I’m sure I’ll be saying this  for the rest of her life but I cannot believe she is this old already!  She is getting more and more active and has started on some food.  So far she is master of rice cereal,  avacado, sweet potatoes, and butternut squash.  Her favorite though is a toss up between the cereal and the butternut squash.  We gave her the first meal while my parents were visiting so they could be in on the experience.  Pretty cool.

First “real” food…please excuse my awesome face as your intro.

She now sleeps pretty much through the night, and no, it has nothing to do with her starting food.  It has to do with us “letting” her learn how to put herself to sleep.  Yes, we have been letting her “cry it out” for about a week now.  We took away her pacifier and let her figure things out.  She has done GREAT!  The longest she ever fussed and  cried was 45 minutes and that was only once.  Usually she fusses and/or cries anywhere from 0 to 10 minutes.  She  now sleeps on her stomach- her choice.  So that is a HUGE development and we (especially me) are excited for more than 4 hours straight of sleep .  So far she has been going about 8 hours straight, then I nurse her and she goes another 4 or so.  Pretty stellar.

She L-O-V-E-S her doorway jumper!  Sometimes she’ll be in that thing for 45 minutes.  That’s a better babysitter than the t.v. right?

First jumper experience…

Second jumper experience.  She might take after her dad’s dunking ability.

We had a 6 month doctor visit and here are her stats:

head: 16 3/4 inches (50%)  up 3/4 inches from 4 months

weight: 15 lbs. 14 oz. (50%- shocker I know because she is so ‘puffy’) up 2 lbs. 4 oz. from 4 months

height:  25 1/2 inches (50%) up 1 1/2 inches from 4 months

So she is our perfectly porportioned little puff-a-lump (my newest nickname for her).

My parents were our third round of visitors this month.  Originally it was supposed to be just my dad and just for the weekend.  Well he had a trip come up at work in Colorado Springs for the whole week before his scheduled weekend so he gladly volunteered for that.  Because it was going to be all week instead of a weekend he wanted mom to come too.  So it was great to have both of them for almost a week!  We went on a hike and since they were here over our birthday Barry and I had a night out without the precious kiddo.  It was also grandparent’s day while they were here.  Kind of cute that they were with their only grandkid on their first grandparent’s day. 

My dad and Kendyl just reading 5280, the Denver magazine. (Get it? 5,280 feet? Denver is the mile high city.)

We also went on a super short hike because of rain.  We still had fun and it was beautiful. 

Our birthday night out we went bowling at this super swanky bowling alley and then got dessert at P.F. Chang’s which is all within walking distance of our apartment.  We came home to a sleeping baby, homemade peach cake and presents from the parentals.  It was a nice birthday!

 

 I just had to include this picture.  We bowled 2 games.  Barry won the first one but to my surprise I won the second game…He is the top score (B Riz) and I am the bottom one (A Town).

The proud grandparents.

Correction-she doesn’t have a tooth.  The nurse practitioner said the white “tooth” is a pearl something and is kind of like a calcium deposit and will go away.  Well lo and behold it has gone away.  So she is back to being toothless!!!

Barry’s cousin, Amy and her husband and little Clara came to the Denver area for a while to visit.  They used to live here and have quite a bit of family in the area so had to spread their time between everyone.  They took us to a Rockies game and then spent the night here.  The babies did well, considering the game started at 7.  Clara slept a little at the game and Kendyl, well, didn’t.  But, she was happy the whole time.  It was a really good game too. 

Clara is just 5 weeks younger than Kendyl.  She is super tall and thin..unlike our little puff-a-lump.  Clara is just about as tall as Kendyl. 

as a disclaimer-Kendyl's toosh is that large because of her cloth diapers...she really doesn't have that big of a booty!

We had a little photo opp of the girls but they were generally unaware of each other.  Still cuties though!

On Labor Day Amy’s aunt had a cook-out and we were invited!  It was super relaxing and we had great food.

These first 2 videos make us think we might have a potential left-handed child. 

Yes, I do realize in the video below that the Bumbo is a) on the counter which is warned against and b) slightly hanging off the counter.  She survived.

Maybe she won’t even use her hands to write, throw or eat…What she does in the video she has done a few times.

A couple days ago, September 3rd to be exact, I found a little tooth poking its way through Kendyl’s gums.  It has probably been there for a while but I didn’t notice because it is in a really random spot.  Usually the first teeth to come in are on the bottom in the middle.   Kendyl’s first tooth is on her upper gum on her left side (I think it is the ‘fang’ pointy tooth).  Anyway it was crazy I just happened to see it when she was on the changing table and smiled really big.  A pretty cool milestone.   I tried to get a picture of the actual tooth–yeah she wouldn’t let that happen so we just got one of her.

