First time in a swimming pool!

Woohoo! This is my last post that I am behind on and then I will be all caught up (and pray to never get behind again)! Last week Kaylee got in a swimming pool for the first time! I am still working on losing weight, so we won't be making a trip to a big pool anytime soon, but for now we have a little blow up pool that she loves!

Kaylee really liked playing in the pool... I realized that we didn't have any pool toys for her so we had to use her bath toys instead :) Of course, it wouldn't be a fun time if she didn't scare her Mommy & Daddy so she decided to lean forward until she fell over onto her stomach and went completely under water! I was holding the camera and Daniel grabbed her up really quick... she actually did fine, she didn't breathe in through her mouth and she just got a little water in her nose. I was sitting there freaking out thinking surely she should be choking on the water or something but she was fine! She actually never cried and looked at me like, 'geeze mom calm down already!'

Here are some pictures of the little water bug!

I love her little hat!

Splashing in the water!

She kept scratching and trying to chew on the side of the pool

My little underwater swimmer after she scared me to death!

8 Months!

Where has the past 8 months gone?!? Little bug, you have really changed a lot this past month! The biggest difference I have noticed is your ability to sit up on your own and being able to use both hands to play with your toys (without falling over anymore!). Your personality continues to come out more and more everyday and I just love it!

• We just switched you to size 4 diapers! They are a little big on you but the size 3's were too small.


• You still take four 8 oz bottles and now you are on a schedule with those! You get a bottle when you wake up which is usually around 8, then a bottle at 12 and 4 everyday and then a bottle before bedtime (which is anywhere between 7:15 and 8:00 depending on how sleepy you are). It's so nice to have your bottles on a schedule!


• You are now eating solids twice a day (first thing in the morning and then at night around 6:30). You have been trying a lot of new foods including fish and have liked everything! Our friends Kay & Libby have a baby food maker so I have been able to give you more of a variety of foods instead of sticking with only the baby food they have at the store. In the mornings I have been giving you a bagel with strawberry cream cheese every now and then. The first time you tried it you couldn't chew it up but you are getting better at it everyday. I think it's the texture that your not used to swallowing.


• I'm not really sure what's going on with the sizes on your clothes... a few of your 9 month sleep n plays still fit, but I think Carter's has started making their clothes differently because you have a few 9 month long sleeve onesies that fit but your 12 month short sleeve onesies look a little tight. I actually put a onesie on you this morning and realized it was a 18 month one and it fits just fine. So I guess you would say you are between 12-18 month size clothes.


• You are now taking all of your naps in your crib and sleeping in it at night as well. It seems like you have been sleeping much better since we moved you to your crib and will sleep 12 hours most nights, but sometimes you only make it to 11 hours.


• You still love playing with Liza and Remi but here lately you seem to like playing on your own more. You also seem a little less interested in your bouncer. You are usually happiest sitting in the floor with your box of toys and being able to pick out whatever you want. You have a plate that you brought home from your Grandma & Grandpa's house that you love to sit and chew on and push your face flat against it and try to eat the plate!


• It is getting so hard to change your diaper and get you dressed now because you are always rolling over. I'm starting to think that you see it as a game. I have to use one arm to try to pin you down while I try to change your diaper...this has resulted in me getting punched several times in the face (thank you very much!) and you have got a few (accidental) elbows to the chin.


• You have been going through a stage where you cry when we try to put your arms in your clothes but over the past few days you seem to be getting over that.


• I am finally comfortable with you sleeping on your stomach! I still get a little paranoid when you are on your stomach and close to the bumper in your crib, so before I go to sleep I make sure your face isn't pushing up against anything and then I try not to worry about it!


• You love going for car rides! Anytime I ask you if 'you want to go for a ride' you get so excited and smile really big! We also took you on your first ride on the dirtbike! I was afraid it would be a little too loud and hurt your ears so Daddy hopped on the bike and sat you in front of him and I was the lucky one who got to push both of you down the street on it! You seemed to really enjoy it and held onto the gas cap since you couldn't reach the handlebars.


• As of just this past weekend we no longer thicken your bottles and you haven't had any troubles with it! We still have to make sure you are sitting up when you take your bottles because you get choked pretty easily when you are laying down too much. You are still taking your medicine once a day but I think we will try cutting that out soon and see how it goes!

Look at that little grin!

Pretty blue eyes & big smile!

Standing up by herself!

She loves playing in her crib!

I really think I somehow manage to love you a little more everyday baby girl. You have the sweetest smile and the cutest laugh that can always brighten up my day. Your Daddy & I love you so much!

Love,

Mommy

She's just too cute!

