Lovin' my girls

I don't think I have the words to describe the incredible amount of love that I have for my children. They crack me up. We recycle just about anything we can around here and Emily has apparently witnessed this. Sometimes we put the items in the recycling container in our house and for the bigger items we place them by the stairs to take on our next run down. Tonight, I was in the other room and when I came out and put Emily to bed, I noticed that she had taken the milk carton off of the counter and carried it to the stair drop. The only problem was that although, yes, that was the goal I had in mind, I needed to empty out the tiny bit of milk left over.

Kinley gives high fives and will mimic washing her hands on command. When I arrive at daycare to pick the girls up, Kinley kinda "flaps" her arms to her side in excitement. She walks REALLY fast toward me and surrounds her small, sweet arms around me and gives me a hug. Melts my heart every time.

Before and After

Kinley 13 months

I cannot believe it has been a month since I last posted! We have certainly been very busy this past month and my sweet Kinley is growing and changing so much. She's practically running these days she's so fast! She LOVES music. She loves to dance and will clap along with the beat. She has become very good at copying what anyone is doing. I had my head resting in my hand the other day and when I looked over at her she was copying me. Brian, Emily and I were all washing our hands and Kinley started rubbing her hands together as though she was washing hers. She's extremely observant. It's so fun to see what she's taking in.

Kinley is very curious. She gets into everything, looks at everything, touches everything. She is so busy--our house really does look like a tornado after she's gone through it. She loves two drawers in our kitchen that houses all of the girls cups and bowls and these things are found ALL OVER THE HOUSE!!! She's so funny.

Although there is still a lot of whining and pointing when she wants something, she's working on words too. "Uhhh" while holding her arms up is up. "MMMYYY" when screamed at her sister is Mine. She's still using Mama and Dada fluently.

Kinley is not a huge fan of milk. I mean, turn her nose up and turn her head at it when we offer a bottle or sippy cup with it inside. I nursed for 1 year and apparently that is her preference. She took a bottle at daycare everyday and we still offer frozen breastmilk to her and even that gets a stiff no. I guess the big bonus is she is pretty much weaned herself from bottles. She doesn't want anything before going to bed and is placed in her crib awake and falls asleep peacefully. The bummer is she wakes up early, but one of these days we'll get through it.

She is cutting all four molars right now and believe it or not, I think I may have seen swollen gums around the I teeth....oi vey.

I'm adding a video---not as great as I had hoped. She was totally singing into the microphone before I snapped this, but at least it is close to her 13th month!

Kinley is 1!

Sweet Kinley,

You have no idea how much you have rocked my world in the past year. You joined our family three weeks earlier than we expected. I didn't know what it was going to be like to have another child, to love another child but as soon as I held your precious tiny body in my hands, I didn't have to "know" how it just was. The first three months were a bit rocky since you had some colic issues. You screamed a lot and slept so little I didn't know how I was possibly going to survive another hour, but we did....together.

Watching you grow up into your own personality has been an absolute joy. Once you learned to smile it practically became a permanent "fixture." You love life. You love people. You especially love your sister. Sometimes you'll wake up before her in the mornings and cry until she wakes up so that you can play with her. Apparently mommy and daddy don't cut the mustard. Your smile, your giggle brighten up my day. You currently love to hug and kiss and you melt me with each one.

You are such a good eater. You will try everything we put in front of you. Sometimes you don't like it, but the things you love (which is the majority) you eat faster than we can cut. You have learned and use sign language for "more" "please" and "all done." I've been working on milk, but you don't seem to want to pick up that one. You wave and clap. You say mama, dada, ba (bath and ball) and every time I tell you I love you you say, "Iiiiii" I know you are trying to say it back and I think it is adorable.

I am totally and utterly smitten. I love you so much. You are my favorite Kinley in the whole world.

: easily moved to love, pity, or sorrow

When I was in the 7th grade, one of my good friends lost his father. I didn't know his dad at all, but I knew the impact that loss was to my friend. I remember sitting at the edge of my bed bawling. My mom came in my room and put her arm around me and muttered the words, "Jennifer, you have always been so tenderhearted, Michael is lucky to have you as a friend."

