Kendyl Pictures

Kendyl is doing so good. It seems like she is getting bigger every day. We are still working on the crib thing and the sleeping through the night thing, but she is getting better with her smiles and picking her head up. She is already a daddy's girl. She absolutely loves sitting with Matt when he comes home from work. Of course when she is fussing all she wants is me (Go figure). We are having so much fun with her. I am seriously so in love with this little girl! Here are some recent pictures.

Spitting her tongue out

This just melts my heart

We went out to dinner with some friends and my mom and sister the other night and this is how she fell asleep.

These are my FAVORITE pajamas on her because of this...

How cute are the little feet on these?

Happy Thanksgiving!

This is a Thanksgiving that I will never forget. What a fun experience to celebrate the holidays with children of your own. Thanksgiving is a perfect time for me to reflect on the things that I am thankful for and this year we have been blessed in so many ways.
1. Our baby girl. She has added so much to our lives and I just can't get enough of her.
2. My loving husband who takes excellent care of me and is a wonderful father to our daughter.
3. Family who is there for us whenever we need them and who we can always count on for fun and laughter.
4. My job/colleagues. With talks of layoffs again this year I am finding myself on an all too familiar path so I am feeling truly blessed that I have a job and colleagues that have literally gone above and beyond to help out while I am on maternity leave (especially Char, Cindi and Kim. You guys are awesome! I cannot thank you enough). Now that the laws have changed (eliminating seniority as a basis for layoffs) I am hopeful that I will keep my job, but I can never be too certain. Let's hope the state legislatures can figure something out.
5. My AWESOME sub Lisa. She has been such a huge help with taking care of my students while I am gone.
6. Our courageous military who continue to put their lives on the line in the name of their country. I am SO, SO grateful for their sacrifice.
7. Sleep. It is not what it used to be (not even close), but when I get it I am very thankful.
8. AZ winters :)
9. My home
10. The best dog in the whole wide world. Katie! She is being such a good big sister and we love her dearly.

This year we started our morning at my dad's house for Thanksgiving breakfast. This started about 3 years ago and we have maintained the tradition. I didn't end up taking any pictures though :( After my dad's we headed off to Matt's parents. They always do a big Thanksgiving feast. There were a lot of people there this year and Kendyl was able to meet her Payson family (Matt's aunt, uncle, cousins and their children) so that was fun. Matt's cousin was nice enough to take some family pictures of us so I will have to post them when I get them. Once we were finished at the Smith side we headed off to my side of the family. It was pretty much my immediate family, except this year my second cousin Ellen and her boyfriend Neil spent the day with us! My mom came up with lots of goofy things for us to do such as roasting marshmallows and playing dancing musical chairs (apparently she saw it on the Ellen show). I am proud to say that my husband was the winner :) Although, he did have a little size advantage. All in all it was another fun and busy Thanksgiving. Next up...Christmas!

Here are some pictures from the day:

Neil, Ellen, Taylor, Mom

Poor Scott always does the dishes

Kendyl with Aunt Courtney

Austin and Kendyl

Austin and his marshmallow

It turns out Neil is a professional at roasting marshmallows and Courtney is good at roasting imaginary marshmallows...

What's Going On...

Since my last post we went to Kendyl's 1 month doctor visit. I am happy to report that she is doing very well. She now weighs 10 lbs 6oz (95th percentile). Because of her jaundice we had to bring her in when she was only a couple of days old and that appointment she only weighed 7lbs 14oz so the little girl has been downing some serious milk! She is also 21.75 in long up from 20.5in when she was born (which puts her in the 75th percentile). From the looks of it she will be taking after her dad in the size department, but then again these numbers can change. This whole parenting thing is getting better all the time. Perhaps this is because we are actually getting sleep? There was one night where she was up from 12:00 to 4:00 and since then I have been a drill sergeant about getting her on a schedule. For the past week it has worked and she seems to be maintaining it...at least for now. During the day I am able to keep her awake by putting her in her crib when she starts to fall asleep (I miss letting her curl up on my chest to sleep, but I know I will never make it once I go back to work unless I am getting some sleep). If she is tired enough she will just sleep otherwise this is enough to wake her back up. Doing this is getting her used to sleeping in her crib and it is also helping her to sleep more at night time. We have also found that giving her a bath and a good feeding at night helps. She is not sleeping through the night yet because she still needs to be fed, but she is sleeping for about 3-4 hours at a time which I am LOVING! She continues to develop more personality all the time. We are definitely able to get more smiles out of her now. Yesterday I put a mirror in front of her face and she just lit up! She started kicking her little legs and smiling from ear to ear. It was so stinkin' cute! I would hate to jinx it, but she is really such a good natured little baby. She pretty much cries when she has a reason and rarely gets fussy. I am loving staying at home with her and as much as I love my job it is going to be hard to go back and leave her all day.

Poor baby was tired after a night of keeping mom up

Chilling out in her boppy

Meeting Kaeden for the first time. He is the son of my friends Heidi and Scott from work. They are 2 days apart. He was such a little snuggler and I loved it :)

Going in for a hug

Beautiful girl :)

Happy girl

Still working on the smile

Kendyl with her favorite cousin (he is also her only cousin). I love how she is looking at him.

This is Kendyl on the day we took her home from the hospital...

and this is her now. Look how much she has filled out her pj's.

I love the dimple on her right cheek :)

"Watching" the game with Dad. Go Suns!

There is a mirror on the back of this toy. Apparently she likes what she sees?

One Month!

Today Kendyl turns 1 month old and it has been such an interesting month. It really is crazy how fast time flies! In this past week she has accomplished so many things. She is getting much more control over her hands, every once in a while she will manage to get her thumb in her mouth which makes her very happy. She is smiling a lot more and of course this makes Matt and I super excited. She is getting a little better with holding her head up and is developing more personality all the time. Today she took her first official nap (longer than 10 minutes) in her crib. Matt and I are hoping she will warm up to the idea of sleeping in there so we can reclaim our bedroom. She is growing like a weed. I am not exactly sure how much weight she has gained, but I would guess she has to be in the 10 lb range now. When we first got her home hardly any of her clothes fit her and now she has started to grow out of some of them. She is even on to size 1 diapers! The sleeping schedule comes and goes. There are nights where she sleeps like a champ and there are nights she wants no part of it. She is pretty consistent with waking every 3-4 hours to be fed. The problem is that sometimes after a middle of the night feeding she does not want to go back to bed. Fortunately, she is not fussy, she just wants to stay awake. All in all I would have to say she is a really good baby. She is a good eater and a good sleeper (even if sometimes it's not at night). She does well with baths and even diaper changes (most of the time). This mom stuff is hard. I am not going to lie, but I think I am getting the hang of it. It definitely beats being pregnant :)

Some of the things that Matt and I want to remember from this month are:
-When she gives fish kisses (she is looking for food and kind of misses the mark)
-Her many noises: night terror noise, pacifier cry noise, the noise she makes when she tries to stop crying, and of course her farts-yeah, they are pretty loud! Matt is proud...me...not so much
-Nap times with Mom and Dad. She loves to snuggle :)
-The last feed before we go to bed. I seriously love this time I have with her. It almost makes me cry sometimes.
-Her sweet smiles

Here are a few pictures of the little miss.

Getting ready for bed

This is how I left her...

This is what I came back to 2 seconds later...Oops :(

She looks so small

She LOVES her Boppy!

All dressed and ready to go...with a smile too :)

Sleepy girl

Happy Halloween!

I couldn't decide which one I liked better so I posted them both.