The Lienau Family

"Oh cool... a camera" click

"uh oh, here comes mama! She looks mad!"

"NOOOOOOOO why would you DO that?!?!"

We finally made it to Tulip Time this year! Each year since Kennedy was born we have had the best of intentions of going. Last year, mom (Johnson) decided we should scrub streets and the plans were set into motion. Aunt Heather had a costume made this winter,  grandma J purchased one at the sale, Kennedy wore Heather's from when she was little and I wore a borrowed costume from Aunt Diane.

We had a blast scrubbing streets and Kennedy absolutely LOVED the parade and cotton candy :)


Here are some photos... (pardon the general fuzzi-ness of all the photos - someone with LITTLE FINGERS smudged my camera lens!)

Two Dutch girls ready to GET CLEANING!

Watching Dutch Dancers with Heather

Helping Grandma pull the wagon and scrubbing at the same time...

Happy Girl!

This photo made me laugh so hard! At this point, she just GAVE UP!

Kennedy and Grandma Judy

Dutch girls!

Short video of Kennedy watching the parade...

I haven't forgotten about this blog... I just never really get around to updating it! I should be better about that because my little Kennedy is growing like a weed! She turns 3 on Saturday and I can hardly believe it! I will do a more detailed update post later on, but for now just wanted to share her most recent school photos. I may be bias, but I think they are pretty adorable! Enjoy...

This one cracks me up!!!

This may have made me cry...

Things have been busy around the Lienau household lately - as always!  I am referring to November 2011 as "The perfect storm" month. I (Liz) have been on call for circuit court jury duty for the whole month, insane with work projects and traveling, and then last week Zach's grandfather passed away so we traveled to South Carolina for the funeral. Things have just been really busy this month and I know Christmas will be here so soon!

Anyway... I wanted to updated about some of the things going on with our BIG girl Kennedy! She just keeps growing and growing! She now wears mostly size 3T and size 7 shoes. I pulled out a pair of jeans from her drawer the other day and thought to myself "there is no way these will fit her yet!" and somehow they fit her just fine! Speaking of clothing, Kennedy has become very good at dressing herself. Most nights I put her to bed in cozy pajamas and when I check on her before I go to bed she is wearing something different!

Toddler fashion sense!

We are still potty training... sigh. She does ok at daycare and sometimes at home. We have had some eventful days at home wearing big girl panties. One of my favorite moments was when I was in the kitchen and she came in to tell me (in her cute 2 year old voice) "momma! There's poop on the couch!" Very exciting! woo hoo! I walked into the living room to find that, as she had said, there was HER poop on the couch. Noting my reaction, she stood next to me and looked up with her big blue eyes and said "isss ok momma, i keen it up wis my FORK!" and then headed for the couch with her play fork to help clean it up. I stopped her and ended up cleaning the couch myself :)

Potty time! sidenote - need to change bathroom wall color ...ick!

A while back I removed the front of Kennedy's crib and installed the half-rail to make it into a toddler bed. Kennedy was very excited about her newfound freedom! So excited, in fact, that every night it would take hours to get her to go to bed because she would just constantly climb out and come out of her room. I tried EVERYTHING. One night, I decided to completely ignore her and "calmly place her back in bed when she got up" ... I did this 67 times (yes, I counted) in a matter of one hour. No eye contact, no response, no reaction at all. It became a big, fun game to get up out of bed, walk out and then get me to put her back to bed. I tried yelling also, that didn't work. Finally, I decided to purchase door knob covers (found them for .99 at Goodwill, yeah!) for her bedroom door thinking at least if she was contained to her room it would limit her interaction with me and force her to at least try to fall asleep. Miracle of miracles... it WORKS! I hesitate to rejoice because tonight she will probably figure out how to get the darn thing open.. but FOR NOW it works. I did also have to put one on her closet door as she would empty the entire contents of it out when she was supposed to be sleeping ;-) Before I go to bed each night I just crack the door open a bit so she can get out if she needs to in the night. Sigh...

Happy Camper!

