"Nine" Months Pictures!!!

First of all, we got the pictures back from Kyra's dedication at church in August so if you go look at my August 3rd post, I put them up there. :)










On Monday, Amy was nice enough to do more pictures of Kyra and they turned out just beautifully! They were supposed to be her 9 months pictures... but Mama is running a month behind. Kyra was her normal, non-cooperative, stubborn self so there's not a single one where she's just sitting and smiling, but that's just our girl! I love that her personality comes through so strong because the reason I treasure her pictures is because she's growing so fast and we'll have them to remember this stage! If she always had the perfect JCPenny style posed portraits, sure, they'd be cute, but it wouldn't look like KYRA!! I think my favorites are the ones where she's beating on the wicker stool like a tom tom drum. :) Some were in her Christmas dress and some were in her tutu and some were just plain naked! (She of course liked the naked ones the best because our little one is sort of a nudist.) Neither modesty nor humility are her strong suits. After we got home when I was looking at all the pictures on the computer she was sitting in my lap and insisted that we look at them over and over!! I'll put the link to her pictures on Amy's site up and also add a few here that aren't up there.

Kyra's Pictures at Full of Grace Photography

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!

She's Doing It!!!

So Kyra is FINALLY crawling well enough to call it crawling! She's still a little splay kneed and she sort of collapses every few feet when she's tired, but she's sure getting there, especially if Mama or Dad is on the floor for her to crawl to. She's not exactly a little speed demon yet (she's actually still faster in her army crawl) but I'm sure she will be soon. Thank goodness for super yards! She's so cute sleeping in her crib now too. She usually doesn't fuss for more than a minute or so when she's put down and then she either goes right to sleep or plays with her bear or her feet first. You can always tell when she's been playing before she went to sleep because she ends up way in the corner of her crib with her butt up in the air because she was up on all fours and just sort of passed out. :)

Slept ALL night!!! (And baby's first Halloween)

Friday was Halloween and we were all invited over to John, Amy & Tristan's house for a party that was LOTS of fun!! Kyra dressed as a bumble bee. (We were very glad we'd gotten her two costumes on clearance last year since she'd outgrown the banana!) She loved watching the kids at the party and thought trick-or-treating (she just went along to watch) in her wagon was a blast until she got a little hungry and tired. She was a very cute little bee!
She's been sleeping really well most night lately since she's over her cold. (She does have a little bit of an occasional cough still hanging on, but other than that she's doing good.) She's been waking up just once around 5:30/6:00a.m. to eat and then sleeping until 8:00. Last night she actually slept through until 7:30a.m. with NO waking up! It was great!

Still Not Crawling!!

Well, still no crawling but it sure doesn't seem to slow her down any! She's pulling up and sitting back down like a pro and her favorite position seems to be sitting on her knees. She pulls up in her play yard and creeps along the wall to wherever she wants to be. We still have to make sure she has shoes on or keep a very close eye on her in there or she climbs the wall! She has a big peek-a-blocks activity block in there with toys and she's figuring out how to make it play music and is always SO pleased with herself when she does!
She's doing finger foods now. She eats lots of rice puffies (puffed rice cereal) and still likes her rice rusk crackers. She can do banana, pear and peach pieces but not very well yet as they tend to get away from her. She had some little bites of my french fries the other day too and thought that was pretty yummy. She's working on lots of food with more texture. She eats oatmeal with fork mashed fruit in it most mornings for breakfast instead of pureed fruit and likes cottage cheese but we're still working on adjusting to the texture of the egg yolks. She's already for Thanksgiving as she LOVES sweet potatoes, cranberries and mashed potatoes (made with yogurt instead of milk.)
She's had a nasty cold for the last couple days and has been coughing, sniffling and not sleeping well at all. She finally seems to be doing a little bit better today. She's coughing a little less but still has a very runny nose. We've been putting a kid's mentholated vapor plug-in in her room at night and that seems to help her breathe a little better.
Since we're not going to get her to the pumpkin patch this year we took pictures of her at home with a baby pumpkin (which she's going to be eating this week) and a fake pumpkin that we had here. She thought that was LOTS of fun, other than the picture part. She wanted to get down and creep around on the floor instead!

Sleep is a Wonderful Thing!!!

So last night Kyra actually slept last night from just after nine when we got home from church and got her settled until 5a.m. this morning STRAIGHT THROUGH!!! When she did wake up, it only took me 20 minutes to put her back to sleep and she slept until almost 9 this morning. It was great! Now if I could just convince my brain that I'm allowed to sleep for more than 2 - 3 hours at a time, it would all be great!

Up & Down!

Kyra is now not only pulling herself up but she's finally learning how to get back DOWN once she's up! She's very adept at pulling up on the crib, playpen, superyard or Dad's leg and is finally getting to the point where she doesn't just stand there and scream until someone saves her or she falls over. She figured this out the other day when she was holding onto the superyard and dropped the toy she had and had to figure out how to lean over and pick it up. She also has to wear shoes now when she's in the superyard because otherwise she can get her little toes in the grate of the walls and tries to climb!

After a long absence...

I'm back! Finally. For anyone who didn't already know, I was in the hospital for over a week and have been sort of trying to get back into the swing of things since I got home sunday. As for what's new with Kyra, well, I missed over a week so I'll have to just pass on second hand info mostly. Her newest things are that she has BOTH of her bottom, middle teeth. Also, she's afraid of people yawing. She bursts into tears anytime she sees someone yawn. We don't know why exactly... She also is now 95% formula fed for the time being as I couldn't nurse her in the hospital and was too sick to pump, but hopefully we'll be able to get back to nursing at least part time. She does NOT sleep well as a formula fed baby and is waking up 4-6 times a night and taking 45 minutes to an hour to get back to sleep each time. ICK!!!

