A year in review...

Here is 2009 at a glance...enjoy!

January
My beautiful sisters and I at my baby shower.




February
This picture was taken when I was on strict bedrest (due to pre-eclampsia).  Since I was allowed to shower, I figured one picture couldn't hurt.  :-)  Kaydence was born 11 days later.




March
March 7 at 11:18 a.m. we welcomed our beautiful daughter, Kaydence Selah into the world!
















April
Our little Easter bunny.





















May
The first smile we were able to catch on camera...a rare occasion to this day.





















June
Kaydence's 3 month pictures.















July
4th of July weekend at Summerfest...Kaydence's first music festival.




August
First solids.



September
Dedication.  The beautiful vintage dress was the same dress mommy and all her sisters wore.



October
Kaydence was Sophie the giraffe for Halloween. ;-)  Her daddy took her trick or treating.
















November
Just another day playing with mommy.




December
Our 9 month old reindeer...who walks!!!



First Christmas = History

Kaydence's first Christmas is officially crossed off the list.  Here are some pictures to commemorate the event.










































Merry Christmas!

I should be packing right now, but I had to take a quick break to do a little post.  We will be leaving for Marshfield this afternoon and I will be staying there through New Years Eve (Teirney needs to come back for work next Tuesday).  We're all excited!  This will be Kaydence's second birthday party she has attended already!  She attended her friend, Sofia's, first birthday party on Sunday and now she gets to celebrate Jesus' birth!  How incredibly blessed she is!  I can't wait to see her open her presents.

I need to mention, for those of you who are wondering why they haven't received a Christmas card from us yet, we are sending out New Years cards instead.  So no, you did not get crossed off the list or anything -- we just haven't sent them out yet. ;-)


What better way to usher us into the Holiday Spirit than a few pictures, right?  I took these last night and they didn't turn out the way I had envisioned, but they will have to do.  I'm still trying to figure out my camera, so they are a little blurry for my taste, but I'm working on it.  :-)  So with that, we wish you all a very merry Christmas!

With love,

The Christensons











Solids Strike

Kaydence is on a solids strike right now. She'll take about 3 bites of whatever we give her and then she refuses to eat anymore. Since she's such a little peanut, I feel like I need to try and get something in that little tummy of hers, so some days she gets a mini-baby buffet. I don't want to create a picky eater by just giving her things she likes all the time, so some days I just have to try a variety of things to get her to eat *something*. There is a picture below of what the table looked like after lunch today. Quite funny actually. 

I've been having fun working on my photography lately. There is lots to learn, but I find it enjoyable. So right now I'm trying to "focus" (no pun intended) on trying to get a correct exposure in the camera instead of correcting it photoshop. So here are a few of my practice shots -- these are all SOOC (straight out of camera), no editing.  A couple of them are still a little underexposed, but since these are just snapshots and not meant to be portraits, I'm not going to over analyze and pick them a part like I ordinarily would.  :-)











9 months!





I find it very hard to believe we have a 9 month old already!  She is really growing up and getting her own little personality every day.  She is now officially crawling, pulling up, and has even taken 5 step all by herself!  I am convinced we will have a walker by Christmas.  She is such a little tiny peanut though, so it's so cute to see her cruising around furniture and trying to walk.  She is starting to "run" around the ottoman now -- she tries to go really fast around it and she cracks herself up...it's adorable! 

I'm beginning to think she is starting to figure out what dada means.  This morning Teirney walked by and she said dada under her little breath...it melted my heart.  She still won't say mama.  I'm convinced it's because she gets so sick of me from being with me all day everyday.  She does this adorable thing at night when daddy comes home.  We'll be in the basement playing and she'll hear Teirney opening the door and her face just lights up, it's like she knows daddy is home.  She has amazing hearing...she'll stop what she's doing and listen intently on the door opening and wait for her daddy to come down the stairs.  When she hears him walking down the stairs she'll watch and wait until she sees him and when she does, she waves her arms and gets the biggest smile on her face.  When he gets close enough, she'll reach up her arms toward him to be held.  Oh my, it is too cute!  I love it!  She does not, however, do this to me when I leave and come home.  ::Sniff, Sniff::  Oh and when she cries, she says "dada, dada, dada" while crying.  Awww...it's so cute, but I really do hope she starts saying mama soon.  I'm starting to get a complex. ;-)

Kaydence had her 9 month appointment this week.  She is such a little peanut!  She weighs 15 lbs 2 oz (5%), 27 1/4 inches (50%).  She went down in her percentiles.  At her 6 month appointment, she was in the 10% for weight and 75% for height.  Her pedi wasn't concerned because she is more active now and she is in line with her birth weight/height percentages.  I do worry a little though because lately she hasn't been eating her solids very well.  She'll take 3 bites and then she starts complaining like she is done.  I'm hoping it's just a phase.

We are starting to give her more solid solids.  She loves anything with spaghetti sauce.  I made shells florentine the other day and she just gobbled it up (it had mushrooms, onions, cottage cheese, spinach, spaghetti sauce, and noodles in it -- she loved it!).  She LOVES cheese!  She would eat it all day long if I let her.  The pedi said she can eat whatever we're eating now.  It's really hard to believe my baby is that old already.  It will be nice though to start giving her more table food. 

