motherhood | More Matthews

Is this real life? How can my baby be two already? It honestly does not even seem real! These have been the best two years of my life. She certainly exhausts me and tests me to my breaking point, but I have more love for that girl than I ever thought was possible. She has brought so much joy into my life, and has helped me find joy in the little things in life. I feel so lucky that God chose me to be her mom!

Kinsie’s 2 Year Updates:

Her vocabulary is incredible. Not only does she pick up on new words very quickly when we teach her, but she is a sponge that absorbs so much even when we aren’t trying to teach her.
She knows the entire ABC song, and starting to work with her on identifying individual letters.
She can count up to 15.
She pretty much knows her colors. Sometimes she gets lazy and just says that everything is blue, but when she’s ready to focus, she’s got her colors down.
She is still in the potty training process. She decided to take a break for a few months (refused to sit on the potty), and now she’s back at it.
She has a sporty, adventurous side, but also a girly-girl side. She loves playing soccer or any other sport, loves being outside and playing with bugs, and isn’t afraid of exploring and getting dirty. However, she also loves playing dress-up, putting on fake make-up, taking care of baby dolls, and carrying around a purse.
She got her first haircut a couple weeks before her birthday. She was scared at first, but perked up when we gave her a sucker.
She is obsessed with stuffed animals. She sleeps with about 15 in her bed, and she will notice if I try to sneak some out when she’s not looking.
We say a prayer with her every night before bed. Her favorite things to pray for include her grandmas/grandpas, the lake, Mickey Mouse, and Briggs’ soccer games.
Her favorite songs are Itsy Bitsy Spider, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Wheels on the Bus, ABCs, and almost anything she hears on Barney.
Favorite characters: Mickey Mouse, Olaf, Shrek, and Barney
Favorite food: Pickles, macaroni and cheese
Favorite movies: Jungle Book, Frozen, Aladdin
Favorite books: Anything by Sandra Boynton, and “I know a Rhino” by Charles Fuge
Favorite animals: Monkeys, Elephants, Tigers
What she enjoys: swinging, swimming, bath time, cousin fun, picking out movies (and watching about 2 minutes of it before picking another), coloring, playing soccer, gymnastics, and seeing any/all kinds of animals.

Kinsie had a very busy birthday weekend. On Sunday, we had a fishing-themed birthday party for her at the lake (blog post on that later). Her actual birthday (today) happened to fall on a Monday, and I couldn’t bare the thought of not spending the day with her on her birthday…so I took the day off. My original plan was to take her to the zoo, her happy place. However, from the second she woke up, she was asking to play with all her new toys she got from her birthday party. She didn’t want to leave the house all day! I was able to pull her away from her new toys for 10 minutes to run to Dunkin’ Donuts to get her a birthday donut…which she was pumped about! We pretty much spent the rest of the day playing with all her new stuff. It was a beautiful day, so we went outside for a little while in the afternoon too. Ryan came home from Muncie to spend the evening with us. We asked Kinsie where she wanted to go to eat dinner for her birthday, and she said she just wanted to stay home and play, so we got Red Robin carry-out. We used some of the leftover “dirt and worms,” (Oreo ice cream with gummy worms) from her party to use as her birthday cake. She loves the happy birthday song right now, so we sang to her a few times and blew out her candle. It was a nice, quiet (or as quiet as it can be with a 2 year old) evening just the three of us for her birthday. It was perfect!

I am obsessed with this girl’s spunky little personality. She makes life so much fun.

Happy 2nd birthday my sweet Kinsie Kay!

Well, I hate to say it but this was my last official day of summer vacation. It is uncanny how quickly these summers go by now that we are on the balanced calendar. Eight weeks for a summer vacation just isn’t long enough! But then again I am very grateful to even have a job where I can have this much time off. I haven’t posted much the last few months, so here is a recap of our summer.

