Gran Comes To Visit

This weekend, my mom came to visit.  She had a church workshop here in town that she signed up for.  It was something that she was interested in attending, and as a bonus, was close to our house, so she was able to make a weekend out of it and get some Kinley time in.  She got in Friday evening, and we headed to meet Todd at Chuy's for dinner.  We ran into one of my students and his family - who happen to live 4 doors down from us.  He came over to our table to say hi.  Kinley has been eating more and more "big people" food, which is nice, because I'm getting tired of baby food.  She had guacamole, which she loves, some refried beans and rice and a little bit of enchilada.  She gobbled it all up.

On Saturday, my mom had her workshop, and we just hung around the house.  Once she got back, we took Kinley and went to look for material for Easter dresses.  My mom had been wanting to make Kinley and Emily matching dresses, and it was just too busy at Christmas time.  So, she decided she would do it for Easter instead.  The girls are still too far apart in sizes to use the same pattern (Emily needs a girl size, but Kinley is still in baby sizes).  So, we found similar patterns, and some really cute material.  I can't wait to see the finished products!

Sunday, we headed to church - which has become more and more adventurous lately.  After church, we went to Jason's Deli for lunch.  Kinley ate everything we gave her, including broccoli cheese soup!  She's such a good little eater right now.

After that, we came back to the house to get my mom all packed up.  I know she would have loved to spend more time with Kinley, but she needed to get back.  We are planning to spend some time out there at Spring Break, which is only a few weeks away!

Kinley and Gran after church

Kinley's 1st Valentine's Day

Today was Kinley's first Valentine's Day.  I had gotten her a cute little outfit a while back.  The leggings were a little tight on her chunky little thighs, but I thought she looked adorable!  I had made Valentine's and put little bags together for her to take to her friends.

John just started a new job this week, and has been in training.  He was scheduled off early today, though, and we decided to go ahead and have dinner.  We still had a gift card to
Carabba's from Christmas, so we decided to use that.  It was a little different than how we've celebrated in the past, but we loved it just as much.  Kinley was so well-behaved.  There were 2 different older couples at tables near us that complimented us on her behavior.  She sat in her high chair the whole time, and never fussed at all, even though our wait for food got a little long.  We brought dessert home and shared it, with a bottle of wine, after Kinley went to bed.  It was a really nice day, with our sweet little Valentine!

 

 

All of Kinley's Valentines

10 Months of Kinley

The time just keeps flying by!  We're already into another month, and getting even closer to the 1 year mark.  Kinley is an expert crawler now, and has learned to pull up on things.  Her babysitter is determined to get her walking, but I don't think it's going to come anytime soon.  There certainly isn't anything wrong with her, developmentally, but I just don't think she's going to be an early walker.  She's such a laid back baby, that I've never really expected her to do things early.

Kinley is mostly eating people food now.  We still use some baby food on occasion, but we're mostly just trying to use it up, and not buying any new stuff.  If we are eating something, and I'm hesitant to give it to her, I'll use baby food, but mostly I try to give her table food.  She's still getting about 20 ounces of formula a day, and drinks water from a cup.  We don't really intend on introducing juice right now, because I don't want that to be the only thing she'll drink.  She's just fine with water, so I'm sticking with it.  I've already started thinking about how we're going to wean off the bottle.  It makes me incredibly sad to think about it, but I also know that it's better to do it earlier rather than later.  We have a little bit of time left, though.

Here is a 10 month snapshot:

**She is wearing 6-9 month clothes.  Some of her 6 month things still fit just fine.  I finally packed away all of the 3-6 month and smaller 6 month stuff.  It's so hard for me to put things away that she only got to wear once or twice.  Maybe we'll have another little girl someday...
**We are in size 3 diapers.  They seem so HUGE on her, and I'm sure we'll be in this size for a while.  We got some nighttime diapers, and that has cured our leaking problems at night.
**Kinley is still a super sleeper!  I treasure having a baby that loves her sleep.  She will even sleep until 9:00 or so on the weekends.  LOVE!
**Her other top front tooth has been taking it's sweet time coming in.  The one next to the top left front tooth has come through, and another bottom one is on its way in.  No sign of any molars yet.
**She is crawling all over.  She has perfected her crawl, and really moves to get to things now.  It's a whole new world for her that she can get to things she wants.
**She is becoming more of a "talker" all the time.  She responds to things we say, and mimics a lot.  It's so fun to have "conversations" with her, especially on the way home in the afternoons.  She gets so excited when I get to Dora's house to pick her up.

Time just keeps flying by, and she's growing every day!

New Car Seat

This weekend, we decided to "upgrade" Kinley to a new big girl car seat.  Our infant seat is good up to 30 pounds, but she's really getting to heavy to carry around in it - at least for me.  My good friend from college, Wendy, gave us 2 different car seats that they weren't using anymore.  Her daughter is 5.  The car seats are still good, but she couldn't donate them anywhere, because they can't guarantee they have never been in a wreck or anything.  I felt comfortable taking them, though, and was thankful for her generosity.  I took a picture this morning when I stopped to get gas.  She looks like such a big girl now!