8 Months Old

This was a busy month! It seemed as if we were always running in 5 different directions.  Dustin and I were on the road a lot traveling back and forth to Portland.  We decided that Kayden did not need to spend so much time strapped in her car seat so she got to spend a week with Grandma and Grandpa while Dustin and I were in Portland.  They taught her many new habits...... such as screaming, which she perfected quite well.  They also taught her to just be crazy!!! She was definently a different baby when we got her back, but I know she would gladly spend another week with them, because aren't grandparents suppose to spoil you kids?

We also celebrated our first Thanksgiving together.  It was great getting to see everyone and spending time with the family.  We attempted to do a photo shoot with cousin Emily, but neither of them really wanted anything to do with it.

Our first Christmas tree

We also went Christmas tree shopping, which was not as exciting as I thought it would be because we found our tree right away and it was really cold out.  But we had fun decorating it as a family and Kayden likes to touch the needles.  Something new for her senses.  Now our living room is filled with the scent of pine! Love it!

As for Kayden, she is growing up very quickly.  She talks and screams more and more each day.  She continues to torture the animals.  Thomas,our cat, has also decided that he is her sleeping partner.  He can constantly be found snuggling her in her crib. 

She gave herself devil horns

We also discovered puff cereal.  At first she kind of struggled to get the pieces in her mouth, but now she is a pro at it.  Now the puffs seem to disappear before you are even finished placing them on her tray.  She always gets so excited when she sees the container.

7 months

Kayden is growing up so fast!  At 6 1/2 months, she weighed 15 lbs 6 oz and is 26 3/4 inches long.  She becomes more independent every day.  Since last month we have had 2 more teeth come in.  We now have our top two front and bottom 2 front teeth.  When the first top tooth started to come in, we experience one of our first sleepless nights.  Boy was that a long night for all of us.  Needless to say, we were prepared for when the next on came in.  For a few weeks, she kinda looked like a little hillbilly, with one tooth on top and the two bottom ones.  But in all fairness, she was a very cute hillbilly.

Kayden has also become quite good at sitting up on her own.  We are still working on learning how to push our-self up into the sitting position, she almost has it.  We are still working on crawling too, she almost has that down too.






Her favorite thing to do is to walk!  She loves walking around the house, we have to make it a daily thing.  I just love seeing that big grin on her face are we walk around the living room.  You can tell that she is very proud of herself.








She has become quite good at treversing the living room.  Not even the coffee tables stand in her way.  And much to Leksi's dislike, Kayden has now decided that she is becoming a good play toy.

6 Months Old!!!!

Wow where has the last 6 months gone?  The months seem to be flying by lately.  Kayden is growing very fast, faster than Dustin and I would like.  She hasn't gone in for her 6 month check up yet, but I'm sure she weighs in the 16lb range.  She has been attending daycare for a month now and really seems to enjoy it.  She doesn't cry when I leave and when we pick her up, all we get is lots of smiles.  Makes me feel better about leaving her, knowing that she can handle it like a pro.

This month has been about a lot of experimenting.  We have tried several different foods, such as sweet potatoes, peas, bananas, peaches, and carrots.  So far she has not turned anything down, except for banana yogurt.  We discovered that she does not like it and makes a gagging face when she takes a bite.  Guess we will hold off on the yogurt for a little longer. She eats like a champ though.  I didn't know it was possible for a little baby to pack away a 1/4 cereal and a jar of baby food in one sitting.  I'm sure she would continue eating, but I stop her before she makes her little tummy sick.  And when all else fails, we resort to eating our foot.

She has been trying really hard to figure out the crawling thing.  We can now get into the classic rocking position on our hands and knees.  She hasn't tried to move once she gets up but if she needs to get to anything, she just army crawls.  We achieve this by throwing our hands out in front of us and pulling our selves forward while kicking our feet like a mad man.  Kind of reminds me of a fish out of water sometimes. It just amazes me at how fast she can move when she really wants something, I just have to make sure that it is something she can have.  She often wants to go after the dog toys and if you don't remove them from her sight, then she continues to go after them., no matter how far away they may be.  

She is also figuring out the whole sitting up straight thing.  We have been really good about keeping our self steady but we still fall over sometimes.  

 

 

 

 

 

trying to steal Corbin's monkey

Since last month, we have not had anymore teeth come in, although I'm sure another one will be popping in here soon. 