Ryan took his STEP 1 Boards in early June, then started his clinical rotations a few days later. His first rotation was in OB/Gyn…which is notorious for being one of the most intense rotations. This rotation included 13 hour days, 6 days a week (and keep in mind he isn’t even getting paid!) He would barely get home in time to see Kinsie before she went to bed. Because of this, he learned pretty quickly that this is not the field of medicine for him. After this, he got to experience the other end of the spectrum, Anesthesia. During this 2 week rotation, he only worked 40 hour weeks with weekends off. It was glorious! We got in SO much quality time with him during these 2 weeks, and he even had time to build Kinsie her very own swing set in the backyard! Being able to spend time with his family is obviously a priority for him, so anesthesia is not off the table! Today he started Plastic surgery which I’m sure will be an adventure! It is still taking some getting used to having him home every night…in a good way. Sometimes I just forget that he is coming home at night! One of the hardest parts about when he lived in Muncie was at night after Kinsie went to bed. It’s definitely no fun going to bed alone every night. But now we’re enjoying our time snuggling on the couch and watching Orange is the New Black while eating popcorn. It is SO good to have him home!

This summer in Indiana was actually a bit depressing…probably 80% of our days were rainy and muggy. Not only is this depressing for someone who loves the sunshine, but it’s especially so for a toddler who loves the sunshine and has a ton of energy! I had to be very creative coming up with indoor activities for us to do on the many days we couldn’t go outside. We took trips to public libraries, did arts and crafts, read a lot of books, and watched a lot of movies! Well…I shouldn’t say a lot of movies. We watched the same movies over and over again. Her new obsession is Shrek, so we watched the 4 Shrek movies and the Shrek musical pretty much on loop!

Kinsie started gymnastics classes this summer! She had been climbing on everything and tumbling around nonstop, so we figured this would be a good thing for her. She absolutely LOVES it! Her favorite thing to do is somersaults, but she also loves the balance beam and the bars. She even got her first trophy last week!

We had a busy 4th of July. First we went to the Brownsburg parade. Kinsie, Briggs and Kerigan were all about collecting the candy thrown by the floats. They were proud of their big bad of candy at the end! Later we went to the lake, like we do every year. Kinsie had fun playing with cousins, doing sparklers, and watching fireworks on the boat. Last year she wasn’t able to stay up late enough to watch the fireworks, but we made sure she did this year!

Two of our favorite places to hang out this summer were the zoo and the lake. You all already knew that Kinsie was obsessed with the zoo and animals in general, so of course we tried to find as many not-rainy, not-too-humid days to spend at the zoo. She especially loves it when we meet her cousins there!

The lake, however, is a new obsession. We can’t even mention the word “lake” unless we are driving there. For a while, every time we got in the car, she would say “lake?” and when I’d say no, she would pout. When we say her prayers at night, she prays for the lake. When I ask her in the morning what she dreamed about, she says the lake. The lake is her happy place. She loves the boat, the toys, the fishing,…everything. We made as many trips there as we could this summer, and will continue to make weekend trips when we can even though school is starting. I don’t blame her, I love it there too!

Even though sunny days this summer were few and far between, whenever it was nice enough, we were outside. Wagon rides, trips to the park, swimming at my parents’ pool, you name it. God must have been looking out for us, because our last full week of summer was BEAUTIFUL! I had one very happy girl! To add on to that, like I mentioned earlier, Ryan built a swing set in our backyard…complete with 2 swings (a Kinsie swing and a “mommy swing” as she calls it), a climbing rope, a bar for gymnastics, and even a balance beam. Kinsie was on Cloud 9! Every morning as soon as I opened her door, she’d ask to go swing. I didn’t mind because I could swing right along side of her!

Some of the water fun we had this summer!

Parks, wagon rides, and bubbles.

Kinsie’s new swing set. Kudos to Ryan for the excellent craftsmanship!

Finally, the last full week of summer was also the week of our county fair. I love going to the fair for the good food and to see my students with their 4H projects. Kinsie loves the fair for the animals and balloons. We went twice during the week, and both times she was one happy camper. She wouldn’t stop talking about balloons until we got her one, but once she did, she strutted around like she owned the place with her balloon in hand. She loved the “hop hops” and the goats, especially when they licked her hands. I love how much she loves life!

I’m sure you can tell that overall, we had a pretty good summer! I am so grateful for all the quality time that I got to spend with my girl. Her newest thing is always wanting to hold my hand. No complaining here! I know that she won’t always want to hold my hand as she gets older, so I’m savoring these special moments. I’m not ready to be away from her all day again, even though I know she’ll be in the best hands. She is just too much fun and so full of life. She has changed my life in so many ways and has taught me to live in the moment and just enjoy life. Thank you, my sweet baby girl. I love you more than I can ever explain!