January 2016: New Year, New Friends, New Fun

January was a pretty low-key month for us, which I'm glad for as we've been spending most of our month preparing for this little boy's arrival (less than a month away now!) and relaxing before the craziness of having a newborn sets in again.

December 28 David's grandpa passed away. He was such a sweet man and I'm glad that I was able to spend time with him and get to know him. He was a great example of a lot of things for both David and I, and I'm glad that Kollyn now has some memories of him. Even if she won't be able to fully remember as she grows up, we have pictures and will be able to share those memories with her.

All of David's siblings were able to fly in for the funeral. It was so nice. They haven't all been together in a really long time (not totally sure how long but it's been a while) so it was fun to see them all even if it was for a sad occasion. We're lucky to have the knowledge of eternal families that we do, which made it a little less sad. 

It was a beautiful day for the funeral. Not cold, and not windy. David was one of the pallbearers along with his brother and cousins. Kollyn was very well-behaved during the funeral (minus one outburst where she yelled about something) and the graveside service. 

Kollyn and Luke had a lot of fun playing together while the Dynes siblings practiced their musical number for the funeral. :)

We spent a day with the Dynes cousins and Kollyn had a blast playing with Jane and Miriam. David challenged Jack and Paul to a Lego spaceship building contest and they were entertained for hours, so I got to watch these three interact and it was so much fun! Jane and Kollyn are only a few months apart in age and Miriam is so kind and gentle with them. I love that K has cousins so close that we can interact with and she loves looking at the pictures of her and Jane and Miriam. 

Once a week, David meets with the start-up company he is helping start. We were definitely led to these people and it's so much fun that our kids are all so close in age. K loves Lily and Sarah and May and when I tell her David has a meeting, she gets so excited and asks to go play with her friends. Even though May and Lily are both a year younger, she loves playing with them. I love watching her interact with them. She and Sarah have some similar personality traits and it's fun seeing how they play together since they're the same age. She just loves people and is so social so I'm glad we have the ability to be around these friends. And I love being able to get to know Jacqi and Amy and Gwen. They're amazing women and I'm blessed to be able to have them as friends.

She is a silly girl this one. :) She loves her Batgirl hat, but it's still much too big for her so when she wears it, it definitely looks a little funny. She likes to put her hat on and then find David's had and make him put it on. :)

This is her "alligator Halloween". She was going to wear it for Halloween this last year, but decided that she didn't want to. Now she asks me to help her put it on at least once a week and she just sits around and plays while she's wearing it.

We've been preparing for little boy to come. We decided it was time to change Kollyn over to her new bedroom (previously known as the toy room) so that she didn't feel like baby was replacing her and had time to adjust before he gets here. My parents had her come spend the night and David and I spent that evening and the next day moving things, putting up her name and pictures up, and making sure it feels similar but different. She helped pick out a new rug, a lamp, and helped move some stuffed animals in there. So far, the transition has been good. :) She did have a hard time with just a mattress on the floor, so once we got the toddler bed delivered and set up, we were a little nervous but she's had much more success with that. We think she likes feeling a little more enclosed, similar to the crib, since that's what she's use to. She loves being a big girl. :)
We took away her binkies the same night we moved her into her new room. We'd been telling her for a while that once she moved to her big girl room, she'd have to stop using binkies because they're only for babies. We took her to Toys R Us and let her choose a stuffed animal to replace her binkies. She choose a penguin that is almost the size of her and she loves it. She makes sure she has it every night. She calls it her "big penguin" because she also has little penguins she loves. The only downside that we've had since taking the binkies away is that she no longer takes naps. She has quiet time instead for about an hour an a half, sometimes two hours, where she just plays in her room. She actually loves it. :) I was pretty worried about the transition and how she'd handle it, but she's taken it like a champ.

I've been wanting to put this up in her room for a while, but decided to wait until she was in her big girl room. She loves to point out the letters and tell us what each one is whenever we're in the room. I also love that I now have a place to share her artwork as well. She loves to paint and color and I feel bad just kind of putting them on the fridge and then throwing them away. This way she can choose to save one or two (it'll be more than that haha). She loves to point out her pictures to us. She is especially proud of her pumpkin she painted around Halloween.

I made this quit for her as her "big girl blanket" that she has on her new bed. She loves it and that makes me happy. :) I've never done one before and with the help of my mom (and David) I was able to get this one tied and sewn in just a couple hours. Kollyn helped pick the fabric (kind of, these were the two she didn't say no to) and they do match the "theme" of her room, pink and brown. She loves to snuggle with it and makes sure all of her stuffed animals (there are about 5 of them every night) are tucked in with her at night under this blanket. I'm glad she likes it. I was worried it would just be another blanket for her, but she seems to really like it so I feel like I did a good job. Even though I did make a few mistakes.