  

This is what happens when we refuse to take a nap in our bed

5 Months old

Each month is getting more and more exciting.  Kayden is changing so much everyday that it just amazes Dustin and I.  At 4 1/2 months, Kayden weighed 13 lbs 7 oz and was 26 1/4 inches long!  I am trying to figure out where my little baby went so quickly.  This last month, her personality has just developed so much!  She always gets so excited when she sees Dustin or I and we get a great big grin.  She is still a little weary of strangers but we are getting better.
 

We are proud to announce that we have our first 2 teeth coming in.  She is now sporting her pearly white bottom incisors.  Now that smile of her's will be even cuter.  She has been handling the teething process fairly well so far.  We haven't had too many cranky days, and if it should happen to be a bad day, she tends to be cranky more in the afternoon.  Makes it easy on Dustin and I.

This month we also started attending a daycare.  After losing our in home baby sitter, we had to go a different route.  Yesterday (9/12) was her first day, and I was told that she did pretty good.  Surprisingly it is cheaper than having someone come to the house to watch her.  In home daycare's are the way to go versus a business daycare.  The provider learned very quickly that Kayden does not like her milk cold!

So last month we learned how to roll over from our back to our stomach, this month we learned how to roll from stomach to back, now there is no stopping her.  It amazes me at how fast she can already move around.  She is also trying to figure out the whole crawling thing.  We can get our knees under us, but can't get up on our hands at the same time.  So for now we just scoot across the floor on our belly and pushing with our toes.  We are also in the stage of patting.  Now everything we touch we have to pat, especially the hard wood floor.  We are also learning how to sit unsupported.  We can only do it for a few seconds but I know she will have it down before too much longer.

 

Kayden is quickly learning what she wants and will do anything to get it, especially if it is the color black.  Right now that is one of her favorite colors.  She even prefers it over a really bright color.  We are also learning that we can be very loud.  Now instead of talking quietly like we were doing, we now have to yell and scream all the time.  Dustin and I just laugh every time because it is so darn cute!

 

 

We also introduced cereal this last month.  She really likes it and gets all excited when she gets put in her high chair.  We haven't experienced with a lot of food yet.  We did just cereal for a while and we just added in some sweet potatoes, which she really seems to enjoy.  In fact when I first gave them to her, she quit goofing off and focused just on eating.  Here in about another week, we will be trying some more foods.  She is also very insistent on helping feed herself sometimes, which means an even bigger mess when it comes to the spoon.

4 months old!!!

Wow what a month!  Kayden is growing like a weed, and its just about time to switch clothing size again (seems like we just did not too long ago).  This month, she also got to experienced several new things.  I returned to work part time and my little mommy's girl, had to get use to having a babysitter watch her.  It was a struggle at first since she wasn't real familiar with the bottle or having someone besides mom (and sometimes dad) watch her for long periods of time.  But after a week, she had adjusted and now does awesome.

Kayden also figured out how to roll over.  The first time she did it, both Dustin and I were looking away and when we looked back down, she was on her belly.  Now some days you can't keep her on her back for more than a few seconds.  Now she just needs to learn how to go from her stomach to her back since she tends to get very frustrated on her belly since she can't move like she wants too.

This month we also got to discover fair.  She wasn't quite sure what to think of all the people or the animals.  She did better than I expected on those real long days.  We learned to sleep through all the noise.  We also entered her into the pretty baby contest, and although we didn't win, she still looked very cute.

Contest outfit

Exhausting day at fair

Kayden is also starting to show interest in everything.  Anything you hold in front of her, she wants, and almost everything ends up in the mouth.  She is also starting to reach for things out of her way.  I realized the other day how difficult it is starting to become to hold her while I eat, she kept trying to grab the everything off the table.  Good thing I have a highchair!  With permission from the doctor later this week, I may start trying giving her some cereal and see how she does with that.

3 Months old

 This month has been a month of changes.  It seems that everyday Kayden was either doing something new or being exposed to new things.  I also returned to work this month.  I wasn't too worried about leaving her all day because I was ready to head back.  We had to hire a baby sitter to watch her while we are both working.  That was a big shock for her.  Although she didn't fuss much, she refused to eat that first day, but by the end of the week, she was adjusted to me being gone and having to eat from the bottle all day.

