Food, FINALLY!!!!

We've had a busy month here at our house!!! Two weeks ago, Kyra's upper right canine came through and this week the upper left one FINALLY popped so hopefully we'll have a teething break while we're in Wisconsin before her 2 year molars start. Paige started eating solids for the first time last Sunday. (Yes, that was a few days early but she was definitely ready and that way Dad, Grandma and Grandpa all were able to see her get her first dinner (peas) and celebrate her 6 month birthday with her.) She's LOVING eating solids. So far her favorite seems to be squash and her least favorite is jarred bananas because they are SOUR from the citric acid they put in to keep them from browning. From now on we'll be mashing our own bananas. She grabs the spoon and pulls as it's heading for her mouth because I don't get it in fast enough. She ate the whole jar (2.5 ounces) of peas at her first try and now is up to two meals of 2-4 ounces a day of fruits and veggies. She's getting to be very wiggly and can sit up on her own in the bouncer. She rolls both directions now but still does better front to back. She sits unsupported and has for a month or so (don't know if I mentioned that before) and is definitely teething but no teeth yet. Phil thinks she'll be crawling before November but I think it will be a little longer than that. Her 6 month wellcheck was this past Thursday and she did beautifully! She only fussed about the shots and charmed everyone at the office. She weighed in at 19 lbs 11 oz (officially less than 2 lbs lighter than Kyra) and was 26 1/2 inches long. The doctor commented repeatedly on how wonderful her muscle tone was and how strong she was, predicting that she might be an early walker. When the two ladies came in to give her the shots (she got three of them poor thing) Kyra hid behind the chair when she saw the needles. As soon as they'd poked Paige and she started crying Kyra came flying out jabbering and yelling something that the only understandable part of was "BABY PAIGE BABY!!!" She was scolding them for having hurt her little sister. :)

3 Months and Counting!!!

Hard to believe, but Paige is already 3 Months old!!! We went with a muffin this month instead of an actual cake because I was feeling a little lazy and wasn't feeling up to the temptation of resisting all that sugar. :)









Paige is just so alert and strong, she loves to sit up in the corner of the couch or in one of her chairs and look around. She's still eating and growing and is pretty solidly in the 3-6 month sizes now. She had her Early Intervention Evaluation at our house on Monday and it went very well and we heard from her ENT that she'll be getting her hearing aid in a couple of weeks.













We went to Grandma and Grandpa's house last Thursday to celebrate Great-Grandma Pat's 80th birthday and it was so much fun! Kyra entertained G.G. Pat all through dinner and Paige cooed and smiled for her several times.
Kyra is listening very well now and is getting to where she can get down and play more at softball games or walk holding our hands too and from the car. She's really enjoying her newfound freedom. :)


I made Kyra some grape juice popscicles the other day and she thought those were absolutely wonderful. You have to wonder though where exactly my brain is considering that I didn't think to use white grape or apple or anything other than deep purple juice...
Kyra is really working on the teeth right now. She cut the bottom premolar on the right side two days ago and the top one right above it popped through this morning. I can tell the one opposite that isn't too far behind either. The poor thing is having a much rougher time cutting the big teeth than she did with the front ones, but at least she'll have some grinders in soon and we can start giving her some of the lettuce she's been asking for!

One Month?!?! Already?!?!?

It's just so hard to believe that Paige is already a month old!!! The time is going by even faster than it did with Kyra and I wouldn't have thought that was possible! Paige is just such a wonderful baby. She's so mellow and content, she nurses well and doesn't have tummy trouble and she's a pretty good sleeper for only being a month old! She's already changed so much and is getting bigger every day! If she doesn't slow down she's going to catch her sister pretty soon! We had her first "birthday" cake tonight and Kyra helped me "sing" Happy Birthday to her.

Birthday Video

Not much time today, trying to get ready for the "business party" at church tonight and Bean is being clingy so I need to go do what I can while she's napping. Wanted to put up her birthday video though now that I've finally got it done! This is the first time I've used One True Media to do a video instead of just the movie maker on my comp and I don't know how I like it yet but I think it turned out ok at least. Was sort of a pain having to mess with the audio by uploading songs individually and stuff though.

