A Real Professional

My friends, if you happen to have a need for some serious circles to be drawn,  you have come to the right place.

There's not a blank spot of paper or chalkboard that she doesn't love to fill with faces!

And speaking of faces...

...we just think this one is the sweetest thing around.

Though these days she's a little more camera shy and not as willing to smile as she used be.

But that's okay.  She's still a beautiful little girl.

"I'm ready for my close-up..."

Kendra loves her some "shashee" (sunglasses).

34 Weeks (and counting...)

Well, even though this picture is already weeks old (I'm at 37 weeks now), here's the Bump.

And just for funsies, here's me at this point with Kendra:

The biggest development in pregnancy lately has been managing water retention.  Things got pretty intense the first time, but I didn't really try to do anything about it and just accepted it as part of the end of pregnancy.  Well, since then I've been married to the Farns for two more years and have adapted his mentality.  Meaning, if there is a problem, there's a solution!  And so I started experimenting...drinking even more water helps.  Good hard workouts make a difference, too.  But the thing that really keeps it in check?  Low sodium diet.

And you know what's got plenty of sodium in it?  EVERYTHING.  I had no idea until I started looking at labels and cutting things out.  I'm pretty much living on green salad and cold cereal.  It's so depressing.

But it's worth it.  It's TOTALLY worth it to bypass the discomfort of water retention.  Ugh.  For those of you who haven't been pregnant or haven't had this problem in pregnancy it just feels like suddenly your skin isn't big or stretchy enough for your body and you can feel yourself swell up, it's so awful.  But it does make for a lot of bland eating...I pretty much make dinner for Grant and Kendra and then...watch them enjoy it while I have my salad.  There are some dressings that are even too much.

It's only for a few more weeks, and it's just to keep me more comfortable.  Some people have to do it as a permanent lifestyle, to keep them alive.  It's not that bad when you look at it like that.

But you know what consistently has very little sodium?  Chocolate.  Chocolate and ice cream.

You might call it something else, but I take that as proof that there is a God.

I know I'm biased...

But this is just about the prettiest little face I've ever seen.

Enjoying the outdoors

The chalkboard isn't the only place Kendra likes to draw...

(And she totally dragged that rocking chair out to the patio by herself.  This girl knows she's got country roots.)

Since she likes to be outside so much, we busted out the PlayYard which beautifully adjusted to our current needs so now we can let her play while I get stuff done inside if I need to.

As long as I only need to be inside, that is...

Because this sort of looks like someone who's not content to be confined.

Oh, the frustration!

Luckily she didn't have to suffer the insanity long--our camera takes pictures very quickly.  :)

Spring!

Last fall we planted some crocus and tulip bulbs outside our patio doors.  Boy was it exciting when green shoots appeared in March!

And there were a couple of other bulbs in there we totally didn't put there...but they sure smelled nice.

Unfortunately these were the only pictures we got.

A couple of weeks after the beautiful blooms appeared, they wholly disappeared, snapped clean off.

At first we thought someone collected some Mother's Day corsages, but after watching all the tulips in the complex vanish in the same way it seems more likely that something came by and ate them.

We're planning on replacing them next year with something less delicious to the local wildlife, but it was fun while it lasted...

Make it better, Daddy...

From the day she was born, it has touched my heart to no limit just how much Grant loves our daughter.  He is a really fantastic father (even if I do say so myself).  He's always happy to see her and his feelings get pretty hurt for an extended period of time if she's in a bad mood when he gets home and doesn't want anything to do with him.

In fact, lately she's been awake when he's been heading out the door and he can barely contain his glee that every time he leaves and we tell her she's not going with him, she breaks down into inconsolable tears.  He does feel bad that she's sad about something, but he loves that she's sad that he's leaving.

And even though I'm the one left behind to soothe the tears, I think it's kinda cute, too.

