Laurel Update - 15 months of fun!

Our little Laurel is 15 months old. Many people seem to be sad when their babies enter toddlerhood, but I have been enjoying Laurel SO MUCH it is hard to miss her babyhood! We just continue to love and delight in her more and more. The list of wonderful (to us) things she is doing increases by the day! Here is a list of some of her favorite things:

- Her babydoll "nana" (thanks Oldacres)! She loves to carry around her baby, put her in her cardboard bed, feed her bottles and snacks that she is eating, pat her, rock her, etc. It has been so sweet to me to see her little mothering heart towards her baby. It is 100% girl!


-Music continues to be one of Laurel's top loves! She loves to play her little piano or listen to the ipod and dance around the living room. She has begun a little bit of "singing" as well :-) To support her love of the ipod she has figured out a creative, little way of getting to it. She pulls out the small suitcase that sits on top of the larger one under the end table, climbs up and grabs the ipod! Yes, we have a problem solver. She also uses this method to type on the typewriter. Recently climbed completely onto the table and started typing. We have to keep a good watch on this girl!

- Going outside! After getting her first pair of shoes, she would get them from her room and bring them to the front door...her subtle way of telling us "let me out!!!" Now that the weather is FINALLY cooling down a little bit (say 80 degrees) we are able to do more outside which is great. Here she is helping Will "drive" the parked car.

She went to the doctor last week and weighed in at 20 lbs. 4 oz. and she is 31 inches tall. She is only in the 10%, but the doctor says she is growing perfectly and doing great! We are so grateful to God for our little Laurel Anne. I can't imagine a sweeter, funnier, more wonderful daughter.

There and Back Again

Last week Will, Laurel, and I took a last minute trip to Charlotte. What fun! It was so wonderful to see family and friends and to enjoy some beautiful Fall weather. Also, it made the time until the holiday's seem a lot less daunting. Here are some pictures from the trip!

Laurel loving her some PF Changs with Mom, Anne, and Kate!

Kate ADORED the apple cider that we put in her bottle! She chugged it SO fast.
I love these to girls! Laurel really loves her Auntie Anne.

Dad and Laurel watching football. I'm so sorry that I didn't get any pictures

with "Granny" and Laurel :-( Maybe at Thanksgiving!

Sporting her "headdress" for Mike and Liz's wedding. So cute!

Alligators with a Capital G!

Sorry for the month of no posts...to make up for it I am posting pictures of Will, Laurel, and I's recent gator sighting!

My two bird-watchers! The girl loves her coffee...don't worry! It was empty.
"umm...I think I see a gator!"

Notice the tip-toes!

Laurel's personality in a nutshell! She's loving her some chocolate doughnut!

They seem A LOT closer in real life!

It was so amazing to see these huge, scary animals in the wild.

It was much creepier than I thought it would be.

Our first visit here we counted 20!

Where are you Fall?

It sure is weird to realize that it is almost October and to still be roasting at 90 degrees! I have begun to feel excited about the changing seasons and I've been wanting to decorate for Fall and light my pumpkin candles, etc. but it seems pretty pointless in a place where we won't pull the coats out of mothballs until December! Oh well...it is just one year. I will just have to look forward to visits home to enjoy the nice crisp weather!

Can you believe how much our little girl has changed in 1 year? She seems like such a little toddler now! I can't believe it. September 2008. Baby Laurel Anne one year ago!
Talking about Fall...here is a carrot cake I made for Will 2 days ago...sadly it is more than half eaten already!!! Lauren - please try to overlook my sub par decorating skills!

The Laurel Anne fashion show. These are for Aunt Allie! As you can see she will have time to grow into them while we wait for colder weather. Thanks so much for her beautiful birthday presents!

She was really fascinated by the bug on this one!

She REFUSED to wear the hat!

Last weekend we had the great fun of a visit from "Uncle Zach" for the UT/FL game. It was so great to get to spend some time together. As you see, Laurel loved him!

Laurel loves carrying around little baskets of all varieties. Here she plucked the silverware holder out of the dishwasher!

Gainesville Days

We have already had 2 sets of visitors in our little apartment! Walt and Kim Alexander were able to come and spend the night with us on their way to vacation. They were our first FL guests and we had a wonderful time together talking, laughing, and eating Belgian Waffles! It was a short trip, but we packed it with a lot of fun times. Our next visitors were Dad and Mom. We had such a wonderful time all together as always! Dad and Mom are so generous to us. Here are some pictures from their trip:

Laurel getting tickled by Pop! (yes, those are Laurel's pants on Dad's head...)

