The Fashionista

Hadley has her own style. She loves putting on some type of crazy get-up and wearing it around the house. She's not trying to be silly or comical, but this girl sure does make us smile. 

One of her favorite articles of clothing for the past several months has been underwear. Not her own underwear, mind you! Any time she spots a pair of Caleb's undies hanging out of a pile of laundry that I have sitting on the couch, she's bound to grab them and start shoving her chubby little legs inside as best she can. Other times, she'll run into our bedroom and sneak a pair of my underwear out of the drawer. Usually she'll put her whole body through one leg hole and then struggle to keep them from falling off as she walks. And though they aren't quite underwear, Pull-ups work just as well. On occasion she's even layered her diaper, pants, a Pull-up, and her brother's underwear. It is quite a spectacle. Since she loves them so much, Mommy even got her a few pairs of her own panties and stuck them in her stocking for Christmas.

Cars Pull-Up and Caleb's shoes? Quite the combination, Hadley!

Whenever Caleb puts his pants on backwards and I tell him they need to be fixed, he tells me they are comfortable the way they are. Hadley must take the same approach. Not only has she found a pair of Caleb's drawers to put on over top her diaper, she also has them on backwards. Too funny!

Another accessory you'll see her donning on a daily basis is Caleb's old cowboy hat. Though this particular item has seen better days and now looks like a floppy hillbilly hat from how much use it's gotten, it's a favorite.

Looks like she's giving the outlaws the stink eye.

Don't forget the flowered purse. Every cowgirl needs one!

I'm already thinking that for her birthday in a few months a few sets of real dress-up clothes might be in order. While she does a good job making due with whatever she finds to put on, this is the only actual pretend clothes that we have right now. I bought it for her last year for Easter and forgot we had it until recently. When I pulled it out of one of the toy storage bins, I knew we had a winner.

I love her personality and hope I never forget these days. :)

Bake it, Girl!

When Caleb was small I was braver. I had more time. I was able to give more one-on-one attention (i.e. two hands to one little boy). Plus, I could control the mess and had time to clean it up. 

With my second child, things have been a bit different. After she was born, there were two people to keep up with (and now three). Things I tried before, I hesitated to jump into for lack of control. However, now that my daughter is getting older, I want to take a few more risks and make messy memories with Hadley too. 

For that reason, this past Saturday, I decided it was time to teach her how to bake a cake.

Normally, her older brother is my kitchen helper, but I think it's high time that Hadley had a chance to try her hand at baking too. When the thought crossed my mind to take on this fun activity with her, Caleb was napping so I knew he wouldn't be trying to get in on the action and it would be a special time with just her. 

A little oil and a little water...

She was excited to add the eggs. I had to catch her though because she didn't know they needed to be cracked open first. It's a learning experience!

She watched carefully as I dinged them on the side of the bowl and opened them to let the clear and yellow contents ooze from the shell. 

Hadley didn't want to stir the mixture. Instead she wanted to fling it on the floor and play. There were a few meltdowns as we battled for control.

She looks super cute with the spatula but the mixing wasn't getting done. I pulled out my mixer to blend the ingredients well, but Hadley was a bit timid when she heard what a loud noise it made.

Daddy scolded her for trying to pick up the cake since she was about to scoot it right off the counter on to the floor. Miss Sensitive was pretty distressed that she'd been fussed at. Mommy  let her help me lift as I was about to put it in the oven though and the waterworks turned off pretty quickly.

Here is the finish product. It's not the prettiest cake ever but we ate it up nonetheless and had our special bonding time which is the most important part.

YUM!

Hats for Everyone

Do you know what piece of equipment you absolutely must have to play baseball? According to this three-year-old, a hat!

One Saturday morning in early December, the hunt was on for his baseball cap, and the game couldn't begin until he had it.

"Captain Caleb" is ready!

Mommy ended up with the task of finding hats for the rest of the team. 

"Home Run Hadley" is all smiles about hers!

"Shorty McShortstop" even had a hat!

Can "Double Play Daddy" change a diaper and catch a pop fly all at the same time?

"Moundsman Mommy" was able to get everyone's uniforms together, so let's PLAY BALL!

Anyone want to challenge Team McKinstry?

December Dashing

This is my last Christmas 2013 post....I promise! But, I do have a few more pictures to share from a few December outings that we took, so I have to do one final one.

One weekend in particular, we were super busy. Dave had his work Christmas party, my mom wanted us to come watch the pageant her church was doing, and the Alger side of the family had their Christmas dinner together.

We took the older kids over to my parents' that Saturday while Dave and I headed out for a dinner date with Reid in tote. His company always hosts a fancy Christmas meal at an upscale restaurant so it's always something fun to look forward to.

