The Many Faces of Kendra

Chillin' like a villain:

Out of sorts:
Down-right upset:
"Oh! Woe is me!"

Curious:
Cheesin' it:
Think, think, think:

Baby Girl to Big Girl

There is brand of clothes that dubs their infant sizes, "Just One Year". I thought it was sweet when I first saw it but as this first year with Kendra rapidly draws to a close, I'm realizing how true it is...she's really not our tiny baby anymore. Weird! Though at the rate we're going, I'm not going to get used to being her mother any time soon. It's still weird to realize I'm married. To Grant. Whoa.

So here's our big girl, standing so well on her own...

She sure does love that authentically Australian kangaroo Auntie Kelly gave Mommy!

So much fun!

Mmm, delicious.

I think it's part the fact that she's standing and part the fact that she's standing in some super-cute jeans that make her look so old. She's gotten pretty good at it. She even took her very first step today! Just one, but it was deliberate and distinct. We all gotta start somewhere, right?

It's been so interesting to watch her grow and develop. Kendra has taken an invested interest in the shower. It's actually gotten to be a problem. She's started pulling the curtain away from the wall while someone is in the shower, which gets water everywhere, and we're trying to see how we can discourage that behavior without banning her free-roaming privileges and shunning her into her crib for shower time...but in the meanwhile, it does encourage me to bring her into the shower and bathe her more regularly than I would of my own accord. I don't think I'm a negligent mother...she just doesn't get that dirty, y'know?

But yesterday, she even got two showers. Once because she was convincing enough while I was showering and once because we experienced the blow-out diaper of all blow-out diapers later the same day. I knew it was going to be bad because I actually heard it happen, but she literally had poo on her arms! That's something I was convinced wasn't possible until it happened to me.

But, since one of us wasn't in the shower with her and she was covered well enough, I decided to get a few bath time fun shots. We've come a long way from the newborn who screamed so loudly and horrifically that I couldn't bring myself to bathe her more than once a week because I knew how much she hated it...

"What? Clearly, this shampoo bottle is a toy."
And that's the Gospel Truth. There was much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth when we took it away.

"Uuhhhh..."
I just liked how the water was sprayed everywhere in this one. :)

One thing's for sure though, whether Baby Girl or Big Girl, she sure is a Happy Girl (most of the time) and we absolutely adore her.

It really is just one year, but it's been sooo much fun. And all the better because we got to do it together.

Ahh, technology...

Today I finally was able to successfully do something I've been meaning to for a long time, and now that I have I can share some fun things with all of you!

Isn't technology great? I love it. I remember when cell phones were the size of bricks and only the very rich and elite had them. Now, a layman can get one that could produce a feature film and hack into the Pentagon for just a few hundred dollars. Not really, but you catch my drift. And while I don't need to shoot a movie or deploy nuclear weapons, I do love having a camera phone and the ability to take pictures I can use for the background.

Kendra wasn't even 2 hours old when I asked Grant to take one I could send out to everyone...though for some reason that was during a period of time I could neither send or receive pictures. Boo.

Then we captured some of her first smiles at church one day when I didn't have my camera on me...alas, it's a little blurry as babies are wont to be in motion when they're awake. :)

Once she was about a month old, we started a daily tradition I LOVED. We took a nap together every morning and when she woke up, I'd lay on my side and sit her in the crook of my lap and play with her. It was so much easier to cope with the sleep deprivation when I had these moments to look forward to...

And I've learned that the pictures that work best for being wallpaper on my phone are centered a little differently than I normally would, so there's lots of space on top where the clock, battery level and signal strength are displayed, but we can still squeeze in some cute smiles.

I make sure to put up a new one every couple of months and this is the one I've currently got. She's so fun!

It's a fun and sentimental journey to click through the pictures on my phone and see how they're a scrapbook of my life. But for me the best part is the very first photo I took when I got the phone two years ago. I was hanging out with my boyfriend and snapped a smile from him that became not just the first picture on my phone, but the first one I used as wallpaper...

Turns out, he's even more special to me now. :)

Merry Christmas!

More trouble

Turns out, we did take a picture of a toilet paper incident...this batch stuck to her pajamas and made it down the hallway and into the living room. Awesome.

Now, I'll bet that form of fiber makes Metamucil tasty!

These next photos are pictures of one of Kendra's favorite toys: my alarm clock. She makes a beeline for it every single time she follows me into our bedroom.


