Kiera's Art Work

Thought that I would give a little sampling of Kiera's art work.  I tried to make them look all professional and what-not, but I was a little uncreative today, so they all got the edge blur.

..........Oh, yeah, you wanna be me.  

Enjoy Kiera and her flair for the creative!

Summer is here

Horray! Let the sunshine in....Let the sunshine...Let the sunshine... *whew* Flashbacks to Hair.

Anyway, today was a fantastic day, sunny, warm enough for cool pool water but not so much that we had to prune up so as to not melt away. Besides, every now and then a girl needs sometime to relax in a bathing suit, deeeeeeep in the water, making sure not to walk too fast....you girls know what I am talking about. Jigglypuff....

Every other time I have taken Kiera to the pool she grabs onto me and doesn't let go until it is time to get out of the pool. I don't know if it was the fact that she is a year older or the two 4 year olds that were with us that could already swim, that got her to venture out on her own, but I am one proud mama. I didn't get a whole lot of photos because I spent most of my time with my baby girl. Anyway, enjoy the photos and the video of her.....****too precious****

And the last photo, well, a testimony to how long we stayed in that pool - almost 4 hours. Even with a SPF70 and reapplication, it didn't cut it. Poor thing got a bit of a sun burn. Luckily, I work at Clinique and used some of the "After Sun" product and voila, no pain and the red is almost all gone in a few hours! YAY.
p.s. Clinique did not pay me for that little "commercial", although they should *wink*

Mother's Day

Okay, big apologies from my side! I know that I put up that post to see who was still watching and then promptly went on to ignore the blog.

*blush*

All I can say, is well, I'm sorry. :) My life has been a hectic one lately with trying to find a full time job while working my "part-time job" (28-30hrs), applying to school, brushing up on math and english for the placement tests at school, taking care of Kiera all day....who by the way, thinks naps are for the birds....looking for a place for Kiera and I to live in two months and trying to figure out the whole single mom grant stuff, I have just plain been busy. But I have been working on a schedule that works for me without going crazy and the blog is on the list.

*big breath in*

Okay, so here is a cute little video of Kiera from Mother's Day. Her little class got up and did a song for all the mothers - "this little light of mine". It is a bit hard to see because absentminded-me forgot the real camera so this was shot with my DROID. But it was the best and cutiest thing in the world! My daughter of course ended up being the ham and center-of-attention. I honestly don't know where she got that from....*quiet mom*.

So without further ado...the main attraction!

Still posting

Hey all....do me a favor and leave me a comment if you still check the blog. I wanna make sure I am not just doing this blog just for myself. :)

Gracias to all of Kiera's little followers.

Christmas with Kiera

Videos for your pleasure. :D

It is about that time to get the little on into the climbing gym. She went up the climbing wall at least 20 times...and no I'm not exaggerating! She is such an athletic girl!

Kiera has had this little tricycle for over a year now and she is just now wanting to try and she basically got it on the first couple of tries! :D

We went out for a bit of chinese and Kiera desired to try eating her food with chopsticks just like mommy so we got her the kiddie chopsticks and she had a blast!

Diapers - 0 Potty - 1

Finally little Kiera has learned how to use the potty. *round of applause please* I wanted her to be potty trained before now but my second wish of her at least being potty trained before age 3 has been fulfilled!
I tried the whole - let's try to go potty while continuing to use her diapers/pull-ups and yeah, well, that didn't work. Why go to all the work to get the diaper off when she could just stand and pee?? So, I decided to go cold turkey on the diapers; date: March 14, 2011. She had only little kid panties on with no pants and played all day that way. It only took one time of peeing down her leg that she found out she needed to use the potty - she's a bit of a princess (which we love) and HATES to be dirty. I mean the kid doesn't even like having pen marks on her hands...... Anyway - since that time she has been potty trained with only one other accident. I have to say, my baby girl is a quick learner!

Photos

I love this photo for many reasons. The top two are: (1) It is a picture of my daughter taking a picture of me with her camera. I hope she learns to love taking pictures and documenting her life journey and (2) this is documentation that I have indeed left up the christmas stockings until the end of February.

365 Project

Life is short and memories fade so...... I am starting my 365 project. That way, I can remember even the smallest things that meant so much to me each day. :)

Here is the link for a little more information about the 365 Project:
http://365project.org/

Here is the link to my 365 Project. :)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chriele/

Orange-ya glad....