This week has been super emotional for me. The woman who takes care of my girls learned that her husband has a treatable disease, but with his age comes great concern. My grandparents are both fighting various ailments. About twenty minutes ago I learned of a great disappointment from one of my friends. My heart is so heavy because I am tenderhearted : easily moved to love, pity or sorrow.

It's funny because I was getting my hair done the other day and the lady told me that I give off a very confident vibe. That I come across as I have everything together. HA! Those of you who know the real me know that I struggle with such petty things. I want to be perfect under all of the hats that I wear, but I am far from it. I may come across strong, but let me be the first to tell you I am so very weak.

I wear my heart on my sleeve. Those of you who are close to me, who have been willing to look past the strong exterior know that I melt in your kind words and hugs. My heart is extended in so many directions right now. I love and I need to be loved.

Updates

We have had an incredibly busy, fun, emotional, cold and lovely Christmas break. We had Christmas in California on the 17th with my side of the family and had a lot of fun. On the 20th we loaded up the car and drove to Oregon to have Christmas with Brian's family. I'm bummed that I haven't updated more recently, but with how busy we were with the drive and such I just haven't had the time. Here are some updates--

Kinley is WALKING! She started about a month ago (1o months). We got excited by 1-4 steps, then it was 5-8 steps and then it was all of the time. She's definitely walking more than crawling and it has made it for a very interesting time around the house.

Kinley loves to play "where's kinley" during EVERY meal. She loves to eat and wants to eat whatever is on our plates. So, if we try to give her something different it's all over.

Kinley whines just about every morning until EMily gets up and then she starts to giggle when she sees her. They are the best of friends. Emily loves to get her to laugh.

Emily is so smart she takes my breath away. She remembers so many things, re-tells stories that happened six months ago. She knows her numbers, colors, shapes.

Emily LOVES to sing and dance. It's quite fascinating. It's like she bottled it up and now bursts every time a song comes on.

If Emily gets caught doing something she isn't supposed to be doing she just looks up at us and says, "I love you."

Christmas was a bit confusing this year because we had FOUR different celebrations. So, we didn't really play up the whole Santa bit, don't get me wrong, we did talk about Santa, but I figured talking with her about Jesus' birth was much more worthy to talk about. We've been talking a lot about the story of Jesus and today she put the BIGGEST smile on my face when she told me she knew where Jesus lived. I asked her where and she said, "Jesus lives in my heart." Melted me...

Christmas Magic

This has been an exceptionally busy fall for the Johnson crew! I don't know why it has been so busy, but we've had something going on just about every weekend since September. We love going to Disneyland at Christmas and we were "nervous" that we wouldn't get to go this year, so we decided on going mid-week. We don't typically do that since fireworks/snow etc... aren't until late and we have to be out the door SO early in the mornings, but this particular evening the park closed at 8:00 which meant fireworks were at 7:30 and snow directly followed. I could handle that.

What I was not prepared for was how emotional I would be. I'm a big fan of Disney parks. They really do know how to bring "magic" to little children. We pretty much just camped out on Main street when we got there and by doing so it snowed on us three times throughout the night. Main street's lights dim and the castle is all lit up with a gorgeous song about snow falling playing throughout the park. Next thing we know it starts snowing and Emily is SHOUTING in excitement about the snow. Tears #1. Emily was so excited about the snow, she was trying to make a snowman out of the soap sudded snow. That's what is happening at the end of this short little video...

They have a holiday Firework display and it includes some beautiful songs; however when the fireworks end and the snow starts to fall, the most beautiful arrangement of "I'm dreaming of a White Christmas" begins to play. Kinley had fallen asleep in my arms and I was overcome with great emotion. I just started thinking about her future and all of the things she might be dreaming of. Perhaps it was a white Christmas--after all that is on her sister's wish list. (see the writing santa entry if you don't know what I am referring to) I asked Brian to get a video of this. I realize it's just a sleeping baby, but listen to the song in the background (if you can hear it over Emily and Oliver screaming in sheer excitement of the snow!)