Tim, Tess and Munchies Kins: The Archives

Frog Chase

2012-01-27T08:31:00.002-07:00

Mad Kins!

2012-01-24T08:04:00.000-07:00

Things Kins Says

2012-01-22T09:27:00.000-07:00

When pretending to talk on the phone, she goes, "Alright, I'll talk to you later, bye" then she puts the phone down.

When someone lays down on the couch, where she gets 90% of her diaper changes, she says, "(Person's Name) diaper change!" It's pretty funny when company is over and she's talking about how they need a diaper change.

She's been scared a few times by cranking up the volume suddenly playing with the radio remote. She now prefers her music to be very soft. If it even approaches medium loud she quickly starts saying, "Turn it down!" She knows how to turn it down herself on the computer if she has the mouse, so she'll turn it down herself if she can.

She is obsessed with the stingrays at the aquarium. More than otters or penguins, she loves those stingrays. Partly, it's because they're in a petting area where she can splash her hands in the water, but she also watches them closely. When one swims near she exclaims, "Here comes the stingray!" And when one swims over another she remarks, "Nice stingray hug!" Sometimes they kiss too.

Pictures

2012-01-20T08:45:00.000-07:00

Kin's hair is getting long enough that she has little flips of it behind her ears.

Perfect for her first pigtails!

She loves watching bubbles being blown and popping them. She can blow them herself sometimes, but not too effectively yet.

During a recent tea party, she looked at Bears with disapproval written all over her face. He just didn't know how to do it right.

Fortunately, he was able to get it together pretty quickly. They had a lovely time, and even put the tea set away when they were done. Well, some of it.

Here she is talking on a glasses case phone, pulling around a small piece of luggage that had wheels. Practicing for her next trip to the airport.

Moving?

2012-01-18T14:13:00.000-07:00

The home we're in right now has served us well, but it's on a fairly busy road, and we've got some neighbors who are a little colorful. Like, I've seen what appear to be drug deals on more than one occasion colorful. We've been looking off and on for a new place since before Kins was born, but because Tim's company tools have really been pushing the limits of our garage space, we've been more seriously looking lately. We made an offer on a home that was accepted a couple of days ago. It has a 6 car garage in the back, and a regular 2 car attached, so, Tim won't be outgrowing this one for quite some time. The road isn't as busy as where we live now, and the area is one that's really safe with awesome schools. It does need quite a bit of work. The kitchen is tiny, and the carpets are all very old and not so clean. Tim will be remodeling it for awhile before it will be ready for us to move in. We can feel good about putting money into it, because the area is nice enough that if we had to sell, we should see it back. I'm excited about the idea of getting to decide how it looks, but a little stressed about how possible it will be to stay in our budget and complete the checklist we'd like to. Plus figuring out if we're going to sell or rent the home we're in now. All of this will span my third trimester and probably a few of Max's first weeks, as well as one of Tim's busiest times ever with work. Hopefully we can manage it all. And hopefully our inspections, an appraisal, and getting the loan all go okay.

27 Weeks

2012-01-06T14:00:00.000-07:00

We were visiting my parents when my 27th week started. Tim hadn't done any maternity photos yet this pregnancy, so he naturally got involved.

I don't think my belly is getting bigger as fast as it was for awhile there. I measured it a couple of weeks ago and it was 34.5 inches. It's only grown 1/2 inch in the past two weeks. I'm weighing in at 124, which is about an 18 pound weight gain so far. That's about on track for a close to 30 pound total gain. My belly has been feeling like very cramped quarters for over a month now, but it doesn't seem to be much worse if any than a month ago. I just have to be careful how much I eat at a time, and I know that if I fall victim to the temptation to overeat, I'll be burping vomit and feeling like I'm going to explode for at least a couple of hours. Pregnancy is so cool in most ways, but there are a lot of gross things like that that you don't realize happen until you're experiencing them. It halfway counts as a cool thing though, because it's gross enough that I'm usually not tempted to eat too much. Yay?

Max is a squirmy boy, he moves all the time, and seems really strong. We were finally able to hear his heartbeat with the stethoscope this month. I think my placenta must cover a lot of the front of my uterus, because with Kins we could hear it about 6 weeks sooner. My midwife thought he had his head down at my appointment today, but he still has the space to flip all around however he pleases. I still think it's a good sign that he will settle that way though. We still haven't made much progress on picking a name. Max is our favorite so far, despite our initial misgivings about the name.

I tell Kins about how there's a baby in my belly, and she has noticed that my belly is an interesting shape, but I think she's still too little to understand.

I'm trying to take weekly belly pics this pregnancy like with Kins. I've only missed a few weeks, so I think the progression will be neat again.

Holidays

2012-01-04T17:14:00.000-07:00

We celebrated Christmas early with Tim's family a couple of weeks ago, unfortunately, Kins deleted every video Tim took of the occasion, and we didn't take pictures. It was a good party, with fun conversation and lots of tasty food. Kins got a tricycle, which she is loving pushing herself around on, her legs have another 3 inches to grow before she'll be able to properly reach the pedals though. She loved playing with her cousins, always a nice bonus for her when we get together with Tim's side of the family.

We visited my parents' house in the country for Christmas, where Kins got to see horses, cows, and chickens. Neither of my brothers made it out to Utah this year for Christmas. It was a little strange not having Eric around especially, since this is the only year he's ever not come that I can remember. To offset not having as much family there, there's nothing like having a Kins around to be so thrilled opening presents and having fun doing everything and anything.

She visited my parents horses. Feeding them carrots was fun.

But she soon started saying, "Yee-Haw!" Meaning, I want to get up and take a ride! She wasn't concerned about the horse's size at all.

She liked petting his soft neck.

Then she gave him a nice hug.

She hitched a ride on daddy's shoulders too when she got tired of walking around the property.

She got lots of exciting presents. Here she is opening her package of zoo animals. She spotted the zebra in the mix right away and was very ancy to get it out.

Here she is first noticing her teapot. Love at first sight.

She has enjoyed her tea set more than most of her other presents I think.

She made sure to get some chillin' in too. She knows how to have a well rounded weekend.

She probably needed the chillin' after all the laughing she did with brama and papa.
She loves to be tickled, but she prefers to control when it happens. Here she is inviting Mr. Frog to tickle her.

And inviting Brama to tickle her.

Hysterics follow, sometimes before any actual contact with her belly.

Wrestling with papa was quite exhilarating. And also very staticy.

She loved hanging out at a new place, exploring everything, and getting to go out and check out the animals each day. We need to take her to the country more often.

Pictures and Happenings

2011-12-27T20:57:00.000-07:00

Getting to visit with Brama. She's seen Brama quite a bit lately and is quite smitten, often declaring her love for Brama when she's listing what she loves. Brama had to share her love the other night with red and green. It was pretty appropriate though because it was Christmas eve.

Locke purposefully bonked his head against the wall the other day, so I told Kins to go give him a kiss on the head because he bonked it. She went right over, puckered up, and gave him a smooch directly on the lips. This pic is from a bit later, but it's from when she's either about to kiss him or just had.

Fun times being rocked in the rocking chair.

She left me several voicemails while Tim was playing video games the other day. He resorted to letting her do whatever she wanted on the phone. She made several calls. My voicemails were both her talking excitedly about having a drink of water.

We met up with Tim's family for dinner and his sister brought her Mary Poppins bag. She kept pulling fascinating things out and Kins was in awe. When she stopped, Kins grabbed her hand and put in in the bag, hoping there might be some more to come.

She's not normally into her blankie too much except for when she's going to sleep. One day though she wanted to take it with her out of the crib and carried it around for the morning. She's perched in one of her favorite locations, right in front of the radio. She loves pushing all the buttons and hearing music.

She's in a boat! This is at the aquarium. Tim and I each got a year pass for $20, and Kins is free until she's 3. Not a bad deal considering it's $9 just for a single visit. I've been taking her about once a week.

After dinner with Tim's family we walked around temple square to see the lights. I'm still managing to zip up my warm jacket.

Things Munchies Says

2011-12-20T19:47:00.000-07:00

She always wants music playing. Usually the first thing she does in the morning is say, "music!". Lately, she requests her fav by saying, "Music... Dancing Queen!"

She's been hitting occasionally when she's frustrated. Which most often is when I'm trying to feed her. Today she surprised me by stroking my arm gently and saying, "Soft. No hitting mama!"

After getting set down and ignored for a minute because she kept attempting to rip my lip off my face, she bonked her head against the wall and went, "Bonk head!!" then put on a show of holding it and crying. I asked her if she needed a kiss, so she said, "Kiss head!" Then it became a game of which body part she would intentionally injure so that she needed a kiss.

Her obsession with farting continues. She liked to ID the farter now. Which most often means she's saying, "Dada farted!" Naturally, Mama is never implicated, not having any such habits.

Copy Cat

2011-12-16T18:36:00.001-07:00

Fa la la la la!!

2011-12-15T16:18:00.005-07:00

I slaved over this card for like 2 hours, carefully designing it as a 5x7. After I got done I discovered that 5x7's cost 1.59 per print vs. 4x6 prints priced at .19 cents per print. So, the cards I will be mailing out is just like this one, but squished so we all look slightly wide. Tim says he can't go wrong with wider shoulders, so it's worked out well I think.

This Christmas is going to be a quiet one for us. Neither of my brothers will be making the trek out to Utah this year, so it'll just be us and my parents celebrating on my side of the family. Tim's family will get together one day as usual too. Now, maybe I should start my Christmas shopping...

Singing

2011-12-14T08:30:00.000-07:00

It's hard to catch her on video when she's really into singing clearly without distracting her with the camera. This is the best video I've gotten so far. She sings along to the light from tangled and then follows it up with some "rhino".

Mature Example

2011-12-12T20:28:00.001-07:00

Tim and I are obviously setting a really mature example for Munchies....

Of course the person who came up with showing her a video of an animal farting in the first place was my dad, so, I guess the apple hasn't fallen far from the tree. It cracks me up how each fart is funnier to her than the last.

