Kilger Family Pictures

Last weekend, since Cory's Dad was in town again (he's working in Ohio right now, and the rest of the family is moving out there in a couple weeks), we took some family photos, probably the last ones we'll take for quite a while, due to the impending move. I think they turned out beautifully.


I love Cory's family--I couldn't have asked for better in-laws. Also, can you see where Breanne and Cailin's red hair comes from now?


I don't know why, but I love this photo of Cory and Janey


And our little family... the kids were getting too cold by this point, so smiling was difficult, but they both almost are in this one. I just wish someone had told me to turn Cailin out a little bit, you can't even see her. :/

Wilde Family Pictures

So back around Easter, we took some family photos with my side of the family. Sadly, no one ever gave me those photos to put up here, so here are the few that I liked that I stole from my mom's blog:


I love this one of my whole family. It really looks like everyone is having a good time (with perhaps the exception of Janey and Audrey... not quite sure what's going on there. :))


And I love this one of our little family. I wish the girls were all smiling, but I'll take what I can get.

Smocks

So ever since I saw these smocks over at Make It and Love It, I've wanted to make some for our kids. I wasn't sure about the cotton material, though, or the ruffle. Seemed like those things would cause it to hold on to paint/playdoh/whatever else they were using for their creations. Then when my friend E. talked about making a raincoat for her daughter out of a vinyl tablecloth, an idea struck me. What if I just made my smocks out of a vinyl tablecloth? So I did. I bought the tablecloth at Walmart for a whopping $4, and have enough to make a ton more stuff, as it was a 60"x84". The more expensive part would've been the bias tape I used around the edges, but I already had that (and have NO idea where it came from, it's just been in my stash for a while now). Other than those two things, the only other stuff I needed was a little velcro (about 6 inches total for 2 smocks) and some ribbon for a tie, which is totally optional. So now, for just a couple dollars and a half hour each, I have 2 smocks to keep my girls' clothing clean while they paint/sculpt/craft to their hearts content. I'm pretty excited about them.

General size and shape (I decided to do this differently than the smock at Make It and Love It--I wanted one that I didn't have to pull over the girls' heads--if they get gunky paint or whatever on them, I don't want to have to pull that up over their heads.):


Simple Velcro fastener:


I changed up the pockets, too:


and this is how I attached the ribbon (I went over it at least 5 times for some security, since this will get the most pull of anywhere on the smock):


And the smocks in action:


(And in case you're wondering, we are having a jammies day over here, what with the rain outside and everything. Normally I don't like them, but I'm being productive this morning, so it's going ok. And I know it's hard to believe, but I really do actually do my girls' hair every now and then... and I usually make Janey wear pants... and Breanne generally wears pj's that match... just not today. Oh well.)

PIANO!!!

Ok, so there are a million things I should post about, but what I really want to say is...

I'm SO excited! Our friends are moving, and they didn't want to take their piano with them, so we bought it off them for a really reasonable price, and we now own a piano!! I can't wait to start playing again, and to teach my kids. A few pics:




I have the feeling our house is about to get another level of loudness... but in the best way.

In other good (and only slightly related) news, our renters moved out today. We actually really liked them and are a little sad to see them leave, but... this means we now have our whole house to ourselves. Expect lots of updates as we put in a toy room and craft/library room in the basement. Again, I am so excited! What a great day.

Breanne or Cailin?

People that didn't see Breanne as a baby think Cailin looks like Janey. I disagree. I mean, she is her own self, for sure... but the similarities between Breanne and Cailin kind of astound me.

Cory's sister took a couple pics of Breanne when she was about 8 weeks old. I tried to recreate them with Cailin this morning (she's 10 weeks old)... see if you can tell the difference:





And for comparison's sake, here's Janey:

Breanne's Four-Year-Old Stats

So instead of just writing out Breanne's birthday stats, I thought I'd have her share them with you. I figured you might like to hear her talk, and she definitely loves to take videos, so... here is a 5 minute video of her answering my questions:

Who has a diaper bag they love?

Me!! And I made it myself! I'm pretty ridiculously proud of it, sorry. :)


The exterior is corduroy, for two reasons. One, I love corduroy, and two, it's so durable! You're supposed to use a home decor weight fabric of some sort, but most of those are dry clean only, which just doesn't scream diaper bag, to me. So thus, the washer and dryer friendly corduroy. :)

It has an outside pocket for papers and such,



an inside pocket divided into three sections, meant to carry three sippy cups or bottles, or other snacks,



and an inside pocket for my keys, phone, wallet, and whatever else.


