KACEY IS 2!

July 1 Kacey celebrated her 2nd birthday. She is getting so big! 

Kacey is our busy body. She keeps us on our toes. Just yesterday she stamped marker all over her hands while I was in the shower, sat on top of the kitchen table and poured water from one cup to another and of course all over the table, and she repeatedly filled up cups with water and dumped them back into the drain on the fridge which overflowed onto the floor. She often helps herself to the pantry and leaves a trail of crumbs and garbage behind her. 

She is our most physical child. She loves to wrestle. You cannot sit or lay on the floor without expecting for her to jump or climb on top of you. She jumps off of everything, especially the couch. Just the other day she was jumping off the couch and tucking her legs under her and landing on her shins. Sometimes she hit pillows, sometimes it was straight floor. She is crazy.

I really believe if we one of our children is a true athlete, it will be Kacey. She cruises pretty well on her scooter and loves to run, jump and play outside. She is well coordinated. 

Kacey is a talker. She puts together sentences of three or four words and has a size-able vocabulary. Strangers wouldn't know it, but when she is comfortable she doesn't hold back.

Kaceyisms: Pre-2 years

• When jumping on the trampoline she became tired. She flopped onto her back and said, "goodnight!"
• When jumping off the couch she called out to me, "Renae watch! 2..3..2..3..2!"
• Keira became upset and was crying after she got in trouble for not listening. Kacey so causally said, "Oh Keira..."
• After eating a sugar cookie Kacey licked her fingers clean. When she finished she said, "Got it!"
• During one of our many failed attempts at getting Kacey to nursery, she came to Sunday School with us. In class the teacher asked if there were any questions. Kacey immediately perked up with, "Nope!"
• Kacey wanted to go play at the park. We drove by a park and she pointed in the direction of it, "that way!" We conceded and went to the park. When we pulled into the parking lot she excitedly said, "There you go! Got it!"
• While driving in the car she spotted a motorcycle. She yelled out, "Motorcycle! I WANT IT!!"
• Nummy= yummy
• Bottle water= water bottle

Dec. 17, 2017

Well... poor 3rd child. I get worse and worse as time goes on. Kacey is now just two weeks away from 2 1/2. It has taken me almost 6 months to finish this post. 

Kacey is still just as crazy as before. She no longer just jumps off the couch, she now gets into her crib by jumping off the changing table. She HAS to jump in, every. single. time. This morning I pulled out bubble packaging that came in all the shipping boxes from Christmas presents I had ordered online. I gave them to the girls to pop them so they would be smaller to throw out. Kacey decided the best way to do this was to jump and land on them with her bottom. It worked, and was hilarious! She had a blast.

But really, she is definitely the most physical. She hits and pushes. She climbs on top of everyone. She loves to wrestle. And she constantly pesters Keira.

Keira and Kacey have a typical sibling rivalry. Those two go back and forth all day everyday. They play together too. But Kacey knows how to push Keira's buttons, which honestly are pretty easy to push. But Kacey doesn't stop. She has picked on Keira since she was a baby. 

Kacey struggles to share. Typical 2-year old. Everything is hers. She is playing with- it's hers. She played with it yesterday- it's hers. She saw it- it's hers. She thought about it- it's hers. When she gets upset she screams. She knows how to draw plenty of attention to herself.

She is also quite shy and clingy. Really, she puts on a completely different persona with strangers than she acts at home. She is shy even with people she sees frequently, like at church. She dishes out quite the stink eye, which usually gets laughs. She will cling to me and dig her face into my shoulder to avoid eye contact. It took us a good 8 months at least to get her to go to nursery. She finally will go and enjoy herself. She still will act a little nervous about going, but will relax a little once we find her a baby to play with. Previously we would leave her and she cried the entire time. The WHOLE time! She never would calm down. So she ended up going home for a nap far too often. Thank goodness she is feeling comfortable in there now.

Kacey is stubborn. If she wants to do something her way, it WILL be done her way. If she wants to pick up her blanket and I do it for her, she will throw it on the ground so she can pick it up herself. She threw a pretty good screaming tantrum just the other day because I turned the light on in the bedroom when she wanted to do it. It's her way or no way. She is so frustrating sometimes too. She wants her blanket. NO! She doesn't want her blanket, how dare you put her blanket on her. YES! She does want her blanket, put it on now! All of this within a 30 second period of time. 

As far as eating goes she could eat fruit all day long. Fruit, yogurt, cheese, milk and applesauce. Those are her favorites. Some days she will eat dinner, sometimes she won't even touch it. She does love macaroni and cheese and finally will eat chicken nuggets. For quite a while she wouldn't touch meat. If we tried to mix in a little chicken with some other food, she would fish the chicken out of her mouth. I honestly am never quite sure what she will or won't eat each day. So we stick with ridiculously small portions.

Kacey is still a talker. And she's hilarious. Honestly, she's a little too smart for her own good. Tonight we were over at my parent's house for dinner. Afterward we sat around the TV to watch a BYU basketball game. Kacey took a reclining seat on the couch and Papa sat next to her. He tried to put his leg up on the foot rest of her seat and she wouldn't have it. I commented that she can't even reach it, her legs didn't make it to the foot rest while she sat back in the seat. Next thing we know she is slouching so bad she is nearly laying down trying to stretch out her body to occupy as much of the foot rest as possible. Her pronunciation is fantastic. Most anyone can usually understand what she is saying. Occasionally I'm not sure what word she's saying, but at least 95% of the time it's clear. She also busts out big words like porcupine, pepperoni, and disgusting. She's picked up on "Oh my goodness" which is just hilarious to hear come out of her mouth.