23 Weeks

2011-12-09T12:59:00.000-07:00

I'm surprised my belly is this big at only 23 weeks, since baby boy should only be weighing in at around 1 pound. My starting weight with this pregnancy was the same as with Kins, and my current weight is almost exactly what it was with her at the same time. And yet, I looked like this with Kins week 23:

Ahhhh... on a side note, this picture makes me want it to be warm outside. Looks so nice out on my deck here.... Anyway. I never realized exactly how much work your abs are doing during a first pregnancy before they're stretched apart and can't do it again the next pregnancy. Mine are already at least a couple inches apart.

I had a rough week last week where I got a stomach bug that made me feel nauseated for several days. After the nausea was over, I just had a total lack of appetite, and every time I ate anything at all it felt like I was going to explode. I was feeling so crowded and huge. I thought maybe I'd just reached that point in pregnancy already, but, I've fully recovered now and am feeling good again. I'm relieved I don't have 4 months left to go feeling that way!

Max is moving around all the time now and is strong. In the evenings he seems to get the most active, and usually for a few minutes at least I can just sit back and watch the show he puts on. I'm enjoying pregnancy right now. I'm still living the dream between nausea/exhaustion and being so huge it's hard to sleep or eat. With any luck this comfortable time will last another couple of months.

2 Years Old

2011-12-06T13:10:00.003-07:00

Munchies turns two today. This past month she has changed a lot. Her verbal skills have evolved drastically. I've been surprised by how much better I can communicate with her. She's started putting words together now. She says things like, "Help, need waffles" or "Hi (person she's talking to)!". She'll say, "Help, pictures Locke" or "Help, need coloring book. Marker!" It's more work for me, but also really fun to have her be able to ask me for things. She points out "crying baby" if she hears one, or if she cries herself after she calms down, she'll announce, "crying baby". She's also learning words quickly. If it's something she is interested in learning she can learn words just by hearing them once or twice. She learned snowman, santa and deer all the day we got out the Christmas decorations. She's just becoming very talkative in general, always practicing those skills. Beyond what she can say, she seems to understand so much now. One day we were driving and the sun was in her eyes. She was hating it, so I handed back her hat and told her to put it on. She put it right on and was happy again. She's familiar with what most things are in the house, so she pretty well understands when I suggest something.

She's very observant, and copies everything, words and actions. Here she is using the booger sucker on herself and her daddy.

And carefully listening for her baby brother's heartbeat.

She learned her colors this past month. She knows about 10 of the most basic colors, so now we're working on the ones that aren't as obvious. She can fairly reliably count to 10, and she seems to understand if there is just one of something to only count to one. She's not too sure about how to count more objects than one yet. She knows all of her capital letters now. Next, I'll start working on the lower case letters with her. Also new this month is drawing circles. She loves coloring and asks me to get her markers all the time.

This month instead of just being able to lay her down when she's still awake without her crying for naps and bedtime, she actually asks to get in her crib. She'll go through, "Crib, sleep, bed" until we oblige. Sometimes we won't even get started rocking her before she starts asking for bed. It's a huge change from just a few months ago when getting her to sleep was a bare minimum half an hour routine. It's nice to have the extra time, but I also miss cuddling and rocking sometimes. She likes to sit in my lap for stories, but she gets up a lot to get a different story, so we're not quite to the point yet where we can cuddle for long while reading.

She's gotten more attached to the people she knows recently. She loves her grandparents and Laura the most. Here she is cuddling with Brama after waking up for a nap and discovering that Brama had arrived for a visit.

This has been a really fun past month. I've been wondering how well she's going to understand what's going on when I have Max, and before this month, I was thinking not very well. Now, because I've seen her learn so much about communicating so quickly, I'm thinking she might really be able to talk about Max with me. That would help me a lot to make sure she's getting what she needs, which is something I worry about.

Melting Hearts

2011-12-02T08:19:00.013-07:00

Munchies has learned how to melt hearts. Since this video was taken she has learned to direct the I love you to the person she's talking to. Right after she says it she goes, "Awwwww". Just this morning she said, "I love Mama," then right along with me she said, "Awww, how sweet!" Apparently mama is predictable.

Dr. Seuss Projects

2011-11-30T20:58:00.001-07:00

I've gotten all of the material I ordered to make Max's room a Dr. Seuss theme. I've made two blankets so far, and I've almost finished one curtain. Next on my list is going thrift store shopping for picture frames and covering them with Dr. Seuss material. I also want to make a diaper stacker, crib skirt, and carseat cover. If I have any material (or motivation) left after those things are done I have some other ideas too.

Kins modeled for the pictures of her little bro's blankets.

ABC Song Duet

2011-11-27T20:57:00.000-07:00

I think I see a daddy daughter band forming in the future. She loves singing and music. She often requests that the radio be turned on, and she can recognizably sing maybe 10 songs. She sings just the first couple lines of each, but at least a few words per line. I can tell what she's singing anyway, although maybe not everyone could. She wakes up singing, goes to bed singing, and she bursts into song multiple times per day. The songs she sings most are Twinkle Twinkle, ABCs, this song, Elmo's song, The light song from Tangled, Wheels on the Bus, The Rhino Song, and I Won't Stay Inside (Sesame Street). Singing to her is one of the best ways to calm her down if we're driving and I can't actually hold her. Tim has a pretty good ear for music, he remembers lyrics really well, and can pick out songs on the guitar fairly easily. I, on the other hand, can barely even sing a song Tim and I both know perfectly well and have Tim recognize it. I can never remember the words, and my tune is always terribly wrong. In my head it sounds just right, but I can't make it come out that way. Luckliy, I think Kins is taking after Tim musically.

Playhouse

2011-11-19T10:07:00.000-07:00

Tim built Munchies a playhouse. It's an early birthday present. She loved her cardboard box, so I suggested that he build her a playhouse so we wouldn't have to keep a cardboard box in the living room for the next 5 years. He was excited about the idea. We both figured out how we wanted to decorate it, and I did a lot of the fabric picking and wrapping up the interior panels of wood with the fabrics. It was a lot more work than we anticipated, as these projects always seem to be. The good news is, she's built sturdy. Maybe it'll even end up getting used by Kin's kids one day.

I love the heart window, but unfortunately until we move and have a bigger living room, it's blocked off by furniture. Maybe once day it'll actually be accessible.

Locke!

2011-11-16T09:26:00.000-07:00

After watching a few videos of Locke yesterday, Kins only wants to watch videos of him. Nothing else will do. Usually, while she eats I'll put on her youtube playlist of various kid songs. Now, when I put those on, she grabs my hand and demands to watch Locke.

19 Weeks

2011-11-13T19:05:00.000-07:00

It's crazy how much faster my belly is getting big this time. I've got strangers mentioning I'm pregnant, which never happened until around 26 weeks with Kins. I'm not wearing maternity pants yet, but the rubber band trick on regular pants probably won't last a whole lot longer. I feel Max moving probably ten times a day now. Tim hasn't felt him yet, but there have been a few times that he would have been able to if he'd been feeling at the right time. Little guy is getting strong already.

Max is supposed to weigh around half a pound right now. I, on the other hand, have gained 10 pounds. My midwife said that puts me on track for a 25-30 pound weight gain, but with Kins I had gained a few pounds less at this time, and still ended up with a 30 pound weight gain. I'm a little frightened to gain more than with her, because it didn't seem necessary since I had to lose 15 pounds of fat after. You're only supposed to really need to gain around 5 pounds of fat. I've instigated a 3 part plan to keep fat gain more under control this time. Part 1: I'm back to working out just about daily now, so that should help. It's felt good to get back into it, getting out of the routine I forgot how nice that extra energy feels after a workout. Part 2: I'm making an effort to not eat dessert too often. Most importantly, I've been making sure there's no dessert in the house most of the time. I don't have any self control when it comes to eating huge amounts of dessert. Part 3: I'm trying to eat semi-healthy. Like, not a huge amount of pizza, mac n cheese, or sugary cereals. Seems like a plan that will work okay. And it should be healthier for Max too.

After finding out Max is a boy, I started looking around at nursery ideas. I fell in love with a Dr. Seuss theme right away. But, all of the Dr. Seuss nursery stuff is really expensive. So, I ordered the material I wanted, and I'm going to attempt to sew the things myself that I think should be fairly easy. A few blankets, curtains, a carseat cover for the carseat he'll use which is pink, and if I have extra material and time I'll work on a hamper cover and maybe covering some picture frames. There are lots of cute ideas out there for projects to accent the nursery. His room is already painted tan/brown, so nothing much needs to be done with that.

I've started to get attached to the name Max. We had decided we weren't going to use it, because Max Johnson just seems like it will make people giggle. If I keep calling him Max for another 5 months though, I'm not sure I'll be able to call him anything else after he's born. It's true that the name is a compliment if anything, but is it bad that it might make people giggle?

23 Months

2011-11-07T18:13:00.001-07:00

After her incident refusing to nap and my finally resorting to letting her cry in order to get her some sleep, Munchies likes her crib a lot more than she ever has. Instead of rocking her to sleep and laying her down totally out, we can now lay her down awake and she won't cry. She always sits up after being laid down so that she can arrange her blankie just so, and then she'll lay her head down on it and drift off.

She loves singing, and knows the tunes of maybe 5-10 songs as well as a smattering of words throughout each song. She knows every letter except for N in the alphabet. Z, N, and M were all tough for her after learning W. She was confused by how similar they all are I guess. She can identify the numbers 1-10 and often will count to ten correctly, although she doesn't quite get the concept of counting objects. She can identify star, moon (crescent), square, triangle, heart, and circle shapes. She often grabs my hand when she's drawing and puts it over hers saying, "heart". She wants me to help her draw a heart. It seems to be her favorite shape, but she gets a kick out of having me draw any of the shapes/letters/numbers she knows using her hand. She especially loves when I draw something on her hand. She is obsessed with coloring. Markers are the tool of choice, these are better than crayons, because they have lids you can put on and than take off again when you turn each page. I have notebooks for her and she loves flipping through coloring some on each page. I think it keeps her occupied better than anything else. She likes to notice what she's scribbled too, if it looks like a letter or shape, and announce it.