But, even if she drops it on the floor and resets it...it's still hard to be too irritated with her. She's just too dang cute doin' it. (Instead I've started putting it up on my dresser before I let her into the room, and I really have to hustle to beat her to it)

This weekend, Grant and I were out when I spotted a display of Terry's Chocolate Oranges (and here's a picture) and I asked for one because they're soooo yummy! We whacked and unwrapped one tonight after dinner and enjoyed a few slices and Grant put the rest of it to the side. Guess who found the package?

That's what we get for not being more careful while we were watching Charmed...(yes, Charmed).

Turns out, if a ten-month-old gets their hands on a piece of milk chocolate, it melts real quick...

However, we've discovered something through this: we can start having an annual holiday tradition of chocolate oranges because the entire Farnsworth family thinks they're finger-lickin' good. :)

This week a pretty nasty illness made its rounds, and Daddy was the first to go down. He stayed from the office and worked from home on Tuesday, which we all really loved! Granted, it wasn't like the weekend where he could just play with his little girls all day, he did have to actually put in a full day's work...but with little time-outs.

That Daddy, he's the best!

More babyproofing

As Kendra is such a sweet little baby who is content to follow me around everywhere, we've gotten into the habit of her just coming into the bathroom with me and playing while I take a shower. And we were feeling pretty good about her ability to get into trouble in there--the cabinets under the sink have been baby-proofed and we've been good about remembering to keep the trash can up high and the toilet lid down.

However yesterday while I was taking my shower I noticed it was very, very quiet. I've posted a video of her playing, she's normally quite vocal even if we're not interacting. So I peeked my head out to check on her.

Kendra was sitting right by the tub, about five feet away from the toilet paper roll, and not only was there a trail of toilet paper leading from the roll on the wall to her hands, but she was continuing to pull it and unroll it by the armload. And, just after I poked my head out to watch, she stopped pulling on it and just started ripping what was in her lap into shreds because as fate would have it, this stuff rips up pretty easily. And from the look on her face while she was doing it, it's an absolute ball to do.

And I was still in the shower. All I could do was watch.

When I told Grant the story after he got home from work and noticed the mangled roll of toilet paper, he asked why I didn't take a picture once I did get out of the shower. Well, she's figured out that she's cute and she knows what to do when we get out the camera. Although it's a really funny story that I would like to remember I figure it's not good to give her positive reinforcement for a bad behavior--no sense in disciplining a ten-month-old (today!) so at least try to not encourage the stuff you don't want them to do.

So I did take this picture this morning so that I could tell the story here. Actually, once I brought her into the bathroom, she immediately started to very enthusiastically reenact her crime. Hence, the rubber duck for distraction.

But, if you come to visit us and need to use the restroom, we'll likely be keeping the toilet paper on the back of the toilet from now on. We do apologize for the inconvenience...

Development

Have I mentioned lately how much I love being a mother? It's seriously the COOLEST job on the planet.

I mean first, I get to hang out with this beautiful little girl.


Yep, she's awesome.

And, she's smart. A full year of fish oil 3 times daily to develop her brain and we're finally starting to see the smartness.

I took this video last week when I saw her figuring out a toy Debbie handed down to us (but as far as their youngest is concerned, it's still hers, not ours). I popped all the things up, and she learned that they go down (except that number four with the turning mechanism--it's a doosy).



Then today I took this one. She totally started doing this on her own. Granted, it was more impressive when I looked over and watched her do it over and over again for an extended period of time, but what are you going to do?



See? Genius!

Okay, so maybe we can't exactly certify that, but it's the coolest thing ever to see her develop and do stuff like figure out part of a toy like this. I mean, this time last year she was a bump in my stomach and look at her now!

She's amazing.

This Mommy gig totally rocks.

Mmm, delicious!

We were out for a long time on Saturday. So long that we ended up grabbing dinner before heading home. It was the first time we've gone out with the baby for quite a while, and we realized we could satiate her rumbling stomach with some of our yummies instead of freaking out that Mommy had misjudged how long we'd be out and we didn't have a bottle or formula on us. Hurray for fried rice and lo mien from Panda Express!

It was cuter when she had several noodles hanging out of her mouth instead of just one, but I just wasn't quite fast enough...

She still looks pretty cute doin' it, though. :)

Chicago Baby

Winter really hit us with one fell swoop here in Chicagoland. We really went from the "Should I wear a jacket or a coat?" weather to the "Holy cow, it's so dang cold outside!!" weather pretty much overnight. When that first stage of weather hit, one day Kendra and I were walking out of the post office and we were blasted with some really strong, cold wind. It really surprised her and she was pretty taken aback by the intensity of the cold gust all the way to the car.