Last Sunday I sort of squeezed the Mother's Day thing for all it was worth and asked him to take the diapers out because the can had just filled up.  And Kendra gets pretty excited for any opportunity to go for a walk, so she happily accompanied him to the dumpster in the opposite corner of the complex--she doesn't care where she's going, she just likes going for walks.

We put her in some sandals that while cute and functional, occasionally catch on the pavement if she starts really running and can result trips and falls and sent her out the door.  And unfortunately, one of those occasions happened just as they were getting back from the dumpster..while still wearing the skirt from church that morning.  She skinned both of her knees and even bumped her head on the sidewalk, it was very, very sad for all of us.

We cleaned and dressed her little wounds and called up good ole about-to-start-residency Uncle Seth to ask what to look for when littles bang their heads and tried to cheer her up, but she was sad for the rest of the evening.

And while we tried to split the load of comforting her, she was pretty insistent that only Daddy would do most of time.

So he spent the rest of the evening like this:

She stayed in his arms so long she got bedhead.  AND she wasn't even interested in Fruit Chewies.  That's pretty serious business in this house.

Luckily some Tylenol and a good night's sleep made her right as rain the next morning, but she wouldn't budge from his arms for hours.

My heart swelled up and brimmed past capacity with Love for these sweet people who took part in making me a mother and whom I feel so blessed to be able to call my own.  It was a real reminder of what my life is all about, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

I could not have even asked for a better Mother's Day present.

Getting our money's worth

I still have all those headbands and hairbows I've stocked up on since we found out she was a girl..

It's totally worth it for pictures like this.

And I think she knows I think she's completely adorable.

Excellent driving

Some time this past winter, Kendra developed a deep fascination with driving.

Although sometimes we appease it with those handy dandy car carts, she's even more enthusiastic about the REAL THING.

So, we got into a little habit.

Every time it snowed and I'd need to shovel a bit to really clear out a space (because even in January I was just too pregnant to clamber over huge piles of snow just to get in and out of my car), instead of using her precious nap time, I'd let her play in the car while I shoveled around it.  She never got tired of it, even if I took a ridiculously long time (and I'm a pretty anal parking-spot-clearer-outer, so that happened pretty often).

Well, there's no more snow and I'm even more pregnant and she still loves playing in the car.

Sometimes, I really need to just get inside for one reason or another...but I try reallyreally hard to be someone who doesn't get so caught up in the "business" of life that I forget to take opprotunities to do the simple fun stuff, even if there's a whole pile of to-do waiting somewhere.

After all, this time just ain't gonna last forever--and there's only so many times I can look into those big blue eyes so innocently asking me to play in the car when I can really think that whatever is waiting for me inside surely can't wait another few minutes for her to play...

So every now and again, even if it's not convenient, when we pull in and park, I turn off the engine and reach back and unbuckle her from her car seat and help her get out of the straps (because she'll frantically scramble once she realizes she gets to do it) so that she can take my place when I get out of the front and do this:

I love that she wears a seat belt for this because she totally did that of her own accord, I never even showed her where it was.

We've got a pretty sweet parking situation that allows me to leave her in the car but keep her in eyesight as I unload our groceries--there's often a spot open that's about 10 meters in front of our side door.

So, to really let her get her fill, I usually bring in the bags one at a time.  Even my purse gets its own trip to stretch it out a little more.

She really gets into it.  The first thing she does is turn on our hazards and often I have to turn off the wipers when I get back in to drive somewhere the next time.  She has so much fun that if she's not ready to get out by the time I've stretched out the unloading as far as I can, I take a moment to throw melty things in the freezer and grab a magazine and just sit with her until she's had her fill.

I could barely get her to look at me to take this shot after she'd been doing this for at least 10 minutes.

This awesome little person has given us a healthy dose of over-the-top cute and adorable since the day she was born--this is just one example of the sheer FUN we get out of life through her day in and day out.

Her father's daughter

"But Mommy, I want to keep playing with the tablet..."