This month I pulled out her tummy mat, and boy does she love to lay there and play with the toys and talk to them.  She is perfectly content laying there for an hour or more playing.  She also discovered that she can twist on her back.  Some days it doesn't take her more than 5 minutes to turn completely sideways.

She now prefers to sit up rather than lay down.  She has started to lift her head and attempt  pull her self into a sitting position, although she isn't quite there yet.  But I know it will not be long.  Just like I know it won't be long till she is rolling over.  She can get completely on her side but she just doesn't have the oomph to flip on to her stomach yet. 

She loves to watch the dogs and cats as well as the TV.  She just can't resist all those flashing colors.  When she is on her tummy mat, she will angle her neck back so she can watch the TV.  Is it bad that she is already so interested in it?  Guess it might be time to start turning on the backyardigans.  The other day she surprised both Dustin and I. I had placed her on her tummy to do some "tummy time" and she started trying to get her knees under her (which she succeeded to do for a few seconds).  We couldn't believe that in just one day she went from just laying there looking around to attempting to get in the crawling position.  This month was just full of so many surprises.  I am so looking forward to what this next month will bring.

2 months

 This last month has been amazing!  I have enjoyed watching Kayden grow and change.  She now weighs 11 lbs 1 oz and is 24 1/4 inches long.  We have moved out of the newborn clothing and into the 3 month clothing since she is getting so long.  But I fear we will be out of those before too much longer.  Not only has she grown physically but her personality is definitely starting to show.  She is definitely a momma's girl.  She loves to spend time with her daddy, but this last month he has been gone a lot doing schools :(.  With him gone, it gets hard for all of us, luckily Kayden is a pretty good baby and doesn't cry unless something is definitely wrong.

 She now smiles and laughs at you when you talk to her.  She also enjoys having long conversations, which is just so cute.  We have also switched from a sponge bath to getting a bath in the tub, which she seems to really enjoy.

The last few days, she has been discovering her hands.  It is the cutest thing to watch her look at them, as if to say what the heck are these things?

Shes not much for toys yet, but if you give her one, she will hold on to it.  Although she doesn't seem to know what to do with it quite yet, except for hit her self in the head with it.

This month we got to spend some time with the cousins, Emily and Corbin, thanks to Becky's graduation in Hermiston and Michael and JoDell's graduation/wedding in Corvallis.  We also helped Michael and JoDell pack up their apartment which just wore Corbin and Kayden out.  In fact it wore everyone out.

Kayden - Birth to 1 month

Kayden was born April 10th at 8:15am.  Overall it was a fairly easy pregnancy and delivery.  The nine months of pregnancy flew by.  I never had much of the morning sickness or any of the other pregnancy dilemmas.  In fact, I really enjoyed being pregnant till about the last month, and then I was tired of it.  I had no fears of what was to come, except the delivery.  I wondered was I going to have a fairly short and easy delivery, or one that lasted forever and had complications?  I ended up being somewhere in the middle.  On the morning of the 9th, I woke up having small contractions.  By noon I had called my doctor and the hospital, both told me to come in.  I told Dustin it was time to go and we loaded our bags into the car and headed to the hospital.  Once we got there I was hooked up to the monitors.  After a couple of hours and lots of walking, they ended up sending me home.  I was disappointed because I knew that the clock for her to come on her own was quickly ticking away.  I was scheduled to be induced at noon on the 11th, something I was not looking forward to.  Little did I know, that at midnight we would be making another trip to the hospital, this time I knew I was not getting sent home.  Some how we managed to drive 50 miles in about 30 minutes.  We got to the hospital at 1 am, and by 3, I had the epidural in.  At 7:30 my doctor arrived and little Kayden Marie was born at 8:15am, weighing 8lbs 7 oz.

The first few days were kind of rough.  It was getting use to waking up at night and learning that my schedule now revolves around her feeding times.  But now we are use to all that and she sleeps fantastic at night.  She usually wakes up 2 times at night and will sleep 6-7 hours at a time every now and then.  Can't really complain there.  Dustin absolutely loves spoiling her, she can be such a daddy's girl some days.  She has no problem holding her head up, in fact she will hold it up for long periods of time, it just amazes me.  She is now starting to smile when you talk to her and make cooing sounds.  The animals don't really seem to mind her, other than they might be slightly jealous.  Leksi loves to give her kisses and check on her when she is on the couch or in her swing.