We're getting geared up for the holiday season.  It's fast approaching.  I'm anxious to see Kaydence with all the boxes and paper at Christmas.  We got her a few toys, but not a ton, she doesn't know the difference and I'm sure she will enjoy the boxes much more.  I'm actually thinking about wrapping some empty boxes for her in addition to some of her toys. 

May you all be blessed this Holiday Season and may the *real* meaning of Christmas remain ever before us!

Love to you all!

Playtime

Here are some videos I took of Kaydence today. I didn't get it on camera, but she clapped for the first time today!



8 months and almost walking!










Our little baby chicken is such big stuff these days. She is standing by herself fairly well now and has even taken two steps by herself (we'll have to get some video of it pretty soon). She still has a little bit too much momentum when she steps forward so she has a little ways to go yet before she starts walking on her own, but I think we'll have a walker by Christmas. It's so surreal to think that we have an 8 month old already. She is growing so fast!

Here are some of the things she has been up to lately.

- She said da-da for the first time yesterday (it wasn't crystal clear, and of course she doesn't know what it means, but I heard it).
- She can stand by herself and walk along furniture now.
- She tries to pull herself up from a sitting position, but she hasn't quite mastered that yet.
- She still doesn't like textured foods. I tried giving her some organic puffs several times and she refuses to open her mouth (go figure, something she actually can put in her mouth and she doesn't want to). I was able to slide one into her mouth at one point and she gave the most disgusted face I've ever seen (it was very comical) -- they dissolve fairly quickly, but she just can't figure it out yet.
- She scooted on her belly for the first time the other day and since then I have seen her get up on all fours in a crawling stance, but she hasn't actually crawled yet and I've only seen her scoot on her belly twice.
- She wants to walk around the house with me holding onto her hands all.day.long!
- She loves playing peek-a-boo with her blankie (there is a video of her playing peek-a-boo with her cousin Makenna below).
- She got her first cold this last week and she has been such a trooper suffering through a stuffy/runny nose.
- She LOVES anything shiny -- whenever she sees anything shiny (car door handles, light fixtures, faucets, knobs, metal strainer, etc.), she has to touch it!
- This is something she has done since day one, but I don't think I've ever mentioned it, she loves getting her finger nails clipped!!!  Can you believe it?!?!  She literally sits as still as can be and lets me hold her hand while I clip her nails.  She watches ever so intently.  I hope this keeps up.  You don't know how grateful I am to have a baby who doesn't fight me when I cut her nails...I would be so worried I'd clip her skin.  Only bad thing is Teirney said that probably means she is a girly girl all the way and will want manicures and pedicures all the time.  Oh well, that's part of being a girl, right? :-)

I'll probably think of more things after I post this, but oh well. 

So this last week, I had to make a very difficult decision.  I decided to take her earrings out. :-(  ::sniff, sniff::  I didn't tell many people, but one of her ears was pierced at an angle, so you could see the back of her earring from the front.  I thought this may change once I could take her studs out and put different earrings in that had smaller backs, but alas, the 6 weeks were up and I tried different earrings, but you could still see the back.  I struggled long and hard with the decision, but I finally came to the conclusion that I didn't want her to have to grow up with one ear that she would constantly have to be careful with what earrings she wore.  And as she gets older, she will probably wear heavier earrings and I didn't want that hole that was lower to cause her grief.  I had a really hard time with the decision and have had some guilt over it.  But in the scheme of life, this is not a big deal.  I much rather fix it now and get them repierced correctly, than have her have to live with it the rest of her life.  I'm just hoping the holes will close quickly.  In the meantime, I know I may be "judged" by some moms who see my baby with holes in her ears and they will probably wonder what kind of mother I am -- piercing my baby's ears, taking them out, only to repierce them again.  Ugh...it pains me to wonder what people think, but I just can't let it bother me.  I know I love my baby and just wish her earring hadn't gone in at an angle the first time. :-(  Okay, moving on.

We are almost done introducing the basic fruits and veggies.  I still have broccoli and cauliflower to do yet.  This last week, I was able to puree a bunch of fruits and veggies to stock our freezer for awhile.  I love making her baby food and am so glad I chose to do so.  The other weekend I had to buy a canned fruit and veggie when we went out of town because I forgot to take her food out of the refrigerator before we left.  She actually didn't like it and I had bought pears and sweet potatoes, which she ordinarily loves.  I'm going to try asparagus this week, which I'm sure she won't like, but maybe I'll try mixing it with something to trick her. :-)  I made a baby stock the other night that you use as a liquid to mix with other veggies, or the baby can drink it alone as well.  You just boil asparagus, leek, and sweet potatoes together for 1 hour.  Strain the veggies and freeze the liquid (I plan on using the liquid in other baby food recipes that I'm going to try).  Then, I pureed the veggies and froze those as well and I'll introduce that to her after I introduce the asparagus this week.  We'll see how it goes.  Below is a picture of the acorn squash I made for Kaydence the other day.



Here is the video I spoke of.