Does 8 months sound REALLY old to anyone else?

Kendall is becoming such a little HAM! I pull out the camera and she pulls out the charm! I don't even have to make silly faces or sounds anymore to get her to smile. Pavlov's salivating dog experiment is becoming very real for us---it's a bit scary, actually!  Anyway... we are LOVING our silly little girl. 

Here are her 8 month dolly pictures. 

She really likes to toss the dolly all over the place or suck on the tag, so I had a hard time getting a picture with the dolly sitting nicely. We think Kendall weighs a little over 15 pounds and is about 26 inches long.

Our days with cute bows are numbered! 

Kendall recently figured out that they are there, and she can take them OFF! It's tragic. I had a cute panda hat on her the other day and when we reached our destination she had turned the hat around so that the ear flap was covering her face and she was playing peek-a-boo with me! 

Kendall's had a few new and exciting accomplishments this month. 

One is that she is scooting and rolling in every direction, except forward---very frustrating for her when she wants the toy just out of reach, but is slowly moving further away from it! But she is SO proud of herself when she moves to a new spot. She looks at us and giggles as if to say "Can you believe how far I got? This is awesome!" 

From a sitting position Kendall loves to lunge forward onto all fours and rock back and forth. She smiles the whole time. She can't go anywhere just yet.

She can finally touch the floor when she is in the jumperoo and goes crazy in there! I swear she would be happy to jump all day long! She laughs and squeals and shakes her head with excitement. 

She loves to bang her toys together, put toys in and out of the basket, find toys that are hiding under her blanket, and throw toys off her high chair to watch them fall to the ground. 

She has added a few new sounds to her vocabulary: baba, wa, p-p-p-p, rrrah, ehh-ehh, and once she said MA! I teared up a little bit. 

After about a  month hiatus she is now back to sleeping through the night (most nights, knock on wood!!!). I think this is because she has figured out how to find and put her binky in her mouth in the middle of the night! WOO HOO! We've also weened her off needing the swaddle (sort of) so she now has a little more mobility and usually settles into a comfy side or tummy sleeping position. 

She also decided she was done nursing. It's bittersweet for me as I loved being able to provide for her in that way, plus the bonding, not to mention the convenience factor. But I'm trying to embrace my new freedom.

Here are a few other pictures from that past month:

Our new play pen...

Kendall still enjoys petting the cats and they still are so patient and kind. I wonder how it will go when one of them decides "enough is enough"?

We had a fun little sunny moment the other day so I grabbed the camera and I caught her in the middle of a laugh and I LOVE this picture---this is SO Kendall! I love watching her personality develop. 

Happy 8 months Kendall! 

A baby's best friend

 Aslan and Kendall are a perfect match!

 She loves to "pet" him (read: pull & poke)

 He loves the extra attention and doesn't mind how "affectionate" Kendall is.

 She couldn't be happier about Aslan coming to visit her!

Tipsy decided to check things out a few minutes later, but quickly escaped before Kendall could love on her, too (which was a good decision for both of them!).

Older, wiser, and faster!

 Our little one is officially 7 months old!!! I'm sure it's no surprise to anyone that she continues to be the BEST baby in the world :) We are so not biased! She cracks us up with her funny little personality, great sense of humor, and we are pretty sure she knows how to tease us, too (did we mention she's a child genius?)! Her most recent trick is rolling with ease (and frequency) in all directions. Our weekend project is to clean up and baby proof because we look away for a second and she's 5 feet from where we put her down! She is eating all sorts of yummy vegetables and fruit, but seems to prefer orange colored ones best. Our very precise calculations tell us she is about 14 pounds now. Kendall enjoys grabbing her feet and rubbing her toes across her gums, screaming out DADADADA, hitting and throwing toys aggressively, and finding the tags on all of her toys to chew on. As active as she is becoming she still loves to snuggle and quietly look at books too. She is taking two great day time naps, and an occasional evening cat nap. Then she usually goes down around 8pm and wakes up between 7 and 8am. Unfortunately for us, she usually wakes up at least once in the middle of the night---long gone are our glory days of having a baby who always sleeps well! Sometimes it's to eat and sometimes it seems that her gums are bothering her. We are hoping it's just a phase! But we love her none the less :) Happy 7 month birthday Kendall! You are amazing and we can't believe you're still really ours (well, God's, but He's letting us raise you and that is pretty incredible!)