She's really starting to get that she can communicate with me. She'll grab my hand saying, "hep!" (help) and lead me over to solve problems for her. Usually, it's to open a door, get a tight lid off a marker, or get down from a high place. Today, Bears had a cup of cheerios that was hers. She looked at it, and at first she looked frustrated, and I thought she was going to start complaining. Instead, she looked up at me, grabbed my hand, and said, "hep!", pulling my hand over to the cup.

She calls Tim by several names. Tim, Timmy, and Dada. She'll run into his office yelling, "Timmy!" She calls to us across the house if she hears us. I'm just mama, no fancy names. Guess Tim is more consistent than me about calling me one thing. She also learned Laura's name this month. She is obsessed with Laura. Whenever Laura comes over, Kins is always hugging her legs, wanting to be picked up. She then just sits in Laura's arms for extended periods of time, totally content. Today she heard Laura calling downstairs when Laura got here, and when I told her who it was, she goes, "Yaya!" She then began screaming in excitement. After Laura and Bears left, she ate lunch. When she went back into the living room, she looked around, and yelled, "Yaya?" I heard her identify Locke today too, but she pretty much says his name correctly, so no fun nicknames there. They had fun both riding on pony friend. Also, playing in Kin's new playhouse, which I need to post pictures of. Here's a sneak peek.

And here are her and Bears enjoying a stroll.

It's fun starting to really be able to communicate with her and taking her on adventures. Usually, it's just the library, a walk, the park, or a playdate. But, I try to bring her new places too, like Wheeler Farm and Gardener Village this past month. She's still just as sweet as when the day she was born. She showers me with at least 10 hugs every day, the occasional kiss, and she lights up when she sees her daddy come up from work. Here they are snuggling in the morning. I usually go get her and we all hang out in bed for a few minutes while she is extra sleepy and snuggly. Then she decides she's ready to rumble and we get going with the day.

Mr. Stork

2011-11-04T14:50:00.000-06:00

I had my 18 week ultrasound today, and it looks like Mr. Stork has a boy delivery in mind. We decided that after shamefully calling this poor little boy Shanaenae for the past few months, we now need to change his name to something masculine enough to make up for it. We've decided on Maximus, Maximus Johnson that is. I actually really like the name Max, but it just doesn't jibe with our last time... or it jibes a little too well. Either way, we won't be considering Maximus for his name when he's born.

Maximus looked healthy and perfect. He has been wiggling around like crazy lately, and it was fun to get to see some of it on screen. Last night Tim was trying to hear his heart with the stethoscope and he was able to see my stomach moving as Maximus wiggled around, it was fun times. We can't hear his heartbeat quite yet, but should be able to soon.

Here are our first videos of Maximus:

Halloween

2011-11-03T08:57:00.000-06:00

I wanted to take Kins to the truck or treat in my neighborhood, but foolishly didn't realize it had happened the Wednesday before Halloween. We drove around to see if we could find another one Halloween night, and we did, but by the time we got back from buying candy so we could participate, it was over. So, we decided to trick or treat like old times. Kins had fun carefully selecting a piece of candy and putting it in her pumpkin at each house. We couldn't convince her to say trick or treat, but that's not too surprising since she won't even say hi to strangers up close. We had a great night, the weather decided to be kind, it must have been at least 60 out. It was nice just wandering around looking at people's decorations and pumpkin carving feats. One couple put up a tarp to make a mini haunted house in front of their door complete with fog. The husband was laying bloodied on the ground in a pile of leaves, ready to scare any older kids, while the wife handed out king sized candy bars. Other people sat out on their porches to hand out candy, because it was so nice outside.

I forgot to take a picture, so this old one is the best I can do. The hood had little antennas on it and the outfit came with black pants. I decided not to get more elaborate than that this year, since she doesn't really understand costumes yet. She was very cute carrying around her pumpkin, but I'll just have to remember without pictures.

The only bad (sort of...) part is we ended up with lots of candy, since we didn't get to take what we bought to the trunk or treat, and since people insisted on being very generous with Kins. I already weigh 115, which is what I weighed 3 weeks from now when I was pregnant with Kins. I'm trying to cut back a little on the gain, since it would be nice not to have to work as hard as I had to last time to lose the weight after this little one's arrival. Since I don't possess willpower when it comes to candy/dessert consumption*, I had Tim hide all the candy from me, and I am only allowed to select 5 pieces to eat each day. It's working out nicely so far.

* My yummy spot seems to have expanded back to it's regular size since around pregnancy week 14 or so, before which it temporarily shrunk down to normal person size.

17 Weeks

2011-10-29T09:49:00.000-06:00

This is a fun time in my pregnancy, I'm not nauseous, I'm not huge, and this week I started to feel the baby move. A few weeks sooner than when I felt Kins. Actually being able to feel the baby makes me feel a connection to this little one that's harder to feel when I'm just imagining that there is a baby in there. Instead of often totally forgetting I'm pregnant at all, I get cute little reminders a few times a day that there's a wee baby in there, doing his/her water aerobics. This week I also had the first person mention me being pregnant who didn't already know. And next Friday I have an ultrasound, where we will be able to get a good look at this little and and hopefully find out the gender.

Pictures

2011-10-24T14:07:00.000-06:00

There's a rail along the side of our bed, and she loves to climb down onto it so she's in a little nest between the wall and the bed.

Sitting on Daddy to read a story.

Fashion savvy.

We went to a hay maze over the weekend. She liked to stack handfuls of hay from the ground onto hay bales. She would have stayed in one place doing that for a long time. She didn't get why everyone else wanted to leave.

Happy about wearing mama's hat and glasses.

Cuddling up, saying, "night night".

After watching daddy repair her train she was very interested in learning the skill.

First Trimester

2011-10-19T19:26:00.000-06:00

This time around has been different than with Kins. I got morning sickness sooner, at around 5 weeks, and it hit me harder. I never actually threw up, but my tastes have drastically changed and I've had a harder time eating very much. It's the weirdest thing to NOT want chocolate chip cookies all the time. I usually make them once a week or so and never tire of them. I'm 16 weeks now, and the morning sickness is gone, but the dessert cravings have not returned. Wouldn't that be neat if they never did?

With Kins I kept jogging until my side pain stopped me, this time I was too sick in the morning to eat a meal and get jogging before the sun got cooking. And the few times I managed the morning sickness was twice as bad when I got done. My body just decided to rebel against jogging this time. Now I'm getting the good old side pain again, and my belly is getting big already too. I think jogging is on pause until April.

I had the usual 1st trimester exhaustion this time, just like with Kins I think. With Kins I was working, so I would just go to bed at 9 every night. This time, I stayed up with Tim (you know, till like 10:30, whew!) but as a result I needed a nap when Kins took her nap. Now I'm skipping most of the napping, and it feels so nice to use the time for me or to do something productive.

The other thing that's different this time around is my size. Here's my 16 week picture this pregnancy.

For comparison, here's my 22 week picture with Kins. I think it looks pretty similar to the current 16 week pic.

22 Months

2011-10-06T12:16:00.001-06:00

She can sing the tune of the entire alphabet song and many of the letters in the song right. It's her favorite song, and she sings it to herself often. She understands a lot of what I tell her now. She knows where to go and what to do when I suggest taking a bath, brushing her teeth, putting things away, going to get certain things, getting down from inappropriate places, going outside, going in the bathroom, changing her diaper, playing with certain types of toys, ect. She says a lot more words now, and copies words constantly when I say them even if she's not actually using them herself yet. She asks for help and seems to really enjoy the attention of getting help. She goes, "hep!" when she wants to get down from someplace high, where she's probably not supposed to be in the first place... but at least she asks for hep rather than falling down, right? It's very cute. And now for some pictures!

She's obsessed with buckling things these days.

Still loves riding in her carrier.

Playing in the dirt is a big favorite. Digging in it with a stick makes for an extra thrill. This dirt area is at the edge of our yard, and if she has her way, we rarely get past our property line on "walks".

She loves climbing into her stroller. She doesn't even mind if she doesn't get taken anywhere, it's just super cozy in there I guess.

A Halloween warm up suit I couldn't resist buying.

Story time at the library with Bears. They loved sitting in the chairs like adults instead of sitting on the floor in front of the story teller like the other kids.

Climbing up on top of the back of the couch and into the window is entertaining for an indefinite period of time. I always get bored of having to sit there behind her to make sure she doesn't have a fall before she gets bored, and I sit there with a book reading for quite awhile sometimes.

Hanging with Bears is a favorite past time. She gets so excited when he and Laura come over that she doesn't know what to do with herself and just runs around the house screaming. The last time he was over she got very into feeding him and giving him water from his straw cup. She was very nurturing. She also watches him play with toys, then helps show him how it's done. That or sometimes steals them...

Her box is still sitting in the living room. Probably will be there for months... if not longer.

Driving Bears around at the mall.

She went through a period of refusing to nap this month. Here she is all passed out in her carseat from the exhaustion of not napping properly.

And here's how she was looking for several days without napping at all. After all else failed, I finally resorted to letting her cry it out. She cried for 1.5 hours the first day, it was terrible. But, 4 days into it she was only crying for 6 minutes, and now less than 1 minute, if at all. And she's her full of energy and happy self the rest of the day now.

Inspecting tires is her specialty.

She loves bath time. When I suggest it she runs to the bathroom screaming, "tub!!"

Tunnels are her favorite part of the park.

Observing tennis.

No Rabbits Were Harmed

2011-10-03T11:24:00.001-06:00

In the discovery of this pregnancy. Did you know that back in the day they would inject rabbits with the urine of women who thought they were pregnant, then dissect the rabbit to see if its ovaries reacted to the pregnancy hormone to confirm pregnancy? Interesting I guess, but sad. And sort of a morbid way to announce my pregnancy come to think of it. But, even more morbid to actually find out about it that way. Maybe we need a new paragraph.