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Can't Believe Our Baby Bean is ONE!!!!!

Well, it's official, she's a year old already!!!! She had quite an eventful birthday too. Since they had rescheduled my OB appointment from last week for 10:00 a.m. monday morning, we got up and headed over there first thing after breakfast for a check-up and my GTT. Then Kyra napped while Phil and I worked on getting things ready for her party that evening. After she woke up, she had a little lunch and opened her birthday gifts from us. She like the mega-blocks and especially the Elmo book but was not quite as fascinated by the clothes. :) She got a card in the mail from her Grandma and Papa in Wisconsin and thought that was very exciting when Phil showed it to her because there were two dogs on the cover. A tree had fallen in the park and the management was busy for most of the day trying to get it cleaned up so they weren't in the office for us to grab the key to the rec hall where her party was going to be and we finally got it just a couple hours before party time!



She had lots of fun at her party. Several of her friends and their parents (our friends, nice how it works out that way) were there and also her Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Jackie. The party was Elmo themed (very lightly Elmo... Mama's not that ambitious.) We had red plates, napkins, etc. and red and yellow balloons. I brought her Hokey Pokey Elmo, thinking we would set it on one of the tables for a decoration but she wanted to play with it in the Super Yard instead. She played with the other little girls for a while and then decided that she would rather sit on Mama or Dad's lap and socialize with the grownups. :) We had sloppy joes, chips, berries and veggies so nothing fancy, just easy for Mama and good leftovers for Dad's lunches this week. There were cupcakes too! Angel food and confetti and a sugarless banana raisin for Kyra. They were decorated with Elmo faces and a few Zoe faces too because Mama got brave and decided to try. i think next time we do cupcakes for something, I'll make a bunch of the Sesame monsters because they actually turned out sort of O.K. and weren't super hard to make. She was too busy to eat much beyond a few animal crackers but loved the cupcake she had after most of her guests had left!!

Catching Up

Well, I've gotten very behind so this may be long! First, Kyra had fun on her first New Year's Eve. We spent it at our friends' house and Kyra had a blast playing with their kids (or at least watching their kids play, she got a little overwhelmed. ;) ) She did NOT do what I was thinking she would and doze off in one of our laps or in her BabyHawk carrier so she stayed up until midnight!!! We were amazed. She was a little glassy and wide eyed by that time though. She crashed in the car on the way home and woke up at home just long enough for us to get her diaper changed and get her into bed. She woke up for an hour around 6am and then went back to sleep until noon! (She's "toasting" with the last two drops of Dad's sparkling cider in the picture. No, we don't give our daughter beer.)










We had company over Saturday and Sunday and she seemed to like that! Amy, John and Tristan came Saturday and she had a blast playing with Tris, but he didn't have quite as much fun playing with her since her idea of playing is taking whatever the other person is playing with and passing it back and forth. He did really great with trying to share the toys he wasn't currently using with her though! Phil's family came over on Sunday afternoon and Kyra showed off most of her tricks. She did fall down and bump her little head twice and made a much bigger deal of it than she normally would have because all those grandparents were there to say what a poor baby she was. :)

This past Monday, Amy did one year pictures of her. We even had it all figured out so that Phil could go and hopefully keep her in a better mood, but as it turned out, she was teething poor thing and was just a snot for Amy. I was thinking when we were on our way home that I'd be surprised if any of the pictures turned out, but even with my snotty daughter who was more uncooperative than usual, there are SOOO many cute, adorable shots!!! Amy is just a genius. The shoes she is playing with in the one picture are her first tennis shoes and the ones she's wearing now.











Some of the pictures were a group of birthday cake shots. We took a practice cake along and let Kyra play in it to have pictures taken and it was so funny. Kyra has never had anything sugarier than a vanilla wafer before, so the frosting was a little bit of a surprise for her. She was a little tentative at first, so I dabbed some frosting on her mouth and then she slowly leaned down with one hand and foot on either side of the cake and tasted it directly! It was so cute! She did pretty good during that part of the shoot until she dipped her feet in the cake accidentally and decided she was too sticky and got all upset and started fuss, so we stuck her right in the tub. :)















If you click on the "The Hardestys" link on the right, it links to Amy's blog where there are some more of the pictures if you scroll down to the post titled "Kyra is 1" and/or click on the top link that says "Portrait Photography" and then the one that says "Recent Photo Sessions".

