First Wagon Ride

Here is Kayla last night taking her first wagon ride! It was a little scary because she tried to stand up a few times but other than that she loved it and it was a lot of fun!

Daddy's Girl

Kayla loves to play around in her Dad's truck; she is a girl after his heart...that is for sure. Here she is today standing up on the seat & holding on to the window...she looks like she is ready to go!

Big Girl Car Seat

Well, it's official: Kayla has graduated into her big girl car seat. It's bitter sweet. When we first put Kayla in her original car seat, she was so tiny in it that I could not even imagine her ever being too big for it. Now that she is almost 10 months old, however, things are much different! Her feet were starting to hang over the bottom and it was a tight squeeze to even get her in there! Jake installed the new big girl car seat today and the picture is of her in it. Much better!

Cute new trick

One of Kayla's favorite books is called Baby Boo. It's just a short little book with a few cute sayings and a picture of a baby on every page. She LOVES to look at the babies in the book, always has since she first saw it. Well lately, we have noticed that when we say to her "Give Mama (or Dada) kisses"...she does! They are open mouth kisses but they are kisses all the same! Just last night, Jake was reading Baby Boo to Kayla and one of the pages says "Kiss Kiss, I love you!". When he said that, Kayla leaned down and gave the baby in the book one of her open mouthed kisses! I was in the other room so I missed it, so he called me into where they were and read the page again and she kissed the baby again! So sweet! The funny thing is that she won't kiss any of the babies on the other pages, only the baby on the page that says Kiss Kiss! How cute is she? :)

The picture is of her this morning, about to leave for a walk with Daddy.

Cutie Pie

Here is cutie pie Kayla Noelle after her nap and getting ready to eat some yum yums with Daddy.

I have noticed Kayla is starting to shy away from the jarred baby food. She is far more interested in what we have on our plates and what we're eating from day to day. This weekend when I was cooking myself lunch, I went ahead and cooked up a small chicken tender for her to eat. I cut it into tiny pieces and added a little water and a little of her squash baby food to it so it would be easier for her to eat. She loved it! I can't wait until she is eating more and more real food so that we can share meals together.

Snack Time

One thing that is great about all the advances in technology is the fact that I can get cell phone pictures and video updates of what Kayla is doing throughout the day. It helps me feel like I am there, or at least in the know of what she is doing throughout her day. This video is of her having a little snack of her Gerber Puffs (they are like Cheerios, but for babies) with her Grandma Gretchen. It's toooo cute!

Nap Time * Sleeping* Crawling & Growing

I came home last night to find Kayla & Jake taking a nap together...too cute!

I also feel the need to announce that last night marked the 2nd night in a row that Kayla went to sleep on her own with no crying!

She is such a big girl; growing so fast! From her laughter to her smile, to her attempts at talking...each & every day with her brings such joy to our lives.

PS: She has also learned how to crawl up the stairs. We're really in trouble now!

Happy Baby

This picture is from last night before we left to go grocery shopping...such a happy baby!

Last night when I laid Kayla to sleep, I was cringing as I left the room, as I was just anticipating her crying. Yet, there was no crying. In shock, I figured she would be crying by the time I got downstairs. I got down there, turned the monitor on, and still...no crying! I was amazed, shocked & over joyed. This baby went to bed wide awake and she fell asleep all on her own without a single tear.

I AM SUCH A PROUD MOMMY!

Successful Sleep Weekend

Good morning everyone, hope you all had a great weekend. Here is a picture of Kayla from this morning, just sitting in the kitchen while I was getting ready to leave for work.

So the first night we did the Ferber Method (Thursday), it took 25 minutes. Friday night took only 10 minutes, Saturday night took only 2 minutes & then Sunday night was a little harder - 39 minutes - but she also had a really rough day. I think she may be teething.

We went to the party for Merry on Saturday and that was so much fun! Merry is such an incredible woman. Kayla was really well behaved at the party so that was good. Sunday was a different story. We tried to go to Tyler's baseball game & Kayla started screaming & crying and it went on for 20+ minutes so we had to leave. She did this the whole way home too. When we got home, I tried everything to make her happy. Bottle, binkie, rocking to sleep, teething toys, and so on. She had a bit of a fever so I gave her some baby Motrin. She carried on for awhile after that and then passed out. She had a really rough time last night with sleeping as well and I am just thinking it has to be teething. We'll keep you all posted on that :)

These are a few of my favorite things...

Here is Kayla on 6/12/09 with her ba ba [AKA her #1 favorite item].

We're all a little happier with a full night of sleep...