Yep, I'm finally pregnant again. Like last time, it wasn't as simple as I'd imagined. This time the staying pregnant part was more of a challenge than the getting pregnant part, but, that was also tricky until I weaned Kins. Turns out nursing, even only 2x a day, cuts my luteal phase (that time between ovulation and a period) down to about 8 days consistently. Not enough time for most little eggs to make a long journey and set up house. Weaning did the trick though, and I was pregnant again on the next cycle.

I had an ultrasound to check a few markers of health and some bloodwork, and all signs point to a healthy baby. We had so many ideas for what to name this little one, a couple being Friggleheimer and Champagne, but When Tim suggested Shanaenae I knew it was the right choice. It sounds a bit feminine, but as Tooter pointed out, if it's a boy we can just call him He-naenae. Can't get more masculine than that, now can you? We never gave Kins a pre-name name, but I'm enjoying it this time. Shanaenae hates spearmint gum for example. And Shanaenae doesn't enjoy lots of cookies or dessert. Having a name lends itself to easy explanations I find.

Without further ado, I present to you, Shanaenae:

Kins and her Grandparents

2011-09-21T21:01:00.000-06:00

Hm, look what I just found! Old pictures that I meant to publish in a post a couple of months ago. Better late than never..

Pictures

2011-09-20T13:46:00.024-06:00

We got a really cool box. Perfect for climbing into and having plenty of space to drag all kinds of things in too, including daddy on this occasion.

She chillin'.

Climbing up on this chest and smearing baby handprints all over the mirror=the best time ever.

Hanging with Bears at the park.

More fun with the box.

Saw this hat for sale at the fair, couldn't turn it down.

Her latest wound. Simply walking toward a stair she lost control and landed on the edge of it on her chin. She bit her tongue badly, you could see about 5 different teeth marks on it. That's blood on her shirt. It's all scabbed over now and she doesn't seem bothered by her terribly bitten tongue.

Another box, this time getting pulled around by Daddy.

After having smeared hamburger helper liberally throughout her hair, which, by the way, is starting to grow out with cute little flips of hair all over the place.

Box Rides

2011-09-19T13:43:00.000-06:00

Daddy thought to give her a ride in a diaper box recently. It was a big hit.

She had fun giving her stuffed animal box rides later.

Bear Hair

2011-09-18T13:41:00.000-06:00

Kins was fascinated by this Bear hair that she found the other day.

vid

Cousins

2011-09-17T13:40:00.000-06:00

Having fun with her cousins in Minnesota. That hotel hallway was a blast.

ABCs

2011-09-16T13:34:00.002-06:00

Kins is interested in learning her ABCs and she also really enjoys the song. In this video near the beginning you can hear her sing, "HIJK..mumble, mumble, mumble." It's very impressive. She shouts it a little later. And near the end of video she clearly sings, "Now I know my ABCs." There's also a dance score at the beginning if the rest of this description didn't motivate you properly to watch.

Minnesota

2011-09-10T17:26:00.000-06:00

We took a trip to Minneapolis to see my brother Eric get married. It was one packed trip, but really fun too. We saw our friends April and Julian as much as we could in between wedding related events, so we didn't leave ourselves much spare time. Kins missed her nap entirely on more than one day, which hardly ever happens at home. She isn't used to napping in her stroller and on the go, so I couldn't always get her to. I was impressed with how well she held up. Traveling with a kid is definitely tricky at times, and my brother and sister in law were traveling with 4. Needless to say, we were late to more than one event. Luckily, my new sister in law wasn't sweating it in the least. The day of the wedding we showed up for pictures late. We had been running late already, and then when we were getting in the car I realized I forgot Kins carseat in the hotel room, which was like a mile away from the parking garage. Anita was the picture of calm when we arrived, not annoyed even a bit, and with her wedding just a couple hours away. Impressive.

Tim dressed in his tux playing with Kins before the wedding.

The wedding was beautiful, and the reception was a blast. We got Kins to sleep in a special area they had for sleeping babies with a nanny. Meanwhile, we hit the dance floor. It was so much fun, we haven't been dancing in forever. That dance floor was happening too. There wasn't a single person slacking, everyone was hitting it with their top moves.

All dressed up, quite a rarity.

The groomsmen. I like that hottie second from the left.

My other brother and his family.

With Kins in her heart dress that grandpa and grandma picked out, since I forgot to pack her a dress at all.

We had a great trip. It was fun to get to see April's house for the first time and realize that she's practically an interior designer. Or maybe it's Julian, anyway, one or both of those two has some serious taste.

21 Months

2011-09-09T10:55:00.000-06:00

She loves the park. We try to take her most nights.

Grandma and Paw Paw came with us when they were in town before we all left for Minneapolis. It was good times. Some kids wanted to pet Sadie and Howard and she got jealous. She went over and tried to shoo them away. She's always screaming, "Sayyydddeeee, Howwwwww!" whenever she sees dogs or hears barking. She loves those puppies.

With all her cousins who she got to meet for the first time this month. She loved playing with them.

With her daddy at Eric's wedding. She just pointed to this picture and said, "Dada!" as I was writing this. She got to spend all her time with Dada while we were away. He's been busy with work a lot recently, so it was a good chance for them to get closer.

This month she learned to climb up on chairs and many other things. She learned to climb from those up onto higher surfaces. Basically, she learned how to make mama watch her like a hawk all the time!

Pictures

2011-09-08T10:51:00.000-06:00

Flowers from Tim for our 5 year anniversary. He's not normally one to buy flowers, so they were a nice surprise.

With her cousins.

Crayons belong in ears, right?

She loves sitting in the laundry basket with stuffed animals and reading.

She still sits on her bear chair regularly too.

She's starting to look big on pony friend.

At the hotel pool with daddy. She got cold fast, but seemed to enjoy it.

Sitting in adult chairs is big time fun now that she can climb up on her own. Standing is even better.

Her cousin Stella showed her how a tea party is thrown. She's helping out.

Minneapolis

2011-09-05T20:06:00.002-06:00

We just got home from Minneapolis where I got to see my brother get married. This is Kins getting a ride at 11 pm to the convenience store on paw paws shoulders. She got to see her first pimp there when we arrived.

Mamas are Terrible Hiders

2011-08-29T10:00:00.000-06:00

The other night Kins woke up at midnight screaming. Not just a little whimper, but tears rolling down her face. Usually, if she wakes up in the night and stands up she lays back down within a minute and goes back to sleep without much crying at all. Tim went to check on her and she kept crying and screaming, "Mama!" over and over. As soon as he brought her to me she gave me a big hug and calmed down immediately. It was adorable. Not long after she wanted to go see Daddy again to go to sleep.

After he had her asleep I remembered I had left her vent uncovered. I've got this system to keep her room a good temperature, which involved covering her vent with a book overnight, because it gets too cold otherwise, even with the vent totally closed off. I didn't want her to get too cold, so I crept into her room like a panther, which is to say, on my hands and knees. Halfway to the vent I was met with catastrophe, my arm popped loudly, waking Kins up from her fragile sleep. I quickly lept behind the ottoman of her glider, meaning, I crouched down because that's where I already was. I was certain I was hidden completely. In hindsight, I think I was so certain because I didn't have my contacts in and could barely see a thing. Kins, on the other hand, has laser vision, and with the nightlight in her bedroom apparently had no problem IDing me. She stood up and said, "Mama!" several times. Then, more hesitantly, she said, "turtle". Shortly after she decided it wasn't worth the bother and went back to sleep. This whole time I was sure I was hidden like a ninja, and she was just calling my name hoping I'd come in out of my bedroom.

After I made my way back to the bedroom, I found Tim laughing. He said he had been on his phone, but once he heard all the action he quickly realized the monitor was far more entertaining to watch. He said I was in clear view, and that she was actually pointing at me while identifying me. It was pretty funny. Here's a picture of my stealthy hiding place, taken the next morning from her point of view.

Pictures

2011-08-17T21:23:00.001-06:00

In an egg at the zoo with Bears.

I'm awake, come get me!

Sleepy eyes after dinner.

Bath time! She learned to say tub tonight.

She loves to climb up on your back and say, "yee haw!" Bad picture, but I don't have any others of her doing this yet.

Names

2011-08-15T12:48:00.001-06:00

Kins is getting some names down. She learned my dad is Paw Paw, Dada she's known for awhile, and for about the past month she's finally been saying Mama. She's making up for taking so long to start saying my name with extra enthusiasm now that she's saying it. If I leave the room for 5 seconds, she'll point at me when I come back and proudly announce, "Mama!" Then, yesterday, she learned her own name. I pointed at Tim and I saying "Dada and Mama", then pointed at her and said her name. I could actually see the lightbulb click on in her head. She then excitedly pointed at herself and said her name. She said it perfectly too, although with repetition it's become less perfect. It seems like a tough concept to get a handle on your self awareness and learn your own name. I was proud.

20 Months

2011-08-08T15:52:00.000-06:00

She likes this bear. I have another picture of her feeding him cheese that I can't find. She kept shoving it forcefully against his face, thinking if she just did it firmly enough maybe he would eat it.

This dog hopped into my car when we were about to head over to the park to meet Tooter and Bears. I found the owner by placing a KSL ad within a few hours. Kins enjoyed hanging with the dog while we had her. She is slowly getting better around animals. I try to get her to give hugs instead of fur yanking, and she happily complies.

This month Kins went through a little patch of what seemed kind of like sibling rivalry with Bears. If he played with any of her stuff she would get very upset and go try to take it from him. He wasn't even allowed to so much as touch her pony friend, and if he dared, she would go yank his hand off. She also decided it was fun to grab his hand and clench it painfully. Poor Bears. Finally, I convinced her it was more fun to give Bears hugs than be naughty. Lately, she's been a lot better. I'm hoping she's over it.

Kins is a firm believer that patty cake should only be played with your feet. She never plays with her own hands. Sometimes with other peoples hands, but quite often with her feet.