Laurel really loved Dad and Mom! As you can see, she finally has enough hair to clip a bow straight up...at 13 months :-)
Laurel LOVES reading books! She has recently started getting books and then coming over to sit in my lap and read them. I love it!

This past Saturday we had a wonderful family day at a beach near Tampa called Honeymoon Island. Will found it the night before we left and it was perfect! It is a state park, so it doesn't have any houses or businesses on it. Even on a busy weekend like labor day, you could look down the beach in either direction and see no one! We had such a wonderful time together. I am grateful to Will for wanting to make such special memories on his day off!

Here is Laurel learning birdwatching from her Dad. She loved all the birds.

Once you walked for about 1/2 mile past the parking area this was our view in either direction! It was so beautiful! I can't wait to go back.

We took a walk on the beach and Laurel fell asleep on Will and slept for a long time. Those are such special times and I'm glad Will got to experience it!

Here is Laurel talking to Grandfather on the phone. She has started holding the cell phone to her ear on her own. It is really cute!

Laurel and I before enjoying our picnic lunch (in the shade!).

This is for all the Vols fans...Laurel is remaining faithful to the home team!

We took a little after diner run to chick-fil-a for some ice cream...I think I might have enjoyed it even more than Laurel :-) I don't think it is supposed to work that way!

I recently made some bread that turned into a HUGE loaf. Here is a picture for comparison. I like how Laurel is fingering the cutting board.

Laurel had a really sleepy day recently where every time I turned around she was lying on the ground sucking her thumb. It was really cute! Here she is in the dining room by the trash can.

Here she is in the kitchen.

Laurel has become very fond of waving!

This is what Will has been doing! He wanted a picture of the ridiculous amount of books for his first semester.

The youngest LLM student!

Trepidation!

My wonderful Aunt Allie gave Laurel a lot of adorable clothes for her birthday. I promised to post pictures so she could see how cute Laurel looks, but both times I tried to put her in all the outfits something happened, so here is the first in a series....I will post the rest when I take the pictures.

That is what we have been up to the last few weeks! God has really blessed us in a lot of unexpected ways so far and we know he will continue to be faithful to us while we are here. But we sure are excited about coming home. May can't come soon enough!!!

I had written a nice updated about our life in Gainesville and how well we are settling in, but somehow it is deleted and I can't easily get it back. Suffice it to say that we are doing great, although I am already eager to be coming home. I am thinking of this trip as an extended adventure/vacation and in that light we are really enjoying it. The best news from the last few weeks is that we are going to be able to come home in early May rather than mid July as we were originally planning. I am extremely excited about this! I have caught myself already counting down the days, as in, "one week down...only so many more to go!"

I am so far behind that I am doubtless going to leave a lot of pictures and events out, but I thought I could begin updating on our recent Kittrell Family Vacation to Anna Maria Island. On the way home from this vacation the Kittrell's dropped us off in Gainesville so except for the last few weeks this is as updated as possible.

The Happy Little Kittrell Family The Happy Little Almost-Kittrell Family
The Happy Big Kittrell Family

Adorable Laurel with her first tan!

This was a BEAUTIFUL sunset!

The bird-watcher in action!

Yum! Will and I at our farewell lunch with Bill and Cheri. A few tears were shed, but I think we managed to keep it together fairly well :) All you can eat fish and chips certainly was helping our cause!

Breakfast on the beach!

My favorites! Lucky girl :-)

Here we all are in the new apartment before anything has been moved in.

Off to Gainesville!

Here is the trailer all packed up with our worldly goods. Will worked VERY hard to fit everything I packed inside.

This isn't from vacation, but I thought it was too cute not to include! Laurel is waiting for will to come home from the Bar exam.

This is where Laurel got her baths on vacation.

Enjoying some ballpit time in the backyard.

Annual Smuggler's Cove mini-golf trip! If you are interested I came in dead last :)

Cheri and Laurel enjoying the waves!

Will and Laurel. I love her little hand holding on to his shirt.

Grandfather and Laurel reading one of her favorite books.

Laurel LOVED the shopping cart we got her for her birthday. Here she is playing with it for the first time.

A new ball.

I just think this is funny!

Devotions with Grandfather...you know you are getting up early when you have to wear a headlamp to read! This was also useful for grilling at night (I do have that picture, but it isn't posted :O)

This is my new favorite picture of our little one year old! I forgot to mention that she has started walking!!!! She took her first few steps a couple days after we arrived at our apartment. She is getting better and better every day. We are loving it!

Will and Laurel enjoying some pool time. You can vaguely see that Laurel has a little more hair. It is growing by the day.