's not as frustrated because she is walking as her main mode of transportation now & I think that has been really liberating for her. Last week we had several playdates & she just had a great time playing with her friends and exploring parks & running around - well, as close to running as she gets. She is developing a real sense of humor & quite a little personality...she's very fun to watch and be around. Hopefully she keeps up the fun next week when we're in Chicago.

Kaelyn having a pool playdate with her friends.

Although, she didn't go in the pool - she was too scared.

I put the shorts on her head, but she did the rest. She continued to walk around like this for a long time like nothing was unusual. She's very odd - that's why we love her.

Here are some of the results from the big storm we had about a week ago.

A tree came down here and tore up the whole sidewalk along with it. The tree was removed in this pic.

This is a huge tree that came down in front of a historic house down the road. Can you imagine the sound that came with this? It has to be 4 feet in diameter, and just snapped in 2.

There were tons of trees down, and luckily none of them hit any houses -

they all fell away from the houses. Would've been disastrous...especially for these super old houses.

Lynch Park a week ago during homecoming events. Just exploring.

Walking on the stage out at Lynch Park. Ready to perform.

Every morning she eats our cereal. This day Barry had to share his. She just climbs up on you and gets right in there.

She doesn't care if you don't want to share...she makes the rules.

She got a hold of my box of cocoa krispies. Before I could stop her she dumped the whole bag (well, 1/4 of a bag)

Then she proceeded to eat them off the floor.

Totally unfazed by the big mess she has created that actually took me awhile to clean up.

Well things have just been really busy around here, so I haven't had the chance to really sit in front of my computer much and update the blog. Let's see...Barry's parents were here for a little over a week, they just left on Thursday. They watched Kaelyn for about 3 days while Barry & I went to Newport RI. It was so wonderful. We had a fantastic trip, and I still feel so re-engergized from getting away and not having to be in mommy mode 24/7. We went through 6 mansions, drove along the ocean, walked around and checked out all the old & historic homes - it's just such a great town. If you haven't been, I highly recommend it. We took tons of pictures, but they are all on Barry's good camera, so they haven't been downloaded yet - I'll have to see if I can get them on my computer easily because there were some great pictures. Last weekend we went to our neighbor's house for a luau in celebration of their little boy turning 1. Kaelyn had a great time. I also have some pictures here of her helping me garden - very cute...very messy.

This was us on our way to the luau. I decided to dress nice & enjoy the beautiful weather. But this outfit didn't last long, as I was boiling hot & had to come home and change...you'll see.

I think she found this on the ground & was eating food she found. She's building up quite a healthy immune system.


Ok, now I'm really glad I changed clothes since I was soon covered in ice cream that Kaelyn insisted she feed herself. Luckily we could throw her in the kiddy pool afterwards.

These are her new gardening gloves. So cute.

Here's the beans we picked from our yard. They were good.

I thought they looked pretty in the basket.

Helping in the garden.

I would pull out weeds, while she just scooped out dirt.

I love this picture because she's all dainty in her pretty pink dress, but then she has this messy hair that's full of sunscreen, and dirty knees and a clump of grass she scooped up. She looks like she's been working hard.

When we got inside it was immediate bathtime. I didn't want her to touch one single thing with her dirty hands, knees or feet. Even her face was dirty!

Filling up the tub.

I just thought this was cute with her hair all a mess.

Here we are at dinner one night in Newport.

It was one of the few pics on my camera from the trip.

funny videos

Well, no new pictures really, but I've got a couple of funny videos. I know the videos are a bigger hit anyways. Unfortunately the one is kind of dark, but she does the funniest things it seems at night and our lighting just isn't great. Her new thing is making "fishy face". I guess it started because I read her book "10 little ladybugs" and there's a fish in there and I always make the fishy face...so now she can make it on demand. It's so funny. Then Barry has been hellbent on teaching Kaelyn to say "I love daddy"...it's not really working. But last night she kept doing her creepy excited shake everytime we tried to get her to say it. It was hilarious. It even got more obnoxious but we didn't get it on tape.

Super busy weekend

Well, we had another fun-filled weekend here. I have to admit...the weather has been crummy during the week a lot lately, but the past 2 weekends have been perfect. It's been like divine intervention. This weekend started out with us meeting our neighbors at the beach for dinner on Friday. I got off work, and we packed up the car, picked up some beer and pizzas and just hung out at the beach. It was great. Kaelyn had the best time too because there were 3 other kids (ages like 4-8) and they just thought she was the best thing since sliced bread...so they all kept eachother entertained. They were actually fighting over who got to sit next to Kaelyn when they ate. Saturday we went downtown Boston to see the tall ships. They were beautiful, but the crowds were kinda crazy & we probably would've had just as much fun just walking around downtown...but it was nice to have an excuse to go there. We stuck around all day to make it worth our while for the small fortune we had to pay for parking. Ridiculous. But a perfect, sunny, breezy, not-too-hot day overall. Today we went to a small zoo in the area - Kaelyn's first trip to the zoo. The weather was great and there was lots of shade, which we all appreciated. A wonderful weekend all around.

I think this was Kaelyn looking at the monkeys. This was by far the most excited expression we saw on her all day. I think she enjoyed the zoo, but wasn't quite as captivated as we had hoped.

All the kid does is eat.

Ok, so we see these white-nosed, I don't know what they are...animals,

and they were just behind this fence...

Kaelyn was fairly excited at first to see them, she thought they were ok...plus this rope was pretty exciting too...

But then they got a little closer to the fence and I noticed the closer they got to the fence the closer she got to me...

She didn't get upset or anything, but she wanted to make sure I was there to protect her.

It was soooo sweet. So we moved on.

Kaelyn is our little beer maid. These cans probably have no carbonation left to them. She was having so much fun taking them in and out of the box & stacking them up.

Barry said she actually hugged the stack of beer, but he couldn't stack the picture on time.

They say imitation is the greatest form of flattery...I don't think it applies in this case.

Here are some of the tall ships we saw Saturday. I think this was the biggest one.

I really enjoyed saying "Kruzenshtern". Say it, it's fun. I promise.

Ok, so this picture is better of me than of Kaelyn, but they are few and far between these days. Notice again, the constant eating. She's eating her "pirate booty"...thought it was appropriate for seeing the tall ships...aargh matey.

Her hat is out of control. There was live music playing on the boat we were next to here, and Kaelyn was gettin' her groove on. People were laughing because it was so cute.

This flag was so big, it could've draped our whole house and then some. It was really cool. You can't really get a feel for just how big it was here, but trust me, it was damn big.

We are training Kaelyn to get us a cold one.