A Scorching September

Posted in Family by klmatthews16

Like usual, our September seemed to go by pretty fast! Now that both kids are in school and all of their activities have started, we stay pretty busy, making the days go by faster. After a LONG summer, I needed some faster-paced living. Unfortunately, the scorching summer has not subsided yet! This was the hottest September I can remember. It was almost consistently in the high 90s with very high humidity. I’m so ready for fall!!! Crossing our fingers that October will be our month!

Here is the run down of our month…

Brax Started Preschool

Since Kinsie had already been in school for a month, Brax was so excited to start preschool himself! He has had such a great start to his school year! He loves his teacher and has been really excited to learn. Last year, he was hit or miss on whether he would cry when I dropped him off, but this year he has been an absolute champ!

He has already had lots of fun learning opportunities and projects this year!

School has really sparked Brax’s interest in learning to write. He learned how to write his name over the summer, but now he’s learning the rest of the letters. He is constantly asking me how to spell words so he can write them!

Brax’s Ninja Class

This is the first year that Brax was old enough to do an extra-curricular activity. The place that Kinsie does her gymnastics also offers “Ninja Zone” classes, which got Brax really excited. His first class didn’t go quite as expected…he got a little freaked out and didn’t want to participate. After some coaxing, he finally did and has not looked back since! I think at first, the idea that we were now watching him instead of him watching Kinsie freaked him out, but now he does great!

Rare Days Outdoors

I’ve been somewhat depressed about the weather this month, mainly because I didn’t expect it. I thought we would get SOME relief from the heat, but we really didn’t. We did, however, have maybe 2 or 3 days where the heat didn’t hit hard until the afternoon, so we took advantage of those days. One morning we took a walk around the lake.

Another morning we went to the Farmer’s Market downtown and let the kids play at the rock park!

Family Visits/Grandparents Days

The other 2 years we’ve lived here, the kids and I traveled to Indiana for Kinsie’s birthday. This year, we weren’t able to do that since Kinsie can’t really miss school as easily now. Instead, my parents came to us! We got really lucky that her birthday weekend coincided with her school’s Grandparents Day! We had such a great weekend with my parents and it was MUCH needed since we hadn’t seen them since the end of June.

The next weekend, Ryan’s parents came down for Brax’s grandparents day at school. We loved having family here back to back!

My kids are beyond lucky that they’ve never had a Grandparents Day at school without at least one grandparent there…even with living so far away. Our parents are absolutely amazing!!

Kinsie’s 6th Birthday Celebrations

Kinsie decided that she just wanted to have a family birthday party this year, which I was totally fine with! Luckily, her birthday fell on a Saturday, so we had a whole fun day planned.

Kinsie decided she wanted to go downtown for her birthday. We started out at the rock park, and then took a trolley ride around the city.

Then we went to the nature center where they did an animal scavenger hunt! After that we went to a pizza place for lunch. It was such a fun morning, and my parents loved spending that time with us too!

We had a mermaid-themed birthday party for Kinsie that evening. She loved the intimate family-only celebration with balloons, a good dinner, presents, and cake!

She had such a special 6th birthday, and we were so grateful my parents were able to join us in celebrating our girl!

Since Ryan’s parents were coming to visit the next week, we kept all the decorations up and had a birthday celebration part 2 with them! We had the other half of the cake from the previous week and sang happy birthday again and she got to open her presents from Grandma Bev and Papa Tim. She loved getting 2 birthday parties and getting to celebrate with both sets of grandparents!

And that’s a wrap for our September. October is going to be SO busy, but we have lots of excited things happening. We will be traveling to Indiana for a family wedding, spending a week in Orlando at some of our favorite theme parks, and enjoying some of our favorite fall traditions for the last time living in Arkansas. We are excited to continue our traditions back in Indiana next year!

Here is our 1 Second Everyday video for September.

29Sep2019

Kinsie Kay is SIX!

