Kinley the talker

Kinley is always very talkative on her changing table.  She tells us lots of stories and we share lots of laughs!  Her new thing is to 'pet' the side of the table and talk to it, haha.

We also love to 'sing'  in our jumparoo.  You'll notice that she's perfected her fake cough and does it a couple times in the videos, such a stinker!

6 Months Old!

Kinley - 

I'm pretty sure that this is the first "birthday" that has almost made me cry.  I'm not sure how it's already been 6 months, half a year, 26 weeks, it just doesn't seem possible.  If the rest of your first year go by as quickly as the the first, we'll have a big 1 year old in the blink of an eye!

Your personality just keeps shining through and this month you have been so funny!    You used to grin at us and turn away because you always seemed so bashful (which I loved), but now you are becoming a major ham!  You smile with your mouth wide open and do this fake cough thing which is kind of like a laugh but we think you're just trying to get our attention - it's hilarious.  You've also started giggling without us actually tickling you which is so stinkin' cute.

You still love you jumperoo, swing, and play mat and we started using your high chair this month, too.  You had baby food for the first time on Monday, March 5 - carrots which you loved!  You look so big sitting in the high chair and think you're pretty cool, too.  Sometimes you get very distracted and play with the straps on your high chair since they are very entertaining.  We've also tried sweet potatoes and bananas.

You are sitting up like a champ now and hardly ever fall or roll backwards.  I think you really like the freedom of playing with your toys this way versus laying down.

Some of your favorite toys include Jacques the octopus, Sophie the giraffe, baby einstein radio, a steering wheel toy at g-ma & g-pas, and books.  Right now you like to read Where is Babies Bellybutton, Barnyard Dance, Googlie Sea, and Touch & Feel Baby Animals.  Your absolute favorite song is Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.  That calms you down almost instantly if you're having a bad car ride and I've been known to sing it for 10 minutes straight (which is unfortunate for everyone involved, haha).

You are still going to sleep around 8pm every night and don't put up much of a fight when we lay you down.  Staying asleep is still an issue but not as bad as it used to be.  One week you only woke up once at 3am for your paci for 3 days in a row!

You still love your puppies and wish they would play with you more.  Whenever I'm holding you and they're running around, you are constantly searching for them, it's pretty cute.

You outgrew your 3-6 & 6 month clothes at the end of this month so we are now transitioning to 9 months.  You could probably still wear some 6 month outfits with the length but your sweet little belly is busting out now!  :)

You're in size 2 diapers and I'll get your weight & height stats when we get back from Florida.

I'm finally noticing some new hair growing in on the sides and it seems to be golden.  You still have a little bald spot on the back where you lay and some longish hair down by your neck.  I can't wait until we have hair to put bows in!

It's amazing how much our love for you keeps growing with every passing month.  No matter how much I try to get time to slow down, I'm pretty sure it only speeds up from here!

Happy 1/2 birthday, sweet pea!!

Sweet potatoes

We loooove to eat in the Tucker house and no, mommy and daddy aren't the only piggies!  Miss Kinley is loving her sweet potatoes!

These pictures are all essentially the same but I love them, enjoy the yumminess!

Bound for the sunshine state!

We're leaving this morning for our annual spring break trip to Sanibel and I'm so ready for some fun and relaxation...well relaxation might be a stretch with a 6 month old but we'll try!

We're also driving this year which takes 20 hours on a good day so I'm guessing we might take a little longer this year.  Please say a quick prayer for us that we have a safe drive and make it there without too many crying episodes!  (We are traveling with a princess after all).

I wrote a few quick posts for next week to keep all of my millions of blog readers entertained while we're gone.  *wink, wink*

I know no one can go a whole 10 days without some Kinley cuteness!  Or maybe that's just me?

New additions to the family

March 2 was a big day for baby news in my family!  I was super anxious to hear (1) the gender of my cousins' baby due in July and (2) that baby Presley joined us!

That day could not have drug by anymore slowly because I thought for sure that we would have a gender announcement at 2:00pm and a baby around the same time...WRONG!