A little hike up to Lake Mary. Kins loves to get out and hike around on her own a little on each hike. If it's steep or rocky and she's on her own she will look back and hold out her hand for help, it's very cute. We caught all the wildflowers in bloom and the lake was filled to the brim for maximum aesthetic appeal. Bugs were out for maximum post hike itchiness. Did you know that hemorrhoid cream works the best on bites? Just a little tidbit a pharmacist once shared with me that I've found to be true.

Watching the dogs play. She loves her puppies. Every morning when she sees them she starts screaming and breathing excitedly.

She's still learning words quickly. I read that by age 2 they can learn up to 5 new words a day! So, I guess I'm going to see her start learning even faster soon.

Eating is still by far the most challenging part of being her mama. She just doesn't like to do it, weather it's ice cream or pears, she eats it with the same disdain. I imagine one day soon she will realize that some foods actually do taste good. I still distract her with my phone or let her watch netflix on my laptop so that I can feed her.

She is pretty easy in most other ways. She seems to nearly always be happy, and she is good at playing on her own. Her book tastes are maturing...

Ok, not that fast. She's not into detective novels quite yet. She did think it was pretty funny she was reading Mama's book though.

She tries to help out when she can. This morning she put away groceries for quite some time. She put coffee, chips, and about 20 jars of food all into the pantry. She had to do some rearranging to get things to fit, she pulled a few things out that were in the way. She was very pleased with her work.

Lake Mary

2011-08-07T18:26:00.001-06:00

Daniel's Pass with Papa and Grandma

2011-08-01T09:48:00.000-06:00

My dad has recently become Papa. We thought Kins called him that on the phone recently, but she has now made it totally clear that she knows his name. Or her name for him anyway. I was skype calling with my mom, and when he walked by in the background she screamed, "Papa!!!" It was very cute. Now we're waiting to see what she will call grandma.

Bonding with Papa.

Thrilled to be out of the carrier and cruising around on her own.

She liked holding Grandma's hand.

Can you spot the perty Kins flower?

I notice I seem to have a substantial spare tire here. I hope it's mostly my shirt, but I can't be certain.

Pictures

2011-07-31T22:02:00.002-06:00

Bear hugs

Sitting on her mama chair

This pair of mystery shoes arrived in the mail awhile back. Turned out they were from Tooter. Such a cute present, and what a spoiled Kins. Now she just needs to grow into them.

I've been putting a book in bed with her. That way if she wakes up, she usually finds her book pretty quickly and reads for a bit before falling back asleep instead of being upset. It's working out nicely. Sometimes she falls asleep clutching a book.

The aftermath of the Bear hug. He was equally pleased.

I didn't set this up.

Busy

2011-07-30T22:02:00.000-06:00

I always get less motivated to blog the longer I go without. Maybe it's the pressure to catch up, things are all building up and it's impossible. My friend April was in town for a bit, which kept us on the move and before and since Tim has been working like a madman. He had two employees go to jail at the start of a couple of jobs, and neither employee is out yet. Not a great start. The job is supposed to be over at the beginning of next week, and the word on the street is he's going to get to be around a little bit after that. It makes life very busy when he doesn't help watch Kins a little in the evenings and put her to bed. Those single moms out there without support around to help are incredible.

We're having a great summer even if it is busy. In the mornings we try to either go jogging or else we meet up with Tooter for a hike. If we aren't hiking there's either playtime or story hour at the library a couple times a week, so we hit that. I also got invited to join a playgroup once a week, and that is a lot of fun. If we're home we spend mornings on the deck, with me trying to make sure Kins doesn't get herself scratched by Zeus, who no matter how many times I take off the deck, comes right back up to be grabbed, poked, and sat on. After lunch she naps for a couple of hours, and by the time we play around for a bit and I feed her again it's getting to be time to go to the park. She loves going to the park. I suggest getting in her stroller and she runs right over. When we get back it's time to get ready for bed. That's about all we do, but after adding in eating 4x a day for her, a few for me, a nap, and the usual to do list, it's all there's usually time for.

Zeus the Pony

2011-07-14T09:34:00.000-06:00

Dancing

2011-07-13T15:24:00.000-06:00

She really likes this song. She starts doing a little grooving around 30 seconds in.

Random Pictures

2011-07-12T15:26:00.000-06:00

Near the Draper path. An unusual sight!

Getting some work done.

Hanging on the deck.

Contentedly pushing the stroller with Daddy.

She's the spitting image of Tim, but in this picture at least, it would appear she may have gotten my eye color.

We love chillin' in the grass after a run.

Park time.

Hello?

2011-07-11T15:22:00.002-06:00

She's into pretending to talk on the phone. She uses anything as a stand in for a phone. Here she is using her usual non-phone like stand ins.

Vocabulary

2011-07-10T13:41:00.002-06:00

I've been wondering how many words Kins knows and decided just to type them all out. I know I'm missing a few, and I'm not counting the ones that she knows, and points out when asked, but doesn't say. She also knows half of the alphabet. She's up to around 70 words, and she seems to have hit an age where she's able to learn much faster. She knows a couple of songs too, just a few words for each that she'll sing pretty often. Here's her vocabulary list, a little boring for most I'm sure, but since I use my blog as her baby book it must be included.

Dog (she also woofs)
Howard - How
Sadie - Dee
Cat - Ta, or, more often she will just start making a terrible yowling/hacking sound in imitation of hairball hacking.
Moo (for cow)
Bear - Bo
Fishie
Baaa (for sheep)
Oink oink (for pig, it sounds like if you keep your mouth closed and say oink oink)
Neigh (for horse, her neighs are always very drawn out an enthusiastic)
Bird - Bee
Butterfly - Fluhbye (also for flower)
Bzzzzz (for fly)
Quack quack (for duck)
Turtle
Elephant - Eeeeeee
Yi-yon (for lion)
Who-who (for owl)
Do Ka Doo Ka Doo - Rooster or Chicken

Water - wawa
Food - Foo
Toothbrush - do dah

No
Thank You - Tay too
Hi
Bye-Bye
Yucky - Yi-Yi
Dada
Baby
Phone - Pho
Hot - Ha
Ow
Bopee (her made up word for soft petting)
Book*
Day (The Snowy Day, a book)
By (A Fly Went By, a book)
Poopoo (she will usually announce it after she's pooped)
Ticka ticka tock - for clock
Chair

Nose - No
Eye
Mouth - Mow
Teeth - Tee
Ear- Or
Hair - Hay
Forehead - She only said this one a few times, Bo-bed. She points to it when asked though.
Cheek - Chee
Chin*
Neck*
Belly - Bay
Knee*
Toes
Fingers*
Hand - Han
Arm
Nipple -Bip-pull, she's very curious about hers and Tim's.

Tree - Tee
Pinecone
Scwepe - Plane
Rock - Ra
Home
Vroom Vroom (car)
Wheel
Outside (si)
Hat - Ha
Sun
Slide - Sly
De-Dah - sunglasses

Shoe
Sock - Sa

Yawn - yaw
Cry

She's really been coming along on her alphabet too. She knows A, B, C, D, E, H, I, O, Q, R, S, T, U, and V. For H, R, and S she just makes the noise they make instead of saying the letter name.

* These are words she knows. She points to them when asked, but she hasn't said them yet, or at least not regularly.

Hairball

2011-07-09T09:37:00.000-06:00

Kins does her best to imitate hacking up a hairball at about 30 seconds in. Her accuracy is impressive.

The 4th

2011-07-08T20:32:00.000-06:00

I asked my parents to come into town so that Tim and I could resume a tradition we started back before Kins was born, which was to go to the rodeo and watch fireworks after.

The night started out a little bumpy when I had trouble printing the tickets and decided that the tickets would be waiting for us at will call. In hindsight I don't know why I would have thought that, as I had picked the print tickets at home option. Predictably, they were not at will call. The rodeo was just starting when we found that out and got in line. Half an hour of waiting, and the 12 year old ticket girl informed us that she could see we did indeed buy tickets, but, she could not print them so we would have to go home, print them, and come back. Even though we would then miss the whole rodeo. Not to mention the fact that we had waited in line specifically because we could not print them at home. Right then Tim realized perhaps we could pull up the print tickets page on his phone, and have the barcode scanned right off the phone screen. We pulled it up, and the girl doing the scanner goes, "Oh, scanner's broken. Go on in." Ahhhh. A frustrating beginning.

As we sat down someone was just being bucked off a bull, next a couple of chariot racers came out. We thought we had missed the bulls entirely. The night looked up when we found out it was all bull riding, it was a special rodeo because the pro bull riders were there. We felt like we'd seen enough bull riding by the time the rodeo was over. I did miss seeing the bronc riding. I always like that just as much if not more than the bull riding. We did see the kiddos riding sheep, which is always kinda cute. There was also a kid there who did some fancy Michael Jackson moves and then some extra fancy lasso work. That was fun. Overall, I really had fun.

After the rodeo we had a little time to kill before the fireworks. We walked through the fair, which was packed. After seeing the line to the farris wheel was about 400 people long we decided to mosey toward the car so we could get out first after the fireworks. They started going off before we made it to the car, but right when we were passing by a vacant grassy area with a perfect view. It was a nice show. We parked so far away that it didn't matter that we were leaving with the crowd, we didn't end up stuck in traffic anyway.

I had been a little worried about how Grandma was faring with Kins. Kins can be tricky to put to bed. When Tim works a lot she starts refusing to go to bed with him, screaming and hating it unless I come do it. She has to see him around more before she'll want to cuddle up and go to sleep for him. She did fuss some, but Grandma started singing to her about Sadie and Howard (Dee and How) and she calmed down and listened until she got sleepy. She even ate her dinner for Grandma! Quite a success and what an achievement for Grandma. =)

We were pretty wiped out by the time we went to bed around midnight, and fireworks were still being set off at that time. Our neighborhood has gone crazy with them this year, due to some new fancy kind being allowed now. It was funny because the next morning I asked my dad if the fireworks kept him up, and he goes, "Oh, Yes! I was up clear until people finally quit setting them off around 10:30!" Apparently they didn't bother him as much as he thought. After 11 when we were talking to my mom we were all talking about how remarkable it was that Kins hadn't been woken up by the extremely loud and very frequent fireworks.

