Fun with KK

This little girl is so awesome.  She's so cute (even if I do say so myself--I can't help but feel like it's a compliment to me every time someone says, "She has the prettiest eyes!", I know, it's kinda lame and vain), and so very pleasant!  She's a lot of fun and just the sweetest little thing.  We love being her parents.

Now that she's got a handle on walking, she's started dragging things around with her.

Things like toys...

And even brooms. (Don't mind my clean-up music--105.9 in Chicago has commercial-free Mondays!)

Such a good helper!

She also has a love for music and dancing.  This is a toy that our niece Stephie very graciously handed down to us when she got too old for it (either that or her mother put it in a black garbage bag and snuck it into our possession with the clothes that don't fit anymore, either, the last time we visited them).  During the day I usually let her play with it to her heart's content...but at night we do just switch it off.

If you watch carefully, this video demonstrates that she not only knows when the song is about to end and pushes the button for a new one just before it does, but she skips to the songs she likes.  She most often plays La Cucaracha and Skip to My Lou while opting out of The Wheels on the Bus and London Bridge.  It's so funny.

Actually, she also still plays with the Baby Einstein musical gym that my Dad got for her and they're across from each other in the room.  Sometimes she turns on one and walks to the other and turns it on, and goes back and forth for several minutes.  She also gets very distracted whenever we get out the camera and I haven't managed to catch it yet.

With or without videos, though, she sure does make us smile...

The Gettin' Better Post

Well.  We sure have been housed here the past couple of weeks.  When I looked up a doctor to take Kendra to for her well-baby check-ups and vaccinations, I just picked the closest one to me that the search tool for our insurance found.  Turns out, the closest one to me is a very busy public clinic.  Kendra got a fever and was super tired and clingy 2 days later, which I thought was weird because usually it's the day of shots that they have a reaction, if at all, but I chalked it up to the shots.  Then we all went down, one by one.  It was grievous.

But now that it's over, I finally have gotten myself together enough to do a little bloggin'.  Yeay!

First, a few weeks ago Grant's parents were "in the area" so to speak, to visit Grant's brother's family, down in St. Louis and they stopped by.  Of course, we had just seen them a couple of weeks before that but it was still fun to have them.  Grant gave them the run-down of our tarantula collection.

And there was even a little time for bonding...

I cracked open the door one morning because the little girl was sleeping pretty late and found the following.

Like many times, I about died laughing when I saw it.  How did her pants get pulled down?

We've been letting Kendra experiment with food--basically we're hoping she'll try anything we eat.  So, we peeled an orange and handed it to her.  It looks delicious!

I don't have a story for this picture, I don't even know why we took it.  But the look on her face kinda cracks me up, I feel like she's saying "OOF!"

She's a fun little girl, and she has quickly developed a love for books.  She doesn't just pull them out, she also sits with them one by one and looks through them.

But the real reason we took this series of pictures was because we had to show off her new shirt...

Yep, the Force IS strong with this one...

Thanks again, Aunt Amanda!  :)

Kendra's latest exploits...

So as Kendra has gained mobility and fine motor skills, one by one every single place I store anything she can reach has been compromised. Sometimes I fight it and teach her, "NO!" and sometimes I just roll with it because I know I'll go nuts if I chase her around yelling, "NO!" Pick your battles, right? And I try really hard to establish from the start what's okay and what's "NO-NO!" so that she doesn't get confused when suddenly I get a whim.

But I've already lost this battle in the kitchen.

I took this picture to show you what happens in my kitchen while I stand at the sink washing the dishes every single day for the past week or so, but the little girl made this picture amazing. But maybe I'm just biased.


So she tosses the measuring cups, the cheese grater, the can opener, the thingy that goes in the bottom of the pan in the bread machine in search of her favorite...

The measuring spoons.

Which she often puts in her mouth.

Which I so don't have the patience to wash every single time she does that.

Which means I can't give away any baked goods until I'm done having children...

...unless you figure that baking something washes wipes out the germs from my baby putting it in her mouth...

No? No cookies for you, then.

Making friends!

You know what's fun? Facebook. It's really fun to reconnect with old friends, and even make some new ones. As fate would have it, one of Grant's old friends from high school had a baby just a few days before we did so I've felt a sort of bond with her as we've experienced this first year of motherhood together.

Well, after a solid year of flirting on Facebook we finally got to meet in person and get those babies together!

This is Laurel and her baby, Curtis. Take it from me, they're pretty fun folks.

They were in town overnight so they came to play on the afternoon they got here and the morning before they left, it was so much fun watching these guys play! And of course, it was also wonderful for us Mommies to get to play together, too. :)

It was fun watching these guys who are so close in age interact. At first he wasn't so sure about the whole thing, but she just couldn't wait to get down to the fun...ahhh, the home court advantage.

Such a fun guy...

And a pretty fun girl, too...

If we ever end up in the same town permanently, we're totally doing this every week.

Fun with photography

It turns out, when the Farns gets into something, he really gets into something. I'll let him explain the new camera stuff we've acquired over the past few months and how it works, but I will show you the results.

These are a few examples of the awesome quality shots you can get when you're married to the Farns and he obsesses about photography and wants you to learn how to use all the equipment he buys...

And these are some examples of the shots you can get when you are the Farns and you ask your wife to sit down with the baby so you can play with all your new camera equipment and she realizes that the baby has a poopy diaper and needs to be changed...

Ahhhh, the Kodak moments...

Evolution

Well, "development" is probably more accurate.

When Grant's parents came to visit last fall, Kendra discovered what an amazing world is right outside our window. Since then, if I take her that direction she really can't get enough. But, she's growing right up and doesn't need too much help if someone can give her a boost to the windowsill....

Don't worry, we're standing just outside the frame of this picture, and just about every pillow we own (and you all know how many pillows we own) is carefully laid out in case she did fall. But it's pretty funny--you can't really appreciate how into it she gets until you see the glass fog up because she has her nose pushed against it.

I don't have a story for this one, but I think we took it on the same day (because she's wearing the same jammies--Danielle, you're always saying self-conscious things because your kids are "still" in jammies well after morning hours but what you don't realize is that you got nothing on us. Kendra often wears nothing but the same pair of jammies a couple of days in a row.

That's a great shot of those top two teeth!

As you can see out the window, winter lasts a long time in Chicago. A very, very, very, very, very long time. Which means that all babies in the Chicagoland area will need not one, but two winter coats because they'll need it for six months. Literally. So after we got back from vacation to New Mexico/Arizona (where she had BARE legs, I'll remind you), we moved into the 18 month sized coat.

Turns out, we might get away with her wearing this one for at least the first half of next winter, too. Awesome.

And now, my favorites, always saved for last! Kendra's hair has steadily grown out and not only is it turning into a very pretty feature, it's also giving us some more laughs. Now, we not only have we had fun giving her little faux-hawks but we've also absolutely laughed out loud when she wakes up with some serious bed head.

Precious. Just precious.

My two favorite people in the whole wide world!

Fun times!

For some reason it feels like it's been a while...maybe it's just me.

But, Kendra's fan base needs regular updates, right?

First, although you can appreciate the cuteness and sometimes hilarity from our photos, so far only we have appreciated her camera face.

And speaking of funny things...



But this is my personal favorite. Baby loveses.



Yeah, this Mommy Gig totally rocks!

Photo shoot with Yoda

Aren't these great? I love how much of a shutterbug my husband is...