 

So this video isn’t that great and you really can’t even see the tooth but it’s pretty funny toward the end she laughs when i say tooth. 

Our lovely, lovely friends Marty & Ashley (and 11 month old son Jackson) came to visit us this past weekend.  We met them at church when we lived near Chicago and we just hit it off.   We “lived it up” as our theme song for the weekend so greatly puts it (Blackeyed Peas- “I Gotta Feeling”).  We went to the pool, visited Red Rocks, walked around Belmar shops, went to church, played games, ate a lot of carbs, and watched a couple of movies.  They started the flood of visitors/trips we’ll be having over the next 6 or 7 weeks!  Crazy-we don’t have a free weekend until October 16th!!!  It’s nice though.  We LOVE when people come to visit.

We take evreryone to Red Rocks and they were no exception. 

 

Here are the kiddos together!!  yes Kendyl looks mammoth compared to Jack.  He is a pretty lean, just smaller guy and Kendyl, well, we’ll just say she’s not so lean   She is almost 6 months and Jack is almost 11 months.  We’re hoping that we won’t have to force the arranged marriage (and it happens naturally).  We promised Jack she wouldn’t always outweigh him!

Jackson was OBSESSED with crawling after Oscar.  He really just crawled after him the entire time.  When Jack would get up next to Oscar though he was kind of like, “uhhhh, now what?”  He wouldn’t try and touch him really, just wanted to chase after him.

The boys.

All of us

So a couple days ago I was changing Kendyl’s diaper and I sneezed.  Well, she thought it was hysterical.  So now I have to resist the urge to pretend sneeze all day so I can hear her laugh. 

 

Today she also finally rolled over again and I was ready with the camera.  Actually, this was the first time she got her right arm out from under her body all by herself.  She first rolled over like 2 months ago but still doesn’t do it that often yet but I know it’s coming (lovely).  I’m perfectly happy with an imobile child but I guess it is good for her to develop normally.

Yesterday our church had a baby dedication ceremony.  Our church is pretty big so with that comes a mass of people for everything.  There were 30 babies being dedicated so that equals about 100+ people up front.  It was pretty sad for me when I first heard about the dedication  because there would be no family or friends there.  That also meant no pictures.  The 2 other couples that we know at church also had kids that were being dedicated so they couldn’t take any pictures for us.  God is good though.  Our friend across the hall, Chris, was a bachelor this weekend and came with us and took pictures.  But after we went through the ceremony I felt ok about not having any family or close friends there because it was pretty quick and a little impersonal.  The church did their best but there were just a lot of kiddos!!  They gave us a little book that had a few Bible stories for kids in it and a card/certificate that was pretty nice written in caligraphy with the date and all our names.  Besides following in Hannah’s footsteps (she’s the one that first dedicated her son in the Bible) and Sunday being a dedication day, it was also a good excuse for a family photo op.  That was also the afternoon Kendyl (and Barry and I) took a 1 1/2 hour nap.  Overall a great day. 

The following are at the church of the actual dedication.

Barry’s cousin, Charity, and her family came to visit us last weekend.  This was super special because they live in Mozambique (that’s on the east side of Africa above Zimbabwe for those geographically challened.  OK honestly I looked it up.  I knew Africa but thought west side…oops.).  Anyway they are in the states for a year and have been traveling for the past couple weeks visiting friends and family literally all across the U.S..  We were lucky enough to be on their list of people to visit.  We had a great time really just hanging out.  Charity and I left all the kiddos (they have 3) with the men to go get mani-pedis.  We might even see them again because we will all be in North Carolina over Christmas and New Years.  It was nice to pick their brains a tiny bit about parenting because their kids are SOOOO well behaved and just lovely to be around.  The kids were really into Kendyl which was so cute and our little dog got quite the attention and work out being chased by them.  It was a great couple of days and we are thankful for the opportunity to just get to know them more. 

P.S.- I got a haircut, as if it isn’t obvious.  It is a bit shorter than what I truly wanted (I wanted it to still be able to go in a ponytail) but that’s kind of what I have done the past few years- grow it ridiculously long and then go way short and donate to locks of love.  Sadly this time I didn’t want to wait until my hair was long enough to donate so I lost all the length for no good cause.  oh well…

These are Pete and Charity’s kiddos, Noah (7), Asher (3), and Renata (5) pronounced Henata (it’s Brazilian). 

Renata was little miss mommy.

She was in to all things baby, cooking, and make-up.  Clearly she is all girl especially compared to her brothers.