19 Months

2011-07-07T14:49:00.000-06:00

This has been a fun month because it's been so easy to teach Kins new words lately. She is learning things at turbo speed now. I want to write up a separate post on her vocabulary so I will remember what she was saying at this age, but she's up to around 70 words. She's capable now of learning at least one new word per day and also has been learning a letter a day recently. She knows half of the alphabet now. She sings a few songs to herself. She watches everything carefully and imitates like a pro. When she sees cats, instead of meowing, she copies the sounds she hears them make hacking up hairballs. She loves Zeus, although she's not very good with him and is often pulling out his hair and tugging on his ears. I have to watch like a hawk when they're together.

She likes animals in general. After purchasing a bag of dog food, she kept crawling up on the bag, saying, "Hooowwww!" and giving the dog on the bag a kiss.

She likes to do most things she sees others do. Wear sunglasses and hats, drink from adult glasses, put hair bands on her wrists, organize laundry, ect. I'll say something is tasty, then I hear her say it enthusiastically. If I whisper to her, she whispers back. She loves having you copy her facial expressions or the other way around. I'll look at her to find her eyebrows raised sky high, and she'll laugh when I do it too.

She's not been as into giving kisses as she used to be, she's getting more independent I suppose. Only rarely does she give kisses now. But, she likes sitting in my lap for books. When I suggest she get a book and bring it to me she almost always does.

She got a visit from grandma and grandpa this month. She was a little shy at first, but she had so much fun.

She's been going to the library for story time and play time at least a couple times a week. She's getting a little more social, but she is fairly shy. She loves going to the park each day. We usually go before she needs to get ready for bed, and she remembers most days when the time is approaching, and goes to her stroller. She loves pushing her stroller around, but she prefers to push it from the adult handle, which requires being carried while pushing, she laughs when she gets to do this.

She's liking the park more each day. She says "slide" now and gets excited about going down.

She loves to visit the cement elephant figures and the horses to ride on.

Her favorite part of the park is still finding a piece of garbage. So, there's some more excitement to be had about the park in the future I think.

We tried putting her in a "wading pool" (technically a large tupperware container... shhhh). She liked it ok, but she didn't really see what the big whoop was and got bored shortly.

I've managed, through lots of time and work, to get her weight up into the 1st percentile. She's getting to be easier to feed. She eats around 32 ounces of food over 4 meals per day. She hates milk, but loves water. I ended up weaning her totally this past month. She was only nursing morning and night, but for purposes of hopefully getting pregnant again, I decided to totally wean her.

She despises diaper changes. I assume she thinks they're just a huge waste of time. She gets mad when the dogs or cat try to take her stuff. Which happens a lot when she walks around dragging pieces of ribbon past the cats.

She's taking one nap per day, and the routine is usually very easy if I stick to it. She falls asleep easily at about 1:00 and usually sleeps for about 2 hours. Her bedtime is 8 and she wakes up at about 7.

She's easy and so much fun at this age. Once again, it seems this past month was the best of all.

Family Pictures

2011-07-05T19:49:00.001-06:00

My parents were in town for a couple of days and I asked them to snap some pictures of us. They have a much nicer camera than we do, plus it's a lot easier to have someone else take the pics. I took some pics of them with Munchies that turned out great too, but I'll just use this opportunity to build up suspense for my next post.

We run a lot on the Draper section of the Porter Rockwell trail, and I'd been noticing how perfect the train tracks next to the path would be for pictures. I'm happy with how they turned out.

Giggles

2011-07-01T20:58:00.001-06:00

Kin's Week in Pics

2011-06-30T15:23:00.010-06:00

White Pine Overlook

2011-06-29T15:11:00.000-06:00

We hiked up to the White Pine Overlook recently. The trail the whole way up was wet and/or covered with snow. At this rate we'll be lucky to get in any hiking high up before it snows again! This is an odd year. Here Tim is at the White Pine/Red Pine Junction.

It was actually kind of nice hiking next to the snow, it kept it nice and cool, but made it hard if we had wanted to go up higher.

Dandelion

2011-06-28T14:32:00.000-06:00

Laura and I hiked up Ferguson Canyon and I saw this enormous dandelion. It seemed like the perfect prop for some cute baby pics.

Mornings on the Deck

2011-06-27T15:11:00.000-06:00

Tim got around to making gates for the staircases off our deck. Kins had recently discovered how to open the sliding glass door to get out there, so I was worried about forgetting to lock it and her getting out. He made the gates self closing, so we don't have to worry about forgetting to close them. The deck is shady in the mornings until about 11. Kins is a lot happier out there than inside, hopefully her love for being on the deck won't wear off, because I'm hoping to spend all the mornings we can out there.

Sunset

2011-06-23T14:30:00.000-06:00

I noticed this gorgeous sunset one evening.

Here's a different angle with my retro camera app. It makes the colors quite a bit more vibrant. That's some radio tower my neighbor has, huh?

Daily Pictures

2011-06-21T21:23:00.000-06:00

Sammy requested a daily picture of Kins. It's got me taking a lot more pictures and it's fun. Here are a few.

Her expression in this one cracks me up.

Apparently these are both trains.

Father's day

2011-06-20T17:32:00.000-06:00

This is what Munchies gave her daddy for Father's Day. She's got a daddy who changes diapers, rocks her to sleep every night he can get away from work, loves taking her on walks, notices every new thing she does, and laughs and smiles about every cute moment. She's a lucky girl.

Whirlwind

2011-06-18T20:58:00.000-06:00

It's been hectic recently. Munchies had her 18 month check up, where she caught a stomach bug. I got it a couple days later, and then Tim. Next, about a week after her MMR vaccine, Munchies got a fever. I was fairly sure it was from the vaccine, because they say 1/6 kids get fever 7-10 days after. She seems to just now be down to a regular temperature. Through all of this, Tim has been working long hours, only coming home to sleep, and skipping a night on even that one night. He didn't even miss much work when he went through the stomach bug, he went in at 9 instead of 6 in the morning, but that was about it. The lawn has died*, mama has gotten a bit frazzled, and Munchies started refusing to even let Tim rock her to sleep after he missed so many nights. Finally, he's done with the job he was working on. He's spent some time reconnecting with Munchies and she snuggled up to him like usual tonight. I'm hoping life can resume a lazier pace.

* We have the best neighbor ever. Tim had gotten a chance to set the sprinklers, but when they came on, one ended up forming a geyser into the neighbor's yard. He rushed over to tell me. The next day, he came over and suggested he just cap off the sprinkler that was bad, so we can get some water on the lawn until Tim has a chance to fix it. I told him Tim would be home that night and get some free time after that, so we should be ok. He seemed very troubled by that answer, and again suggested he just run over and get his tools so he could fix it. He obviously wasn't going to feel right about the situation until that bad boy was capped. I said ok, he capped it right away, and then he started telling me how he'll come over and help Tim fix it when Tim's ready. What a perfect neighbor. I made him some chocolate chip cookies and felt gratified to hear his grand kids ate them up all in one afternoon.

To whom it may concern

2011-06-11T08:37:00.000-06:00

Tim received the following email through the contact us link on his website. It's regarding one of his employees:

To whom it may concern,

I am very upset that the shirts your guys wear on the job sites do not have there names on them nor do you require them to wear name badges. I had an encounter with a blonde haired, mohawk wearing, blue eyed gentleman today that was so dreamy I could barely speak. Please do me a favor and take my complaint to heart, or just don't hire such good looking gentlemen.

Sincerely,

Secret Admirer

18 Months

2011-06-07T17:32:00.001-06:00

This past month Kins has gotten a little interested in the park. Instead of being equally excited about the park and the parking lot next to it, she now seems to favor the park. She is fascinated by the slide, although you never know if she will want to go down, or be terrified to go down. She is afraid to swing too. Mostly she likes running around looking at the equipment and kids and she favors the cement animal shapes she can sit on. You'll have to excuse the terrible picture, she had smeared food all over the camera lens, little did I know at the time.

She made her first friend at the park the other day. There aren't always kids her age, but when there are she is very interested in them. This girl wanted to be friends and Munchies loved the idea, but was too shy to do much about it. When the girl approached her, Munchies laughed and was thrilled, but that was about it. She also followed the girl around. In fact, they had such a kinship that they both pooped their pants while they were playing. I noticed a strong smell, but upon checking Kins' diaper, saw that though she had pooped, it was not the source of that particular poop smell. The puzzle pieces all fell into place as I had flashbacks from just moments before of the little girl grabbing her pants and crotchal area in a distressed manner, and her father then becoming embarrassed and telling her to stop grabbing herself.

She's gotten a little more patient with having books read to her. She waits longer before getting bored and flipping pages prematurely. She likes to point to letters and pictures and have them identified. She calls a few books by name. At the moment she's especially into By, Day, and YiYon (A Fly Went By, The Snowy Day, Goodnight Gorilla (and this one needs another parenthesis to explain that she likes the lion in this book more than the gorilla)). She loves most of her books really, but these are the only ones she requests by name. If I ask her to get a book and come sit in my lap to read it she will, it's adorable.

She learned to stand up without having to use furniture or anything this month. She has learned lots of new words including flub-bye for butterfly or flower, rock, tree, bird, hand, ear, hair, and many more.

She's into putting on hats. She just loves to wear them around.

Howie the Pony Dog

2011-06-05T08:50:00.000-06:00

Howard is warming up, I think there's a beautiful friendship brewing. He used to look back with a slightly concerned expression when Kins would crawl on his back, now he just chills.

Elephant

2011-06-04T10:04:00.000-06:00

I've been having fun with the retro camera app on my phone.

Feetsies

2011-06-02T09:03:00.001-06:00

Little feet and shoes are the cutest.

