The Tooth

***update: upon further investigations it looks like just ONE tooth has actually poked through, although the area next door is looking white, so we expect another one to be popping up any day now. Also I added a few new pictures and a video documenting the afore mentioned investigations.

We have been anticipating the arrival of Kendall's teeth for about 5 months now. At 3 months she started drooling like a Saint Bernard. By 4 months old she was aggressively rubbing her gums on anything she could fit in her mouth. Around 6 months old she started waking up in the middle of the night in pain, only to be relieved with Ora-Gel on her gums.  During her 7th month she went on a few different eating strikes (stressful!). This past month she started playing with her tongue on her gums (and I always freaked out thinking she had just put something small in her mouth and was on the verge of choking!---nope, always just her tongue.) And throughout this whole time every runny nose she got we thought "it's teething time." I'm pretty sure we went to bed saying "Oh my word, if she doesn't wake up with teeth we are CRAZY" every night! And every morning we would check for teeth, only to be disappointed to find out we were just crazy. Until today. Kendall has what we think are TWO teeth (or one really big one!) just poking through on the bottom. They are easier to feel than to see, especially since she sticks her tongue out to cover up her new little pearly whites. I'm probably a little more excited than I should be. HOORAY KENDALL! I wonder when the rest of her teeth with join the party? Tonight, to celebrate, we will be adding "teeth brushing" to our bedtime  rituals.

If you look really hard you'll see the tooth is next to my thumb...wow, my hands are starting to look old!

First Swim

A little unsure at first

 "I think I like this giant bathtub!"

Friendships forming

Kendall recently had a slumber party at her cousins house! I love this sequence of pictures because it really captures Quincy and Kendall's relationship right now. I can't wait for them to grow close over the years, being only 2 years apart I know they will be friends sooner than later, but right now it's pretty funny! Quincy adores Kendall and just wants to hold her and be a little mommy to her. Kendall, being a little bit of a touchy baby, isn't always so sure what to think.

We've also had the pleasure of watching our friend Avlynne for a few days. Kendall already looks up to her and wants to be able to do everything Av can do, and no matter what Avlynne does Kendall thinks she is the coolest EVER. She can steal a toy out of Kendall's hands and Kendall just sits there and smiles like "Wow, Avlynne just took my toy, I'm so lucky!" There has been some mutual eye poking and lip grabbing. The beginning of a great friendship.

I dressed Kendall to be matchy matchy one day---so cute!

Library date with Nathan Crawford.

Play date with Rachel Swenland.

Family night kid picture (Liam, Thijs, Aidan, Jackson, Kendall & AJ)

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 :)