Binky Free

We are Binky Free!!!!!
Somehow we got blessed with a stress free transition. I read up on a few different ways to eliminate the binky and decided the best way for Kenna was to have her do it. My sister was coming to town with her new baby so I decided to have Kenna give the binky to the baby. I prepped her for a week. We talked about how big Kenna was and that she didn't need the binky anymore. We talked about how the new baby would cry and it would make her happy to have a binky. Finally the moment arrived. Saturday morning we were taking family pictures. As soon as Kenna saw the baby she asked where her binky was. I gave it to her. She held it for a while and slowly approached the baby. She quickly gave it up and then ran away. (hilarious) She was a little sad the first week but we had other distractions for her bedtime routine. We turned on a music box and had a new stuffed animal for her (actually it was an old stuffed animal we found when we were unpacking but it was new to Kenna).
She does have some new fears though that came when we eliminated the binky. She doesn't like the dark and she doesn't like the door closed. She wanted all the lights on for a couple nights but we were able to talk her out of that. She now just has a nightlight. She still needs to door open but I don't mind since there isn't anyone in the house to disturb her. She is in a toddler bed but knows she has to stay there until I come get her. So far it has been good. She happened to find a binky today and I was worried we might have a set back but she did fine and didn't even mention it.
The next challenge is potty training. I'm trying to mentally prepare for this one. I don't expect it to be as easy.

Our New House

We moved into to our new house on May 3rd. We absolutely love it. I'll have more picture to come once I start decorating. Right now it is boring but I did take pictures so I can show the before and after.
Tyler and I had been talking about buying a house since last year. We started saving for a down payment but it wasn't until Tyler got hired with Chandler that we actually started looking. We got renters for our townhouse and moved in with my parents while we looked for a house. We literally looked at a hundred houses and probably a hundred more online. It is kind of funny how we got this house. After months of searching, looking and losing houses we were getting disappointed. We didn't know what else to do because we had seriously looked at every house on the market. We had 3 houses that we had saved in our "really like" folder and we checked them regularly hoping one of them would be active. When I went to check our folder there was a house saved in "favorite". I hadn't been to the house and I asked Tyler and he hadn't seen it either. There was only 1 picture so we figured that meant the inside was trashed. It was also cheaper than all the other houses which also meant it was probably in bad shape. We decided to look at it anyways. I was sick the day Tyler went to look at it. When he got home he was really excited and said he loved it. It also had 5 bedrooms instead 4 like the listing said. He said he wanted to make an offer. I was too sick to care so I said to go ahead. I started to worry we were going to buy a house I hadn't seen so I scheduled a time to see it with our realtor. I was early arriving to the house so I had to wait outside. I had this great feeling just sitting there. When I actually went inside I was really surprised. It had everything on my list! I told the realtor it was the house I wanted. Regardless of it being a short sale it was our house 2 months later. There were too many crazy things that went right with this house it was meant to be our house.

Zoo

A couple months ago we went to the zoo. Kenna hadn't been since she was a baby. She enjoyed it except that she wanted to touch every animal we saw (mom, I want to touch it). She really liked holding hands with Emma and Ada. Too cute.

Smoothies

McKenna loves smoothies. We got addicted to them at Grandma's house. I usually gave her a straw (since sippy cups don't work) but the straw was soon ditched and smoothie mustaches became the fashion

Pictures

I love going to get pictures taken because I don't take pictures very often and when I do they usually look...not so great.

Kenna

I've begun to notice a few things about Kenna that make me smile. She has an obsession with washing her hands. Any time she hears running water she wants to wash her hands (this is actually more annoying than cute). The other day I was going to scold her for playing with the cat food when I realized she was actually picking up the food that spilled out and putting it back in the bowl. It has become her tasks recently to make sure the cat food stays in the bowl. This morning Tyler spilled some of his breakfast on his shorts and when Kenna saw the spot she was very distressed, ran into the kitchen and came back with a papertowel and proceeded to clean the spot. I didn't realize a little 1 year old could have such a need to be clean.

The side of Teresa you didn't know

I was looking through some old pictures and couldn't help but laugh at these. I'm sure most folks think I was the girl that played with dolls...and I was but that wasn't all I did. I did venture to the world of cops and robbers. As you can see I was always adequately equipped for such an adventure.

Here I am in action in case you needed more proof of my adventurous side.