Sunshine Kiki

Here's my beautiful daughter. I just thought I should write this post about how wonderful she is. Although some days are full of time-outs, tantrums (sometime from me, LOL), and other challenges she's my little sunshine--my KiKi Kristine. Her nickname is KiKi because that's how she first started pronouncing her name. It stuck and now I call her that often. She is full of so much life, such enormous personality. She's really into making up her own songs these days. She walks around the house with the kitchen whisk in hand and sings songs about her toys, Granty-Goo (the nickname she coined for Grant), her lunch, etc. She's really into her dolls and stuffed animals too. She's always putting them down for naps or feeding them. I just love her imagination. Her new favorite word is "natural". She say things like "mom I have natural hair." It's really fun listening to her vocabulary expand. She also begins many of her sentences with "perhaps". She says, "perhaps we can play in the back yard today", or "perhaps I can have a candy" followed by heavy batting of the eyelashes. Other than playing in her new backyard her favorite thing to do is read her stories. It seems like most of the day I'm reading her a story or she's flipping through the pages on her own. One of her favorite books is a composition of short poems called "Popcorn". I picked the book up at a yard sale thinking she'd be interested sometime in the middle of elementary. She found it one day and asked me to read it to her. I told her she probably wouldn't enjoy it, but she insisted. To my great surprise she loves it and its not even rhyming verse. Maybe she'll grow up to be an author someday, or at least have an appreciation for good literature. I'm so thrilled she enjoys books as much as I do and hope that she continues to have that love for years to come.

Speaking of stories she likes to tell stories too. Her story telling is actually what inspired me to write this post tonight. I had one of those I-love-being-a-mom moments in the car after she began telling a story to Grant. I forgot to turn on the radio, we usually listen to Veggie Tales so I think the silence prompted her to start. It was an exciting rendition of the "Three Little Pigs" accompanied by the loud roaring voice of the Big Bad Wolf and the tiny high pitched shriek's of the Three Pigs. The way she said "not by the hair of my chiny, chin, chin" sent Grant into bursts of laughter. After she saw the reaction she was getting she told the story over and over again making us laugh again and again.

She has also become a lovely dancer. Kinsley has made up her own little routine that she begs Shawn and me to do all the time. Really "beg" was a poor choice of words. You all know I love to dance so I usually just jump right in once she gets going. It's quite the sight, Grant really enjoys watching us jump around like a bunch of monkeys. Now that we have more space she likes to pretend our living room is a swimming pool and says "come on lets swim with Grant mom". And so there I am on the living room floor kicking my feet and moving my arms with my bright, energetic, and genuine daughter. It really doesn't get any better than this.