Well, we did it! It wasn't easy and it wasn't fun but the reward outweighed anything else. I rocked Kayla like usual after her night time bottle and I just spent a little cuddle time with her. Then when she started shutting her eyes, I carried her upstairs & laid her down in her crib while she was still awake (this is KEY). She sat up right away but I left the room quickly and shut the door. Sure enough the crying started. Instead of running to her like I would normally do, I had to wait a full 5 minutes and then go up there, comfort her, give her the binkie, and then leave the room quickly. The crying started as soon as I left the room, but this time I had to wait a full 10 minutes before returning to comfort her. After the 10 minutes had passed, I went back in and comforted her again and then left. This time I was supposed to wait 15 minutes before returning to her room but she ended up falling asleep - ON HER OWN! - after about 10 minutes. She slept through until 3am, and we woke up to hearing her crying on the baby monitor. Jake got up to go attend to her but I told him not to, and that we had to wait 5 minutes before going to her room. Sure enough, she fell asleep - on her own again! - after about 30 seconds. She then slept in until almost 8 this morning. It will probably take 3-5 more nights of this before we are able to put her down in her crib when she is sleepy and have her fall asleep on her own without crying but that is fine. She needs to learn to self soothe and to put herself to sleep, otherwise we'll be rocking her to sleep until she is 10!

***This was also her first night sleeping in her own room! Up until last night, her crib had been in our room.

In other news, Kayla had a lot of fun last night eating what is called Zwieback Toast. It is made for babies her age and it helps them learn to feed themselves. She spent about 30 minutes gnawing on it and we pretty much had to hose her down by the time she was finished but she loved it! The picture is of her eating it last night =)

Sleepless Nights

Kayla used to sleep through the night starting at 6.5 weeks. We thought we were so lucky (and we were) and we never thought we would have to deal with any issues with sleep (and now we do). For the past 3-4 weeks, Kayla has decided that she would like to wake up at 2 or 3 in the morning to play with Mommy. Her doctor actually said this is normal because apparently at the 6-9 month stage is when they become far more aware of when they are apart from their parents. Therefore her body forces herself awake during the middle of the night because she knows Mommy or Daddy will coming running to rock her or give her some sort of attention. After about a month of this, I really can't take it anymore. We are going to start the Ferber Method tonight, which teaches babies to self soothe so that they may fall asleep on their own. I think it is going to be really hard, especially since part of this method requires letting the baby "cry it out" at 5 and 10 minute intervals. Neither Jake or I ever thought we would resort to this but with none of us getting any sleep, we're not sure where else to turn. Wish us luck =)

Furniture Walking

This is Kayla's favorite thing to do. She is pulling herself up on everything lately...walking must be just right around the corner!!

Shopping with Mommy

Last night Kayla & I went to run some errands for some much needed supplies (such as diapers, formula, baby food and groceries). It's crazy to me how this funny little girl is so curious about everything that is going on around her. She loves to look at all the people & touch everything she can get her hands on! This is only the 3rd time I was able to put her in the actual cart instead of leaving her in her her car seat and then putting it in the cart. She sits up just fine and looks around at everything, she loves it! I had been looking for some baby sunglasses because she really hates the sun in her eyes & I found this pair at Target for only a dollar! I tried them on her and she loved them so much that she wore them around the whole store! Too funny =)

Happy 9 Months Kayla!!

It feels like just yesterday we were driving on the freeway on our way to Overlake Hospital to welcome Kayla into this world. Now she is 9 months old! It won’t be long before she is out of the baby stage, we only have a few months of that left before she is walking & talking. Happy 9 months baby girl!!!

Cheerios & Cheese

Last night was Kayla’s first experience with both cheerios and cheese. Since the doctor said it would be good for her to start learning to eat finger foods, I went ahead and gave her some plain cheerios & some colby jack cheese cut up into really small pieces. At first she would pick the pieces up & play with them. After a few rounds of this, I showed her how to pick them up and put them in her mouth. She did this a few times and looked really confused when the food was in her mouth. She didn’t really know what to do with it so she just pushed it out of her mouth with her tongue. It was hilarious! I just kept trying and eventually she let it sit in her mouth for awhile until it was mushy enough for her to go ahead and swallow. Not bad for her first time!

Finally got a blog set up!

I have been wanting to do this for months now; I just seemed to have trouble finding the time to do it. Kayla has grown and changed so much in the last couple of months. She is full on crawling, furniture walking, saying DaDa, MaMa & BaBa...and so much more. As each day passes and her personality continues to develop, I can't help but be amazed by her. We had her 9 month check up this morning and all went well. She was 29 ½ inches and 22 lbs, 10 ounces which puts her at 97% for length and 75-90% for weight. Her doctor said she was right on track with developmental skills and even ahead in some areas. He said we can now start to give her some bite size foods (such as cheerios or cheese cut up really small). That was kind of shocking for me to hear, it makes me feel like my little baby is growing far too fast. She also had two shots and that made her pretty mad. She passed out shortly after that and had a nice long nap.

We spent this weekend enjoying the weather and spending time with friends and family. We took Kayla to the hydroplane races on Sunday and she got a kick out of those. The picture is of her with Daddy checking out all the boats (although temporarily distracted by a dog walking by).

I had to start a new blog...

Another day, another lesson learned. This one being that you can't always believe what you read. The other blog I had set up for Kayla said it was free to use and then today it popped up with a message saying I had 26 days of the trial period left before I had to purchase a subscription. Kind of ridiculous if you ask me :)

Anyway, I am going to re-post everything that I had posted on the previous blog so I will work on getting that all done. Hope everyone is having a great day!