Walks to the Park

2011-05-27T15:52:00.000-06:00

Lately we've been going to the park most nights. It's not too far of a walk from our house.

Munchies still likes to hold hands when walking, especially in places where she doesn't feel totally secure. Although, she goes off on her own readily enough if you're not going the way she wants to go.

She thinks this looks like a clock and goes, "tickatickaticka" when she sees it.

She's gotten into going down the slide. She laughs on the way to the top and gets very gaspy and giggly when we sit down to slide.

Playing peek a boo through the stairs is a good time.

And everybody loves big kisses and hugs from Mommy.

We've been loving our walks to the park, and they're going to be even better when it's not chilly and windy most days!

Story Time, First Fight, and Flirting with Married Men

2011-05-26T09:37:00.000-06:00

Tooter and I took Bears and Kins to library story time. Kins was intimidated by the crowd and mostly sat in my lap or else ventured only as far as she could while still holding my hand. When some balls were handed out she came out of her shell to try to steal them from other babies. Bears wasn't as intimidated and explored bravely most of the time. During one of the songs I looked over and he was on the far side of the room, but staring at the story lady and swaying enthusiastically to the song she was singing.

Kins and Bears had their first fight at story time. She had a book, but she had lost interest and set it down. Bears saw his chance and swooped by, stealing her book. She suddenly realized she couldn't go on without that book. She got up and snatched it back. He began to cry and tried to grab it back. There they were, both crying, one holding each side of the book in a desperate tug-o-war. They later united in an effort to escape the room. All other babies were playing, while Bears and Kins were standing at the glass exit doors, trying to get out to... do nothing. Nothing was outside the doors but an empty hall.

There was some adult action too. I flirted shamelessly with a married man there with his wife and child. When we first arrived I noticed that there was a guy there who I went to high school with. I was staring at him trying to decide if it was him, when he looked up and gave me a big smile. I smiled back, thinking we were going to then discuss how we went to school together. He didn't say anything though, and I chickened out. Instead, I glanced over periodically still not positive if it was him. Then I noticed his wife eying me suspiciously and realized it was all very inappropriate. When I got home I googled him to be sure. I found him alright, but he looked totally different and was certainly not the man from story time.

Dark times

2011-05-19T09:06:00.002-06:00

All the other trees are doing ok with all thr rain, but this one is feeling really blue.

Waterfall

2011-05-18T20:27:00.005-06:00

Ferguson Canyon is looking pretty this time of year. The river is raging and the waterfall is impressive.

Buddies

2011-05-16T20:25:00.000-06:00

Notice her hand casually, yet possessively, resting on his knee. He seems pretty thrilled about it.

I feel like there's a clever interpretation for what's going on here, but it eludes me. I bet Tooter knows though.

You can't tell, but Bears found a plastic book stand, and this picture captures his adventures in examining this never before seen gem. Kins is filled with admiration.

We were supposed to be taking them to story hour at the library, but it turned out I read the schedule wrong and there was no story hour. It was no disappointment to the babies, they ran around the kids section of the library looking at plastic plants, books, other babies, and each other.

Kitty Love

2011-05-10T20:36:00.000-06:00

Surprisingly, Zeus is the only pet who approaches Kins to interact. I've worried about him with her, but he comes right up to her and seems to enjoy her grabbing his hair and ears and yanking on them.

Mother's Day

2011-05-09T20:44:00.000-06:00

For Mother's Day I got to be Munchies' Mama. There are a lot of women who want to be mamas and can't, and I worried I was one of them for awhile. Being a mom is incredible, the best gift possible, cheesy as it may sound.

Tim said he was going to be the mama for the day, feeding Kins all of her meals, doing diaper changes, getting her napping, and picking up the house all day. Turns out Kins doesn't eat much or nap well if mama isn't doing the feeding and napping duty. It was a really sweet idea though, and he did what he could.

17 months

2011-05-06T20:17:00.000-06:00

Munchies has learned many new words this month. She's probably saying around 40 now. It only takes her hearing the word a couple of times before I'll hear her using it. She really impresses me. I showed her a banana in a book a couple of times, and later that day she pointed to the real bananas in the kitchen and said, "nana". She has a plastic B and from it she noticed the shape of the letter B and points it out in books. After she poops she goes over to the diapers and reaches for them, even though she hates diaper changes, they're a huge waste of time. She's learned which noises cows, sheep, owls, clocks, chickens, flies and horses make. It's been a whirlwind of learning this month.

For Easter we tried to get her into coloring eggs. We did this:

All she wanted to do was this:

She has gotten enthusiastic about playing patty cake. She will approach me, grab my hands, and start patting them together saying, "pa cay, pa cay". She'll do it with her feet during diaper changes. She brings me books to read to her and climbs up in my lap to hear them. She has a few favorite authors and books now. She likes books where the whole page is full of color with no white space.

She has gotten quite adept at using my phone. I have tried not to let her play with it more than a total of 15 minutes per day, and she's gotten a lot just from that. She can turn it on and then slide the lock bar on the touch screen down. She can choose the button to pull up the apps and then select kid mode, the app she mostly plays with. It's basically just a collection of youtube videos for kids and a few games. She also will make calls. I usually put the phone on airplane mode, but she sees me do it, and knows how to undo it to make calls. Now she's getting to use the phone more than ever before because I discovered that I can shovel quite a lot more food into her if she's spacing off watching videos. She's still in the 0th percentile for weight, and I'm hoping to get her at least up on the curve which starts at 3%. I blame her extreme love for my phone for not getting a whole lot of good pictures this month. I take most of my pictures with my phone, but once she sees it she stops doing what she was doing and just wants the phone. Here's a self portrait she took with the phone though. Very artistic I think.

She finally started walking this month. She waited until she was confident she wouldn't fall much, so she's pretty good at it. She runs around everywhere now.

One random thing I noticed is she's started yawning contagiously. I noticed before that she never did.

Every single month starting with her first I've thought, wow, this month was awesome, I don't see how it could get better. And every month it does. It's been fun teaching her things and watching her soak it all up.

Vegas Wedding Anniversary

2011-05-01T21:19:00.000-06:00

Five years ago we got married in Vegas. We consider when we had our wedding ceremony to be the important anniversary, but we usually do a little something for this one too. We were planning to go play pool and have Laura watch Kins, but I was just getting over a cold and Tim and Kins were just coming down with it. On the actual anniversary day, yesterday, we both forgot until late afternoon. It happened to be a really fun day though. It snowed about 9 inches at our house, so we decided to go for one last sledding trip up Millcreek Canyon. It was lots of fun, and we only sledded over mud and rocks a few times. Kins was having fun too, she was in her carrier on Tim's back, leaning back and trailing her mitten in the snow on the way down. She seemed pretty into it.

We had to do some serious math and investigative work to determine that it was actually our 5th anniversary, we both seem to have a tough time remembering each year. I also need to point out that these pictures remain the only professional pictures we've ever had taken, including of the SLC wedding. Taken by a man recently beaten up by an Elvis impersonator, no less.

Spring

2011-04-25T19:20:00.001-06:00

We got this weeping cherry a few years ago and when I see it bloom I feel like spring is official. Yay!

Funny Kins

2011-04-23T12:06:00.003-06:00

Kins made up her own word, "bop-eeee", and she uses it in funny ways. She uses it as an intro to her song, "Bop-eeeee, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah". She also uses it when she's petting me or an animal. We were reading a book that has a lion in it. She looked at him for a second, and then said, "bop-eee" and petted his mane. It wasn't a touch and feel book or anything. It was funny to watch her realize he was furry and decide to pet him.

Another funny thing she does is grab her hair or her ear and start yanking on it screaming, "Owwww!!" Unfortunately, she does this to other people sometimes too. She'll violently do something and scream, "Ow!" simultaneously. It makes me laugh... but I stifle it and try to discipline her when she does that.

She loves being chased. If she's walking down the hall and notices one of the dogs is behind her, she'll shriek and laugh with delight and take off running. She takes off so fast that if she's not holding my hand she just falls down. It doesn't seem to bother her though, she just squirms around on the floor laughing.

Visiting Grandparents

2011-04-20T09:28:00.000-06:00

Over the weekend we took a quick trip to see my parents. Kins got to see cows, peacocks, chickens and horses. She was very interested in all of them. She was afraid of the horses though and didn't want to touch them very much. I told her when we passed a cow what it was and I couldn't tell if she really got it. Awhile later she all of a sudden wanted to walk over to look at the cows and when she got there she pointed and said, "Maaaa!" That's how she says moo.

Here you can see my parents' beautiful property.

Kins was polite and wanted to share the hay with Grandma.

She also loved exploring my parents' house and playing with grandma and grandpa of course. They got to be involved in her finally learning to walk. She'd been taking a few steps on her own between furniture the last couple of days, but on the trip my dad was able to get her to start walking further and it seemed to really boost her confidence.

We realized how dependent we are on our glider rocking chair to get Kins sleeping. Our routine is to recline it all the way so she's laying down on us and then rock her. There was a non reclining chair at my parent's, but, it didn't do the trick. That and she was really wound up and excited. She pretty much refused to nap and slept all night, but went to bed so much later than usual that she was pretty behind on her sleep. When we got home she napped more than twice as much as usual and she seems all caught up now.

Here she is with Grandpa. He let her play with his phone.

My mom stuffed us with delicious food and we had lots of time to talk. We should be seeing them again as they pass through town to visit my grandparents later this week. Kins is very excited.

Walking

2011-04-19T09:28:00.000-06:00

At 16.5 months Kins is walking fairly regularly. Before she'd only walk between people when prompted, but now she's walking around proudly and on her own. This isn't the best video, because she only walks in the first 10 seconds and then gets hopelessly distracted by the dog food. But, it does show her skillz.

16 Months

2011-04-06T07:14:00.000-06:00

Picture taken by Sammy, she took quite a few great pictures of Kins when she was visiting.

Last month I was positive she'd be walking on her own more often than just when she walks between Tim and I. Nope. She seems to feel like it's simply too risky. She barely holds on to my finger when we walk now, but she gets very upset when I try to get her to let it go. Maybe next month?

