45 weeks :: miss independent

Posted in Family by Kendra G.

Kenley is becoming quite independent.
While it never has been easy to read books to her (the girl is always moving),
she loves to hold the books herself, turn the pages, and even read aloud.
Her eyes light up and her tone changes constantly. She will whisper one minute and yell the next.

We are already at 45 weeks. Wasn’t she just born yesterday?
Our weekly pictures are winding down, only seven more to go! Ahh!

Speaking of seven, Kenley is getting another tooth!
I swear I say that every week, but they just keep coming.

27Aug2012

so long sweet summer

Posted in Random by Kendra G.

Since I live my life one semester at time, it is officially FALL in my book.
Bring on the sweaters, football, crunchy leaves, and pumpkin spice everything!
Ok, who am I kidding? It’s still ridiculously hot and we don’t have leaves, just palm fronds.
But, we do love us some pumpkin spice lattes, coffees, and coffee creamers.
If it were up to Greg, he would indulge in pumpkin flavor year round
but I think that defeats the purpose and it would totally kill the excitement.
I digress.
Anywho, I want to give summer one last shout out before we move on to bigger and better things.
I’m pretty sure fall would be my favorite season, if we had seasons in Florida.
I love football season, those perfectly crisp mornings that aren’t too cold but aren’t too hot,
October in general (birthday(s) month, breast cancer awareness, Halloween),
and knowing that the holiday season is right around the corner just leaves me feeling giddy.

Again, back to summer. We had a great one. I have no idea where it went, but it was fun.
Everything I was excited about in this post lived up to its expectations.

We had a great vacation up in Indiana over the 4th of July,
it was great to see family and friends, yet relax at the same time.
You can read more about it here, here, and here.

It’s hard to imagine how different our family vacation will look next July.

I mentioned that I wanted to try some make-up and beauty products, tips, and tricks.
A huge thanks to Rachel for keeping me up to date on what’s out there
because Lord knows I need help in that department.
Some of my new favorites include the Neutrogena Make-up Remover Cleansing Towelettes,
MAC Naked Lunch eye shadow, and Revlon Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stain.

We also got our baseball fix in this summer. Greg hit up a Phillies/Rays game in Philly,
in addition to our trip to St. Pete for a Rays/Red Sox game. Yes, he saw the Rays in two different cities.
Our St. Pete trip could not have worked out any better than it did meeting up with the Campbell/Pena clan
as it was the front end of their family vacay. We had a great time and we got to see some live baseball,
which is a must in our household every summer.

We normally do a lot of year ’round grilling in these parts, but it’s usually the same things week in and week out.
Throughout the summer, we did try a new recipe here and there, but nothing spectacular.
I do a great job of pinning recipes on Pinterest, it’s just the making them part that doesn’t get done.
We’ll chalk that up to a work in progress.

Overall, we had a great summer, but we are definitely looking forward to the fall season.
We have a lot of fun things planned between now and the end of the year,
which brings me to the last thing that we’ve been up to… First birthday party planning.
I mentioned I wanted to get a head start, and I definitely have. I realize that we are still two months out,
but like I said, October is my favorite month and it’s also the busiest. Each year it’s insane.
Therefore, to avoid me running around like a crazy person (even more than I do now), I need to do things in advance.
I am a major planner… I know, I know, shocking, right? and that’s what we’ve been doing,
along with sewing, crafting, hunting (for bargains) and gathering (party supplies).
It’s gonna be fun people. Real fun.

So there ya have it. What we did this summer. How was your summer?