My cousin Ian & his wife Stephanie had planned a gender reveal party that night so we had to wait alllllll daaay llooonnngg...yes, that's really how dramatic it was for me.  ;)

I knew Ashley was supposed to get induced that morning so I figured with the 2nd child, her labor would go really quick! haha.  Wrong-o again.

At 10pm that night we finally got the news that Ian & Stephanie are having a baby GIRL!  Yes, another girl to add to our family and I'm super pumped!  That will make 4 girls (Kinley, Ava, Presley, & Baby M) within 1 year of each other - so.much.fun!

This was their cake that they cut into to reveal the gender, so cute!

And finally at 11:45pm Presley Nichole Jeffers made her arrival - congrats Nick, Ashley, & Hadley!  We didn't have time to visit right away so we went twice this week!

Little sweet pea

The Jeffers moved to Oklahoma this last weekend for Nicks job training so they had a quick get together with our close friends to say our "see ya laters."  They should be back in about 18 months which seems like forever BUT the girls will be at such a fun age to actually play by then so it actually worked out pretty great.  Here are a few pics from that night:

 I am still amazed at how much babies grow in 6 short months!

 Kinley 'holding' cousin Presley and not looking too thrilled, ha!

 Julie & Kinley - we missed our buddy Clay tonight.

Some of the gang

I'm also really glad that I waited to post this because we added yet another new baby to our family on March 12.  My cousin Ryan, his wife Kari, and their children Ashley & Tyler welcomed baby Jake Stephen Wood to the family.  They didn't find out the gender this time so we were all so excited to hear what they had!


<I'll add a picture as soon as I get one>


Our family has been so blessed this year and I'm thanking God for all of the healthy babies!

Sunday Funday

Our niece, Delaney, had a gymnastics meet in town on Sunday so we went to support her.  She is an awesome little gymnast and we love to watch her!   Our little "chipmunk" did really good even though she had an off day, but who doesn't?  I still think she did awesome!

I'm so amazed at how good she's become in the past few years and wish I could watch her more often.  Maybe she'll be teaching Kinley in a couple years :)

I feel like I brag about my nieces and nephews a lot but they're so talented AND it's my blog so I can if I want, right!? 

I know my niece Kylie (our soccer star) is an avid blog reader so I promise I'll get a soccer blog up for you sometime soon! :)

Anyway, we took a chance and took Kinley with us and she did a lot better than I expected.  She hasn't done well when there are lots of people cheering and clapping but I think she's finally getting used to it, thank goodness!

After the meet, we swung by Ryan & Courtney's house to hang out since we hadn't seen them in a while.  (It sure is hard to keep up with friends when you have a new baby but we're trying our hardest).

 

We also introduced Kinley to their super cute dog, Bentley.  Of course, K was excited to see the puppy and wanted to pull on his ears & pull his hair but Bentley was a little skeptical so he kept his distance most of the time.  haha

We ended up going to the Creek to watch the Blackhawks game and for an early dinner.  I was amazed that Kinley was still doing good but then we had a small meltdown but it's kind of expected when we've been gone for 5 hours with hardly any naps.  We enjoyed a few drinks and ate lots of good food - "our diets start tomorrow!"  Isn't that always the case!?

What a great Sunday Funday!  It might not have been as crazy as 'pre-baby' Sunday Fundays, but nonetheless, it was great to get out of the house with friends and relax!  And we learned that Kinley is becoming a lot more adaptable and easy going, hooray!

She's portable

We had a few fun week nights last week that didn't consist of cooking dinner, doing the dishes, and doing laundry.  I was lazy and did NOT want to go to the grocery store and we had gift cards so last week we ate out 3 times...and I'm pretty sure I picked up pizza once, oops! haha!

I have always been told that "babies are portable" from my sister-in-laws and other mommy friends.  I believed them but I was still nervous everytime we took Kinley out to eat because there is always a chance of the inevitable breakdown.

She has actually surprised us and done really well...usually!

We met Nick, Ashely & Hadley at the Pasta House for dinner on Tuesday night since we had $130 worth of gift cards to spend before they closed that week.  We also wanted to go out one more time before baby Presley's arrival!

