Happy Thanksgiving!

We've been busy preparing for Thanksgiving and enjoying it with family... My aunt Linda, Uncle Jack and cousin Jackie are here from NY as usual. Kinsey's had the whole week off from school.

On Wed we took Kinsey to see Santa. We didn't get a great picture, so I'm sure we'll try again before Christmas is here. . .

We had a relaxing time at the house for Thanksgiving eating lots of food and playing with our farm animals. My friend Aliy brought her kids over to burn off some energy with the animals and Jamie brought out the barrel train too for everyone to take a ride . . . including Jackie and Bailey!

Kinsey's practicing on the goats to be a gold ribbon Mutton Buster

We also watched the Macy's Parade! Kinsey was pretty into it this year, enjoying all the dancers and the balloons.

Watching Santa arrive!

Kinsey shared one of her little chairs with Jackie to watch the parade :)

 And today we went Black Friday shopping, of course! Kinsey enjoyed checking out all the toys and picking out pretty things at the Coach Outlet again this year.

Not much else to report. But here's a really cute video of Jackie and Kinsey playing together. Jackie was riding Kinsey's little ladybug toy and chasing her around and Kinsey was eating it up!

More New Skills

We enjoyed celebrating Kinsey's official birthday on Monday with more family presents throughout the day. I still can't believe she's actually 4 years old!

This week Kinsey learned a couple more new skills . . . and I was able to catch one of them on video.
First of all, she's learned how to flush the toilet. She thinks this is lots of fun and of course likes to watch the water go around in the bowl. She also likes to keep flushing it when it's not ready to be flushed again yet.

But her other new skill is very impressive as it involves a series of steps - I don't know when she figured this out, but one day this week I was using the sink in the bathroom and she came in the room. She went over to the side of the sink and turned on the faucet, walked to the front and bent down to pull her stool out from under the sink, held onto the front of the sink to step up on the stool and then played in the water! I wanted to grab the camera right then, but I was frozen - in disbelief that she was doing all this and fear that she would fall! But she did it! And the next day she did it again . . . a few times and I was able to capture it on video that time.

She's also recently trying to brush hair. Sometimes she will take the brush and attempt to brush her own hair, sometimes she tries to brush mine or her doll's hair. Here's a video of her "brushing" Gramma's hair last weekend.

And here's a cute video of Kinsey walking while pulling her toy horse around with her.

This week she's also gotten better at wearing her glasses - she wore them for 2 whole days straight without taking them off! She always wears them without any problem at school, but usually pulls them off within a few minutes to a few hours after leaving school, but yesterday and today she wore them all day - including rides in the car and watching TV (which are the times that she usually gets bored and takes them off). Hopefully that's a sign that she's getting used to them and will keep wearing them more.


Gramma went to school with Kinsey last Friday when she was visiting, so here are some pictures from that. Oh, and it happened to be Pajama Day:

 

Finally, here are a bunch of cute pictures from the last couple of weeks - I didn't want to overload the blog last week with more pictures since we already had so many from the birthday celebration. 

This girl loves her chickens!

Kinsey wore her new Pug hat this week (a gift from Jamie's cousin Kari). Doesn't she look just like Bailey?

Kinsey really likes to play with my fall decorations. Here she is introducing her baby doll to my Pilgrim salt & pepper shakers.

Kinsey's 4th Birthday!

Today (Monday) is Kinsey's 4th Birthday! It's so hard to believe that she is four! Jamie and I agree that she has changed so much this past year, more so than other years, especially in just the last month since she started walking. It's amazing how much that one thing has changed her so much.

 

 

 

 

We had Kinsey's birthday party on Saturday. It was a carnival theme, complete with carnival games, snacks and a balloon artist. Jamie also gave the kids several rides in the new barrel train that he and my dad just made. Kinsey had a fabulous time - definitely the best she's ever enjoyed her own party so far. Her ability to walk this year made such a difference too - she was able to walk around and play with everyone else - just like all the other kids :) I can't stop smiling thinking about her walking around and even standing with the other kids to watch the balloon artist. She also really enjoyed everyone singing Happy Birthday to her - she knew it was all about her and just soaked it all in with a great big smile on her face. She's really quite a ham!  She enjoyed opening presents as always and of course she loved the barrel train ride. And the very best part was that she was healthy to enjoy the whole thing (she's been sick the last 2 years for her birthday/party). 

Walking around while waiting for her guests to arrive (I made her dress)

Checking out the food table

The cake (I didn't make that!)

Playing in the duck pond with her friends

Watching the balloon artist with her friends

Enjoying all the attention as we sang Happy Birthday to her.

Blowing out her candles -with a little help

This girl LOVES baby dolls!

And one last picture - this is Kinsey's first school picture!