Our Pumkin in a Pumpkin Patch

Yesterday we took Kaydence to her first pumpkin patch. We had such a fun day. It was cold, but sunny, so it felt a little warmer than it was. We took a hay ride to the pumpkin patch and Kaydence loved it! She was fascinated by all the random "big orange balls." I wonder what went through her little mind -- she tries to figure everything out. I love the expressions she gives us when she is discovering new things. Unfortunately, I put a hat on her that covered her face in most of the pictures. :-( As I was taking the pictures, I was wishing I would have brought a different hat for her. Not to mention, one of the guides kept referring to her as a boy because her hat looks like a boy hat. Oh well, now we know for next time. Afterwards, we went home and made butternut squash soup. It was such a fun Fall day! Here are some pictures from our special day.

7 months

Kaydence had her golden [month] birthday on Wednesday (October 7). We are so proud of our little peanut -- she is growing up so fast! Some of the new things she can do now are as follows:

- turning the light switches off (she hasn't quite mastered turning them on yet);
- she discovered she can blow now -- she purses her lips together and makes noises as she blows (I tried getting a video of it, but of course she refused to perform for the camera);
- she also discovered how to breathe loudly through her mouth so she that can hear herself;
- she has cleared the following fruits and veggies as being non-allergenic for her: peaches, pears, plums, bananas, sweet potatoes, butternut squash, zucchini, and peas;
- fake coughs (all.the.time)
- plulls herself up to stand from a seated position (video posted below);
- makes no attempt to crawl, or even scoot, but loves to walk while she holds our hands;
- doesn't talk a whole lot, just coos a little;
- graduated from the bumbo to her big girl high chair;
- drinks from a sippy cup; and
- dances to music.

Sadly, I know I am missing some things. I realized today that I need to be better about keeping up her baby book. I am behind on logging some of her milestones and one of these days I will need to sit down and wrack my brain to write them all down. I know I will thank myself one day.

I'm making all of Kaydence's baby food. At first, I wasn't sure how much I would like doing it, but I have come to love it. Kaydence is eating 2 meals a day right now, breakfast and dinner. I'll usually give her cereal and fruit for breakfast and a veggie or a combo of veggies for dinner. She actually loves peas! Well, peas mixed with pears. I would have never thought to put that combo together, but the day I started her on peas, she wasn't loving them and pears were the only other thing I had at the time, so I gave it a try. She gobbled them up like crazy. I'm not a big fan of peas either, but I tried the peas with pears and I actually liked it too...go figure.

Kaydence is such a good baby -- very content and mild mannered. And so far she is very gentle. She isn't much of an aggressive grabber of things (at least yet), she needs to check it all out first. She is such a little blessing to us and makes us smile and laugh everyday -- we are so proud of her.

Below is a video below of Kaydence pulling herself up into a standing position when she was sitting on my knee. She is such a strong little thing. The other day she stood for 3 seconds all by herself, without me holding her. At this point, it appears she could be walking before she crawls (just like her daddy). We'll see, we're still working on the crawling with her.

Enjoy!

Rubber Ducky

"Rubber ducky you're the one...you make bath time lots of fun..."

Our bathtub was out of commission last week due to some plumbing issues, so Kaydence got to have a bath in the kitchen sink. She loved it!




She loves her butternut squash! Good until the last drop!




Our baby is turning 7 months tomorrow! I can hardly believe it...where has the time gone?!?!

Kaydence's First 6 Months (video)

I finally finished Kaydence's 6 month photo montage. Between trying to figure out how to do it, taking care of the cute baby chicken, and a multitude of uploading problems, it's finally here! I spent entirely way too much time on it for what it turned out to be, but I'm glad I did it. Teirney even had his hand in it by re-recording the Ben Folds song "Gracie" to make it our own -- he did it in one take too (sorry, I just had to brag on him a little).

