Bye Bye Paci!

No More Paci!

Kyla loves her new play-doh toys

Kyla with her new pony and purse and play doh toys


We finally decided to get rid of Kyla's paci!!! Jon and I have talked about it so much and it was soooooo hard for us to actually do it. Kyla is so reliant on her paci to take naps, sleep at night, when she is in the car and whenever she is tired, sad or gets hurt. Jon and I were not looking forward to taking away what seems to be one the most important things to her. We kept saying we would take it away after we moved to Alaska, and then once we had our own house, and then once we were done with our summer vacations, and finally we put it off longer and longer and decided we would take it away once she turned 2, and we finally did!

Thursday morning she woke up with her paci and kept it in for our car ride over to Ethan and Ella's house. Once we got there it went into a zipper compartment in my diaper bag. She had a great time playing and never even asked for it until she was ready for nap. Once it was nap time and she was asking for her paci I gave her the one that I had cut the nipple completely off of. I told her it was broken and that she is too big for paci's, that paci's our for babies only and that she is two. We had already talked about it a lot to her in the past few days that she was not going to have a paci anymore and that we were going to go to the toy store and she could get a few new toys to take its place.

Nap time did not go well at first, she cried for her paci for about 10 minutes and finally cried herself to sleep. Then after a two hour nap she woke up happy and said "Paci broke, New toy!" and then was perfectly happy all afternoon. Once we were in the car heading to the toy store she was sad on and off asking for paci every once in awhile. At the toy store she was so excited to pick out some new toys herself. I thought we were going to be spending some serious money there since she was picking what she got. But all she wanted were a few more play doh toys, a pucci pet (a horse in a cute little purse), and a few new books. She was so excited and kept saying "no more paci, new toys".

All evening went well and she barely even asked about her paci. At night time she wanted to see her broken paci and went to bed fairly easy, no crying! She woke up twice briefly during the night crying for it, but went back to sleep after a few minutes.

I can not believe how easy she gave it up. She has been so dependent on it lately and it broke my heart to think about taking it away. Jon and I had way more anxiety thinking about taking the paci away than we needed to have. I guess that she was more ready than we thought she was. We are so excited to no longer have to even think about paci's! We survived the first 24 hours with out a paci and now our only fear is that she will find one of her missing paci's around the house somewhere and we will have to start all over.

Cabin

Mason, Kyla and Madeline being silly at the campfire

The kids loved their new chairs the PaPa made them

Cute Cousins!

Mason enjoying a S'more

Kyla with her s'more

Standing back to watch Grandpa start the fire

Kyla out for a boat ride

Marcie, Madeline and Chad out for a boat ride with Captain Mason


Kyla and I went to the cabin with my parents, my sister and her family for a couple of days. The weather was not to great and it rained a lot of the time that we were there. One day was nice for the majority of the day and we got to get out and enjoy the outdoors. We went blueberry picking in my parents yard and picked a lot of very yummy berries! We also went out for a short boat ride and fished from the boat but did not catch anything. Later in the day we played outside, had a campfire and ate smores. Grandpa made chairs for the kids out of logs that they had fun sitting on at the campfire. Kyla, Madeline and Mason had a good time playing together. Mason ended up having so much fun hanging out with his Dad and Grandpa shooting B.B guns that the boys decided to stay another day.

Birthday Party #2

Kyla's new Thomas the Train set

Playdoh!!!

Time for Cake!

Blowing out the Candle

Enjoying her second birthday party with her cousins!




Sunday we arrived back to Anchorage after three weeks of fun vacations! We went straight from the airport to my parents house to visit with family and celebrate Kyla's second birthday. We had a great Salmon dinner and then had Cake and Ice Cream for Kyla's birthday. The two older boys would not sit with the rest of the kids at the kids table for cake and ice cream beacause they did not want to be in "pinkland" they said. The birthday cake was a pink princess cake and the plates and napkins were pink with Dora! After Dinner Kyla opened her presents. From Grandma she got a Thomas the train track and Playdoh toys. From Aunt Marcie's Family she got some Thomas trains, a baby doll moses basket and a bug car. Other presents that she got for her bithday included a backpack and headband from her Great Grandma and a Tag Jr and some tag jr. books from her friends Ethan and Ella.