So Kaylee's first saying was "Hi Daddy!" It was the sweetest thing because she always said it in a very soft voice and would just look at him and smile. This is another reason why I hate being behind on posts... she started saying this the week before Easter and said it all the time when Daniel would come into the room...but now... nothing! She seems to go through stages where she will talk a lot and then a few weeks will go by where she just babbles on but never actually says anything. But when she goes through those phases of being talkative, it is adorable!

She also had her 2nd tooth come in, March 30th I believe... and I'm just now getting around to blog about it! You really should see my desk, when things like this happen where I need to remember the date to put in her baby book I usually write it down on anything near me (which is usually a bill!) so that I can remember to put it in the blog and also put it in her book. It's taking me forever to get caught up on her baby book because of all of the pictures I need. It's so aggrivating to take pictures out of her photo albums to put in the baby book and then making note of all the pictures I need to reorder on Shutterfly. Those photo albums were the only things I've managed to really keep up with since she was born and now they are a mess!

Ok, so I know this was a pretty boring post... so here's a little cuteness before I go!

I got in bed last night and...

I turned the tv on!!! You don't understand how huge this is for Daniel & I. Since we brought Kaylee home and she has been sleeping in our room, we couldn't watch tv in our bedroom because it would wake her up. But someone is a big girl now and is sleeping in her own bed in her own room! I have been putting off moving her to her bed for so long because I just knew the first few nights were going to be terrible and I couldn't stand the thought of her being so far away.

I finally told myself before we went back to TN for Easter weekend that when we got back home, she was going to start sleeping in her bed. She has taken her naps in her pack n play in our room also so I figured on Monday when I put her in her crib to take a nap she wouldn't like it, but she actually did great...and Monday night, after her bottle, we put her in bed and that was it...no fussing, no screaming, no laying there wide awake...nothing! She went to sleep and actually seemed to sleep better because she doesn't move around as much. Plus, she is sleeping longer now too... last night she slept for 12 hours straight! I am so lucky to have a 'easy baby' but that's just another reason why I only want 1 child... because I've been spoiled by Kaylee and I know if I had another baby it would probably be the complete opposite of her!

Kaylee has gotten so good at napping during the day. I remember not too long ago when I was breaking her from the habit of sleeping only while we held her that I would lay her down for a nap, only to listen to her fuss and scream for a hour and 45 minutes and never take a nap. Then it got to where most of the time when I would lay her down she would fall asleep after about 20 minutes, but I will still sit here and wonder if she was going to take a nap or not. Now, usually in less than 5 minutes she is asleep and there hasn't been one time that I've put her down that she didn't take a nap!

It's so cute when she naps, if she isn't asleep before her seahorse quits playing music she will reach out and turn it back on so that she can fall asleep. She is also really good at knowing where her paci is, so that when she starts to wake up during a nap or at night, she will reach around, grab it and put it back in her mouth without opening her eyes. I really hope she can keep this up now that I have finally gotten used to her sleeping in her own room. Our room looks so much bigger without the play yard in there!

My sweet baby girl...I'm so lucky to have you!

Easter Weekend

***WARNING*** This post will be filled with a ridiculous amount of pictures... give me a break, ok... it was Easter... and Kaylee was looking extra cute :)


Last weekend Daniel, Kaylee and I took a trip back to Tennessee for the weekend. We kinda celebrated Easter a day early (on Saturday) because we had to drive back overnight on Saturday and didn't get back home til Sunday morning. We drove to my family's house overnight Thursday night and got there around 2am Friday morning. Right now when we have a long drive we try to leave right before Kaylee's bed time and give her her bed time bottle in the car and then she falls asleep and usually won't wake up until we get there (or if we stop somewhere, but she usually falls back to sleep once we get going again). It makes the trip so much easier because we don't have to stop to change diapers!


Friday we decided to take Kaylee on her first trip to the zoo! Daniel had to go to the track so it was Grandma (my mom), Great Grandma, Uncle Quinten, Kaylee & I. We went to the Grassmere Zoo in Nashville and of course, we had to pick a day when it was entirely too hot outside! Kaylee actually did really good though. There were times when she got fussy but she would cheer up as soon as someone picked her up. She saw a few of the animals, but for the most part I think she just enjoyed looking around at all of the people and being outside.

My happy baby!

Kaylee & Grandma

Big smile!

Kisses from mommy

She would not look at the camera!

Kaylee & Great Grandma

Is it just me or does this look unsafe?

We got back to my parents house later in the afternoon and Kaylee & I were wore out! Daniel was able to leave the track early enough so that we were able to go eat at one of my favorite restaurants in TN... Demos'! Saturday morning we woke up with plans of taking Kaylee to a local Easter egg hunt and to have her picture made with the Easter bunny, but it was storming. Kaylee's Great Uncle Bubba came to visit and brought her some things for Easter that she opened up while we were waiting for breakfast to be ready!