Now that she's out of the "nursery", we have been setting up everything for baby. She has finally accepted that this is "brother's room" and has seemed excited to help us get things ready for him. She seemed to enjoy helping me put his clothes in the dresser and get his crib ready for him. She likes to point out that there's "brother's room" and "Kollyn's room" and she'll point to each room. I'm glad she's kind of getting it and doesn't seem to be upset about the room change. She liked showing me his clothes while we were putting them away and got really excited when she saw the few that have sharks on them. :) I hope she's this excited when she sees him and we bring him home. I am a little worried about that transition, but hopefully getting her a new baby doll to feed and play with will help her. And I definitely plan on having her help me with whatever I can to help her feel like a big girl.

And since it's the winter, free day at the Zoo is back! We love going to the zoo, even if it's kind of chilly. That's what blankets, coats, and gloves are for, right? Kollyn loves the zoo and has not stopped talking about it even though we went almost 2 weeks ago. We saw the elephants paint using a special brush (also we saw them poop and she will tell that to anyone who asks). We saw the lions right up by the glass, and she was loving the tigers, polar bear, and zebras. It was too cold for the rhinos and giraffes though, and she is very quick to say that as well. 

That lioness was assessing Kollyn. Luckily she decided K wasn't what she was looking for. ;)

Since we got in for free, it was totally worth it to pay the $2 for the carousel ride. She didn't want to do it alone, so I got on the anteater with her, and after that she was fine. She said "Wheeee!" and pointed out how it "goes around and around". She likes carousels once she actually gets on them.

Thanks to Mountain America Credit Union (funny enough, we do not bank there, I just follow them on Facebook for the contests) and their "Name a Penguin" contest (the name we submitted didn't win, full disclosure) we are now the proud owners of a year family membership. :) We've been twice since we got it and K loves it. We went and saw the shark feeding, but weren't able to see too much so we'll try to go on a different day when it's hopefully less crowded. She was enthralled by the penguins, the poison dart frogs, and the jellyfish. She runs around and says, "Ohhhhhhh!" at everything she sees, even if she has no idea what it is. She's always asking what something is and seems to remember because she'll come back to a tank a little while later and very matter-of-factly tell us what it is, like she thinks we don't know. They also do penguin feedings every day and we are excited to go see that sometime. They also have piranha feedings and archerfish feedings, both of which I would be interested to see.

David has found a new job working for a company based out of California called Well. They are a tech company that has a software that matches physical therapists with patients needing in-home care. He is very lucky to be able to work from home until they build an office out here, which will be at least 6 months, if not longer, and I am very thankful for that. This pregnancy has been really rough and I've definitely not been fully functioning so he's been able to help out with Kook on the days when I'm just feeling so nasty. I get random fevers (we aren't sure why) and am still very nauseous and lack an appetite, so having his help is invaluable. K is LOVING having her dada home with her and it makes me just so happy to see the bond and relationship that they have. I predict she and he will have a very special bond the rest of their lives. He is a very involved and amazing dad. I honestly couldn't have asked for a better partner in parenthood and life. Seriously. He's amazing. I've been feeling pretty anxious about adding this new baby to the mix and figuring out how to adjust to everything, and figuring most of it out on my own most of the day. This job came at the perfect time and knowing he'll be here for the first few months to help out has really helped lessen my anxiety.

I am starting to get really nervous about baby, since my due date is less than a month away. With baby boy being breech, there is the possibility that we will induce at 39 weeks. I've been seeing a chiropractor that specializes in pregnancy and Webster's Technique to help flip babies as well as my regular chiropractor, and while he hasn't flipped down yet, we have a couple weeks before we will try the manual inversion. So in about 2.5 weeks, we could possibly have this little boy. Thinking about that has really started the mini freakouts and I'm anxious, but excited as well. I'm eager to see his personality as he grows to see how similar he and K are. I'm eager to see how she takes to being a big sister. I think she'll do great because she LOVES babies and our biggest issue might be her loving him too much, but I am nervous that she'll start acting out to get attention as well. We will hopefully be able to figure out how to make her still feel loved and that she has our attention. It'll be interesting to see and I honestly can't wait to see how they interact as they get older. Hopefully we can encourage them to be friends. :)