Posted in Family, Kinsie by klmatthews16

Our beautiful Kinsie Kay turned six last week! It is amazing to see the transformation a child can make in just one year. Kinsie has matured in so many ways, and her education and creativity has completely blossomed. It has been so fun watching her grow and change this year. We love watching her busy little mind at work. She is constantly wanting to learn more about the world around her (just like her dad!) Her creativity is something truly amazing, and we love seeing the creative ideas that she comes up with on a daily basis. I can’t wait to continue to watch her grow and blossom and see what amazing things she accomplishes!

Here are some stats about our big six year old!

Favorite color: still pink!
Favorite TV shows: T.O.T.S., Puppy Dog Pals…although she really hasn’t been into TV much. She would rather draw, write, or do some other type of imaginative play!
Favorite movie: All of the Toy Story movies
Favorite animal: still hippos and dolphins
When she grows up, she wants to be an art teacher. She has always wanted to be a teacher like her mama, but lately with her love of art, she discovered that she could combine 2 of her loves…teaching and art!
Her learning has completely exploded. She often surprises us with the knowledge that she acquires without us even knowing it. She is a complete sponge and soaks up everything around her. Her reading is improving every day. Since she was born, we have always read books before bedtime. This summer, we wanted to get her ready for school so we started having her read to us at bedtime. Between doing this, and practicing reading at school (and reading every sign and label everywhere she goes), her fluency has really improved. She also has been doing a lot of writing at school. I LOVE seeing the writing she brings home!
Recently, her school did NWEA testing, which is a computerized test that measures individual student growth throughout the year. Kinsie scored in the 92nd percentile in math, and the 99th percentile for Reading! We were SO proud of our girl! As lovers of learning ourselves, we could not be happier that our children are loving to learn as much as we do!
Kinsie is absolutely rocking Kindergarten. She loves everything about it! She is very shy at school and would never dream of doing anything to get in trouble. I have no problem with this of course, but I do remind her to loosen up a bit and have fun at school too. Recently she received a “Citizen Shout-out” from her teacher for always being a good listener and being ready to learn. Her name was read on the school intercom and she received a certificate and special button!
Kinsie has definitely found a good stride living here in Arkansas, but she is definitely ready to move back to Indiana. She loves her school and her friends, but her family means more to her than anything else. She misses her grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles every day and can’t wait to be closer to them again. I have no doubt that she will handle the move like a champ. She is really good at making friends, so I think she will do great starting a new school next fall!
She is currently in gymnastics only. Brax has started a Ninja class, so it’s been kind of nice having them each in only one activity. She moved up to the Level 1 class this year, which is a bit tougher but she still loves it.
Since Kinsie is so busy with Kindergarten, the residency life hasn’t affected her as much as it did in the past. However, when Ryan has a string of evening shifts, it is really rough on her. When this happens, Ryan’s shift starts when she is in school, and he doesn’t get home until after the kids are in bed, so Kinsie goes days without seeing him. We’ve gotten through them by Ryan waking up early to see her before school (even when he doesn’t get home until 2am), and him having lunch with her at school.
She’s still an outdoorsy girl! But with the extreme heat we’ve had the last few months, we haven’t been able to spend near as much time outside as we’d like. Whenever the heat chills out a little bit though, we make sure we spend that time outside. It is therapeutic for all of us!
Kinsie and Brax are ultimately still best friends. Sometimes they can’t stand the sight of each other and cannot get along for the life of them, and other times they are the best of friends and make each other laugh the way nobody else can! Even though he can be a typical annoying little brother, she adores him!

We are so proud of the little lady she is becoming. She has such a strong personality, and is very strong-willed and passionate, which we are hoping will get her far in life!

Happy 6th birthday, Kinsie Kay! We love you more than life itself!

