Ten Months Old

Our little Kyla is ten months old! She is moving past the baby stage and turning into a little girl. I am truly amazed at how fast children grow in their first year of life. I absolutely love watching Kyla grow and change. Here is what Kyla has been up to the last month.

* Kyla loves to play peek-a-boo! She will cover her head with a blanket or book and then giggles when she uncovers her face.

* She is standing for a second or two on her own. She is just begining to realize that she is actually standing on her own.

* Kyla loves her water baby class. She goes underwater for about 4 seconds at a time. She loves her teacher and some of the older children (2 year olds) in the class call her the "happy baby" because she smiles and squeals and laughs through the entire swim class.

* Kyla gets really excited to see Jesse when he enters the room and when he is just about to leave for work and says bye to us she crawls super fast in his direction and stands up at his feet with her arms in the air so that he will pick her up. It is so cute to see her chase her daddy. Jesse loves it too! He always kisses her and gives her good daddy loving before he leaves.

* Kyla now has a ticklish tummy. She has never really been ticklish since she was born, not even her feet, but now her little belly is ticklish! I love to hear her laugh so I tickle her a lot!

* She says ma-ma-ma-ma all the time, but she doesn't know that I am mama yet.

* She LOVES to sit with me while I read her a book. She points to the pictures on the pages and smiles as I read her a story. I bought a bunch of Sesame Street books at Target and they are her favorite.

* Kyla has been teething all month and it has been really hard on her! She is getting her top two teeth and I can tell that they bother her much more than her bottom teeth. She is very very very fussy and I have had to give her lots of tylenol this month.

* She started taking baths in the "big girl bathtub" and she LOVES it. I put her in the tub every night about six o'clock. It works out perfect because she is usually a bit fussy because she is tired from playing all day, but it is too early for bed. The bath is perfect because it relaxes her and she really enjoys playing in the water. And, after bath time, she drinks a bottle, we read a story, and she is off to bed for the night.

Here are some cute pics of our Kyla from the last month!

Lovin my Cousin

I LOVE

YOU
SO
MUCH

LITTLE
CUZ!

I had to share this picture also because this was one of my most favorite days as a mommy and aunt! I was watching both girls and after playing really hard for a while they both got super sleepy and super fussy! I first started by rocking Jocelyn and then Kyla got upset that I wasn't holding her too. So, I moved Jocelyn over a bit and picked Kyla up to give her a bottle. Jocelyn fell asleep while Kyla was drinking her bottle and Kyla fell asleep right after she finished her bottle. I just sat in the chair rocking the girls until Jesse came home and found all three of us in the rocking chair. He immediately grabbed the camera and took our picture. I am so happy that he did because I don't ever want to forget this moment. Two sleeping babies equals HUGE SUCCESS!!! :)

Happy Valentine's Day!

We all had a great Valentine's day this year. Jesse surprised us with a few of our favorite things and we surprised him with some banana pudding! Banana pudding is Jesse's all time favorite dessert so I decided to make him some homemade pudding. It was my first time to make it so I wasn't sure how it would turn out. Well, it was delicious! I will definitely make again in the future. Here are some pictures from Valentine's Day.

Sweet girls that I love so much!!!!

Reese is such a sweet big sister! She has the kindest heart and always wants to help take care of her little sister.
Just a couple cute pics of Kyla.

Snow Day!

I cannot believe that there was record breaking snow here this February. We had about 12 inches in the front yard! It was amazing! I was already really happy about the white Christmas we had this year and never thought that we would see even more snow in February. I know the babies won't remember the 2010 record breaking snow, but I will! I had a blast taking pictures of the girls! What a fun day!!!

The fam before Jesse headed off to work.

Here are the girls after their naps. The mama-razzi in this photo is just getting them situated for the photo shoot! :)

It's photo shoot time! Kyla and Jocelyn truly did not know what to think of the snow. Jocelyn had tears coming out of her eyes before I even started taking pictures because of the glare from the snow. Kyla just didn't know what to think of the snow. She seemed to be more facinated by Jocelyn than anything else. :)

Kyla started climbing on Jocelyn right after I put them in the snow!
Jocelyn got a little upset

So, I called Kyla's name to distract her for a second.

But, Kyla started the climb again!

And this time Jocelyn got very upset.

Kyla looks at me and starts "talking." It seemed like she was asking me what to do about Jocelyn.

