19 Months & Mother's Day

Kayla turned 19 months on Saturday and we had a wonderful Mother's Day on Sunday.  I am so lucky to be the mommy of such a sweet girl.  She fills my day with fun and excitement as she learns more and explores our little part of the world.  She loves her babies, coloring, drawing with chalk, and playing with playdoh.

Swimming at G.G.'s house for Mother's Day.

What I have noticed most this month has been her growing attachment to certain things.  Right now she loves all of her baby dolls and has learned that bringing them along on her adventures is very entertaining.  She lets them slide, ride in the grocery basket, and sit with her at the table (I have to put a bib on them, of course).  Today, she even wanted one of them to snuggle with during her nap.  When we go to G.G.'s (her great-grandma's), who loves to collect all kinds of baby dolls, Kayla is in heaven!  She positions them, wraps them up, carries them around, feeds them, and puts them "na-na" in their beds.  This attachment has also led to fierce claiming of what is "mine!", which is a sticky situation when she is around other kids.  I wonder if the new baby will be claimed or looked upon as an intrusion....we'll see.

This month also marked the beginning of Kayla using some phrases!  Woohoo!
"moe peas" = more please
"ice peas" = ice please
"ice ice baby" (self-explanatory--ha!  My parents taught her this because she has a love affair with ice.  She has some EVERYday)
"daddy home" (This is not what she says when Daddy comes home, but what she says when I ask where daddy is during the day.  She wants him to be home and also can't say work)

She also has picked up a few new words:
heart (and recognizes the shape)
teeth
knee
kiss (she says this when she gets a booboo and wants me to kiss it)
G.G. (for great-grandma)

Our Mother's Day lunch was spent at G.G.'s house and we had the special treat of swimming, too!  Kayla loves the water, and even though her teeth were chattering and her skin was turning purple she was furious that we took her out to warm up.  I can't wait to take her swimming more this summer!

I had a great Mother's Day with the most special people in my life.

Firsts...Part 2

Kayla and I had a little first together this week--playdoh!  Me for making it and her for playing with it!

She loved it!  I thought she might be too young for it and try to eat it (which she did), but she was super focused on poking it, scraping it, and squishing it!

A little salty, but she doesn't mind!

 I would make smooth balls of dough for her and she would squash them!  She hasn't quite taken too much to coloring at this point so it was fun to find an art medium that she really liked.

Here's the website for the recipe I used, if you're interested http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Make-Playdough-Play-doh/.  I would add vanilla to the mix or an essential oil to make it smell better.  It doesn't smell like Playdoh, but more like stinky feet.  Also, using Kool-Aid packets for the coloring instead of food coloring might help the smell.  Easy recipe, though.  Enjoy!

Firsts...Part 1

This last week was a slew of firsts for the Means family.  Some I don't have the heart to just go and put in a blog, but there are a few cute ones I will...

The first was an Austin concert.  Yes, I am lame and have only been to one other concert in my entire life unless you count high school band concerts.  Jeremy and I started listening to this new-to-us band recently called Mumford & Sons. {check them out--music and lyrics are awesome}  When we found out they were playing in Austin we decided we had to go.  We walked around Austin's 6th Street at 3pm...woohoo, talk about a ghost town, where we saw bike lanes with their own traffic lights....San Antonio and Austin are separated by 1 1/2 hour drive but are soooo different!

Then, we walked to our venue, which was listed as 4th & Waller.  Oooh, I thought, some hip indoor place with some dark lighting and chairs.  No.  This was a dirt lot on the corner of 4th Street and Waller Street.  Jeremy was tickled pink.  I was hot, and super glad to have changed out of my heels at the last minute.  What was cool about not having assigned seating, or any chairs at all, was that you could get really close if you pushed your way through and said you were meeting friends "up there."  We kinda did this, of course staying far enough away still so bass was not pumping into my belly.

You can see the Capitol Building to the right of the stage.

The tour is the Railroad Revival tour and the bands traveled on trains to each destination.  You can see the silver one in the background.

We greatly enjoyed our view, especially when Marcus Mumford came out--he is cute in that English way and kind of reminds me of Robert Downey, Jr.  The first band was okay, the second was Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros {awesome!!}, and then Mumford.

The bottom pic is of the lead singer for Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros.  He and his voice did not match up, but we also fell in love with this band.  You have probably heard their music; Janglin on a car commercial and Home on an insurance commercial, I think.  Good stuff.

Here is me and my love (he is making me sit in the shade to readjust my attitude cool off):

As I said, Jeremy was "in his element" and greatly enjoyed all the ambiance the concert had to offer.  Even to the point of not minding being smashed together with hundreds of other people, sweating and dancing.

Big crowd!

Being at this concert, already a first, brings me to another first and that is smelling a certain other kind of cigarette and actually seeing people smoke it.  Yes, I know...I am 30 years old, but I've just never been around it.
Jeremy and left Austin that night both exhausted and excited after this big experience.  We have plans to go again sometime, but not anytime soon.
This is one of the videos we shot.  It is of Mumford & Sons singing Winter Winds, which happens to be Kayla's favorite song.  It kind of starts in the middle of the song and is a little jumpy in parts, but it gives a good sampling of their sound.