Here she is sporting her Valentine's Day attire:

 Playing with her balloon from Suzette---such a fun new toy!

 Demonstrating her rolling abilities

 Capturing the dolly picture is getting harder as she wants to play with her (or find her tag to eat!).

Reading her Micky Mouse colors book

Feeling a little crafty

As a mostly stay at home mom I'm busy and bored at the same time! Sounds impossible, but it's true. I totally love that I'm able to stay home right now; I wouldn't miss a second of my time with Kendall, but I do find myself occasionally longing for the kind of busyness I had before Kendall. I've certainly learned a lot about myself with the additional down time, and one of those is  I really need to have things to do (besides changing diapers and cleaning the house) to keep me from going crazy or just vegging out. Especially on rainy/snowy winter days, when it is less than appealing to go outside.

 Therefore, I have become a little obsessed with craft blogs. I have several on my Blog List and every time a new craft pops up on the screen I feel the urge to try it! Some of these crafts were on my list of things to make for Christmas! As it turns out, Christmas is a very hectic time of year to try and also go crazy with crafts. So the next logical holiday is none other than Valentine's Day! I've never really been a big Valentine's Day hype kinda girl, but these crafts may have converted me. I also found all sorts of fun family traditions that I want to start when Kendall is a little older. So here are a few of the crafts I've been working on....

My friend Emilie coined the term "Crafternoon," and boy did we have one! I found the project idea at OurBestBites.com. Initially I thought it was a more involved project than I wanted to take on, but with the help of premade pie crust, my trusty Cricut, and Emilie, it was totally do-able! Emilie had the genius idea to add photo Valentine's cards of our cute kiddos.

 This little headband clip was inspired after we LOST the cute heart ribbon bow one of Keith's students gave to Kendall :( She obviously needed to have a cute Valentine headband!

A little heart garland was one of the crafts I wanted to do at Christmas time (I might still make one with Christmas paper and save it for next year---when I'll be too busy!). I got this idea from Linda McDonald---she had a cute one up for Fall and ever since I saw it I needed to make one.

 Back in the Fall I bought an adorable bow from "Bitchin' Bows" at the Shadle Craft Fair and knew that I could figure out how to make a few more for Kendall. It just never happened until recently. I found a tutorial at Little Birdie Secrets and made a few headband clips, then putting the extra flowers into the mini milk jugs was a tip from OurBestBites (or perhaps TipJunkie? I forget!).

The final Valentine craft I made was this LOVE garland hanging in our living room. I made it using my Cricut (thanks Keith, that was a perfect Christmas gift!).

In addition to these holiday crafts I also whipped up several  burp clothes recently in anticipation of several new babies on their way (some of which are already here!), a couple nursing covers, and a snuggley blanket and mini tag blanket for little Ian. I don't have pictures of all of these projects but if you check out the Hoogland or Tbyrd blogs you may get a glimpse :). Here is a picture of my remaining burp clothes and some felt headband clips I made. 

 Now it's time for me to start my next "Crafternoon" project :)

Dancing with Daddy

Half of a year

Here I go again, writing about how amazed we are by how fast time is flying (I mean, duh, this is how it always goes, right?), how quickly Kendall is growing and changing (that's what kids tend to do, you say), and how incredibly blessed we feel to get to be her parents...but I'm having a hard time thinking of anything else to write about! I'm not kidding you, we seriously think or say one of those things daily (or probably all of them!). Becoming parents has been the very best decision we EVER made! You see, going to college was important and necessary to have the jobs we hold and love, getting married was amazing (and key in getting us to the parent part),  but having a child has been life altering in the best way possible.

It's EXHAUSTING. For example, we were up around 4:30 this morning---and that certainly never happened before Kendall, unless we had to catch a 6am flight!. Yet we don't think twice about getting up  and changing that diaper or feeding or snuggling our sweet little one.

It's MONOTONOUS. I can NEVER remember which side I nursed her on last, because my days get a little blurry sometimes. Or if I really thought about how many times I've changed a diaper in the last 6 months---whoa. Each day feels a little like the one before, yet I don't ever want to miss a moment! I find myself just staring at her, getting lost in her baby world, while she takes in everything around her with excitement and wonder because it is not monotonous to her!

