Merry Christmas and Happy New Years'

Merry Christmas Everyone! We hope you all had the opportunity to share this wonderful holiday with your family and close friends. We decided to stay in Shelley this year and have family over to our home. This is a BIG first for us as we have travelled every holiday for the past 8 years! My mom, dad, brother Michael, Grandpa Cook, Aunt, and Grandma Brinton shared Christmas with us. We opened presents by the tree and then with the help of my mom and aunt, we made an excellent dinner. We were blessed with a great family holiday this year! My sister and her family couldn't make it out from North Carolina but hopefully we'll see them sometime this year.

As for 2008, it has been a year of progress and big changes for us. I finished my teaching certification and accepted a teaching job in SE Idaho. Troy is currently searching for a fulfilling job in wildlife. He is strongly considering other states. Kaylei is learning new things everyday and growing inches overnight it seems! She learned her second word in sign, eat! It's totally appropriate with her constantly wanting in the cupboards and she has recently figured out how to open the refridgerator door. We now have to baby proof the fridge and chest freezer. Kaylei is also discovering her sense of style. Her favorite outfit is actually nothing at all! She prefers to be "naky" and she will tell you! She also prefers "pretty pants" which are pull-ups or "poopsies" or panties (not sure how that word came to be) over diapers. And again, she will tell you what she wants to wear. Below are some pictures which depict this new taste of fashion! We wish you all a prosperous and loving 2009!

We moved and are as settled as we can get

When you have a baby that likes to put everything on her head, sometimes you just have to join in! Meet the Hinck Diaperheads!

It's been a few months since I have posted. A lot has changed! We moved to Shelley Idaho and I am teaching at Hillcrest High School in Idaho Falls. Troy is currently staying at home (he says he hates it, but I think he enjoys being with Kaylei) waiting for his new job to start, which should be at the end of this month. In the meantime, he's been preparing for a job interview as a Conservation Officer (long name for fish cop). He finds out in October if he passed the interview. If he does, then he has to do a physical and physcological test in November. If he passes these, then he gets a job offer, YEY!! Hopefully he makes it, he hasn't really thought about alternatives, he feels confident but of course anything could happen.

I am not particularly enjoying my work, but it's not so terrible that I will quit at any moment. I have some difficult classes but I'm determined to not let them get to me. I am learning some skills and getting to know my students and a lot of their parents :) I thought calling home would be awful, but it's really not so bad. We'll see how well it works this next week when the students come back to class.

Kaylei is doing well. She is super smart. According to our baby milestones book, she should have about 8 words. She has probably over 100, I promise I'm not exgarating! She points to things and asks what's that and then copies our words and remembers many of them. She knows her body parts, and loves to point out many of these on her parents, which could be embarassing depending on where we are! She's slimmed up a lot, we had to put her back in size 3 diapers and 12 month shorts, pants are 18 months because she's so tall but we have to get the ones with the adjustable waist in them and then put on a belt. She also has enough hair for pig tails!




These pictures were taken last night. It's the first night in like 3 weeks that mommy has had time and energy to play with Kaylei, and we sure did have a good time!

Kaylei had the opportunity to go to the Eastern Idaho State Fair and went to the petting zoo. She loved the bunnies and the goats. Her grandpa also had a great time helping her feed the animals and keeping her out of the poop! She also loved the cows and watched them on the milking machine. After the fair, she started telling us what cows and goats and sheep would say. Cows say moo, sheep say baaa, and goats say goat!
Kaylei initiated our house within hours of being there. We were deciding where to put everything and she found the open box of fruit loops in the lower cupboard and was helping herself to a snack, when Ooops she shook the box upside down and the ENTIRE box was on the floor before I could stop it. I just stood there and laughed, what else was I to do!We are still working on potty training. She did really well the first weeks we were here, but as soon as I went back to work, she quit! We're still hoping by the time she's 2!

New Pictures

I just dumped about 70 pictures from my camera. Here are some of the latest pictures of our family.

Kaylei spent the afternoon in the garden. What a dirty face!

Kaylei is enjoying a cheese cracker. Check out the cheese mustache!
Little Kaylei is working on her car with daddy's toys.


Kaylei likes to climb into our cupboards.


Look, she finally has enough hair for a ponytail!!

So Much to Do

So we are moving in less than a week and there is just so much to do. Last week our car started making a horrible noise when we went over bumps. We had to adjust the sway bar. Last weekend, our 4Runner's transmission was slipping in overdrive. We just found out that it's an electrical problem and it won't be fixed until Saturday or Monday (BTW, we are leaving Tuesday morning). And to top it all off, Kaylei has had a fever for 2 days now and the doc isn't real sure what it's from. Oh and we still have over half the house to pack, who needs sleep, right?

It's been Awhile!

Life has been going by in a flash these past few months. I received my teaching certificate from Lewis-Clark State College and accepted a teaching job in Idaho Falls. We will be moving the beginning of August and starting a new chapter in our life. This is a bitter-sweet move for us as we had just made a home in Lewiston and we are now moving on, hopefully for the better. Here are some great pictures of the family (mostly of Kaylei) from the past few months. Our little sunshine is growing up so fast! She's started walking and her vocabulary is constantly growing. My favorite word of hers has to be button. She only pronounces "but"!

Kaylei and her daddy

Here's my little climber.This is the face Kaylei gives if you ask her where her nose is or refer to the nose at any point. Let's hope she quits this before she's 16!

First Birthday, March 28,08

Kaylei made it to her first birthday with only one late night ER visit due to a stomach virus which means we didn't DROP her!!! That was one of my biggest fears or that she would roll of the bed or couch and severely hurt herself. Anyone who knew me (Alice) as a child would understand why this is such a HUGE mile marker. I had many trauma visits to the ER, let's hope she didn't take after me in that area!

Kaylei enjoyed her first birthday party and was so excited to see many of her friends there. She LOVED being the center of attention. We're thinking she may go into entertaining in the future.

Here are some pictures from her special day.

Easter

This year Easter was going to be another ordinary weekend with a special dinner at home with just the three of us. But, at the last minute we decided to travel to Boise to see Troy's family. His grandfather is ill and we wanted to take Kaylei down there. We pretty much saw all of Troy's extended family in the Boise area. Kaylei was sick the entire time but anyone who knows her, knows that it wasn't too bad as Kaylei doesn't act too differently when she's ill. Although this time she turned red and purple when she coughed and slept a lot. She had bronchiolitis and is feeling much better now! Just in time for her FIRST birthday! Here are some photos from Easter.

Hair!

Our birthday wish for Kaylei was that she would be able to have a little pony tail for her birthday. And unless her hair suddenly decides to grow, our wish will not come true this year. But she can have some real stylish hair do's in the bathtub!

Wow, Time Sure Does Fly!!!

I kept meaning to update the page and kept saying I'll do it later. We'll five months later I realized I could no longer say later! Kaylei will be turning 1 this month! She has been doing well and hitting all the milestones: crawling at 7 1/2 months. Actually it was the week before Thanksgiving because we had to call the relatives and warn them that they should baby proof before we get there.

Christmas was a big hit for Kaylei. She spent most of her time picking on her older cousins, Josef was 3 and Kristofer had just turned a year.



Kaylei loves being mobile. She gets into EVERYTHING and just as you think it's all out of her reach, she grows half an inch and can get into EVERYTHING again! She has had many memorable play dates with Eli and Myles (who moved away and we miss him and his parents).