3Nov2017

Our Brax Man at 18 Months

Posted in Baby by klmatthews16

And just like that…my little boy is 18 months old. He entered our lives a year and a half ago and changed them forever in the best way. He completely lights up all of our lives and he, and his sister of course, are the best little gifts God ever gave us.

Our little guy has grown up SO much since he turned a year old. He is walking, talking, dancing, even sassing. I love watching him change every day and watching him learn more about the world around him. Kinsie is still totally in love with her little brother and loves teaching him everything she knows. He has such a fun and spunky little personality that is so contagious.

Here are some stats about our Brax Man at 18 months old…

He is 26 lbs, 13 oz. (63rd percentile) and 32 inches tall (34th percentile).
He is obsessed with reading. Maybe even more than Kinsie if that’s possible. He will bring us book after book after book, then plop his little booty down right in our lap to listen to the book. He especially loves Sesame Street books.
He is getting very verbal and is learning new words every day. Some of his first words included ball, book, Batman, and dog. He shortens most words to just one syllable…like “Mickey” becomes “Mick,” and apple becomes “app.” Some of my favorites of his words are banana (nana), and shoes (shh).
He still loves playing with balls. He will spot a ball in any room, on any page of a book, or on any show.
When we name a body part, he can point to it on his body. His belly is his favorite!
He can name several animal sounds. His favorite animal sounds are elephants, cows, monkeys and pigs.
He absolutely loves Mickey Mouse. On TV, in person, in books, in stuffed animals…he loves any form of Mickey!
He is great at making messes, but loves to help clean up his messes.
He watches EVERYTHING Kinsie does and wants to do it too.
His favorite animals are elephants and monkeys. He also LOVES dogs.
His favorite foods are bananas, applesauce, and pretty much anything with ketchup.
He loves to snack throughout the day.
He is a major mama’s boy, but still adores his daddy.
He is very determined about what he wants and doesn’t want, and will make sure we know it.

This kid is so awesome. I can’t wait to keep watching him grow and learn! I can’t believe he’ll be two in 6 months!

1Feb2017

Good Riddance, January!

Posted in Family by klmatthews16

January is FINALLY over. This is my least favorite month of the year for many reasons, mainly because of the dreadful weather. Don’t get me wrong, we had some good times in January, but I do have to say that I’m glad it’s over…and it seemed to last FOREVER. Honestly, the weather wasn’t as horrible as previous Januarys we’ve had, but…it’s still winter. It still kept me cooped up inside the house with two crazy kids who need ways of getting their energy out. (Not to mention, I work every day with 10 and 11 year olds who also feel unmotivated and stir crazy when stuck inside due to the weather.) Ryan was on his busiest rotation of his 4th year, where he averaged 60+ hours a week, working weekends and overnights often. I feel like I’ve somewhat reached my stride to life with 2 kids, so it’s not that I needed him for the help as much…but I missed him, and the kids did too…and it’s a lot easier to make dinner, do laundry or even go to the bathroom when there is another adult present! When Ryan has had busy rotations in the past, it was at least summer or fall, so we were able to get outside, go swimming, or take walks and wagon rides. But not in January. We had to find creative ways of having fun and allowing our hyperactive kids’ to burn their energy! Here are the highlights of this month…

New Year’s Eve

I know that technically, the majority of this evening occurred in December…so don’t judge! New Year’s Eve is very different once you have children. Ever since Kinsie was born, we usually just stayed at home, put her to bed at her normal time, had movie marathons and tried to pry our eyes open long enough to watch the ball drop. Since Kinsie is 3 now, and, let’s face it, has more energy than both me and Ryan combined, we figured it would be a good year to let her stay up until midnight for the first time. We went to my sister’s house for the evening, but first had to trick Kinsie into taking a nap. We loaded her up in the car and drove around for a while until she fell asleep, and then parked in the driveway and just let her nap away. Once we were at Krista’s house, we ate dinner, played lots of board games, had a few dance parties, played XBox Kinect, watched YouTube videos…you name it (keeping toddlers entertained until midnight was exhausting!) Kinsie started losing steam around 10:30pm, but then got a second wind once the ball dropped. We had champagne and the kids had juice boxes and we all rang in 2017 as a family. It was a great night with great memories!