Sunriver Gurry Family Reunion

Kyla and Landon enjoying breakfast

Swimming at the north pool

Kyla showing Daddy some Attitude

Kyla's first trip to Ice Cream at Goodies

Landon enjoying his Ice Cream

Kyla's first Ice Cream Cone

Kyla and Landon holding hands on their way to Dinner

Taylor and Lisa having a good time playing golf

Jon giving Kyla her first golfing lesson

All the kids having a good time on the golf course

Kyla and Landon having fun

Landon looking like a little golfer

The kids at the golf course

Gurry Family Reunion 2010

Having fun in the backyard pool

Kyla enjoying some Candy at Goodies


Kyla and Landon taking a bath together

All the spectators

Kyla washing Landon's hair

Kyla and Landon out for a bike ride in the trailer


Kyla at the blow up play ground

Having fun in the toddler pool


Kyla and Landon floating around

2nd trip to the inflatable play area


Kyla enjoying the blow up slide

Kyla and Landon in the bounce house


Kyla playing kitchen with her Great Great Uncle Ken

Graham and Jake shooting us with the water gun


Lauren and Rory feeding Kyla lollipops

Sweet Treats


Enjoying bruch at the Trouthouse

Kyla's first pony ride

Kyla loved riding her pony Blueberry

Landon and Matt enjoying the pony rides


Kyla and Landon looking cute on their ponies

Kyla giving Blueberry a kiss

Kyla and Landon ready for their ride to the pool


So Cool

Fun on the Waterslide

WEEEEEEE!!!

SO much fun swimming


Kyla and Landon sleeping in the bike trailer

Having fun in the pool

Backyard fun

Tiffany, Lisa, Shannon, Rory, Kyla and Monica enjoying the sun


Kyla with her cousins at Goodies

Sugar Rush!


The "outlaws", also known as in-laws

Aunt Nancy and Uncle Ken with their Great Nieces and Nephews and Great Great Nieces and Nephews

Kyla and her big lollipop

Fun on the big water slide at the South Pool

Benhamm Falls

Back at Benhamm Falls where Jon proposed 6 years ago

Matt, Tiffany and Landon at the falls

Hiking up to Benhamm Falls
Kyla and Daddy

Out for a hike

Kyla and Landon hiking to the falls

Saying Goodbye to Landon


We had an excellent time in Sunriver, Oregon for the Gurry Family Reunion. We always love attending the one week event in Oregon, but had an especiaaly great time this year since we missed the last one two years ago since Kyla was born the first day of the reunion. Sunriver was such a wonderful place to take Kyla and there was so much for her to do. The trip was great right from the start, Kyla's cousins Rory and Griffin wanted to do the drive down from Seattle with us to "babysit" Kyla in the car. She was so excited to have them that she never even cried during the 6 1/2 hour car trip and only took about a 20 minute nap. They had a grat time feeding her snacks and coloring and playing with sticker books with her.

We got to stay in a great house with Jon's Cousins Stephan and Matt, and Matt's wife Tiffany and their 17 month old son Landon. We were staying just across the street from Jon's parents, his brother and sister and their families so the kids were able to walk over to play with Kyla and Landon. We had a little blow up pool in the backyard and both Kyla and Landon had a blast playing in the water.

During our trip we took several trips to the swimming pool. Kyla loved playing in both the big pool with the waterslide and the small tots pool where she could walk around and play. She loved going down the waterslide tunnel and being caught by daddy. She also loved floating around in a float in the tots pool. We also took them to a larger pool and Kyla loved the big waterslide which she went down with Daddy several times. She really enjoyed playing in all the different pools and we would like to start going to the pools back in Alaska too so that she can continue enjoying being in the water and start learning to swim.

We also took Kyla and Landon to a great inflatable bounce house, inflatable slide and a toddlers inflatable playground at the Sunriver Village. They loved playing their so much that we made two trips there in just one day. We loved going to the village to take Kyla and Landon to Goodies candy and Ice Cream shop. We ended up taking them almost everyday and they really enjoyerd their specail treats.

We had a kids bike trailer at the house so we took Kyla and Landon on some small bike rides around where we were staying. They both were happy being in the trailer and it was fun to ride around on bikes. During the past family reunions we rode bikes everyday since there are such wonderful bike trails throughout the community so it was fun to get on bikes again.

We also took Kyla and Landon out to the stables one day after brunch to go on pony rides. We were not sure that either of them would even get on a horse, but they both loved it! They had so much fun that they did not even want to get off of them. When Kyla was done with her short pony ride she gave her pony "blueberry" a kiss!

On our last full day in Sunriver we took a small hike up to Benhamm Falls where Jon had proposed to me 6 years ago. It was fun to go back to the spot that he asked me to marry him in and to take Kyla with us.

We really had a great trip any enjoyed seeing all of the family. It was so much fun to see Kyla play with her 7 cousins and we can't wait to see everyone again!!!