Future Quarterback

A little late, but here is our highlight from the Bears' loss to Green Bay.

The Best Time of Day - Bath Time

I may be raising a neat freak. Kendall loves to stack things, put things into baskets, and organize her little people into people vs animals. A far cry from the child who would seek and destroy if you built a block tower. Although she still gets messy, and we have to scrub her down as she screams after a good meal of mac and cheese, the kid loves being clean.

The uber-messiness that is a 16 month old leads to Kendall's favorite thing. More than Sesame Street, Grover, Mommy, Daddy, swimming, even more than snow, Kendall loves bath time.

She is actually tired in this video - she usually moves to that tub even quicker. That kid loves a good bath! No matter how grumpy or tired she is, she runs in, helps me get the tub ready. She checks water temperature, adds the mat to the bottom of the tub, dumps in the toys - it is as if she is going through a check list. And then she giggles and splashes until I pull her out. Bath time is the best!

SNOW!!!!

Turns out, Kendall LOVES snow.

Can you believe that is the same tree?

Yes, it has snowed earlier this season, and I had invested in an adorable snow suit, but we had yet to make it out into the snow. So today after the 19 inches that fell on our little piece of the world last night, we ventured out into the white stuff. Pictures and video were taken for posterity, not only since this was the first time out in the snow, but that sure was a lot of snow.





The storm raged all night, and we awoke to a winter wonderland outside our windows. Kendall was beyond thrilled, and immediately went to investigate.

This kid likes her snow.

And then she checked it out, again. Just in case all that snow had suddenly disappeared.

Kendall seemed very interested, so we thought we would venture out and take it all in. After all, it was a snow day, and what better way to spend a snow day than playing in the snow!

So, we all got bundled up and headed out to check it out first hand. This is a video of Kendall's first venture into the snow.

We didn't spend a ton of time out there, it was pretty cold, but Kendall sure had a ball. She was running up and down the sidewalks throwing herself into snow piles, grabbing and throwing chunks of snow, and giggling up a storm.

Here Kendall is trying to instigate a snow ball fight.

More snowy video. She is having fun until she kicks snow on her face. COLD! Funny thing is she doesn't know that word yet - everything is HOT!



Kendall had such a wonderful time, she actually cried when we took her in. She wanted to stay out in the snow. Hopefully we'll have another chance to get outside again when it isn't too cold. But then again, Spring brings us into the playground, and the snow will be forgotten.

December (and now January) round up

** Disclaimer: I started this post on New Year's Day, and I am now just getting back to finishing and posting it. I'm doing an awesome job on my New Year's resolution to keep the blog up-to-date. Need to work on that.**

Happy New Year!

Now that Christmas and New Year's is behind us, I realized I haven't touched the blog in over a month. We have had a very busy month, and there is so much I could have written about! So, to catch everyone up, this will be a little recap of December 2010 as we roll into a new year.

When we last left you, it was right before Thanksgiving, and Kendall was emptying all my cabinets onto the kitchen floor - this has not stopped. We had a fun Very Greaney Thanksgiving at our house with some of the Greaney family stopping by to join us for turkey and the fixings. Yum!

The day after Thanksgiving we attended the annual lighting of the Christmas Tree in Arlington Heights. The park downtown has all sorts of Christmas displays and a giant tree. The park district puts on a little program and at dusk they light the tree. It was pretty cool - but darn cold! Kendall's face lit up as soon as all those lights came on - so it was definitely worth standing out in the cold to see.

We, of course, had the annual lighting of our Christmas tree as well. Decorating took much longer than usual this year - it took us a week as opposed to the couple of hours it had taken us in the past. Kendall did participate in the decorating of the tree, and did a great job of getting ornaments on. Problem was the concept of keeping the ornaments on the tree. Our decorations also included a new accessory, a giant gate around the tree to keep out small Kendall's. Sadly, this gate did not keep out the Kendall's and through-out the month of December we found ornaments with chew marks strewn throughout the house.

Kendall also got to spend some time with her new friend Charlie Quaid. Charlie is getting bigger every time we see him, but Kendall still points to him and says what sounds like baby. She is pretty good with him, but really likes to pat him on the head. He is going to catch up to her quickly, and then I think we are all in for some trouble. Here are the two chilling on the couch, probably discussing how lame their parents are for making them take pictures. The definitely look bored.

We, of course, kept up with our swimming. Kendall is getting better at it every week, and is swimming with very little help from me. I am just a prop in the water one she gets going. When we got back to it in January, Kendall could not contain her excitement about going in the pool, she dove right in and kicked up a storm. When she is not swimming, Kendall practices by laying on the kitchen floor and "running" - kicking her legs as fast as she can. As she does this, she repeats "run, run, run, run, JUMP!" and lifts her legs straight into the air. This keeps her in tip-top shape for her Saturday swim classes.

Before Christmas I had it with Kendall's hair, and I broke down for that first haircut. I thought I would be more emotional (no idea why) when I took her for the haircut, but I was just so darned happy to get that hair out of her eyes! We hit up to local KidSnips, which was super cheesy and all about selling you toys with your haircut, but worked out well. They sat her in a race car chair and put on some Backyardigans DVD for her. The haircut was over before they made it through the theme song - and there were no tears from Kendall or Mommy. One thing this did prove is that Kendall has inherited Daddy's hair - it has only been a month, and the haircut has almost grown out.