26Aug2012

my weekend in photos

Posted in Random by Kendra G.

kenley played hooky on friday and stayed home from school with grandma,
who decided to come down for a weekend visit at the last minute.

greg and i had lazy moon for lunch!

greg made shrimp scampi for dinner. it was damn good.
i’m one lucky girl, i can tell ya that.

finally fits into her little legacy shirt from aunt carolyn!

ready for football season to start!

we had 4 rivers smokehouse for lunch on saturday, not sure why we waited so long to take my mom there.
it’s the jam.

someone took a nap while we enjoyed our lunch, then she enjoyed hers right after.
couldn’t have worked out better.

watching the colts/redskins preseason game (house divided) and enjoying some annie’s easy mac.

we took advantage of grandma being in town and got to have a date night!
a quick stop at joann’s and the dark knight rises. so great.

we were up early today so mom and i headed to target.
it was empty and we aimlessly wandered up and down every aisle.
i can’t tell you the last time i got to do that.
we bought the most random things. it was awesome.

reading books.

kenley and grandma.

drafting up our dream teams.

***

how was your weekend?

22Aug2012

44 weeks :: new schedule, bumps, and bruises

Posted in Family by Kendra G.

We went from no schedule to a new schedule in a week and we sure are feeling it.

The transition to the new class is going well, we are just adjusting.
Nap time, meal time, play time is all different, plus there are so many new things to explore,
by the time we’re home for the evening, we are dealing with one worn out, tired, cranky baby.
It’s been a struggle to keep her up until after 7pm each night…
enter working mom who feels guilty for only seeing her child for 2-3 hours a day.

You will notice the tears welling up in her eyes. She was not thrilled for the weekly photo,
even after we bribed her with four goldfish.
It doesn’t help that her curiosity is causing some bumps and bruises lately.
Just in the last two days, she has gone face first into her play table,
did a face plant onto the tile floor while crawling,
and opened a cabinet door that hit right below her eye.
Needless to say, there have been a few meltdowns in our household.

On the bright side, busy days equal good night’s sleep, so we’ll take it!

20Aug2012

my weekend in photos

Posted in Random by Kendra G.

kenley was included on a fun book exchange letter and she got her first book on friday, a classic.

saturday morning included some birthday party planning with sweet isabel.
it’s very hard for me to not explode with excitement and share all of our ideas right now.

we hit up the farmer’s market for the best kettle corn you’ve ever tasted and an arnold palmer shake-up.

kyler came to play later. they are having a staring contest.

telling kyler “hiiii”

every time we go to target, i tell kenley we are going to her favorite store.

sunday afternoon was dedicated to arts & crafts.
i did some serious work on first birthday party goods. no sharing yet.
then helped michelle do some fun crayon artwork. i think this may be on my to-do list.

sunday night, i made not one, but two dinners. those of you who know me know this is not a small feat.
i was truly exhausted afterwards.

***

how was your weekend?

19Aug2012

Ten Months!

Posted in Family by Kendra G.

We have reached double digits people. 10 months.

The biggest change from our nine month update until now is her eating schedule.
I mentioned that her milk intake was dropping a little. Since then, it has dropped a lot.
Everything I have read (and I’ve been reading a lot) says that babies under age one do not typically wean themselves,
so I don’t want to say that she’s self-weaning, but she definitely is drinking less milk.
She also decided that she was done with the bottle…which first started the drop in the milk.
She flat out refused. She would chew on the nipple and then spit out her milk like it was a fun game.
Those of you who have pumped milk know this is not a fun game.
The nurse and doctor were not concerned since her last weight check was good
and she’s continuing to eat solid food like a champ.
They suggested just trying the sippy cup and we are still working on it.
We’ve tried three different types and two different brands and we have a winner…for now.
I’m still feeding her in the morning and at night, but the other attempts at milk are all from the sippy cup.
She’s eating three to four small solid food meals a day and we are continuing to introduce more foods.
We had a semi-unexpected trip to the doctor on Friday and Kenley weighed in at exactly 20 pounds.

Another fun change since last month is our daily wake up call. We mentioned to our doctor that Kenley was still getting up anywhere from 5am-6am to eat, then going back to sleep. She suggested that we push back this feeding, and we gladly obliged. It really only took two days of us not going in there when she first woke up. She eventually would fall back asleep, then we would feed her the next time she woke up, and was up for good.
At first it was 6am, then it slowly crept later and later. The last couple of days, we haven’t gone into get her until after 7am! Even if she is awake, she is happy as a clam just sitting in there and playing.
Excuse me while I go knock on wood.