Her funniest new word is poo poo. She's a little unsure of the meaning, she says it after farting, when seeing a poopy diaper, and also after pooping. She gets pretty excited about it. She makes a few animal noises, it's really funny when she says "baaaa". She hasn't matched it up with a sheep yet, but she likes to say it.

She got a visit from Sammy this month, they're BFFs.

She can match up shapes in her simple puzzle and shape sorter barn, although she doesn't usually have the dexterity to get the pieces in place. One day I noticed every single puzzle piece sitting on top of it's cutout, none of them actually pushed into place. I thought maybe Tim did it, because we'd been working often on the puzzle, but she hasn't seemed to get it yet. I had her try, and she had just all of a sudden figured it out. She's learned to draw too.

She's gotten even more liberal with kisses this month. She's constantly saying, "MMMMmmm!" for a kiss and leaning it. Her expression is hilarious when she does it, she raises her eyebrows sky high and pushes her mouth toward you. She'll just keep doing it until she gets her kiss. No kiss pictures, but here she is after nap time being extra cuddly.

And one more with Mama. Daddy got left out in this blog I just realized. Sorry Daddy! He's been really busy this past month, and hasn't always had time to see Kins a lot except for a little play time before bed and to put her to bed. He hates to miss putting her to bed. She always lunges for him after she's in her jammies and sleepy.

Puzzle Master

2011-04-01T17:12:00.001-06:00

I was surprised to realize recently that Kins knows where all of her puzzle pieces go. She can't quite get them in place yet, but she knows how it works.

Singing Voice

2011-03-31T20:42:00.002-06:00

She's recently started trying to sing. There's a video that she watches on Tim's phone and the song in it is pretty catchy. Tim and I are always singing it, and we sing it with "yeah, yeah, yeahs" because that's the way she likes to sing it for some reason. She's always singing, "yeah, yeah, yeah, yeeeeaaaahhhh" now. This video doesn't catch that exactly, but there are a few high points. The rest of the video is mostly just being subjected to Elmo's Song, but Kins sings at 10 seconds, 32 seconds, 48, and 53.

Reading Voice

2011-03-29T20:41:00.001-06:00

Kins loves to read still. She's started using a special reading voice. When I hear it, there's no doubt that she's reading. So you know, after about 30 seconds there's nothing new that happens in the video.

Sweet Moments

2011-03-26T18:30:00.000-06:00

Kin's is a really sweet baby. She does one thing in particular that makes me smile. I rock her for a few minutes while she gets sleepy before her naps and bedtime. Ever since she started to get into giving kisses, she especially likes to deliver a few during this ritual. She will lay her head down, then pick it up and go, "Mmmmmm!" while puckering up for a kiss. As soon as I oblige her, she lays her head right back down. Usually she likes to give me at least a few kisses before she falls asleep.

Lashes

2011-03-22T18:27:00.001-06:00

My lashes are pretty average, so I assume Kins can thank Tim for hers.

Picture Series

2011-03-21T18:23:00.000-06:00

I got a new app on my phone to take fancy pictures. I needed to test it out, so I took the following series of pictures of Tim. He hammed it up as usual, with what I found to be hilarious results. One particular picture had us both doubled over laughing. I had tears running down my face.

Here's the money maker I mentioned:

Sammy Visit

2011-03-20T18:23:00.000-06:00

My friend Sammy has been visiting since Wednesday, and it's been a blast. I've been terrible about pictures and need to get some from her to post.

She's hung out here during Kin's nap times most days, but we've made the most of it. One day it was warm enough to sit out on my deck the whole time, since then it's been windy and chilly, but we still have been walking a couple of times and to the zoo. The zoo is my new yearly plan to celebrate spring. I decided because the first day of spring is one of the most exciting days for me, we needed to start a tradition to celebrate it. It's got to include going to the zoo, a picnic, and possibly kite flying. We hit number one this year, but failed on the other two. It was so windy and had started to snow by the time we finished up at the zoo, so none of us felt like sitting in the wind any longer to eat the lunch I'd packed. We went to Caputo's instead, which was excellent as always.

Kin's loves Sammy, it's fun to watch them hanging out. Sammy will be here a few more days, I need to get my act together and take some pictures!

Donating

2011-03-14T08:57:00.001-06:00

Did you know that to donate $10 to The Red Cross, which will go to help people who need it in Japan, all you have to do is text 90999 and it just shows up on your phone bill? After reading the news I was feeling like I had too much.

Soft Hands

2011-03-10T19:53:00.000-07:00

Daddy demonstrated just once how to use hand lotion, and she got really into it. She was entertained for a good half hour just applying lotion.

Date Night

2011-03-09T09:13:00.000-07:00

My parents visited last weekend. Saturday they watched Kins so that we could go out on a date. We went and ate at Goodwood first. It was really tasty. Definitely the best pulled pork sandwich I've had in awhile. We occasionally go out to eat with Kins, but with her along the focus is mostly on keeping her happy and there's not a lot of time to actually enjoy eating your own food. It was nice to just relax, talk, and take as long as we wanted eating. We laughed and had fun. After our meal we had some time to kill before our movie, so we even ordered dessert. A brownie with ice cream topped with ganache. It was perfect and we both felt like we were gonna pop when we were done.
We saw True Grit. It was awesome, no question I give it 5 stars. The whole theater was cracking up often, it's that funny. Then with the whole heartwarming young girl brings out the sweet side of a roughened old man, well, it's a slam dunk.

Kins had walked Grandma and Grandpa many miles by the time we returned. After they left, I started noticing Kins is now enthusiastically saying, "Uh-oh!" She definitely learned it from Grandma, cuz neither of us ever say it. She mostly says it when she's playing with her blocks. I think Grandma must have helped her build towers and knock them over, saying, "Uh-oh!" each time. Grandma, did I get it right?

15 Months

2011-03-07T16:53:00.000-07:00

Social: She initiates giving kisses to us, to the pets, and to her toys. She goes, "Mmmmmmmmm," puckers up, and leans in. She likes to greet everyone, including strangers, with, "Hi."

Physical: She has taken about 5 steps, she's getting very close to really toddling around everywhere on her own. Instead of clinging to both hands when walking around she voluntarily lets one go while walking to carry something around or check stuff out. She can walk quite a distance holding just one hand, a quarter mile or so. If she had it her way we'd be walking through the field by my house during all waking hours. Grandma and Grandpa got to accompany her over the weekend.

Verbal: She's picking up words all the time. My parents pointed out she was saying either thank you or here you go fairly often when handing items to people, I hadn't even realized it. Those first words can be tricky to hear, her version of whichever it is sounds like, "Doe doe". She says belly (bay), dog (da), Howard (How), Sadie (say), dada, hi, bye bye, eye, nose, mouth, no, shoe, and probably a few others I'm not thinking of now. She knows a lot of words she doesn't say yet. If I ask if she wants a cookie she'll point to the cabinet where they are. She can point out her ears, belly and her nose (and mine).

Problem solving: She can now put rings on and take them off of her ring stacker well. She knows how to stack blocks. She tried to put lids back on things. She knows doorknobs open doors and tries to reach for them, but she's still too short and wouldn't be nearly strong enough yet anyway. She understands how her socks work, she opens them up and tries to put her foot inside, although not successfully yet.

Loves: Order, she's into putting things back the way they were lately. She takes things out of the kitchen cabinets and drawers and puts them back.

Take the bib out:

Put it back:

Can't forget to close the drawer up, we like things nice and tidy apparently.

She takes her shoes and socks off, lays them in careful order back on top of her feet. Organizing things is most of what she does when she's playing lately. She also has a serious love for being outside, which is going to work out quite nicely for both of us as soon as the weather warms up a little.

Here she is working on Daddy. C'mon, lets go!

Dislikes: Getting her toenails/fingernails clipped. If it takes more than 1 second to get a shirt over her head she's annoyed. Being thwarted when she wants you to keep walking around with her.

Sleeping/eating: Sleeping 11 hours overnight without waking 99% of the time. Naps are more erratic, she seems to be ready to take just one 2 hour nap per day already. She's finally getting easy to feed. She takes down about 6 ounces of food every 3-4 hours. Maybe she'll actually fatten up a little.

Airplane Trick

2011-03-03T11:48:00.000-07:00

You always see people doing this trick to get babies to eat. It never used to work with Kins, but then Tim started getting really into it and making it extra loud and exaggerated. When she starts slowing down on her eating, we just whip out this trick and she eats quite a lot more. In the video she gets a little distracted by a drip falling off the spoon, so Tim has to circle the plane, but was still met with success. I guess I should have prefaced that by mentioning it was a spoiler alert. Oh, and this video was taken with my new phone. I'm pretty happy with the quality.

Test

2011-03-01T20:15:00.001-07:00

Phone blogging?

2011-03-01T17:01:00.001-07:00

Do I dare? I got a new phone. I loved my old phone, but the new one is capable of much more. I've been downloading apps like crazy. And taking pictures, the camera on this new phone is pretty nice... but this blogger app doesn't let me make it bigger, and makes it tall for some reason. Must find new app.

Tech Saavy

2011-02-26T19:46:00.000-07:00

Another love of hers, using the radio remote. Entertains her for long periods of time, although must watch her closely, otherwise she'll crank the volume and scare herself.

Sleep Kissing

2011-02-24T11:31:00.001-07:00

Last night in the middle of the night I woke up to Tim's nose an inch away from mine. He then gave me a tender kiss. I asked him what that was all about. He goes, "It was the plastic that holds 6 packs of soda together." I requested further clarification. He said, "You know, the plastic around drinks? That you cut so that birds don't get caught in them?" I still didn't get it. Then he said, "You're too tired to understand. The plastic... it..." He began faltering, clearly becoming frustrated with his inability to explain himself. I was finally understanding that he was in fact the one who was too tired to understand. I started laughing and repeating hilarious parts of the conversation, but was quickly reprimanded, "You're waking me up, I need to go back to bed."