Funny Stuff

Here's a video of Kaelyn walking today that is pretty funny. Watch out for the dog's tail!! :)

Kaelyn is almost 1!!!!

Wow! I can't believe in a little less than a month Kaelyn will be turning one! In honor of her birthday, and just to celebrate her, I want to post a picture from each month of her first year of life, besides the pictures that I already post for her "birthday" each month, and hopefully a picture that I haven't already posted. Also, my plan is to post everyday in October to remember, and chronicle the first year of her life! So stay tuned!

October - bringing our little peanut home!!

November - sleeping with mama

December - with Grampie and Abbi. Baby's First Christmas!

January - with Daddy, showing off those big baby blues

February - Valentine's Baby in babylegs made by her mama

March - trying her first food, bananas!

April - showing off her cute strawberry diaper

May - enjoying the beauty of natureJune - just being her silly self
July - yummy sand at Crystal Lake beach
August - trying on a Ladybug costume, so cute!
September - checking out the great outdoors

Thanks for sharing this year with us as we have watched Kaelyn develop into such a cute and fun little girl!

Kaelyn is WALKING!!!

So, Miss Kaelyn took her first steps at Daddy's birthday party on Friday, Sept. 12th! We kind of thought it was an accident, but then as the weekend went on, she was walking more and more. She will walk between Jer and I, from the couch or chair to me, and walk towards me as I move backwards away from her. Yesterday I was facing away from her and turned around to see her walking from a bar stool in the kitchen to the coffee table in the living room! She has probably taken a total of 8-10 steps in a row before sitting herself down, or falling. :) She is starting to walk on her own initiative, and not just when we stand her up and say, "Come here." It won't be long before she is running all over the place!!
Here's a quick video of her walking towards me. It's hard to get her set up, and get her to walk towards me, all while taking a video, but hopefully it gives you a good idea of her walking skills! :)

Jer is 30!!

So, Jer turned the big 3-0 on Friday, Sept. 12th, and we threw a surprise party for him. I wish I had a picture of him, because he was so surprised. He turned bright red and wouldn't go back into the room where everyone was because he was embarrassed. I guess I did my job, because he had no idea!! He thought that we were going out to dinner and were just dropping Kaelyn off at his parents house so they could baby-sit and when we walked in everyone was there and yelled "Surprise!" It was a really fun time with friends and family. Unfortunately, I was busy mingling, eating, and watching my almost walking baby, so I didn't really take any pictures. Bummer! But, here is one of the fam after Jer blew out all of the candles on his cake (there were more than 30!)

Happy Birthday Jer!!

And actually, Kaelyn took some of her first steps at the party!! More to come on Kaelyn's new adventures in walking!

Wheaton Weekend

We went to Wheaton over Labor Day weekend to watch Kaelyn's Aunt Laura play soccer for Wheaton's women's team. They won both of their games, so Laura got to play on both Friday and Saturday nights, although we were only there for the Saturday game. We had fun cheering Wheaton to victory and hanging out with family and friends.

The whole fam in Laura's dorm room. Ah, the memories!

After the soccer game - Kaelyn was so excited they won that she fell fast asleep on Aunt Rachel!

Goofing around with Miss Kaelyn

Kaelyn and our friend's, Dan and Meghan, little boy, Isaac. They had fun playing together. Check out his awesome hair!

With Aunt Rachie

Almost everyone, but Jer was taking the picture and we were missing Laura
With Grammie and Grampie

Cousins 2

Here are more pics from when Hannah and her girls were visiting.

Playing at the play place at the mall.

In the cute matching dresses that Grammie Susan knitted/sewed for them. It is so hard to get them all looking at the camera at the same time!

And actually smiling - this one is a true miracle! :)

Miss Abbi

We miss them and wish that we could see them more often!!

Cousins!!

Jer's sister Hannah, her husband Josh, and their girls Lilli and Abbi came to visit for the first part of August. We had lots of fun hanging out with them, and Kaelyn enjoyed playing with her cousins!

We all went to Cedar Point for the day one Saturday. Also, Grandma Susan's biological brother and his two kids, who are college-aged, came along. So, there were 11 adults and 3 kids - we had quite a crowd, but it was a lot of fun. Kaelyn was a trooper and we got to go on most of the major roller coasters. It was a fun day.

The Gang

Lilli and Uncle Nate

The Fam

Jer and his sibs

Josh, Abbi and Lilli

Lilli (almost 4), Abbi (2 1/2) and Kaelyn had so much fun playing together. Abbi especially loved Kaelyn, and liked to do whatever she was doing. Kaelyn loved to watch her cousins run around, and wished that she could run with them.

The crazy girls - it is so hard to get them all looking at the camera at the same time! Here Lilli is making her monkey face.

Abbi and Kaelyn

The paci girls - Lilli still uses her paci for her nap and nighttime, and had the same kind as Kaelyn, except bigger. A couple time Kaelyn tried to take Lilli's paci and use it herself! :) Lilli is saying bye-bye to her paci on her birthday next month - she is going to send it to the babies in the sky!

Just playing together. So cute!

Snaggle-Tooth

Jer's sister Hannah, her husband Josh, and their girls Lilli and Abbi were visiting for the first part of August, so we were busy hanging out with them a lot and slacking on the blog - sorry about that! I'll spend the next few days catching up.

So, Kaelyn got her first top tooth, and it turned out to be her right side tooth, not the middle one, I guess it's called the right lateral incisor. So we've been joking about it that it is a fang, or a snaggle-tooth. It is pretty funny, especially now that it is in farther and you can actually see it when she smiles and "talks". And now her left lateral incisor has broken through, so soon she will have fangs on both sides! :) But, I think that her left middle tooth will be here within the next week or two, so then she won't be so goofy.

Here's a pic of her fang. Her newest nickname is Miss Fang. :)

Kaelyn's First Words!!

Kaelyn has been saying "dada" for the past few weeks and we have been encouraging her that it means daddy, and who it is associated with. We were not sure if she really knew what she was saying or what it meant. Well, on Wednesday night she was crawling toward Skiba and saying "daie", and I said to Jer, she's telling the dogs to die!! We laughed, but she kept saying it, and then it hit me - she was saying "doggie" just without the gg's!! So as far as we can tell, dada and doggie are Kaelyn's first words! I'm a little disappointed that she still doesn't say mama, but I know it will happen soon enough! I'll have to take a picture of Kaelyn with the dogs to put up here, I just don't have one yet. She really loves her doggies! :)

Play Time!

Kaelyn is now crawling everywhere and getting into everything! She loves to play, here are some of her favorite activites:

Getting into the cupboards in the kitchen - she loves the plastics cupboard the best! Her favorite thing is to open doors and drawers and empty all of the contents onto the floor!

Ripping apart newspapers, and trying to eat the paper when mama is not looking!

Uh-oh! Caught!

Standing at the coffee table and trying to move around it to get whatever is up there!

Playing with her Leap Frog table. Kaelyn loves to bounce to the music it plays! :)

And her most favorite activity of all - Crawling away from mama!

For those of you who have any interest at all - in this pic K is wearing a pinned prefold diaper (that's the old-fashioned kind of diaper - like this) and a wool interlock cover. Wool is a great diaper cover b/c it is all natural, breathable, water resistant, anti-bacterial and comfy. (More about wool diaper covers here.) You know I just have to plug my cloth diapers whenever I can! :)


And just for fun - one outisde with daddy in her backpack carrier! She loves to be up high and be able to look around at everything!