Oh Kaylie... How I love you, let me count the ways!

Kaylie is talking so much lately! She just mimics everything we say! Here are a few new things she is trying to say: "Go!", "Pretzel", "Bounce", "Uh Oh", "Hi", and she tries to say everyone's name.

The cutest thing that Kaylie does lately is that she puts her pointer finger to her mouth and says, "hmmmm". She does this when we are looking at a variety of foods to eat or when we are playing hide and seek. Or any other time I feel like hearing it, I will do it and she will usually copy me. We love it when she does this!

She is becoming a good helper and puts things in the garbage when she finds something on the floor. She is always trying to put my flip flops back on me. She just always wants to help. When she does something that she knows is right, she will sometimes clap for herself. So funny!


She loves to dance... and its pretty hilarious. She just bounces. It's so cute! Today she was rolling around on the floor and just being silly right after she was done dancing.  


Kaylie has a favorite Sesame Street character... can anyone guess??? Yes, it's Elmo! She can always be cheered up by watching Elmo on Sesame Street or just on youtube.  She gets so mesmorized, its like nothing else exists when Elmo is on.  Which is okay with us because he is an adorable, furry, red monster.  


Kaylie is just a bundle of joy and she is starting to really entertain! She can be so sweet and so funny. We love her to pieces! She is 15 months old now! I can't believe how the time has flown by!

San Diego Adventures & Family BBQ

Marcus and I were brave and decided we would leave Kaylie with Grandpa and Lola Jankowski while the two of us spent 5 days away on vacation. She actually did very well with them! We were pleasantly surprised that she never threw a huge fit for them. Marcus and I drove south and spent our vacation in Huntington Beach, Anaheim, Newport Beach, San Diego and Beverly Hills. Here are some pictures of our adventures!

Our first stop was visiting our friends, Tyler, Linda, and Jada Geertson, at their home in Reseda, which is five hours south from Modesto where we started off on Monday the 4th. We enjoyed lunch with them and they even let us borrow their boogie boards!

Our next stop was Huntington Beach! It was slightly overcast that evening so we just spent an hour walking up and down the beach next to the pier enjoying the sound of crashing waves on the ocean. 

Monday evening we spent then night at Marcus's aunt's house in Anaheim. Then we headed to Newport Beach the next morning.  Here we are standing on the pier!

This is the view from where we parked... not far from the beach since there was nobody there when we arrived! Oh and we loved seeing so many palm trees!

We made it to San Diego on the evening of Tuesday the 5th. This was the hotel we stayed in and it was in a great location! Close to everything we wanted to see.

Our first night in San Diego and we went out to dinner at an Italian Restaurant called Zia's Bistro. The food was delicious!

Our hotel was in the neighborhood of Little Italy. There were tons of pizzerias and other Italian Restaurants in the area.

These pictures were taken at the USS Midway. They turned an aircraft carrier into a museum! We spent 3 hours on Wednesday touring the carrier! There was a lot to see!

This is a picture of Silver Strand Beach on Coronado Island. We went here Wednesday afternoon after the Midway Museum. We rested for about 20 minutes and then we spent 3 whole hours boogie boarding! Once we figured it out and got used to the ocean water, we were having a blast! Our arms got pretty tired after a while, but it was totally worth it!

On Thursday we went to a few fun places. The first stop we made was Cabrillo National Monument. Cabrillo was the first European to set foot on the west coast... so they had a monument and museum in his honor. Also there was a lighthouse there which I think was the first lighthouse in San Diego. It was pretty neat seeing how a lighthouse works.

There was also supposed to be some pretty cool tidepools, but since we were there at 12:30pm there was no way we were going to catch it all at high tide. Bummer! But the view was great anyways!

Our next stop that Thursday afternoon was the Mormon Battalion Museum. It was actually a pretty neat Museum! The Sister Missionaries gave a whole tour and everything. Fun, interactive... we were pleasantly surprised! We even got a great view of Old Town San Diego from the top of the Museum.

Our last stop in San Diego was the San Diego Temple! It is such a beautiful temple! We took lots of amazing pictures.

We spent the night in Anaheim again at Marcus's Ate Bing Bing's house. She took us to breakfast in the morning right before we left! Delicious! Thank you Ate Bing Bing!

After breakfast we headed to Beverly Hills to visit my cousins, Scott & Jenn Thompson and their kids.  I was making little Archer laugh in this picture! Unfortunately I completely forgot that I wanted to take a picture with everyone! Next time!

We got home that evening after lots of traffic due to a fire... but we did make it home! Too bad Kaylie was already in bed - we missed her SO much!

We had a family BBQ the next day. We love being with family! It was especially fun seeing the great grandchildren together!

Reese and Kaylie are only 6 weeks apart! It is so fun watching them together!

While we were out in Modesto we actually stopped by my grandparents house a couple times. We took this picture the day that we left Modesto and headed back to Sacramento. Kaylie warmed up to them much faster on this visit!

Here is the whole gang together! Thank you so much Lola and Ate Lain for watching Kaylie! We had so much fun spending time with everyone!

Summer is here!