While we were off enjoying filet mignon and crabcakes (not our typical meal as you might imagine), the kids were having a good time too. NaNa took on the feat of trying to bake Christmas cookies and decorate her tree with their help.

Hadley has a fascination with snowmen. "Man! Man!" she says.

Growing up there were two ice cream cone Christmas ornaments that were among my favorites. Hadley is taking a taste of one here.

Caleb tasting the other

Since we got back so late that evening, Caleb and Hadley stayed the night with my parents and woke up to a breakfast treat that Pop had in store. My dad always has something up his sleeve and that day it was a Santa Claus pancake, complete with a banana beard, a strawberry hat, and a blueberry smile.

Dave and I got there later that morning and headed to church with Mom to see the Christmas play. Hadley was having a hard time sitting through it at first, but finally she settled down. My two tired boys konked out though and missed the end of the presentation.

After going back to my parents' for lunch and naps, it was time for the Alger party. There weren't as many folks there this year, but those who came had a good time. My cousin Jamie dressed up as Santa again and the kids (and the grown-ups) loved it. Ironically, my kids were the ones who were most excited when Old St. Nick showed up on the scene.

Sleeping like usual

Even though we don't try to convince Caleb that Santa is real or tell him that he'll bring presents Christmas morning, he still definitely believes in this jolly ol' elf. He has good reasoning too. Not long ago, he told me that Thomas the train and Santa were real because he saw them when we went on the Day Out With Thomas event over the summer, but that Mickey Mouse was not real. Wonder if we went to Disney World if that opinion would change quickly?

Anyway, when "Santa" walked down the hall and Caleb got his first glimpse, he began squealing like crazy. The next thing we knew he was running around in circles, yelling: "Where's Pop?! Where's Pop?!" He couldn't believe his eyes and didn't want his granddaddy to miss out on this excitement.

You'd think Hadley would be too young to know much about Santa, but she was happy as could be to greet this jolly fellow. She ran right up to him with a smile on her face and received a bag of treats.

Caleb got his treat bag too!

Hadley took it upon herself to take the rest of the treat bags out of his basket and hand them to the other kids around her.

Reid might not be quite as fond of Santa.

Grandma, all her sisters, and Uncle Shirley

The following weekend, we decided to do the "Bethlehem Experience" again at a local church as our December family outing. The wait was a long one as we stood around ready to see what they had in store for us this year. This was difficult with three little ones who had a hard time standing in line for an hour, especially since we had to tote our little chunk the whole time because we didn't bring his stroller. However, they did have a few treats along the way that helped make it a bit more pleasant. In hindsight, Dave probably should have just taken Caleb and I kept the other two at home since they are too little to really understand much about it, but at least we got out as a family for a while. 

Baby Chunk Chunk

Santa! Caleb didn't hesitate at all. As soon as he saw this mythical character, away he ran right for him.

He did tell Dave and I that this was a "different" Santa. Guess it's a good thing we aren't trying to convince him Santa is real; this kid is just too smart sometimes.

Hadley went running for him too. She didn't climb on his lap, but she sure did jabber to him about something.

Maybe she was telling him where the cookies were. :)

We let Caleb and Hadley each have some of the refreshments while we waited, but it was hard explaining to a one-year-old why she could only have one cookie when there was a whole table of them sitting right next to her. What a mean mommy!

After a while, Hadley decided she wanted to be held too. At first Mommy sufficed, but soon this daddy's girl wanted Dave.

Caleb liked watching the quartet. 

Finally, it was our turn. Caleb was in for quite a surprise to see a donkey, a sheep, and an alpaca.

They had posters of scrolls with the prophesies and biblical account of the birth of Christ. Dave read them to Caleb as we went, explaining in terms he could understand what all this was about. We'd been reading a lot about Jesus' birth lately so now he had some good visuals to connect everything.

As we walked through the "marketplace" the kids even got to sample the food. This church really made the story come alive.

A couple days later it was Caleb's turn to be a part of a nativity as he participated with the other children of our church in the retelling of Jesus' birth. This year he took on the role of a shepherd (and was a pretty cute one I might add). He did a good job, but we got a little tickled at him because he got confused a few times. At first, he just stood in front of everyone near the front pew instead of going up with the other kids. As I tried to whisper for him to go on up there, he just kept saying, "What Mommy?" He finally got the hint and did what I was telling him, but then about midway through, he decided to just walk off the stage, come back to the audience, and sit down with NaNa and Pop. My mom whispered to him that he was in the play and needed to go back up there, and thankfully he listened. He simply got back up and moseyed right back where he was supposed to be, completely clueless that everyone was watching him and chuckling.

That was certainly enough running for us this past month. It was fun, but I'm hoping for a laid back January.