It's been quite a bit easier than I expected to get Kyra to start to understand about things she's not supposed to do. I know she's going to have phases where it's NOT so easy, but we've been really surprised so far! The other day, she was playing in the living room and I went in the kitchen for a minute. All of a sudden she stopped babbling and got really quiet so I went in to check on her and sure enough, she was standing over by the coffee table holding a plastic decoration she knows she's not supposed to touch. I said, "You know you're not supposed to have that," and held out my hand and she immediately gave it to me, but started crying right away and had about a 20 second tantrum. Silly girl.

11 Months!

Hard to believe it, but Kyra is only a month away from being a year old!!! We had our last monthly birthday party for her on Friday before bed. She still didn't get any cake, but she did at least get some animal crackers! She's growing and changing all the time! Today, she took two unsupported steps while Phil was watching. Of course, she wouldn't do it again for Mama to see, but she's getting there! Really, if she was more confident, she'd probably be walking already since she has the strength and the balance, just doesn't trust herself to try it unless she's too distracted to realize what she's doing!

10 Months Already!!!

So Kyra was officially ten months old on wednesday. It's amazing how much she's changed in the past month! She's gone from pretty much doing just rice crackers and thick baby food to eating 75% of her food herself! (For example, tonight for dinner she had chicken nuggets, peas, carrots & cheerios!) She's crawling now and getting faster every day. She gives very food fives when she feels like it and has officially learned what "no" means. Tonight she actually ASKED me for a kiss for the first time instead of me asking her for one (Phil saw it too so it wasn't just wishful thinking). Now if we could just convince her to give kisses with her mouth CLOSED we'd be doing good! She's also getting very good at sitting with us to read. We get books out of the library which works out great. Free books, lots of variety and when she fixates on one it's no big deal because eventually it's due to go back! We put holds on a bunch that have dog in the title and one of them is called "My Dog, My Cat, My Mama and Me". It turns out it's about the dog, the cat and the mama all getting pregnant and having 2 puppies, 3 kittens and 4 baby brothers. Kyra just LOVES that book and wants to read it over and over and look under all the "peek" flaps at the puppies, kittens and babies. It's very simple and now I have it memorized. Boy will I be glad when that one goes back and I no longer have to read about Mama getting fatter and fatter!

8 Months!

Kyra is officially 8 months old today!!! She is still working on the tooth without much progress. In honor of her "birthday" we had cheesecake (well, her dad and I did) and she got turkey with vegetables! Hopefully getting a little extra protein in her belly will help her sleep better tonight than she did before last night! She didn't finally settle down to sleeping until about midnight I think and then she was up again once and only slept until nine this morning, which meant she missed most of her first nap today and really couldn't do without it! She wasn't too cranky though, all things considered. Poor little thing, hopefully we'll all get some better rest tonight!

6 Months ALREADY?!?!?

I just can't believe that Kyra is already 6 months old! Our little baby is growing up so fast! Today we went over and had lunch with Phil which Kyra always thinks is fun but especially enjoyed this time because I let her chew on my red straw. :) Poor kid really wants to eat! We'll find out at the doctor Monday if she's got the all clear to start solids. Then we went to Target and she got to pick out two toys off the baby clearance section and she picked some noisy keys that jingle, rev and beep and a yellow duck in a rainhat with a rattle in its head that has teether hands and feet. She also rode in the cart for the first time! She sat in the front part with me holding her hands to help her sit up straight and she thought was LOTS of fun until she got SO tired that I needed to hold her. Then she fell asleep on my shoulder. Such a sweet baby, even if she is growing up too fast!

Are All Those Candles For ME!?!?!?

Today Kyra and I went over to Costco to pick up the cake, sushi, salad and strawberries for our birthday celebration! We went out to Phil's mom's to share with them too. Kyra thought all those candles were pretty cool, but boy were they ever hard to light, especially when Phil ran out of fuel in the lighter!