Birthday Parties

We had a lot of birthdays to celebrate in January. First was our good family friends, Jake and Drew, who turned 13. We’ve known them their whole lives, and they are like family. The kids had a great time running (or crawling) around with their cousins. Next, we went to dinner for my brother-in-law Ryan’s birthday at Rick’s Boatyard. The weekend after was my nephew Briggs’ birthday. On his actual birthday, we went out to dinner at one of the kids’ favorite hangouts, Chick-fil-A, then the next evening was his party at the Well Community Center. This was an awesome place to have a party! It had tunnels, slides, and tons of toys (even baby toys for Brax). The kids had a blast and Kinsie became obsessed with all the songs on the CD that Briggs gave out as party favors. Finally, Kinsie’s cousin, Hazel had her birthday party the next day at the Jump-n-Play…another one of her favorite places.

All-day Pajama Parties

Let’s face it, when it is cold outside, don’t you just want to stay in your jammies all day? Well, we did that pretty much every weekend. Since Ryan was working so much, me and the kids didn’t venture out a whole lot on the weekends. It was too cold (and too exhausting) to get everyone ready and dressed and bundled to go anywhere, so we stayed home a lot. The kids didn’t mind, they enjoy being home and with their own toys. We played a lot of dress-up, built things with Tinker Toys, read hundreds of books, watched countless movies (inclduing Kinsie’s new favorite…Trolls), and had more dance parties than I can count. Brax is a man on the move these days, so he crawled laps around the house daily. Kinsie has loved learning all her letters at school, so now her newest interest is learning how to write each letter. We also recently bought her some beginner Math books, so she loves doing those workbooks. She always says how much she loves to learn, and how she wants to be a teacher when she grows up like mommy. I hope she continues her love for learning…it’s definitely in her genes!

January is over…on to February! To be honest, February isn’t my fave either (again…this is mainly motivated by the weather). Although I am already looking forward to spring, I will continue to soak in as many indoor snuggles and pajama parties as I can while they last.

21Feb2014

Adventures with our FIVE month old!

Posted in Baby by klmatthews16

It is absolutely amazing to see how much our little girl grows every single day. She is developing a personality that Ryan and I are just completely in love with. She makes us laugh constantly and her smiles alone make it worth getting up every day. She is seriously such a happy little girl, which makes me a very happy mama. It is very obvious that she already enjoys learning, which her teacher mom and med student dad definitely appreciate! With this horrible weather we’ve had, we obviously can’t go outside much, and she gets bored with our house and her own stuff, so we’ve been taking her on little trips like to Orange Leaf, or Dick’s Sporting Goods. She loves going to new places and looking at everything she possibly can. She is so curious and always seems to be trying to find something to get her hands on. I have a feeling she will be quite the mischievous toddler! We are falling more and more in love with our sweet Kinsie Kay every single day, and I can’t believe we made such an amazing little person!

This last month has brought a lot of fun new habits and personality quirks from our love bug. Here is what she is up to at five months old…

She likes to touch faces.
She has experienced her first stomach flu and passed it to mommy and daddy.
She is very curious and wants to see and touch everything.
She is becoming interested in food that she sees and will be trying solid foods very soon.
She smiles when she meets new people.
She is a pro at leg lifts.
She seems to really like giraffes.
She could watch her cousin Briggs play all day long.
She loves to hang out with her cousin Kerigan.
She still loves fish, but isn’t satisfied just looking at the aquarium anymore, but now tries to find a way inside.
She wants to grab EVERYTHING.
She has discovered her voice and likes to test her vocal ranges constantly.
She likes to pet her dog Addie.
She thinks daddy is hilarious.