....you know this cutie. Kiera LOVES oranges. She was snacking away and then I found her walking around with one in tow. Got just this one photo before she stopped, glad I got it. Enjoy. :D

Snuggie

I usually try to wash Kiera's beloved snuggies one at a time so that she can always have one on hand. This time, it didn't go as planned. Both snuggies needed to be washed DESPERATELY, so I thought to myself, 'self, she doesn't go down for her nap for another 4 hours so that should be enough time to sneak them away from her and wash them'. Yeah, I should've known. That girl knows all. I try to distract her but she quickly realized that the snuggies were not by her side. Next thing I know, Kiera is running around looking every where yelling, "snuggie!" "snuggie!". So, I take her to the washing machine/dryer and showed her that her snuggies were being washed so that they were nice and clean but promised that they would be out soon. Well, I don't know if she didnt believe me or just wanted to keep a close on her precious snuggies (yes, almost gollum like.....) but she stood in front of that washing machine for 30 minutes! And anyone who has had a 2 year old or has babysat a 2 years old, knows that that is some serious stretching of the attention span. I was able to catch her on video and pictures. She is really the most adorable thing ever and can always bring a smile to my face!

Bedtime Story

Every night before bed, we would read her a bedtime story or two, just to calm Kiera and for her routine. That girl LOVES routine! After a while, she became more interested in holding the books while we told her a story and then not long after that, she wanted to tell us the stories. One of Kiera's favorite books is a book of nursery rhymes. So, when we told the story we would actually sing the song. When Kiera took over the bedtime story telling, she did the same. Here is a video of her story time. She seriously is the cutest kiddo on the planet!

New baker in the house

While my mom was visiting for Christmas this year, we baked up a storm! I think that we spent most of our time in the kitchen.... This year was exceptionally fun because we had an additional baker to help us with the grueling tasks of rolling out the dough, cutting out cookie, shapes and the ever hated....taste tester. Which Kiera GLADLY took on that role. :D
She is the cutest thing in the world and absolutely loved being in the kitchen with us making cookies!

Painting

Last month, Kiera visited her Nana and Pop-Pop for a week of spoiling. In preparation, my mom picked up a "few little things" for baby K's visit. One of the items was a painting easel. I don't think Kiera and I had even been in the house for more than a few minutes and she was already pointing at the easel, 'pees', 'pees'. So, my mom got her set up with the cutest little bitty smock and away Kiera went. She was a natural and absolutely LOVED painting. I already knew the Kiera loved to draw and color so it goes to figure that she would love painting as well.....I need to get her signed up for an art class. ;) Here are a few pictures and video of her first time painting as well as the finished product. Enjoy!

Okay, lets be honest, shall we? I have been quite the bad blogger lately. My previous goal was to get a new blog up about the family (Kiera really ;D) each week with a new recipe on the blog as well. Well, that went down the tube quickly when I returned fom Europe and went straight into Clinique's bonus time which has me working 35+ hours a week during nights and weekends. I think I worked 15 days straight at one point. *whew* Anyway, the relief after gift usually comes quickly and is much needed but not this time. We are still short quite a few people on the counter and others wanted to take their vacations as well. So, I am still averaging about 34 hours a week at work and do not see a reprieve coming anytime soon. But at this point I do not care. I need to get this back up and running; it helps me continue to adhere to a schedule and do things that I enjoy doing, which I keep forgetting to do.
So, all that being said, I will be back to one blog post a week with a new recipe post as well. I hope that you all enjoy the posts as much as I enjoy making them. Soooooo without further ado, here is one for this week. ((And so early in the week! *pats self on back*.... ))

Virginia has such weird weather. One day it is freezing and the next it is 75 degrees, so weird. I miss my Seattle weather of: here is September, bring on the rain and gray skies. *sigh* I miss good ol' dependable Seattle. Anyway, when one of these fluke days hit at the end of October, I took Kiera out to Old Town in Alexandria. We walked around and around, window shopping, grabbing a bite to eat and finally ending up at the pier. I brought a few of pieces of bread for Kiera to feed to the ducks. I now know, that really I should bring a whole loaf. That girl was flinging bread left and right so fast we were out of bread in 10 minutes. But Kiera still had fun seeing all the ducks swimming around and she even fed some little birds that wanted to get in on the free buffet.

I look forward to spring coming next year so we can do this more often. The pier is such a beautiful area. And the changing leaves were even better, I so love the reds, yellows and oranges that come out in fall. The east coast does have the niche on beautiful fall foliage - sorry Seattle. Besides, it is always nice to such a satisfied smile on my baby girls face.

Isn't she just the cutest thing on the planet???

And what kind of outing would it be if I didn't take my obligatory tree picture? I love trees!!!

October Festival