This time last year...

 This time last year I felt like barfing all day long, but hardly anyone knew. This time last year I was getting up 2 times a night just to pee. This time last year I took at least one nap a day. This time last year I couldn't eat enough strawberries (or preggy pops & ginger ale). This time last year I was sooooo ready for a break from work. This time last year I couldn't button my jeans (well, I guess that one hasn't really changed! HA!). 

This year things have changed, because this time last year I did not have an adorable 5 month old!!!!

 Who about a week ago weighed in at 11lbs and 9oz.

 Who is super smiley and happy most of the time!

 Who can take a bottle of formula when she needs to (and she even likes to help hold it!)

 Who is working on a pretty sweet bald spot!

 Who is sleeping about 9 or 10 hours a night and takes at least 2 great naps a day (which probably contribute to the smiley happy attitude!)!

 Who loves her Mommy and Daddy and looks at them when they say her name.

 

Who has fun cousins who show her how to sit with Santa. And a Mimi who takes care of her on Friday's while Mommy and Daddy work.

 Who helps Mommy around the house on all the other weekdays.

 Who loves to look at the Christmas tree and is experiencing all the fun new sights of the holidays.

Who loves to play with all toys that are grabable and feel nice on her gums.

Who can now make "raspberries," roll over from tummy to back, and can sit great in the Bumbo chair.

Who is the joy of our life!!!

Merry Christmas!

Ever since I met Keith and his family we've been going to Breakfast with Santa. Last year was pretty exciting because we announced that we were pregnant to both of our families! We gave no announcements this year.  But this year was the best one yet! Even though Kendall doesn't really "get it", we sure love introducing her to our family traditions and starting a few new ones of our very own. She survived her first encounter with Santa looking just a little stunned, but not totally freaked out (sadly, no signature Kendall smile either. Maybe next year----well, probably next year we'll get the tears!).

 Merry Christmas everyone :)

Great Grandpa Dave & Thanksgiving

In mid November my Mom invited Kendall and I to join her at Grandpa Dave's house in California. It was perfect weather in the Bay Area, which was perfect timing for us to get out of Spokane (before all the crazy snow!). Kendall LOVED seeing her Great Grandpa again!

We celebrated a mini Christmas, since we'll all be in Spokane this year, Grandpa will be with my Aunt's family. It will be one of my first Christmas' without him.

You'd never know this guy is 97 years old the way he would get down on the floor to play with Kendall!

Kendall was able to meet her 2nd cousin, Aidan (my cousin Daniel's son), who isn't the baby in the family anymore!

She likes the bath so much, she gets pretty upset when we take her out.

We helped Grandpa do some yard work too. Can't you just feel the warm California sunshine---I'm trying to pretend I'm still there!

My mom was just as excited as Grandpa to see Kendall.

We came back and had just a couple of weeks until my parents came to Spokane for Thanksgiving.

Here Quincy is holding her "Baby Kennall"

The whole crew at dinner

The Williams Christmas card

 (it only took 8 tries to get a decent one, and I was the main problem!)

First Snow

4 months old---updated

4 month stats:

10lbs 11.5oz (5%), 23 3/4in long (30%)

We've got to beef up our itty bitty! Hopefully she'll like a little formula with her breastmilk---wish us luck!

I can't believe how quickly time is moving. The other day, I met with a teacher friend of mine who was telling me about her up coming conferences---and I was like "WHAT? how can conferences be going on this week? School just started!" But, school didn't just start, I'm just WAY out of the loop, living in baby world where there are no conferences. Mainly just a lot of drooling.  However, if I were to have a conference to discuss all the ways I've seen Kendall grow and learn so far in her life, she would pass with flying colors :) She is still sleeping through the night most nights, adding new sounds (and new volume) to her vocabulary, grabbing and actually playing with her toys, putting everything that comes near her in her mouth, sitting with assistance, attempting to roll from her tummy to back, flirting with friends (and strangers at the grocery store), giggling and smiling in anticipation of a kiss or a tickle, growling up a storm, standing with our help, and growing out of her clothes daily it seems! We are seriously loving each new phase (even the clingy fussy one she recently started while on a trip to visit her Great Grandpa).

Here are her 4 month dolly pictures. She wasn't very happy at first....

 Letting her suck her thumb helped....

 But letting her pretend she's a big girl in her crib did the trick! Did I mention she loves to stand up with our help? Standing might be tied with sucking her hands for her favorite thing in the world.

We love you Kendall, thanks for being the best baby in the world! Stats to come later this week...

Ella

Some friends of our friends little baby, named Ella, needs our prayers!

http://ellalouisedordal.blogspot.com/

Growling Monster

Kendall's new trick is growling. I don't know if she likes the sound, or the way it feels in her throat, but she does it ALL THE TIME! I think she learned from her friend Avlynne, who is a growling expert! The video is a little dark and a little long...but it's pretty cute :)

Halloween baby!