Kinley did SO good entertaining herself by playing with Sophie & on my phone.  It was the longest dinner ever because half the staff had quit so we gave Kinley her bottle and laid her in her carseat because she kept rubbing her eyes.  The little angel fell asleep without putting up any sort of fight - like magic!  (This definitely boosted my mommy confidence).

Thursday night we went to Lake Pointe with Jess since we hadn't seen her since Kinley came home from the hospital!  We wanted to get to dinner early since our little princess turns into a pumpkin around 8pm every night.  I guess we pushed our luck that night as she was kind of fussy throughout dinner and only wanted me to hold her.  (She's quickly becoming a mommy's girl, but I can dedicate another whole post to that subject!)

Jess & Scott finished their meals & I handed K off to Scott so I could eat.  Kinley was NOT okay with this, lol.  She let the whole restaurant know how unhappy she was - aaahhh gave me anxiety!  We tried to put her in the carseat again hoping she would go to sleep but she wasn't having that either.  Oh lord, I was slightly embarrassed!  We made a quick exit and I'm sure the other diners really appreciated it.  :)
No happy dinner picture from this night obviously

We decided to go to La Fiesta on Friday night and, once again, arrived at 5:50 for the early bird special (haha).  Thankfully, Kinley did really well that night except when she was trying to dive into my enchiladas or margarita - she knows good grub!

I'm glad that we are trying to get out more with Kinley and I'm not so nervous about it anymore.  I think I've only looked like a hot mess a handful of times when I was by myself with her and I'm sure it will happen a lot more since that just comes with the territory!  All we can do is laugh & enjoy the ride.

Valentine's Day Photos

We had Valentine's Day pictures taken a little late since I was working crazy hours around valentine's day.  It also fell right around Kinley's 5 month birthday so I figured that it was a good enough reason to get more pictures!

She was a little fussy at times and didn't care for some of the poses we put her in but we I think we ended up with some cute pictures!  I'm kind of obsessed with her roly poly legs, too!

I found the romper and headband at Princess Please on Etsy.  Don't even get me started on my etsy addiction!  I bought tons of stuff for my wedding from there and now I'm going a little crazy with baby stuff.  At least you can usually shop around and find good deals!

Girls Weekend 02.24.12

The Boat Show was held on February 24-26 so that meant that Kinley and I had some major girl time all weekend since Scott was busy everyday.

I was off work Friday so Kinley & I went shopping with my mom for Florida clothes.  We ate a late lunch at Chili's and ran to the mall, Babies R us, and Old Navy.  (We have to make sure K has a love of shopping just like mommy & g-ma!)

Here's Kinley with Grandma at Chili's:

Saturday morning we laid around with Tiki...

 played with Sophie...

 and did some baby yoga...

 which thoroughly impressed Tiki.

Brayden had an indoor game that day so Kinley & I packed up her stuff and headed out.  I'm sure I've said it before, but running errands with a baby requires a lot of "stuff" and makes it a lot harder to get out the door, geesh!

I knew Kinley was going to have to eat after the game so I decided to give her a bottle a little early so she wasn't starving when we were leaving.  Like usual, I requested a cup of hot water & warmed her bottle up but when I started feeding her the bottle was leaking all over her!  I knew I had dropped one of her bottles a few days before so I switched to a different bottle and that one did the same thing!  I was a little stressed and couldn't figure out what was going on. 

Finally I had a lightbulb moment - her bottles have little inserts and I usually leave them out of the bottles when I make them for Sue but put them in when I make them at home.  Duh, I had left them out and totally forgot to put it in before I fed her.  I had a total dumb blond moment and by that time Kinley was upset because I kept taking her bottle away.

Can we say hot mess express?!  I can just imagine what we looked like - I felt like I had a flashing sign on my back that screamed "new mom!"  Needless to say, I won't ever forget that again!

Anyway, the game was really close & B's team ended up winning - of course because they're ballers.  :)

After all my drama we packed up and headed to the boat show to visit daddy.  He was pretty busy so we had to wait our turn to talk to him.

We had to pose for photos.

We even picked out Kinley's new waverunner!

Even though I love staying home and cuddling all afternoon, I also love getting out of the house with my little bear and I think she enjoys seeing new things, too!