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!

A TOOTH!!!

Kyra officially is getting her first tooth! The left, lower front tooth is working on coming through finally. You can't really see it, although when she screams, you can see the little hole in her gums. And if you run your finger over the spot you can feel the little rough edges! Now I just wonder how long it will take her to get it in all the way?

All Wore Out!

We went to the zoo today with Kyra's Grandma, Papa, Auntie, Uncle and Cousin who are in town from Wisconsin. She had a wonderful time! She was a good girl pretty much the whole time we were there. She really liked the sea lions, otters and leopard this time. Oh, and of course the warty pigs, which are always her favorite! It was much easier to get her to notice the animals this time since she's starting to figure out to look where we point instead of just looking at our hand. She was very upset though when she saw the piggies in the gift shop and Phil wouldn't let her grab one because she was just sure that was HER piggie sitting there!

Swimming!!!

So Kyra's Grandma, Papa, uncle, aunt and cousin are visiting from Wisconsin this week! Yesterday she saw them for a little while here before going down for her nap and then showed off a bunch of her tricks when we took dinner over to their hotel. Today, we all took the MAX downtown to Saturday Market and Kyra had LOTS of fun. She saw some dogs, a parrot and lots of interesting people. She played peek-a-boo around her mei tai with Papa on the train for a long time. Then this evening we went for dinner at the thai restaurant and she chewed on some of my broccoli spears while every one ate before going back to the hotel where she had her dinner and then she swam in the big pool! She had lots of fun and she finally figured out how to splash. She loved it when Papa or Dad would duck under the water and then pop back up. It was like peek-a-boo, only better!

Red Robin

Today was our fourth anniversary and Phil had a thing for his "birthday burger" from Red Robin so we went there this evening for dinner. Kyra did so good! She played in Phil's lap with her toys (and his menu) while we were waiting for the food and then she sat in her highchair with almost no fussing while we all ate! She does a lot better now that she gets to eat too. :) She had a whole jar of sweet potatoes, some ice cubes and some of my water. Then we went to the park to play with Tristan! We were GOING to go bowling but we forgot that there are usually leagues on thursday. She had fun at the park though! She liked the swing with me and Dad took her down the slide!

Veggies

So we've found a GREAT new way to entertain Kyra, especially when we're eating. She loves chewing on big chunks of veggies! She may not have any teeth to actually eat them yet, but she loves having the same thing that we have. Today she and Phil had zucchini slices for a snack and then she chewed on some green beans at dinner tonight while we ate. I think when those teeth finally do start coming in she's going to have LOTS of fun with finger foods!

Pull-Ups

So our daughter who as of yet can't crawl or get herself into a sitting position unassisted can officially pull herself up to standing in the crib all on her own!!! Needless to say she won't be back in her crib until Phil can help me drop the mattress down a level. She sure gave me a scare though when I went in to check on her!

Family Dinner

So we finally got brave enough to try feeding Kyra her dinner WHILE we were eating our instead of before or after and it actually worked out really well! We pulled the chair with her high chair right up to the table between us and fed her a little at a time as we were eating. In between bites she worked on her tippy cup and she got more water on her than in her but since she was content and we were both getting to eat with two free hands we didn't really mind.

Where's Dad?

Today, around 3 o'clock Kyra started asking for Phil and looking for him. I don't know if that was when she noticed that he hadn't come home for lunch, or if she was just thinking it was getting close to time for him to be off. He's been getting off at 4 a lot of days because they've been having him come in early but today he worked until five. She fell asleep about twenty minutes before he got home so she didn't even get to see him right away, but she sure had lots of fun playing peek-a-boo with him after dinner!

Growth Spurt?

So most of Kyra's food is home processed, but I messed up on the sweet potatoes and couldn't get them to puree smooth so until I get a chance to do another batch next week, she's having jarred sweet potatoes once in a while. (She gets jarred stuff and apple sauce in the little individual cups when we're out and about anyway because that's just easier.) Last night she had sweet potatoes for dinner because she hadn't had any for a week or so and then again tonight because we were at Grandmas and that was the convenient jar. Both nights she ate an entire four ounce jar of stage 2 sweet potatoes! Last night she also ate about 2 ounces of applesauce and then tonight she ate a little applesauce (maybe an ounce) and several bites of my watermelon. Goodness that girl has been hungry lately! She also had fun in Grandma and Grandpa's garden "helping" pick green beans and zuchinni. Grandpa B. gave her a zuchinni to see and she tried to grab it and take a bite!

"Bubba" Dad

So recently Kyra seems to have forgotten how to make D's. She says D's quite a bit but when she tries to make a D on purpose they often come out like B's. She's also getting a little creative with her A's so recently she's started calling Phil "Bubudubud" instead of "Dadadadad". We're working on getting the D's back since Phil doesn't really feel like being Bubba or Dubba forever.

Peas'n'Apples

Kyra helped me with laundry again today. (She loves when I let her help sort the socks because she gets to sit by the pile of as yet unpaired ones and wave them around!) She was a good girl today, and played in her baby jail for a while and ate a big dinner for dad with no complaining other than once in a while that he wasn't getting the food in fast enough to suit her! I think if I'd let her have peas and applesauce at every meal, she'd eat great all the time! (No, not mixed together. :) )