September Cuteness

No big events in September but a few cute pictures.

This is Kiera "reading" a letter from Grandma. I thought it was cute that it looks like she's reading it, but really I think she wanted to grab the paper and eat it!

Kiera can get around the living room really well by scooting on her bottom or rolling. She rolled over to her basket and dumped out all of the toys.

How can you say no to that smile?

Busted! Sitting up in her crib. We promptly lowered her crib mattress!

Helping with the laundry.

Seven Months Old - Labor Day Weekend

Kiera turned 7 months old on Labor Day weekend. On that Friday she started getting a fever. It got worse as the night went on, even up to 104.3! Yikes! We gave her several cool baths and infant Tylenol throughout the sleep-deprived night and went to the pediatrician's office on Saturday morning. They didn't really know what was wrong with her, but gave her an antibiotic and swabbed a sample from her nose. She seemed to be feeling fine, so we went to Chris' family reunion.
Here she is swimming with her cousin Jordan.

Here are Jordan, Nonna and Killian doing a hula dance at the family reunion

Here's the big 7 month old!

Kiera's Milestones:
- sits up really well now
- does a lot of scooting
- clicks her tongue, so cute
- babbles all of the time - bababa, mamama, dadada
- can sit up from lying down; we found her sitting up in her crib for the first time

One final note - the doctor's office called on the Friday after Labor Day weekend and told us that Kiera's lab results showed that she had swine flu! We were shocked and we felt horrible that we took her to the family reunion. Killian came down with the swine flu that weekend after Labor Day, and Chris didn't feel very well either. Luckily we didn't infect anyone outside of our household.

Catching Up

Well, I knew I wouldn't be able to keep up with everything when I went back to work! Guess the blog was one of those things!

Before Killian started 6th grade we asked him what he wanted to do the last weekend of summer vacation. He chose Space Center Houston because they were having a Star Wars / George Lucas exhibit.

Here is Killian with R2D2 and C3PO

Here is Kiera trying on an astronaut's helmet

Six Months Old

I love the beach!

Okay, so I'm a little late…as of August 5th Kiera is 6 months old! We celebrated by taking her on her first trip to the beach in Galveston. Usually when we go to the beach we try to head out early and spend most of the day there. We found out that going around 3pm and staying until sunset was a really nice. We took our small grill and made hamburgers for dinner. The waves were really calm. Killian had fun catching hermit crabs and playing with the seagulls.


Kiera went for her 6 month checkup. She is in the 75th percentile in everything – height (26.25 inches), weight (16 lbs 11 oz) and head circumference. I decided to delay a couple of the shots for a month so that she would only get two shots instead of four this visit. It worked well – she didn’t even cry!

Milestones
-She has been very vocal lately – squealing, screaming, talking, etc. If someone on the phone hears her I have to explain that the screams are happy screams because sometimes they are so loud. She has lots to say!
-Rolling over – flipping and flopping from back to front and also rolling continuously in one direction. I’m so glad that she is finally happy up on her arms on her tummy!
-Slow motion crawl – very slow motion, but she can inch forward towards a toy
-Learning the meaning of certain words like Max (our dog), fish (in the fish tank) and even her own name.
-Baby sign language – I’ve started to use some sign language for some of the basic words
-Max our dog is very good with Kiera. He protects her from the vacuum cleaner and is getting used to her grabbing a handful of fur.
-Sometimes she seems to squeeze back/snuggle deeper when we’re giving her hugs. It’s too cute that she’s hugging us back now.
-Of course starting solid foods on July 29th was a big milestone!

Funny story – A little background, my hair has been “fake” red for 8 years or so. My friend Rhonda has been doing my hair for a few years and I took Kiera with me to my last hair appointment. When Rhonda was all finished and I was holding Kiera on my lap, Rhonda thought to herself (and told me), “I can’t believe that baby doesn’t have red hair like her momma”. Now that’s a good hairdresser, even tricked herself into believing my color was natural!!

First Cereal

We gave Kiera her first cereal on July 29th, a week before she turned 6 months. She has been watching us eat for a few months now. Chris wasn't very surprised when she grabbed the spoon from me, attacked the food and stuffed the spoon in her mouth. Nonna was also there to help and enjoy the show. I made rice cereal with organic brown rice and she seems to like it.

Since then we have also tried sweet potatoes. Next will be avacados. I have also made carrots, yellow squash and green beans which are frozen in individual servings. I still have plums, apples and pears to make. I'm trying to get the supply stocked up before I go back to work.

Last week we also tried a sippy cup for the first time. She was able to get milk out of it, but still needs some practice holding it on her own of course.

July Wrap Up

July flew by for us. Is it bad that my Facebook habit takes so much of my computer time that our blog suffers? Chris and I went on a couple of dates this month. One up in The Woodlands to a Chicago concert (a last minute treat from Nonna and Pops) and one celebrating our neighbor's 50th birthday. We continue to work out a the YMCA and we've both been losing weight - yay! We bought a couple of new things for the house. A La-Z-Boy sectional with lots of reclining seats.

And a golf cart...


While most people understand the usefulness of the sectional, they may not understand the usefulness of a golf cart since we don't live on a golf course. Well, Chris is hoping to start a trend in our neighborhood to make it a golf cart community. We use it to go to the neighborhood pool and to drive to the neighbor's house on the next street. He also plans on putting less aggressive tires on it and taking it with him when he plays golf.

Killian had zoo camp the last week of July. Most days it was a day camp, but he got to spend the night at the zoo on Thursday night. The task for the week was to come up with a animal he and his partner would like to bring to the zoo. They researched their animal, an African Penguin, and designed an exhibit for it - made blueprints, posters and an example display with animal facts. On Friday parents could come for their final presentations. It was pouring down rain. Here are Killian and his penguin keeping dry under a poncho.

I had a check up with my OB/Gyn, Dr. Klein, so I took a picture of him and Kiera. I didn't think to take a picture of him when he delivered Kiera - I was too excited and tired.

And finally, a random, cute, toothless smile from Kiera.

Five Months Old

I've usually remembered to take Kiera's picture each month on her rug. My how our dear Kiera (yes, that rhymes!) has grown! She turned 5 months old on July 5th.

Some of her recent activities:

- loving to squeal, coo, babble, laugh, blow raspberries, etc. especially to her toys.

- rolling over more, but still not too happy if she's on her tummy for long. She needs to build up those arm muscles!

- being much more aware of her surroundings in the last month or so and would rather be carried on our hip (with a better view) than up on our shoulder

- playing in the ExerSaucer has been a new experience that she likes

- watching her dog Max has become a favorite thing. She laughs so hard at him.