Before I could help, Kyla started "singing" to Jocelyn. When Kyla sings she just squeals and makes all sorts of loud sounds. I think Jocelyn liked her singing! Daisy must have enjoyed it as well because it made her run over to the girls and check things out. :)

Breaking News...Kyla is now a good sleeper!

I have wonderful news! Our little Kyla is now sleeping through the night! I am amazed, shocked, and extremely happy! For 9 months Kyla woke up every two to three hours at night. It was also a struggle to get her to fall asleep at naptime and bedtime. I would have to rock her while singing and cover her eyes with a blanket so that she would not look around. This rocking routine would go on for about an hour before she would fall asleep. After a full day being a mommy and a struggle getting her to fall asleep and waking up every two to three hours, I was exhausted!

So...I changed up her bedtime routine and decided to let her cry it out. I was dreading the crying because Jesse and I had tried the cry it out method once before when she was about 4 months old and it did not work for us. Kyla cried for almost an hour and showed no signs of stopping so we picked her up put her back in our bed and swore we would never do that again! Well, this week, 5 months later, I ended up deciding to try the cry it out method again because as she was getting older and more strong minded it was getting harder and harder for me to help her fall asleep. Kyla would want to crawl around instead of rock and learned how to pull the blanket off her eyes.....you get the idea. Also, I decided to put Kyla to bed in her playpen for now because when I would leave her in her crib she would get so upset that she would hit her head on railing, get stuck standing up, and hurt her teething gums by biting the sides of the crib really hard.

The first night was the worst, Kyla cried for 25 minutes. I checked on her after 15 minutes, told her that I loved her and that it was time to go nite nite and left the room. She cried for another 15 minutes and then stopped. I was shocked and sat there thinking she would cry again at any moment. She didn't so I went in to check on her and discovered that she fell asleep sitting up! I was giggling so hard when I walked into the room and saw her sleeping sitting up! Her head was bobbing around forward and backward and forward and backward. I tried to lay her down, but she woke up and cried for about 4 more minutes and then stopped. When I checked on her again I found her sleeping sitting up again, but this time she was leaning on the side of the playpen instead of sitting striaght up. The second night she cried for about 10 minutes before she fell asleep and the third night she did not cry AT ALL. She did wimper a bit when I left the room, but once I closed the door I did not hear another peep from her.

Ever since then, Kyla does not cry at all at naptime or bedtime AND she is sleeping through the entire night! I just cannot believe it. It is like having a different child altogether! I am really happy that things worked out! Although I do miss cuddling up next to her every night, I think we all feel much better because we are getting more sleep. Now, when Kyla wakes up in the morning I bring her into our big bed so that we can cuddle together for a bit before starting our day. I will eventually make the transition from playpen to crib, but for now we are all enjoying our sleep too much to try anything new. I just love our little baby SO much and cannot imagine life without her! Thank you God for our wonderful Kyla and for teaching her how to relax and sleep peacefully!

Here is Kyla the first night...sleeping sitting up. It just looks like she was determined not to lay down and fall asleep.

And, here she is some of the following days/nights sleeping peacefully! :)

Fun in the Sun!

Kyla has always loved being outside. It has been really cold and cloudy for a while so when I saw the sun shining this morning I was really excited. Kyla and I got dressed and headed out for a little fun in the sun. Kyla was in such a good mood! She was laughing and smiling the entire time we played. My sister, Suzy, took these pictures of us outside. Kyla was laughing so hard as I raised her into the air. Next time I'm going to record her giggles on my video camera. I love hearing her laugh!

Superbowl Sunday!

Jesse and I usually stay at home to watch the Superbowl, but this year we decided to watch the game downtown. It was nice to get out of the house for a bit and enjoy good food, drinks, and football!

Good Times with Daddy!

Kyla just adores her daddy. Whenever he is in the room she always does something to capture his attention. Kyla likes it when Jesse lays on the floor and lets her climb all over him. She also likes to play the "I'm gonna get you" game with him. And, she LOVES it when Jesse showers her with kisses. She laughs, squeals, and smiles every time he gives her kisses.

Jesse was playing with all the girls (Reese, Kyla, and Jocelyn) a couple of nights ago and they were loving it!

Helping her daddy set up her new table.

Goofing around with daddy.

I had to throw this picture in the mix too! This is what happens when Kyla cannot get her hands on the remote and/or cell phone. Jesse is already giving her a hard time about being dramatic. :)