"Oh, Baby, I'm so sorry, but you were born in Chicago and it gets REALLY cold and REALLY windy here and unfortunately this is just the beginning..." I told her as we walked. Yes, I realize she's only nine months old and has no idea what I'm saying, but I still talk to her like that all the time. Eventually she'll talk back, right?

And last week, we got our first taste of bitter cold (no lie, the HIGH for the day was 11 degrees) and we had errands to run so I bundled her up appropriately. I had her in thermal underwear (tops and bottoms), socks that literally go up to her thighs (but that doesn't stop her from pulling them off if she can), pants, a nice thick sweater, and this awesome coat that was so generously handed down from Mike and Laura with a good warm hat I picked up at a local thrift store.

She hates it! All the bundling totally zaps her mobility and at one point she actually just rolled over and laid herself down in defeat. After that sad, sad moment I made it a point to get out the door in such a way that putting her coat on is the very last thing I do before we walk out the door and taking it off is the first thing we do when we walk back in.

Poor thing. It reminds me of this scene from A Christmas Story...she totally looks at me heart-broken like I've betrayed her every time I bundle her up.

Seriously, if anyone has any leads for Grant to work anywhere else, you let us know. We gotta get this kid out of the cold!

Laughing until we hurt...

Grant and I have been watching Everybody Loves Raymond and we're finally about to wrap up the series. Often when we're watching I pause it to tell Grant why the episode's drama is kinda dumb because the wife is being totally unreasonable.

In the episode we're watching tonight, Raymond had given his wife a necklace for her birthday that she began the episode announcing that she loves it and that people have been giving her compliments about it all week long. Only low and behold, Raymond didn't even buy the necklace, his mother did. Raymond had forgotten about her birthday altogether.

Pause.

Okay, this is totally unreasonable, and it doesn't make him a bad husband. It makes him a man. A busy, working man. And it doesn't mean he doesn't love his wife.

I turned to Grant to make these statements and I illustrated my point by asking, "Do you know when my birthday is?"

He sheepishly sat in silence. "I'll remember it...soon..."

And he came up with the right date, July 8th.

And I said, "But you probably won't think to yourself on like June 2oth, 'Ashley's birthday is coming up, I need to get her a present...' You probably won't remember until July 7th, right?" Mind you, this is not a dis. It's just how a man is.

"I will if Facebook tells me..."

We started laughing out loud at the truth of this. And then I realized what was actually funny.

He hadn't remembered when my birthday was, I had just added pictures on Facebook and my profile was up, which announces that my birthday is July 8.

Ohhhh, it was hilarious. We laughed for a couple of minutes straight, and that's exactly my point in thinking it was totally unreasonable for Debra to be mad at Raymond. But you might have had to be there. I love Grant so dearly...but he's horrible with dates. In fact, if Facebook, me, his mother or his sister never reminded him about all the family birthdays, no one would get any happy wishes from him. And it's not a dis or a bad thing. He's warm and kind and loving in many ways, it would make about as much sense for me to get offended that he doesn't remember when my birthday is as would to get offended at a dog for chasing a cat.

But it makes him feel like a failure as a husband when that stuff slips his mind, so could someone of the female persuasion please remind him when my is coming up so that he doesn't feel terrible when he sees the reminder on his Facebook sidebar realizes he doesn't have enough time to get me something?

Family Portrait Woes

We decided to sit down as a family and take a nice portrait. Kendra can be so photogenic when she wants to.

Unfortunately, she wasn't really in that kind of mood.

Family photo FAIL!

A cute fail, though. :)

Christmas time!

Well, it's our first Christmas as parents. Better step up the decorations a little from last year...

However, it's our first Christmas as parents, so we better put the decorations literally on a higher level so that they don't get pulled down by a certain standing cutie pie living around here.

So, I folded the tinsel garland in half to adorn one of our doorways. Totally out of her reach.

I really love that ornament I hung up there. Here's a close-up for your enjoyment:

That's a traditional Hungarian House Blessing. I sat in a lot of kitchens and read this in a pretty framed artwork.

Where there's Faith, there's Love.
Where there's Love, there's Peace.
Where there's Peace, there's Blessing.
Where there's Blessing, there's God.
Where God is,
There's no need.

Nice, isn't it?

Alas, we have no mantel, so I put our stockings up on the wall. Eh, it keeps them out of the baby's reach.

And our humble little tree. Up high on a table. And surrounded by half of the ole Super Yard (the other half now lives around the elliptical).

We still haven't picked out the smaller ornaments we want to use this year, but we (I) had to put up our First Christmas Together ornament.

I'm really looking forward to the years going by and seeing our ornaments tell the story of our lives together.

And finally, I wanted to up something for the outside, too. It's not much, the garland doesn't even go all the way around, but it's pretty from the street.