Other fun things this month: clapping, waving, talking, and dancing.
This girl loves music. As soon as any of her toys start to make noise, she moves it and shakes it. She’s also adding to her long list of words. We are up to: mama, dada, hi, bye, ball, and uh-oh. She says hi like it’s going out of style. The girl loves to talk and babble.

Kenley starts in a new class tomorrow at school with a new teacher, so I’m sure her schedule will change slightly as we head into a new school year. Also on that note, I’m hoping that our routine at home changes slightly too. The mornings are exceptionally hard getting out of the house at a decent time to beat traffic and get everybody where they need to be on time. Our goal is to start doing more at night, even if all we want to do is sit on the couch. We think this will make our mornings less hectic. Here’s to hoping, right?

It’s no surprise that this little girl is not our cuddly newborn anymore. She’s becoming more independent every day, but with that, it’s so fun to watch her try things out on her own and learn new things.

On that note. Someone took three steps yesterday! Look out world.

Happy 1o month birthday Kenley!

15Aug2012

43 Weeks :: schedule-less week

Posted in Family by Kendra G.

Greg and I are playing SAHD and SAHM this week.
(stay at home dad and stay at home mom, for those new to the online baby community)

So far, it’s been so fun playing with Kenley all week. But, that also means we aren’t on a schedule at all.
The last couple of weeks have consisted of us rushing around like crazy people in the mornings,
packing bags, making food, taking 2-3 trips to get the car packed up,
then rushing out the door to get to school and work on time.
Needless to say, this week has been much needed on everyone’s end.
School starts on Monday (um, where did summer go?)
and I am hoping that we get back on a regular schedule and adapt to a new routine.
A routine that does not include rushing around in the mornings…I hope.

Stay tuned this weekend for a fun-filled Kenley update since she’ll be 10 months! Say whaaaaaat?

12Aug2012

my weekend in photos

Posted in Random by Kendra G.

lowest, brightest rainbow i’ve ever seen in a dark, dark sky

grandpa larry visited this weekend so we went to one of our favorite places, the friendly confines!

someone is learning what to do with a pillow

and learning how to say bye bye, complete with the wave

greg, kenley and grandpa larry

father and son

brunch after church! kenley loves keke’s breakfast cafe

let’s be serious, who wouldn’t love that place. the food is amazing.

playing in the pool before the storms came in
and realizing we should have been hitting up our community pool all summer! fail.

post-pool snack and thrilled about it.

***

we had a great time visiting with family and watching the tail end of the olympics.
how was your weekend??

8Aug2012

42 weeks :: whiney butt

Posted in Family by Kendra G.

Since we’ve been working on our latest tooth, this little one has been quite the little whiney butt.
It seems like she is always on the verge of tears.
It doesn’t help that she’s all over the place getting into everything,
which leads to fingers getting pinched in the drawers (x 10) and her head getting bonked on the floor.

This week she has even cried when Greg has picked her up from school. Who does that?
She must really be having fun there.
Usually her crying lasts about 30 seconds, then she’s perfectly fine. She can really turn it on and off.
I have a feeling she’s being just a little dramatic majority of the time.

Seriously, you’d think taking her picture was the end of the world.
She does not like to be on her back. This also goes for clothes and diaper changes as well.
Not happy about it.

On another note, she was having fun rearranging the furniture this weekend.
It was funny to watch her think about what she wanted to do and how to go about doing it.

5Aug2012

my weekend in photos

Posted in Random by Kendra G.

we finally got a gate (craigslist special) and kenley loves playing with it

kyler giving kenley a little taste of her own medicine

after our morning run and a little bit of relaxing, we headed out to run our weekend errands.
of course it starts raining cats and dogs as soon as we leave. luckily, it didn’t last long.