I should also add a disclaimer that you should not watch it unless you have 15 minutes to spare. Yes, it's almost 15 minutes long! It got longer than I had intended, but oh well. I did the video for Kaydence and ourselves -- I certainly don't expect any of you to sit and watch a 15 minute video of someone else's kid. But if you're so inclined, I hope you enjoy!

Kaydence's First 6 Months from Leah Christenson on Vimeo.

Happy [Half] Birthday!!! (continued)

As promised, here are the rest of Kaydence's 6 month pictures (the others are posted below). Again, no smiles. But that's my baby, so these depict her very well. Enjoy!

Happy [Half] Birthday!!!

Our Bebita is growing up! She is 6 months old -- half way to one year old (now that is scary). I cannot believe how fast these last six months have gone. It's bitter sweet (::sniff, sniff::). I'm working on a video montage of her first six months, which I will post as soon as it's completed.

Kaydence had her 6 month appointment yesterday and she did so well. She took her shots like a big girl and the pediatrician even pierced her ears for her yesterday. She cried immediately following, but settled down very quickly then fell asleep in the car on the way home. She was such a trooper. When we got home, she was so happy -- smiling from ear to ear, jumping up and down, and squealing all while looking at herself in the mirror (I think she likes her earrings). I know ear piercing for babies is very controversial subject, but ever since I was young I always thought if I had a girl I would get her ears pierced at a young age. Both my sisters pierced their girls' ears while they were young and I thought it was darling on them. And I figured it would be better to do it now, while she doesn't know they're there, than it would be to do it when she's a toddler. So I realize I may get some evil glares from people from time to time, but I'm happy with our decision.

She is still such a little peanut. She weighs 13 lbs, 10 oz (10%), she is 26 1/4 inches long (75%), and her head is 41 1/4 cm (25%). But she is overall healthy and the pediatrician was pleased with her growth.

Kaydence is officially sitting up on her own. She can also pull herself up into a standing position while sitting on my knee on the floor (while holding on to something of course). I don't feel any teeth yet, but she continues to drools like crazy. She doesn't have much interest in crawling yet. She seems to think she can get what she wants by rolling to it and will sometimes get frustrated when she can't get it, but makes no attempt to belly scoot. She does, however, walk on her own when you hold her hands. And considering Teirney was walking at 7 months and skipped crawling, that could be the path she decides to take. She is such a good baby and rarely cries...we hear some complaining from time to time (which we will need to work on as she gets older), but other than that she is very contented most of the time.

Kaydence is starting to reach for people now...it's so cute. Along with that though has come some separation anxiety. We had a couple nights where she would wake up in the middle of the night because she lost her paci, so we would go in and give it to her, but the minute we closed the door she would scream. This went on for several hours (and continued after I fed, changed, and burped her) until I finally realized she was probably experiencing some separation anxiety. So we'll need to work on that.

Kaydence had her 6 month photo shoot on Saturday. I still need to add a few more photos, but until then, here are some of the pictures. I wish I was a better photographer -- they didn't turn out exactly the way I had wanted them to -- but they'll have to do. I'm planning on posting some more without a hat on to show her cute bald head. Until then, enjoy!

Dedication

We had Kaydence dedicated this weekend at North Ridge Church in Marshfield. We have a church we are attending in Milwaukee, but since we haven't been attending there very long, we decided we wanted to have her dedicated in the church Teirney and I both grew up in.

Kaydence wore an heirloom dress. It was the dress my sisters and I all wore. My mom's mom (Nana) bought it for my oldest sister, Amy, to wear, so it dates back to 1968 (sorry, Amy, I guess that gives away your age). Kaydence looked beautiful (of course I'm bias). Here are some pictures in her beautiful vintage gown.

















We had a lovely weekend celebrating with family. We wish Amy (and her family) and Josie could have been there, but with it being Labor Day weekend it was hard to make it work with everyone's schedule.

Kaydence is 6 months old!!! I will write more about what she has been up to lately when I post her picky sticky picture later this week.