And a pretty sunset for us on the inside. We actually keep the blinds down and it looks nicer from the inside, but I still dig the glow they give through them.

My plan is to hit the after Christmas sales every year and keep building up our stockpile of decorations (last year I focused on getting gift-wrapping supplies).

So even though Kendra won't remember her first Christmas, she'll know that just for her we wanted to make it special.

Merry Christmas!

Videoses!

Okay, so I know that some of these are kind of long...there are two reasons I didn't trim them down.

1) It was late and I was tired when I was processing them and uploading them to YouTube and it made me laaaaazy. As I am wont to be at times.

2) Several grandparents read this blog and all of them wished they lived closer to Kendra so that they would have more opportunities to see stuff just like this. So I figure they won't mind four whole minutes of Kendra's most recent hilarious behavior.

First, a sample of Kendra's new audio abilities. She does this all. The. Time. And we think it's so stinkin' cute...



Next, something you can get the gist of in the first 20 seconds. I wanted to take a video, partly for our memories' sake and partly for her to see later, of her in her normal, everyday behavior. This is pretty much what she does all day, every day. And if I leave the room, she follows me to where ever I'm going and starts doing this stuff there. When I see her playing like this I get a bit envious of her simple, sweet, carefree life... Ahhh...to be a nine-month-old...



Yes, that was the Jurassic Park soundtrack she was chewing on. We're teaching her from a young age, to quote Moosebutter, that John Williams is the man!

And this is the long and hilarious one. You can just fast forward to the halfway point and watch for 20 seconds to get the gist, or you can see the whole story from beginning to end if you want. Either way, you're in for some fun.



So, there's your most current round of videos from our humble home. It's like our own reality TV show of raising baby Kendra!

Working hard and laying back

While we were at Heber and Debbie's for the holiday, I decided to commit myself to not slacking off with my diet and exercise just because we were on vacation. So, I brought mashed butternut squash (with Smart Balance [olive oil margarine] and skim milk instead of butter, cream and brown sugar the way the recipe calls for) to help curb temptations at dinner and reinforcements to help with working out. It went beautifully, I actually came home weighing less than when we left. Awesome.

This is actually a very common sight in our home, but it was intriguing to others. Little Stephanie even stood up and started grooving on her own while she watched me. Kendra took a more relaxed approach to participation, and she had prime seats for it.

Yeah, she looks pretty cozy. I laughed out loud as I was doing the video and turned around with the workout and saw her--look at that belly! (Proof positive that she's not underfed, but I still freak out when she doesn't eat...) She's pretty laid back here, but when she saw Daddy taking pictures, she perked up a little.

Such a happy little girl! We might have to get one of these when we have a bigger place...

Thanksgiving!

Although things looked dire for us leading up to our departure, we had a pretty awesome holiday with part of our beloved extended family.

I finally did some real research on the matter and discovered we were totally taking the wrong roads out of town, and I was very pleased that we made the trip in just under six hours on the busiest traveling day of the year, and that's with a stop. Awesome!

But I'm still trying to figure out how we made the return trip in 4.5 hours if just without stopping and with no traffic...

We had a pretty great time, Debbie is a fantastic hostess and her help really can't be beat.


Fruit salad, yummy yummy!


And the table was set so beautifully, too.

Turns out, these guys are very into pies. I brought a pecan and they made an apple (check out that lattice Brittany did!), a triple berry and a lemon meringue. Natalie noticed that we had an open, a closed, a lattice and a covered pie--they were all unique and all delicious. But we realized we literally had about half a pie per person...the kids were eating pie for breakfast and lunch all weekend long. Nutrition!

After stuffing our faces and giving thanks, we enjoyed a pretty chilled-out weekend together. Lots of movies, late-night chats and the like.

We all had fun, though. :)

And though she did spend some time crying through the nights, Kendra still managed to charm the pants off of everyone in the house.

You put pretty much anything on a baby's head and it's just the most adorable thing in the world, isn't it?

She had a pretty good time, I'd say.

For those of you who don't know our family, Grant and his oldest and youngest brother are all three very much alike in looks, personality and mannerisms. When I talk to Debbie or Kristina about their respective husbands, sometimes I think that we're all married to copies the same man. No, really! And in fact, this past summer at the family reunion, Seth's own son mistook Heber for his Dad! So I wasn't really surprised to see how affectionate Kendra was toward her uncle.

Not quite her daddy, but pretty darn cool.

There are more pictures that need to be uploaded from another camera and a couple of more stories to tell, but that's the gist of our Thanksgiving. As you can see, we have quite a bit to be thankful for...