Opening her Easter card!

I just love that little face!

Kaylee with her bunny rabbit that is dressed like a ladybug!!! I love it!

Silly girl

Kaylee & Great Uncle Bubba

Daniel had to go back to the track again on Saturday but we made sure to get pictures of Daddy & Kaylee in her Easter dress before he left!

Luckily the rain went away quickly after we had breakfast and we were still able to go to the Easter egg hunt (actually, by the time we got there, everyone had already done the Easter egg hunt in her age group, but there were still plenty of eggs left!). I don't have a copy of Kaylee's picture with the Easter bunny (I left the Polaroids back at home), but here are some pictures of her first Easter egg hunt!

She was so excited when she first saw all of the eggs!

She couldn't figure out that it would be easier to reach the eggs if she would bend her knees

Big blue eyes! I couldn't believe she didn't try to pull her headband off!

Great picture of Kaylee & Grandma!

I just loved her dress!

She was getting fussy and didn't want to look at the camera

After the Easter egg hunt and pictures with the Easter bunny, we went back to my parents house to hang out for the rest of the day.

Kaylee & Grandpa

The hand on the shoulder is too cute!

She loved riding around with her Uncle Quinten

After the rain it actually turned out to be a really pretty day! My mom and I were able to take Kaylee outside and get some pictures with the flowers. I was surprised at how good they turned out, seeing as how I'm not the best at taking pictures! These are some of my favorites!

*The stuff that is hanging down in front of her on this picture is the branches of a weeping willow tree. I should've got a wider shot of her under the tree because it is huge!

This is probably my favorite picture!

She ended up trying to eat the buttercup and did not like it!

It was great to go back home for the weekend but after the long drive back to North Carolina Saturday night, it was good to be back at our home!

Visit from Grandma!

Why do I keep putting these posts off... because when I finally get around to doing them it's hard to remember what happened which makes it take even longer! Ok, so back to catching up...

The weekend before last (March 26), Kaylee got a visit from Grandma! We woke up early Friday morning, got dressed, ate breakfast and hopped in the car for the hour and 1/2 drive to Raleigh to pick her up from the airport. We spent the day sitting around the house and then on Friday night mom watched Kaylee so that Daniel & I could go out to eat.

Saturday morning after we got dressed and ready to go we went to Concord Mills to go shopping. Daniel had to go to a race, so it was just the 3 of us. We bought Kaylee some summer clothes, size 18 months, because apparently either she is trying to jump right past the 12 month size or Carter's is doing like Abercrombie did years ago... last year's size 0 is this year's size 2! After getting Kaylee some new clothes we went over to PacSun where mom got Daniel some new shorts since he ripped his pants, literally, on Friday when we got back from the airport!

Before heading back home we went over to Toys R Us to get Kaylee some books since they were having a Buy 1 Get 1 Free sale. Ok, this might sound weird... but I haven't been to Toys R Us in years! I honestly thought it was just older kids toys (yes...I do live under a rock!). It's a good thing though because I saw so many things I wanted to buy for Kaylee! She ended up with a ring stacker, cell phone, 4 books and 4 dvds (Elmo & Blue Clues). After all of that shopping I was wore out so we headed back home. The rest of the night we sat around the house and relaxed and Daniel & I were able to go out to eat again, just the 2 of us!

Sunday Daniel had to go back to Martinsville for the race so we stayed at the house and watched the Vols play. We were running behind leaving for the airport because the game was close and came down to the last few seconds. After the game we headed to Raleigh and was able to meet Daniel on the way there since the race was rained out. We dropped my mom off at the airport and headed back home knowing it was supposed to storm, but we had no clue how bad. We stopped to grab some supper on the way home and I decided to check the weather on my phone and saw that there had been a tornado reported just a few miles from our house. On our way home that night we ended up driving through 2 storms that had tornados in them... the first, which I just found out yesterday, was a F3 tornado that was just a few miles off the interstate we were on. Daniel & I thought we saw the funnel but then it started raining so hard that we couldn't see anything at all. The second was a F2 tornado that we were much closer to but were unable to see because it was dark outside. The ground was completely covered with hail and there was nowhere for us to pull over because all of the underpasses were full of parked cars so we just had to drive through it. Amazingly, Kaylee slept through all of this!

Other than the storms it was a great weekend. Kaylee loves spending time with her Grandma and it's nice to have someone to watch her so that Daniel and I can spend time together.

What would we do without the bouncer?!?!

Big smile!

Kisses from Grandma (apparently she thought it was funny!)

Sweet baby girl!