Most importantly though, it's LOVE! I love every bit of parenting, and so does Keith (the good, the bad, and the stinky), and we love that Kendall is entering an age where she can love back in a very tangible way. She is starting to raise her hands to us when she wants to be picked up----talk about a melting heart OH. MY. WORD. She gives little baby hugs when we are holding her, and likes to give little tickles too. We get endless drooly kisses (one actually resulted in me getting spit-up in my mouth---and as gross as that sounds, it didn't even phase me!), and my favorite is when she snuggles. Oh the snuggles....I hope they never end! We are so in love with our baby girl!

I've heard many people say how much they love the 6th month, and now I know why!
*We've sorta found our rhythm, I guess. It feels like we sorta have a little bit of a clue of what we are doing...maybe...sometimes...more than we have before anyway. We are getting better at reading our daughter, that is for sure!
*Kendall is still immobile (other than a one way roll, and an occasional scoot). This, we understand, is something to be grateful for! We still need to baby proof the house sooner than later because we know it's only a month or two away before our life significantly changes all over again. 
*She isn't as needy as she was in the beginning. Yet she still needs us enough to make us feel useful, but not abused!
*And she is FULL of personality, making us laugh all the time with her silly faces and sounds.

Some of her new accomplishments include:
*Consistently rolling from tummy to back, and attempting to roll from back to tummy (she can get to her side, then loses motivation and goes back to her back).
*Very "wet raspberries", especially when she is excited about something, like the cats!
*Sitting up by herself for a few minutes at a time.
*Grabbing her own feet.
*Bouncing in her exersaucer. And bouncing anywhere and anytime someone gives her the chance!
*Traveling to visit Great Grandpa Dave's house again.  And charming everyone on the plane on the way home!
*Eating rice cereal, oatmeal and even bananas, successfully!
*Loving peek-a-boo.
*She is mesmerized by the cats.
*She continues to be a fountain of drool, but no teeth to speak of.
*She usually sleeps through the night (8pm to 6 or 7am).
*One of the best accomplishments is that she is happy to be held by a variety of other people now (just in time for that "separation anxiety" stage to hit---HA!). This makes it oh so much easier to go to work and not worry if she is crying all day long, and I no longer feel as "stuck" while in the company of others.
*She weighed in at 13lbs at her 6th month appointment keeping her in the 5%,  and she is 25 1/2 in. long moving up to the 50% for height!

Two weeks of family, friends, and fun!

We can't believe how fast Christmas snuck up on us this year and how fast it went by! Kendall and I enjoyed having Keith home everyday (I even got to sleep in a couple of times), and we loved getting to spend quality time with both sides of our family. We are so blessed! Okay, so I can't seem to figure out how to arrange these pictures in any logical order but I still want to share some of our fun Christmas and New Years pictures!

We spent Christmas Eve with Kendall's adorable and sweet cousins! Here they all are in their new jammies from Mimi. Trying to get a picture was hilarious!

Today Kendall and I met up with our friends for a little play date.  These cuties (Nathan, Kendall, & Avlynne) hung out back in October and man have them grown and changed!

 The Mommies

 The saddest part of Christmas was that just a day before Christmas we said goodbye to our tree. I really kept hoping it would start to take water and come back to life...it didn't. Everytime we left the house I was paranoid we'd come back with our home up in smoke. So I found a nice fake tree at an after Christmas sale and we were able to have a tree for our Williams family Christmas on the 27th. Here is the dead tree making our yard quite festive! You should see it now covered in snow.

 A family picture on Christmas Eve.

By the end of the night the white part of Kendall's dress was practically transparent from all her drool! Teething can't be too far away.

 Christmas morning with Auntie Riss

 Christmas afternoon at Bernie's

The kids love Kendall and are so sweet to her!

 Kendall trying on (err...eating) some of her gifts!

 Happy girl for Christmas opening gifts with Daddy.

 It seems as though whenever my parents visit we get a TON of snow! Keith was our trusty shoveler. Nice outfit...totally appropriate for the chore. Check out our new tree in the background :) We discovered that our living room is exactly 7.5 feet tall.

 Playing Apples to Apples with Kendall

 We graduated Kendall from her bouncey chair to her high chair for eating cereal. She looks so old sitting there!!! I think she likes sitting at the same level as us.

 Papa and Gramma Williams

 Kendall got a sled for Christmas! So we had to try it out. She loved it and was giggling as Keith ran her up and down the street. She has no fear! Uh oh!

 Our little party animal on New Years (luckily she was sleeping at midnight!)

We sure hope you had a fabulous holiday with your family! Happy New year!!!