Category: Kids

McKinley’s 1st Birthday

Today is McKinley’s 1st birthday, as hard as that is for me to believe.  It honestly seems like yesterday that we were rushing to the hospital, 3 weeks before we thought we’d have to, hoping everything would be okay.  Looking back on that now, we were definitely being watched over, as things couldn’t have gone smoother.

We are so blessed to have McKinley is our lives.  She is such a bundle of joy and brings so much light into our house.  She is such a happy girl, and it usually takes a lot to make her upset.  I knew we were blessed with Lucas, and how great a kid he is (knock on wood!) but McKinley so far has been just as great.  It is always the highlight of my day, when I come home and she is so excited to see me.

We love you McKinley!

Note: The images above link to larger images, with captions.  The only issue is the page has to load first for it to work correctly.  If the page hasn’t loaded, when you click on an image it will just load up that image, in a new window.  So just FYI, if you have slow internet, like we do, you might have to wait a second or so for the entire page to load.

Lucas is 3! (Updated)

Well a week ago was Lucas’ 3rd birthday. I can’t believe how fast time flies! I don’t have our camera right now, as it is with Kryssi at the cabin, but I do have a video of Lucas opening one of his presents. I thought he’d be more excited, but oh well.

His birthday was on Thursday, and on Wednesday he had a little party with a group that always gets together and goes to the park to play.  Then he had a lot of fun on his birthday, and then we had a party for him on Saturday at my parent’s house.  I’ll post some pictures once I get my camera back.

[flv:http://family.darinkotter.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2011/07/third_birthday1.flv 360 240]

Crawling

Well McKinley is now officially crawling.  She has been doing her army crawl for awhile, which got her around pretty well.  But a week or so ago she finally started crawling for real.  It was really exciting, until I realized she was going to be in everything now.  And I was right.  Now that she is mobile, she doesn’t ever want to sit still.  She always wants to be on the ground exploring.  She loves following Lucas around, and those two are always in their room playing together.

Here’s a video showing her crawling, as well as getting into my printer, one of her favorite things.  She also can pull herself up now, and she’s gotten up to standing multiple times.  She does that kind of in the video, using my printer.

[flv:http://family.darinkotter.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2011/06/2011-06-20-20-18-36.360p.flv 380 268]

Feeding the Ducks

The weather has been really nice this last week but it is supposed to all change next week.  So we figured we would get out one last time and enjoy the warm weather.  We decided to go down to the greenbelt and feed the ducks, as Lucas loves that.  It was perfect weather and the fall colors were amazing.  To bad next week (and probably until next May) is supposed to be pretty cold with a chance of snow.

Lucas loves running off on his own. It's hard to keep him reined in. Temple with all the fall colors. Getting ready to throw some bread.
This was McKinley's first time to feed the ducks and she just slept through it all.
Kryssi liked how all the geese lined up on the edge of the falls.

New Pictures

Here are just some random pictures I’ve been meaning to upload recently and haven’t had time to get to it.  I’m done with school now for the summer and am just working away.  I’m still doing the same work stuff, only expanded, plus I’m helping out with a website.  I also met with two different people this past week that wanted web work done so hopefully that pans out as well.  Needless to say, I’m just as busy if not more busy then I was during the school year.

Kryssi is doing really well being pregnant.  She struggled with being sick at first but she has done a lot better lately.  She’s been able to feel the baby move for a while, but I just felt he/she kick a few days ago, which was pretty amazing.  In about a week and a half is when she goes back to the doctor, and we get the ultrasound which should tell us if it is a boy or a girl.  Kryssi wants a girl and I’d be happy either way.

Lucas and Dad wrestling He wanted to sleep behind the couch, so we gave him a pillow and blanket. Didn't last long though.
This is Lucas' favorite shirt. He loves the red bike, as red is probably his favorite color and he loves bikes. Kryssi's Mother's Day gifts from Lucas. I got a license plate cover from EITC, and for whatever reason, probably only known to him, Lucas liked putting on his face and head.
His new haircut! I'll probably get blamed for it but Kryssi is actually the one that wanted it this short. The fort Lucas and I built. Lucas and dad in the fort.
He loves playing with his bouncy ball, or any ball really. He likes to have us hold our arms like a hoop and he shoots it. Playing in the fort. Trying to dress himself. He's actually taken all his clothes off before, when he was supposed to be taking a nap, and he put his shirt back on backwards and inside out, which was quite a feat.
Lucas loves running around in his diaper but it hasn't been warm enough to do it much. This is a picture Lucas took, with no help from anyone else. He saw me using the camera so he wanted it. I showed him how it worked and he started taking pictures on his own. He probably took 30 pictures of Kryssi, but some were actually pretty good.