After we got that haircut out of the way, I was finally able to get a decent photo session for the holiday card. I say decent, because a 14 month old does not sit still for long enough to take a holiday picture. You either get eyes closed, crying, turning head, waving, or if you are lucky, a decent picture. Here is the original collage I put together for the Christmas card before I forgot to order it and had to go with a different layout.

We spent Christmas Eve here at home with the Gormans'. Had a big meal and shared some presents while watching the Gorman family staple - A Christmas Story. Kendall had a ball unwrapping presents, and received the coveted Muppet DVDs (more on those in another post). After my parent's left, Nate and I did the parent thing and put the tree together for the next day. With Kendall being older now, there sure were a lot of presents under the tree!

On Christmas morning Kendall got up to behold all that Santa had brought her - and it was very good.

After spending a quiet morning at home we split our time at Aunt Mares' and the Grandparents Greaney's on Christmas day. Kendall made off with a haul of new toys, and a fancy chair just for Kendall that she has since had her privileges for revoked (that chair is a whole other story). Kendall met her new cousin Nora on Christmas Day - Nora is just too cute, and such a doll! Kendall put on quite a show for all in her fancy boots! She kept them on all day and stomped around.

We spent a nice quiet New Years at home as well. Kendall went to bed well before the ball dropped, and Nate and I enjoyed a decadent dinner of cheese fondue with chocolate fondue for dessert while watching a movie. Yum!

January has been pretty quiet. Kendall has been filling her days with Muppet's and breaking in all those new toys as well as a return to swim lessons in early January. Nate has been busy with all the football on - and how about those Bears! I am working on a new recipe every week, but I am now behind on my plan after a trip in the snow to Connecticut last week (for work, not skiing).

I think that catches up on everything - I'll try to update more often to keep these posts smaller! If you made it this far I think you deserve a cookie! I hear it is Girl Scout Cookie Time - and now I have Troop Beverly Hills stuck in my head.

No, You Should Go

Been a while since I posted, again, but I do have a story this time! And a few random pictures. We have not been up to much in the last month, just spending some quality time and enjoying Kendall's hilarity. Her newest thing is loving to be chased, and then when caught, falling down and laughing hysterically until she snorts. Her favorite chaser is, of course, Daddy, and she seeks him out for the chase from the time he gets home from work until she goes to bed.

Over the past weekend, as she was trying to get us to chase her before bed. She was rubbing her eyes and yawning big, and I said to Kendall, "Looks like it is time to go to bed!". Both Nate and I swear she responded to this by saying "No, you should go." in a slightly grumpy tone. Now, Kendall definitely is not talking, let alone in sentences, but it sure sounded like it. Nice to know my 13 month old has started talking back. Problem is that we find it so funny, which just encourages her.

Here are some miscellaneous snapshots of the other mischief Kendall has been up to - keeping us on our toes!



Turns out my pantry needed reorganization. Thanks for taking care of that Kendall.



Happy Halloween!

This year I did not drop the ball on the Halloween costume like I did last year. Given, last year I had a 3 week old, and that was a pretty good excuse for not following through on the plan to sew up a burrito costume, but still. This year, I planned ahead. I picked up a costume at Costco back 2 months ago when they started putting out the Halloween gear. I was super excited about said costume, where as Nate did not think it was quite up to snuff.

That all changed when Kendall got dressed today...

That is a cute cow. And she is mooing in this picture - thus no smile.

After getting all dressed up and mooing for mom and dad, we decided to do some stealth trick-or-treating and surprise the grandparents.

First up were Grandma and Grandpa Greaney. They were super surprised to see us, and Kendall's cow costume went over swimmingly. She moo'd on command some more, pet the doggie, and then we hit up our next stop on the trick-or-treat surprise tour.

Next we hit Grandma and Grandpa Gorman's - and we surprised them too! We were the first trick-or-treaters at both stops (kids get started late these days!) - and Grandpa Gorman thoroughly shocked that it was us and not a group of kids. After a lot of pictures and some milk for the cow, we were back on the road. All those surprises tired this little cow out.

Luckily, by the time we got home, the cow had her second wind, and graced us with a video in which you can hear the mooing, and really take in this costume. We especially liked the padding in the behind - she should really wear this everyday with all the falling down Kendall does these days!

Happy Halloween!!

Photo Session

We've been MIA on the blog for a couple of weeks, mostly due to so much going on that I don't know what to write about. These has been a lot of running around, teething (up to 8 teeth, with a new one on it's way in), and lots of toys under foot. Kendall spends most of her days pulling everything she can out of drawers and baskets and scattering her things (and everyone else's) all over the floor. Good times, good times.

Kendall is a whirling dervish, but I was able to get her in to have some 1st Birthday shots right before her birthday. If I don't say so myself, they came out fantastic (thanks to the Picture People at Old Orchard). We had a lot of fun - Kendall really lit up for the photographer and showed all that personality. She smiled, she laughed, and she pointed a lot. The pictures really reflect who Kendall is.

As I reorganize my thoughts and get back to my blogging, take a gander at the results of the photo session. I promise to be back with more Kendall stories - she never ceases to come up with something new for me to talk about!