We are so glad that summer is here and we can be outside enjoying the warm weather! There are a few things we have done over the past month that I want to share and of course share some silly things that Kaylie has been up to lately.

We will start with this picture... Kaylie has discovered that she can try all sorts of new tricks; she has only done this once but she thought it was pretty funny when she was doing it. Her bottom is completely up in the air!

We went to Modesto for my sister-in-law's birthday which was April 28th. We were able to spend 3 days there and we had a great time! I got a picture of everyone with Kaylie that weekend!

Grandpa Jankowski and Kaylie were playing in the backyard looking at the fish in the pond!

Lola and Kaylie were playing in the backyard too!

Kaylie is with her Ate Lain, the birthday girl!

Uncle Alastair tries real hard to get Kaylie to sit happily with her, but she still prefers him from a distance... ha ha! Sorry Uncle Al!

Reading books with daddy!

Back at home Kaylie has figured out that she likes to squeeze into little spaces. She also takes her toys with her. Pretty hilarious!

Kaylie has also become a little mischevious... I wasn't paying attention one morning and I thought she was in the bathroom with daddy while he was doing his hair... next thing I know, Kaylie is wandering out of the bathroom with a ton of toilet paper trailing all the way back to the bathroom. I couldn't help but laugh!

We have been taking walks to the park a lot lately and Kaylie loves playing on the playground, especially when other kids are around. This was one of the first times she actually stayed in the swing longer than 30 seconds because there was another little girl swinging next to her.

This little horse bounces and she just sat on it saying, " bow bow bow" (meaning bounce). SO CUTE!

For my Grandma Hall's birthday on May 5th, we got together with some extended family and threw a little party for her. My aunt has a pool at her house so Kaylie got in with Uncle Jeff for her first swim of the summer!

Grandma humored all of us and put on a Mexican hat from Chevy's while we sang her happy birthday. What a good sport! 

Kaylie was being really friendly with our cousin, Macey. She loves other little kids.

Okay, so enough pictures. I wanted to make sure I write down some of the things Kaylie has been saying.

• If you ask Kaylie animal sounds she responds pretty well. The kitty cat says, "meow", the monkey says, " ooh ooh ah ah", the lion says, "rrraaww", the cow says, " moo moo", the goose says, "ha ha (honk honk), the duck says, "wa wa (quack), and if you ask her what the dog says, she will just stick out her tongue as far as it can go.
• Kaylie still folds her arms anytime you ask her to or if she observes others folding their arms she will too.
• She still has some trouble warming up to people, but is doing better.
• She has started screaming a lot more and especially when someone is playing with a toy she wants, she will scream at them... so we have taught her to hold out her hands. When she screams, we say, Kaylie, what do you say? and she holds out her hands with a puppy dog face.
• Kaylie is a giggle worm - she giggles so much at just about everything these days. If she hears someone laughing she will usually join right in - mimicking them is what it is. She mimics everyone.
• Her favorite words right now (in no particular order) are: dada, mama, ball, bird, this, that, yum yum, book, no and bug.
• She is learning to say a lot of other words too: fish, mo(elmo), bellba(belly button), bufly(butterfly), dow(down), and mo(more) while she is trying to sign with her hands.
• Kaylie loves to learn songs with hand motions like head, shoulders, knees, and toes and popcorn popping.
• She can pretty much tell you almost any body part which we think is pretty impressive.
• The last thing I'll share is that Kaylie is extremely expressive with her face. She is making all kinds of faces lately. She will mimic almost anything anyone does with their face. It is truly adorable.

Life is great! Marcus's job is really picking up and we are enjoying our time here in Sacramento. We can't get enough of our little girl although sometimes it is nice to get out on our own! Kaylie is 14 months old now and we can hardly believe it. This next month Marcus and I will be going to San Diego while Kaylie stays with her Lola in Modesto. We look forward to that! We will share pictures!

Photo Shoot & The Latest on Kaylie

As you can see we did a photo shoot with our little family and with all of my immediate family! They turned out great and I owe Steph French for that! 

Also I wanted to say how exciting it has been having the family all together again. Jacob came home on April 4th and Jon came home on the 6th. Jon will be heading back to Idaho though, so we are only together for a short while. We will take what we can get!

A little update on Kaylie... she will be 13 months old on the 15th(tomorrow). Last time I wrote, I mentioned that she was learning to fold her arms when we pray as a family, but now she not only folds her arms, but she has also picked up "amen". It doesn't quite come out amen, but it sounds an awful lot like it! We didn't even try to teach her that yet, just one day at the dinner table, she spit it out! SO cute! Kaylie has 10 teeth - 4 on the top and bottom center, and two molars on the top as well! I just noticed that the other day.  Maybe that is why she has been drooling lately... ha ha! Every night before Kaylie goes to bed she has been giving hugs and kisses to everyone! My family loves this daily routine and I don't plan on giving it up. She is such a sweetheart! In the morning when Kaylie wakes up I usually bring her to bed with Marcus and I so I can rest a little bit longer. Kaylie thinks its fun to jump all over us and giggle or even scream at the top of her lungs sometimes. She is quite the hoot! Marcus and I agree that there is not too many things that are better than cuddling with our little girl!