8 months

Dear Kinley,

Eight months old you are today! You continue to be Mommy and Daddy's little ray of sunshine! You are about 13 lbs now and are finally starting to fit into 3-6 month clothes, yay! You still eat like a champ and never turn anything down. Let's talk about your milestones so far. You currently:

sit up
babble, all the time
clap your hands
nod your head, and
scoot backwards

We love watching you grow, even if it's very very slowly! Mommy is always reading on Facebook about other moms and their kids "growing up too fast", but I always tell your dad that I have the best of both worlds. I have you who is "growing" and hitting milestones all the time, but you are still so little that I feel I am getting all the time in the world to watch you be, well little. You are such a firecracker. We can already see a feisty side in you, which you get from your mother.

In this past month you celebrated your very first Christmas! In my opinion it was my favorite Christmas yet! When we brought home our tree you were in awe of it for days! You loved looking at the lights and the ornaments. Then, the presents came and boy did they come! About 95% of the presents under the tree were yours, but do you know what your favorite present was? WRAPPING PAPER! At one point we put one of you new toys right in front of  you and instead of showing any interest in it at all, you decided to twist all the way around to grab some wrapping paper to crumble and chew on! This Christmas was a little quieter than our previous ones, but it was so wonderful to celebrate with our new little family. Your dad and I would not have wanted it any other way.

As always, Miss K, we love you dearly. We love spending time with you and watching you laugh and play. We are so excited for your coming days and to see how you will grow.

Love, Mom

Here are some Christmas card pictures that didn't make the cut...

7 Months

Dear Kinley,

Another month has come and gone, way too quickly. I don't think time will ever be slow enough for me. So let's keep going. You are seven months old now! You weigh whopping 12 ish lbs, most people when they see you think you are three months old instead of seven. Your hair is starting to come in more. There have been some request by a certain set of grandparents for your hair to turn blond. I'm not sure what I can do about that, so we're just going to roll with whatever you get. You are beautiful either way. You are still happy as can be. You officially have two teeth now, and are not such a bad teether to be quite honest. Mommy didn't even realize you were teething until one day I saw your two bottom teeth had already cut through! You are such a champ! I hope the rest of your teething days follows suit. We're still giving you solid foods and you are trying more and more things all the time. You are so interested in what Dad and I are eating, it's fun to watch your curiosity.

Let's see, what else...? You took another plane trip to California for your first Thanksgiving with the Nunes grandparents and got a crash course in living with not one, but three dogs! The bigger dogs seemed to intimidate you a bit, but you seemed to like Grandma's dachshund, Roger, and Aunt Jenna and Uncle Dan's pitbull/basset hound mix, Tank. Tank has had some experience with a baby already, so he was the best with you. We did lots of eating and we did some Christmas shopping with you and you just went right along with it all. Daddy and I feel so lucky that you are so easy going. You still babble a lot and you now say, "ma ma, da da and ba ba". We love listening to you and laughing with you!

We are so excited for your first Christmas and can't wait to set up all the decorations and the tree and to shop for some of your presents. Hopefully, Mommy can be better about taking more pictures this next month. I don't think I busted out our camera once during Thanksgiving, or on most of the trip for that matter. Sometimes I just get caught in the moment with you. But I'll try harder next month.

As always, we love you sweet girl! So happy for another great month and we are thrilled for what's in store for the next month.

Love, Mommy.

6 months

My dear Kinley,

You are 6 months old! Half of a year old! I cannot believe it! Most days I'm wishing for time to slow down, but I also love watching you learn and grow! Let's recap everything from this past month.

-You are 25 inches long and 11 lbs 13oz.
-You can now roll onto your tummy AND back... when you remember you can.
-You can sit up
-You are starting to respond when we say your name
-You like hanging upside down and being thrown in the air
-You love to suck on your fingers and toes
-No teeth yet, but we are starting to see some coming...
-You giggle lots more and are more chatty
and
-You started solid foods and are LOVING IT!

Mommy and Daddy's favorite times are when you are giggling. You have some pretty funny faces and your personality is showing more and more. We are also so excited to start introducing solid foods to you! You are so interested in all the things mommy and daddy are eating! You love rice cereal, bananas, pineapples, watermelon, peaches and strawberries. All but the peaches and bananas Mommy has only let you suck on, but you can't get enough! While we are thrilled to have you try lots more things, we are a little less thrilled with your diapers. They are A LOT  stinkier than they use to be. We are missing the not so pungent smells that exclusive breast milk had to offer, but we knew those days wouldn't last forever. As much as you love to eat and try new things, you are still very small. Most people who don't know you can't believe you are already 6 months old. You still fit into all your 3 month clothes; Mom and Dad are loving how long your clothes are lasting!

You love meeting people and always have a smile to give. You also had a visit from Gigi and Grandpa Glenn this past month, which was loads of fun and you also celebrated your first  HALLOWEEN! Mommy decided to do something easy with your costume. Since we already had a Utah State University onesie for you, (which I may add is a 3-6 month size and basically swallowed you whole) I decided to get crafty with some tulle and made a tutu for you! You were the cutest USU cheerleader I've ever seen! They would be lucky to have you on their squad!

Well, that's about all I can think of that has happened last month. We still have so much more to look forward to. Your first Thanksgiving with the Nunes grandparents and your first Christmas, which we are so thrilled about. Mom and Dad are really going to have to control ourselves with the presents for you! =) We love you so much, Kins. Our lives have been so enriched with you in it. I wouldn't trade these days with you for anything!