I've been wanting a bigger and nicer diaper bag for a while now, but just couldn't find anything I loved, and everything was so expensive! So, I finally got up the nerve to make one myself. I got inspiration from this tutorial, and this tutorial, but ended up making it how I wanted it. I still need to sew on another piece of velcro, but because I broke my sewing machine needle (first time for everything, right?), it will have to wait. But I am excited, and I love it. And, it cost me less than $20! (and one sewing machine needle...) Pretty great. :)

Janey's Two-Year-Old Stats

Name: Janey Renae

Age: Two

Height: 32 inches

Weight: 22 lbs

--Favorites--

These are all answers she gave me.

Color: Red/Pink (every time I ask, she says one of those two, but goes back and forth on them).

Animal: Dog (JoJo especially)

Food: Pancakes

Movies: Boots... Dora!

Books: Alella baby books (the princess board books--alella is like the latter half of Cinderella...)

Song: Patty Cake

Past time: Babies! (She LOVES to play with her baby dolls, especially her new ones).

Favorite Birthday Present: Babies!

Best Friend: Breanne

A few I'd like to answer--

Best Feature: Her ability to brush things off--if she gets hurt, she just wants me to acknowledge it most of the time, and then she's fine. If someone takes her toy, she's usually happy as long as they give her something else. If she takes someone else's toy, she's really good about giving it back, if I ask her to.

Funniest things said by Janey lately: She says "Yep" and "Nope!" instead of yes and no, which I think is hilarious. She's also starting to put words together into pretty decent sentences. Last night, after her cousin Claire dumped an entire deck of Uno cards on the floor, she looked at the cards, and said "Claire... cards... mess!"--I love it.

Biggest accomplishments in the last year: Lots of motor development, and her speech development. She is a crazy climbing/running/almost jumping child, and loves to wrestle, go for rides on your back, and just play in general. That being said, she also insists on holding my hand to go down our front stairs, and for much of the time we spend while walking outside. Also in the last few months, her speech has really taken off. She's gone from just a few words to more than I can count, and her speech is much more understandable than Breanne's was at her age. I love that she is able to communicate her needs, wants, concerns and issues to me. When she cries, she can tell me why. However, she isn't always reliable--if she doesn't understand your question, she'll still usually answer, whether it's true or not.

Despite how crazy Janey can be, and her lack of desire to listen to me sometimes, I seriously love this little girl. She has so much energy and spirit for life, and is pretty much fearless (the one exception being the monsters she and Breanne were pretending to run away from the other day--so funny!). It's been so fun to watch her grow into her own little being over the last year, and I love that she can hold her own against Breanne. Over the last few weeks, they've become such wonderful playmates, and are willing to spend most of their time together. Recently they've been playing vacation... they pack their bags, take a trip to my bedroom, hang up their clothes (play dresses), put their shoes away (in my shoebox), and pretend to watch tv in my bed (there is no tv in my bedroom, but there was one in their bedroom in the hotel in NH). It cracks me up every time I hear them talking about what they want to do on their trip. And don't even fight that much--it's been so nice to have them getting along so well as we've all been adjusting to being back at home again, with a new baby besides. Janey is such an amiable little girl, I love having her around. Two years ago I was terrified about making the transition from one child to two. Now I can't imagine a life without my sweet girl Janey.

A Note:

So I just posted about a million new things below, so don't miss them. I've had a ton of pictures just waiting to be blogged, and today I finally found the time and energy to doing it (single bonus to Cory being sick--he's home, and available to hold the baby so I can do stuff). I hope you enjoy them, and sorry for the bombardment today. But not really, because now I'm mostly caught up, at least photo-post wise. I still need to write a bunch of stories and things down too, though, so be watching for those. Thanks for reading (and for commenting, we all know how much comments are loved, right?).

My Best Idea Ever

So we currently only have one trike, and two kids who like to ride it (though neither of them are particularly great at it). Solution?

Taking turns riding and pushing. Janey likes pushing probably more than riding (but they did still take turns doing each thing... Janey just needed help steering, too, so I couldn't snap a picture).