I've never been a big fan of Halloween. Don't get me wrong, I love the candy, it's just the dressing up that has never been a joy of mine. However, now that we have a little one this holiday has just become really fun!I loved dressing Kendall up in all her costumes and seeing all my friends kids and old students. I think next year there will be a little more planning involved and Keith and I might even join in the fun. 

I just couldn't decide which kitty picture I liked best. So in Erin Corry fashion, I have created a little collage!

On Friday she dressed up as a cat and headed down to the Brentwood Halloween parade!

 On Saturday she was a plump little pumpkin!

 And on Halloween she was a ferocious lion! Posing here with her cousins, and below with her friend Avlynne the cow.

The main problem Kendall had with Halloween was how she couldn't see a darn thing all weekend with all these too big hoods :)

Babies and pumpkins

To celebrate our dear friend Robyn's 30th birthday her husband Phil organized a reunion of our college roommates, along with all our new babies (and one on the way)! It was a very special time because although we've all seen each other in the past year, we haven't all seen each other all together at the same time since Krista & KJ's wedding in 2006! We kicked off the weekend with a visit to Robyn's favorite coffee shop for her favorite cinnamon rolls. While we ate, drank, and visited, the babies rolled around on the floor and stole each others binkies.

 Then we headed up to Greenbluff (of course, it's a sin not to when you are in Spokane in the fall!). You can imagine the laughter and squealing (by the parents mostly) as we posed our adorable children together in this fall scene.

 mom blogs and facebook profile pics are littered with babies & pumpkin pictures right now, I'm just adding to that today----it's irresistible!

 What's better than babies and pumpkins? Dinner at the Grandparents house! Thanks to Krista and Rebecca's parents, we were blessed to have both our group dinners hosted so that we could enjoy each others company and tend to the little ones. Of course, these Grandparents had ulterior motives of baby holding galore! Seemed like a good trade to me!

It was a fabulous weekend of catching up and baby lovin'. Thanks Robyn, for turning 30! And thanks Phil, for making Robyn's birthday wish come true for all of us!

We also had a surprise baby shower for Cora, but I don't have any great pictures of the event, so, more to come when I can snag a few cute pics from other peoples cameras :)

For Mom

Here's a little video of Kendall on her play mat...she just realized that she is the one making the toys move when she hits them, so now she does it all the time and giggles at them when they move or make noise. Of course when I started to record her doing this she toned down her enthusiasm...but this gives you an idea.

3 months old

I can't believe that 3 months have already gone by. Kendall continues to be such a fun baby! At 3 months old she weighs 9lbs and 12 oz. and just outgrew her newborn clothes. She comes up with cute new tricks to show me everyday (that I'm sure no other baby has ever done before!). I seriously can't believe how blessed we are. In the past month she has started to really giggle and react to us. She knows who her mommy and daddy are, and that warms our hearts! She has recently become very talkative--hmmm, no clue where that came from? She even likes to sing with her daddy! She can play by herself and be totally content for 30 or more minutes  when surrounded by her favorite friends the penguin, turtle, caterpillar, and the mirror (I'm actually eating a breakfast now, and occasionally get a few chores in!)! But, she loves it even more when Keith or I get down and play with her. She is obsessed with putting her hands in her mouth, and even tries to put them in while she's eating. Tummy time is becoming more enjoyable now with some increased arm and neck strength. and occasionally she'll even roll to her side (very advanced, or lopsided). Oh, and she regularly sleeps 7 or 8 hours at night---she is the nicest baby ever!!! Here are a few pictures of our beautiful, joyful, amazing little girl!

a little unsure of the bumbo just yet

brings new meaning to double fistin'

really anything near her mouth goes in it!

loving the October sunshine!

Last day in D.C.

Clark told us one of their favorite places in D.C. is the FREE zoo! Since we saw almost all the sights we could to see (including the Smithsonian American History Museum), and neither of us can remember the last time we went to a zoo, we decided that would be a cool place to check out.  And it was!

after we took the long metro ride and walk to the zoo, we fueled up at the Starbucks across the street and headed inside!

 Here are a few of the cool animals we saw:

 Sloth Bear

 Cheetah

 Pandas on lease from China

 red tailed panda---super cute!

 Elephants

 Gorillas

 Lions

 Apes

 Turtles

 Zebras

And quite possibly my favorite animal of the day: The Naked Mole Rats

 (if you haven't read Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed by Mo Willems you need to)

 On our way back to our hotel we stopped at Iwo Jima (to nurse!)

 View from Iwo Jima (very close to our hotel)

 Walking back to the Metro to catch a train to the airport. Are you impressed with our minimal luggage? What you see is everything we brought and Keith carried it all the whole time!

 Crying a little on the plane :( Sorry other passengers, 4 hours is too long of a plane ride for us!

Once she fell asleep she was amazing the whole trip back!

All in all it was a truly wonderful trip!  The wedding was so fun, the sight seeing was superb, the weather was fantastic (75-80 degrees and sunny the whole time!), and Kendall surpassed all our expectations! Someday we'll return so Kendall can actually remember it :)