She is a smart little cookie. She sings the whole alphabet and can count to 10+. I'm not quite sure how high, but at least to 13. She is picking up on colors. She knows white, black, orange, pink, and brown for sure. The others she is still working on. (Updated 4/6/18: She knows all of her colors)

We call Kacey "The Inforcer". She will yell at her sisters to keep them in line. You don't mess around with Kacey. One evening Hailey and Keira were supposed to be taking a shower. Instead they were messing around. Without any prompting, Kacey walked herself up to the base of the stairs and yelled up to them, "Hailey! Keira! Shower!" Just last week Kyle said he was cycling on the bicycle trainer with Kacey in the room with him. He was watching TV while doing it. Sometimes he would get distracted and slow down, but Kacey wouldn't let him. She'd yell out, "Faster!"

Kaceyisms: 2-years

• I was upstairs and came downstairs. Apparently Kacey had a dirty diaper. Kyle said to Kacey, "Don't you need to tell Mom something?" Kacey quickly said, "Something!"
• At bedtime Kacey sat on top of Kyle's shoulders with a nightgown on. She put the nightgown over his head and said, "Buh-bye!"
• I gave a talk in sacrament meeting in church and quickly introduced our family. When I got to Kacey I said, "Kacey is our exhausting two-year old." Kacey piped up from the back, "That's me! Kacey!"
• I was distracted and didn't pay attention to what Kacey was doing. Suddenly I heard her say, "I'm not eating something..." "I'm not eating something..." I turned to see Kacey sitting across the room with her back to me. I went over to her and caught her licking a tootsie roll with 3 or 4 other candies next to her. Haha... too bad she gave herself away!
• Kyle overheard Kacey talking in her bedroom with one of her sisters. "Sorry, I not go to church. Ever."
• In line at the store I told Kacey she would need a nap when we got home. She tried to reassure me, "I don't want a nap. It'll be ok, Mom. It'll be ok."

April 6, 2018

Kacey refuses to potty train. She knows when she goes and sometimes asks for a diaper change. But she flat out refuses to do it. She tells me, "I don't want to." Or her classic, "Tomorrow." It is a struggle to get underwear on her, but once I do and sit her on the potty she refuses to get up until she goes in the potty. Once she makes up her mind to do it, she's determined to do it and get her reward. Honestly, she doesn't care about the fun underwear, or the big girl idea. She just wants to get her treat and put a diaper back on. Her bottom has gotten so sore and red from sitting on the potty constantly for hours, all because she was going to earn her reward. Hopefully she'll decide she wants to wear underwear all day, because I'm getting tired of the daily fight to change her diaper. 

She really likes to make life hard sometimes. She thinks it's funny to run away when I'm trying to help her get dressed. She loves to kick her legs while I change her diaper. That or she goes stiff-legged, making it impossible to clean her off. She hates brushing her teeth and won't open her mouth. And she insists on brushing them herself.

She is also appears to have some athletic ability. The other day I watched her kick around a half eaten cucumber, just like a soccer ball. She wanted to try the monkey bars, so I supported her underneath and she actually made it all the way across, a feat her older sisters struggle with. At the same time she is 2, and gets tired hiking. Really, it's not so much that she's tired, but that she fell down and has become emotional about it, so she wants to be carried the rest of the way. After a time she'll walk again, until she trips again and wants to be carried. That got tiring quick on our recent trip to St. George. 

Kacey is becoming more and more friendly. For the longest time she would scowl at anyone who looked at her. Now I see her waving and saying hi all on her own. She often points it out to me, "I said hi! I was nice." She really is growing out of her shell, which is encouraging. 

She loves to have a good time and feeds off of Hailey and Keira. She jumps right into their play and jokes. Fairly often she drives Keira crazy, but it's also pretty often that we hear all three girls playing and laughing together. 

Kaceyisms: 2 1/2 years

• Kacey wanted the sunshade over the window in the van down. She asked Kyle if he would put it down while he was driving. He said, "I can't unless you want to get into an accident." She said, "Ok."
• Out of the blue: "Don't eat stairs. It's not good for our tummy."
• Kyle went up to the bathroom to cut his hair and take a shower. The girls were going to take showers and get ready for bed. Kyle asked if I would trim his neckline before he started cutting his hair. I went into the bathroom with him to do that. We had been in there for a couple of minutes talking when Keira called for me, so I walked out. Kyle proceeded to take his shirt off to get ready to cut his hair. He then heard, "I'm heeeeere!" He looked around and didn't see anyone, until he turned and looked at the shower. There stood Kacey, beaming and peeking around the shower curtain. She had stood there, quiet and hidden for who knows how long waiting for the right moment to pop out. Neither of us had any idea she was there. That was quite an impressive feat for a child who can't stand the suspense of the hot & cold hiding game. Kyle was certainly startled, he claims I would have screamed.
• While visiting St. George, Hailey was talking about how much fun she was having and she was thanking me for bringing them for a few days over Spring Break. Kacey very casually chimed in, "I love George."
• Kacey didn't want to take a nap. I told her she needed to sleep more because her body still had lots of growing to do. After waking up from her nap she sat in bed yelling for me. I went in and she told me, "I'm not taller. I didn't grow. My belly's not big."