A picture-worthy event

From the day we found out (and much to my surprise, I might add) that Kendra was a girl, I went on a mad hunt for headbands and BIG flowers and bows to clip in them so that everyone who saw her would know without a shadow of a doubt that she was, in fact, a girl.

And I was quite successful in my quest--our archives are filled with pictures of just that (this is my favorite seller, if you've been on such a quest, you know how frustrating and holy-cow-expensive it can be).  To a point.  Because when Kendra hit 10 months, she started pulling those headbands off and then she'd pop those flowers right off the clips.

Stinker.

I fought it for a few weeks, but quickly gave up.  She just wasn't going to wear all these cute little headbands and her hair wasn't thick or long enough to sport them alone.

Now that her hair finally is  long enough, though, she still won't keep them in.  That's why there are never any pictures of Kendra wearing hair clips even though I have a whole bag of flowers, clips and bows in every color of the rainbow and more.  As soon as I pop it in, she pulls it out.  Then she gets a little crestfallen when she tries to replace it herself and it just ends up in her lap.

That's why this picture is so awesome.  She finally kept one in!  For like a whole half an hour!!

She's cute of her own accord, of course, but I love that little bow!

 Our sweet little girl...

And the obligatory Kendra-Classic shot...

Whether or not we keep it, there is at least one of these Open Mouth Smiles (and usually many) when we upload our pictures.

In every.  Single.  Set.

And we think they're awesome.

Our camera takes sweet, sweet close-ups...

And for once, I can actually post them without shame because there's no barf/food/snot all crusted up on her face!

Playing around

Kendra and I have a little game we play. I'll look at her and "run" out of the room and wait for her to find me. When she does, there's always lots of loves and tickles and giggles involved. Then after a few moments, she takes off for me to find her.

So, I give her a few seconds and then I take off and I always find this:

Or this:

Or this:

And we go on like that for quite a while...sometimes over 10 minutes (which is a lot of times back and forth through our little apartment, lemme tell ya).

But it's just so much darn fun.

I mean, you just have no idea how hard it is to stop when you see this:

And then you hear the musical little laugh that goes with it?

It's addictive.

While we were taking these pictures when we played we got this one, and it's totally my favorite!

And I understand if you're confused why I think that. I mean, this picture is out of focus, and it doesn't even have her whole face in it. But the reason I love it is because I'll always remember this moment. She's out of focus because she was running to come find me and I was having so much fun with her that I didn't get the camera up at the right second. It's only part of her because she raced toward me with her arms outstretched and wrapped them around my knees when she got to me, hugging me.

And that's when I knew it was time to stop taking pictures and start really playing with her. I'm pleased to report that while it was fun playing and taking pictures, it was an absolute ball to put the camera down and give her a great big love.

I love this Mommy stuff.

Savvy shopper

A while back, we decided to stop by the local Goodwill and I just had to peruse the racks while I was there...

Someone may have been paying close attention to what I was doing.

That's our girl.

Extended family FUN

It's so rad to live in the same town as family.  Seriously.  It's soooo nice to get to go do fun things whenever we think of them.

A loooong time ago (a couple of weeks after we moved to town), we went hiking.  Our friendly little town is right in the thick of Appalachia, and the mountains that go with it (though it's sort of using the term "mountain" rather loosely...even I think so and I'm from Kansas for cryin' out loud).  In fact, the first thing we noticed when we drove into town was the largest mountain around staring up at us, Mount Nittany.  And it turns out that the trailhead is incredibly accessible, so we headed there on beautiful Saturday afternoon.

It was pretty fun stuff--and it was awfully pretty too.

Here's the view from the top:

Our own Happy Valley!

Yes, I know that the real Happy Valley is in Utah, but that's what they call it here, so I go with it.

Kendra handled the trip pretty well...until we tried to switch her off to Grant to give me a break.  He was only too willing but when we did she screamed and screamed and looked at me like, "YOU TRAITOR!" and was completely fine as soon as we put her back on my back.  Go figure.

At least she smiled for the camera.

So much fun!

Especially with a whole extra troop of Farnsworths to share it with!