Kennedy was very excited about trick or treating this year! Last year she really didn't "get it" but this year she definitely had it figured out! She was a princess this year and was able to go trick or treating with Leila, who was also a princess! After each house she would come down the driveway and exclaim "I got candies!!" I guess it must be pretty shocking to a young child that you can just walk up to someone's house and ask for candy and have them give you some! ;-)





We also carved a pumpkin this year. We have had them in the past, but never carved them because I was sure she wouldn't really care! She was excited to help daddy pull all the guts out, which was fun to watch. Daddy did the carving and I was designated to be the photographer and supervisor, so I didn't have to get my hands dirty! I also roasted the pumpkin seeds... YUM!



We are looking forward to the Holiday season.. I just can't believe it is that time of year already!

There are so many funny things that Kennedy does on a daily basis that I think I will remember forever... but then a new day comes and I realize I can't remember it ALL! So this is a post more to remind me of simple, silly things going on in her life than to really update anything ;-)

- she calls me "momma" - but she also refers to grandma as "momma" on Tuesdays and other kids at daycare as well. I think it just rolls off her tongue easily so she says it A LOT! She is definitely in a momma's girl stage right now too!

- she likes ice. I think she got a bump at daycare or something and they gave her ice to put on it. Now, anytime something happens to her - she wants ice to put on it. Unfortunately, she has learned how to help herself to the freezer. I recently moved a bunch of food down to our storage freezer downstairs because I fear the day she leaves it open and I don't notice!

- she figured out how to escape from her crib several weeks ago. My dad was over helping us out in chopping down our tree that was struck by lightning and she was supposed to be in napping. I came in the house for some water and she was standing at the front door watching the guys with the chainsaw. I thought for a moment Zach had gotten her up, but then realized she had gotten herself up! She is actually very good at climbing out and has been doing it as an excuse to delay bedtime for the past week or so. I think this weekend we are going to transition her to the toddler bed so she doesn't hurt herself. My goodness! A TODDLER BED! AAAAH!!

- She is very mothering and attentive to others. I get frequent reports from daycare that if someone is hurt or crying she has to be there and pat them on the back and soothe them. She has also started to play more with dolls and it is quite funny. She totes her doll around the house in its stroller and plays pretend. I need to try and get it on video because it is very funny.

- She frequently reminds me to "Be careful!" when I am doing some ordinary task around the house. It makes me realize that I have probably said this same thing to her 1,203,343 times in the last two and a half years.

- She loves the show Dino Dan. Really really really loves it. As a result, she also really really really loves dinosaurs. Not what I thought my toddler GIRL would be into, but that is okay :) She also likes Elmo and is getting more interested in Sesame Street. Cartoons, for some reason, don't hold her attention at all.


- She CAN BE very helpful (sometimes!)... she now knows how to let Henry in and out (sometimes a good thing, sometimes not so much) and frequently gets out her bottle of cleaner (water) and a rag to help me clean the house.  She basically wants to be doing whatever it is I am doing ALL the time... so I try very hard to incorporate her "help" if I can. She is also pretty good at picking up her toys and putting things away. She doesn't do these things perfectly but it is good that she tries!

Riding Sandy at Meijer

Apparently we are still not over the whole "sitting in boxes" phase!

This past weekend we went with Thara's family to Cranes Apple Orchard in Fennville. It was a great time and we have plenty of apples to eat and cook with!

Kennedy was very very very excited about going to pick apples. She recently moved up to the Nursery School room at daycare and they have been learning about apples for the past few weeks. Last week Wednesday, when she was in the bath, I was talking to her about the weekend and told her that on Sunday we would be going to pick apples. She got SO excited and climbed out of the bath (unheard of... I usually have to drag her out of the tub even after draining the water out!) and wanted to go RIGHT THEN. Thankfully, I had some apples at home and let her "pick" one out of the basket to pacify her. The next morning when I went it to wake her (read: drag her) out of bed while she was still half awake and with eyes closed she said "we go pick apples today?" so cute! Needless to say... she was happy to go pick apples on Sunday!

Here are a few photos...

