I was so excited when I went to catch up with my blog and I had mostly finished November, just never posted it. Here it is!
October 27, 2014 marks our family's entrance into the real world. Jeremy started working for
Latham & Watkins and Kaitlyn and I started to integrate into the stay at home mom social scene. It was a long, wonderful time vacationing, but it feels good to get into a routine again.
Here is Kaitlyn learning to wash her hands by herself. I got a very tall step stool she can reach everything with. I have never seen her so proud of herself as she is every time she washes her hands by herself. She pulls over the stool, climbs up, turns on the water, sometimes skips getting her hands wet, gets soap, and rubs and rubs. She loves watching herself in the mirror. Then she rinses all the bubbles off and turns the water off (sometimes this takes a while) and dries hands with a towel. Then there is lots of face making in the mirror and she might decide to brush her teeth. At the end of it all she even puts the stool back most of the time. I know this is a lot about how to wash your hands, but it is quite the process to do it right for a little girl. She is so proud of herself every time. She randomly will ask me if she can wash her hands. It's so fun!
We started to think about potty training again but the hand washing experience taught me that I would rather have her be proud and excited about it. It has to be her decision or it will be no fun. So for now, we just play with the little potty and I ask if she wants to use it every few days. She is still scared of it, so I will wait to push it until after Christmas. I have noticed her pretending to have her stuffed animals go, so I think she is slowly getting used to the idea. This is her building a tent with her old baby play gym.
Park day with our new ward. So fun!
Quinn Sanders is 5 days younger than Kaitlyn and they are quickly becoming great friends. Kaitlyn was still against wearing her Cinderella dress all the time, but was happy to have Quinn wear it. Quinn also loved all of Kaitlyn's bows and flower clips as you can see.
One day, we went to the zoo with Quinn, Melissa, and Max and as we were getting out of the car, I saw a UCLA friend coming too. Nicole, Ashtyn, and Jack got to hang out with us too! These three girls had so much fun together! (Ashtyn, Kaitlyn, Quinn)
Holding hands is about the funnest thing you can do at this age.
Nicole, Ashtyn, and Jack
Melissa, Quinn, and Max
Jeremy left for a weekend to go to Washington DC for a company training/party. While he was gone, Kaitlyn and I helped babysit at the temple for our ward temple trip. The visitor's center is great.
Bath time sorting.
Kaitlyn has gotten braver with jumping off things. I'm not sure how she jumped like this, but it's a funny picture. Now she is jumping off the big rock into the sand over and over.
Having a Cinderella party with Quinn and watching Cinderella and eating popcorn.
Kaitlyn's painting and coloring is starting to get more accurate. She actually tries to paint the objects now. We are still a ways from staying in the lines though.
Before Thanksgiving, we were invited to a "Friendsgiving" and had a delicious dinner with a lot of new friends. It was really awesome to have all the food, but we all only brought one or two things so it was really easy. Someone also had access to a big room for parties that we got to use. We had a great time, but Kaitlyn never wanted to leave my side and play with the other kids. I guess things were a bit too crazy for her.
Here are a lot of new friends!
I made a few pies before Thanksgiving for a Pie night at different friends' house. I had a lot of crust leftover. Kaitlyn used the cookie cutter so well that I let her paint with butter. She was so excited and so focused. These cookies didn't taste good because they were drowned in so much butter, but I didn't care since I already had my pies.
I love these little pigtail braids. She hasn't let me braid them for quite a while.
Uvas canyon is one of our favorite hikes when it has rained or during the rain. Kaitlyn wore her rainboots and loved walking through the stream until it got a little too deep and poured in over the top. Whoops!
On Thanksgiving day, we had dinner at Clara and Randall Lewis's house. While I was making food, Kaitlyn decided she really wanted to go swimming. So Jeremy took her to the pool even though it is not heated and not at all warm.
Kaitlyn didn't seem to notice the cold and played at the steps for a long time.
After Thanksgiving, Kaitlyn could hardly contain her excitement to put up our first "big" Christmas tree. I finally felt like we had enough space and better reasons to get our own Christmas tree instead of using my old American Girl Doll tree from when I was little.
We decided to explore the East Bay hiking in the winter since it's warmer over there and by the time the summer rolls around the grass is dead. We went to Mt. Diablo and Rock City. Kaitlyn loved climbing up these rocks and exploring all the different places to go. It reminded us of hiking in Red Rocks because there wasn't always a definite path.
She wanted to do it by herself! Also she split the seem in her pants sliding down rocks.
BYU-Cal Game, 42-35! It was an awesome game to watch! I was so sure we would lose and then BYU came through and won it!
After the game, we went to see the lighting of the Oakland Temple lights. It was starting to rain and we saw a test run when they put on the lights for a minute and then turned them off. Kaitlyn was done after a long day and we called it good.