We love you!!! Happy 6 months!

Here are some more pictures. I just can't resist.

5 months

Dear Kinley,

Happy five months, little one! Time is going so fast, and mommy is loving being home with you to make all these wonderful memories with you. You are about 12 lbs and a little over 2 feet tall. You are still so little! You can still wear some 0-3 month onesies or just 3 months and can fit into some 3-6 month bottoms.  You have your adorable, chunky legs to thank for that. But anything over 3 months in tops completely swallows you. Mommy and Daddy aren't complaining too much. Your clothes are lasting a lot longer than we expected which is A-okay with us.

You continue to babble and chat all day long. You have the funniest growl when you get frustrated, or when you are a little backed up (sorry.) You are always making Daddy and I laugh! You have almost given up the pacifier completely and now suck your thumb to calm yourself, or most recently your index and middle fingers! You roll over like a champ and will put anything in your mouth that you can get your hands on. You have started eating rice cereal and are getting use to eating from a spoon. You are so interested in what Mom and Dad are eating, so we are really excited to start solid foods with you month! Another big thing to note is that we finally got a crib for you! Even though you are little you were growing out of your bassinet very quickly. We decided to borrow a crib from my good friend and so far you seem to like it. I think you are getting use to ALL the space! Some mornings we find you turned in another direction and sometimes you wake up on your tummy. It will take some more getting use to, but at least you have plenty of room to grow now. One last thing I want to mention is you are just about sitting up all on your own! We usually prop you up on the couch or have a boppy behind you, or Dad or I will sit behind you for extra support, but you are getting stronger and stronger by the day! We are so proud of you and are always commenting on how smart you are. You are still VERY observant, to the point where we can't get you to take a nap during church anymore! Once we get you to sleep the slightest noise will wake you up and there is no going back! So we've had to adjust to that. Oh well, we are learning right along with you and it's been fun, for the most part.

Oh Kinley, we love you more than words can say. We are so happy that you are in our lives. You are such a blessing to your dad and I and you have made our family that much more complete!

We love you, little! Happy  five months!! =)

Stay-cation #1

Well, having a baby certainly has it perks, perks like getting so much time off from work that we don't know what to do with it all! Because we had Kinley, Matt's job gives him 2 weeks of paternity time off AS WELL as his usual 2 weeks vacation. Matt only took one week off when Kins was born and then my mom came out for the 2nd week. So we have used his second week of paternity time for some extra long weekends. Our first one we've used was this past Friday, Monday and Tuesday. Our original plan was to go away to the coast or something, but after we bought our plane tickets home for Thanksgiving, we decided to do something a little more low key. So we had a staycation!

Friday started off with a date with just Matt and I. We usually still have date night every week, but lately we've had a plus one with Kinley. Some of our friends were so kind and watched her for us so we could have some time alone. We went our for Sushi (YUM!!!!) and then walked around Hobby Lobby to look for frames and get ideas for some upcoming projects. It wasn't anything super elaborate, but it was exactly what I needed. Time with my wonderful husband just talking and laughing and not having to worry about diapers or nursing.

Saturday wasn't really too much fun, we did some things around the house and started a little fall cleaning. I don't think Matt feels the same way, but I love clearing things out and making space. I have vowed since I moved out on my own that I will never be a pack rat, too much clutter makes me tense and somewhat claustrophobic. I think I drive Matt crazy when I feel the need to purge some things and I'll admit sometimes it's hard to make myself do it, but I love the feeling afterward!

On Monday we slept in (as much as you can with a 4 month old) and Matt got a little studying in and in the afternoon we headed to Fort Worth to the Botanical Gardens. Matt was able to go when his family was out here for Kinley's baby blessing, but I was not able to go, so we took a family trip. I'll be honest, I thought it was going to be boring at first, but I really enjoyed it, aside from it being muggy. It was so beautiful seeing all the different trees and flowers and Kinley was such a trooper, we got some great pictures of her!





Tuesday we took off for Granbury. Granbury is a little town with a lot of character. We stopped for lunch when we got there at a little place called the Firehouse Cafe. It wasn't bad, but Matt quickly noticed that we were the youngest people in there by a good 30 years! I liked the atmosphere though, it seemed like all the customers were regulars and their servers were happy to see them. Matt and I joked that we had better high tail it out of there before the "people who usually sit in our booth" show up. ha! Granbury has a little town square with lots of fun and funky shops AND my favorite part is that the town sits right on a lake. Some years ago the city decided to import sand from South Padre Island and made a little beach! The water was low, but I loved having my toes in the sand again and walking down to the water!  The water was extra refreshing on my feet because the sand was SO HOT!! We had a blast with Kinley, as well, putting her little feet in the water. We think she enjoyed it... we know she didn't hate it so that is a win in our book. After that we decided to head home. Kinley napped the whole way which equaled happy parents.

Our staycation was just what we needed a little time together with some mini getaways. Kinley was awesome the whole time! I love that, for the most part, we can take her wherever we want and she is happy to be along for the ride. We love our little roadtrip partner! We have another "staycation" coming up in October, so I am working out the plans for that one! =)

Until next time!

at the Botanical Gardens

We saw lots of turtles

she was always camera shy when I held her!

she loved the aquarium!

trying some cornbread

not quite sure