Loading up on Honey Crisps!

At least Leila is looking/smiling! Kennedy is just more interested in her apple!

Hitchin' a ride!

Happy apple picker

Leila is doing all the work here... Kennedy is just holding on ;-)

... in my mind... all the time! AAH! Seriously, so many things have happened in the past few months and I have had the INTENTION of getting it all written down here to remember, but alas, I haven't had the time!

So much has happened since I last wrote so I will attempt to get things caught up a bit! Kennedy is getting SO BIG. (Sidenote: I think if you look back at every post I have written they all start with "it has been a while" and "Kennedy is getting big.") But it is SO true.  She is walking, running, talking, putting sentences together, singing, remembering details, going potty on the toilet (sometimes). I look at her sometimes and cannot believe she was once just a fussy little baby!

The biggest news of our early summer was giving up "soothie." After her second birthday I really felt like it was time to make the break. She constantly had the thing in her mouth and I was worried about it beginning to affect her teeth. We started breaking her of having it during the day at daycare and around the house for about a week and then on Friday night we didn't give it to her before bed. I thought I had done a very thorough sweep of the house to get them all collected, but just as I was sitting down to read a story with her I saw one behind the door in her room. Unfortunately, she saw it too. Daddy had to come in and take it away and MUCH screaming took place.  Zach and I ended up just going to sit outside because it was pretty painful to have to listen to her scream! Thankfully, that was the worst of it and we are now 100% soothie free! She still points to them in pictures (because they are in EVERY picture) and will give them to other babies at daycare, but she seems pretty unaffected by the change.

We are working on potty training and it has been going OK so far. She does really well at daycare because they are good about putting her on the potty on a regular schedule and all the other kids in her room are also going on the potty. At home she does really well with going on the potty and enjoys the process of washing hands, getting dressed, getting a piece of candy...etc.  We have had a few misses with the potty and definitely a lot of accidents throughout the house, but she is getting the hang of it. The hardest part is that diapers (while expensive) are just so EASY! Soon we will really have to dedicate ourselves to the process and I think she will be trained fairly quickly (fingers crossed).

This summer has been fairly busy and filled with lots of fun activities. We have been to the beach a few times and Kennedy has still being going to the pool with my mom every Tuesday. She LOVES the water and has absolutely no fear. She will dive/jump right in! We also took her river tubing with us on the fourth of July weekend and she enjoyed that too - actually I think she just enjoyed eating alcohol-free jell-o shots.. but whatever. She did really well and I can't wait to take her again.

Here are some interesting things she has been doing lately:
- LOVES to torture Henry by giving him hugs, kisses, pulling his tail, chasing him around the house, pulling out single bits of his food and hiding them in places he can see but cannot get to, and every morning has to say "good morning Henry, love you"

- Eats like a crazy person! Her favorite is chicken nuggets and honey (obviously), but she still loves yogurt, string cheese, "tacos", peanut butter sandwiches, and ANY kind of fruit.  The variety of what she will eat is pretty limited but she will try new things every once in a while.

- Loves to sing songs and can sing "twinkle twinkle" all by herself. She can also sing Jesus Loves Me, You are my Sunshine, the Bumble Bee song and her own version of the ABC song (which has a few extra letters).

- She has finally discovered TV and will watch short amounts of it. Her favorite show at the moment is Dino Dan. Not sure why because when I point out dinosaur things (toys, shirts etc) to her - she doesn't seem to care about dinosaurs at all.

- FINALLY has enough hair to put in pony tails and pig tails! I LOVE it! :) I have been starting to accumulate bows and other fun, girly things for her hair.  It also CURLS!! It is not crazy curly, but if you let it air dry the ends are very curly.

Unfortunately, I don't have many photos either as I have been camera-less for most of the summer. I have been using my cell camera and hope to get a new camera this fall!

This girl knows how to travel in style!

First full-head pony tails!!

Kissy face!

My big, beautiful girl!

Downtown GH - watching boats during Coast Guard Fest

Kisses for Daddy

Melting her brain :)

That is all for now!