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In this weekends developments: Kensie now screams at the top of her lungs when she wants something, refuses to eat real food (mind you it’s the same food she was all about eating last week) and has lost the ability to sleep through the night. It’s charming. 

Also, daylight savings, you’re ruining my life. 

Kensie is NOT one of those babies that you put down later and they wake up later. She wakes up around 7-7:30 whether she goes to bed on time (by 7p) or 3 hours later. Last week, she started being an angel and sleeping until 8-8:30! Then today happened; daylight savings. UGH. It was a struggle to keep her up until even 6:45p and this morning we had a 6:15 wake up. I am going to need her to adjust STAT. 

This morning we went to brunch with Aunt Shell before she had to head back to Afghan land. 😢 Our food took a while to come out and Kensie is the high chair Houdini; so, instead of letting her wander all around the restaurant we did what any great parent would do, we let her climb on the table. 🤦🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️ 

This kid has zero volume control. If she has something to say, she’s going to make sure the WHOLE building knows it. So, the whole restaurant was aware that she was sitting on the table. Luckily there were enough of us there they weren’t sure who the mom was. 😂

I ordered the SAME eggs and pancake as last time. The ones Kensie LOVED last time. This time? Nope. Just played with them. Refused to eat a single bite. And I didn’t feed her before, so I know she was hungry. 🙄 

KB does this new thing where she HAS to hold a fork and pretend eat off it. She smacks it on the plate, sometimes on food, and even if it’s empty she puts it in her mouth. Sometimes she’ll offer it to me or someone else as well. One thing is for sure, Kensie is the BEST at sharing. 

K even shared her pacifier with Henley…then we upgraded her babysitting skills so she’d give her the right one. 

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Over the weekend Kensie mastered the “stand up”! She usually uses something, a wall, a person, anything to help her stand up. Kens now has the squat to stand down and didn’t crawl anywhere today! 

Our weekend ended with having to drop Aunt Shell off at the airport. 😔 Kensie gave her a big hug and 2 sweet kisses. We already miss her but luckily she isn’t gone nearly as long this time!! 

Luckily KB’s fever went away in time for her very first trip to Disney!!!

Her fever was gone before she went to bed Thursday night and thankfully, it stayed gone. On Friday we went to the Food and Wine Festival at Epcot and I am pretty certain Kensie had as great of a time as the rest of us!

Kensie was loving that there was so much to look at! 

Sometimes Kensie walks all over the place on her own. Other times, she takes you on a walk with her. If she grabs your fingers – it’s game over.

We made the mistake of letting her walk in one of the stores. That meant she wanted to walk EVERYWHERE. 

As you can see above, she isn’t shy. All the employees would comment on how cute she was and reach down and she just grabbed their hands. 🤦🏼‍♀️ We really have to work on that “stranger danger” concept. 

All the walking wore this babe out and she took a solid afternoon nap. I was pretty jealous. 

Between napping and walking, KB got extra spoiled. Rob was dancing with her and they disappeared into the store. He let her pick out her first Christmas ornament and said “she picked two”. 🙈😂 you know this Christmas loving mama was 100% in support of that purchase. 

While I’m aware that K won’t remember this and it was more of an “adult” trip, at least the photos will prove to her that she had a GREAT first time at Disney World. Thankful for such a fun, happy little girl that loves to be out and about with us! And of course for the best friends ever that help us take care of her (and spoil her rotten). 

Kensie had her very first fever today. 😔

The good news is she isn’t sick. The other good news is I got a LOT of extra hugs and snuggles today. The bad news is she definitely wasn’t feeling great. 

Grandma B came over yesterday to hang out with Kens. She told me she felt a little warm and just sat with her the whole time I was gone and didn’t really want to do much, then went down for an early nap (that never happens). 

Last night K woke up crying around 3am and felt extremely warm. I took her temp and it was 99.8.  When I got her up just after 7 to go to the gym I  took it again. 101.6. 😩 She went right back to sleep and slept until 9. Which also never happens (but damn was it nice 😂). 

Since she didn’t seem sick, I assumed it was teething. Then it hit me. 

Kens got her measles shot at her 12 mo check up last week. The nurse warned me it could give her a fever about a week later. I kind of wrote it off since she’s never reacted to shots before.  

Once she was up I gave her some Tylenol and her fever started going down. The few seconds she’d take not attached to me she was in pretty good spirits. 

Since she’s been in her big girl car seat she doesn’t sleep in the car as much. She likes to look out the window. Today, every time I put her in there she was out in less than 30 seconds. 

K was a stage 5 clinger all day, but I miss the days she actually sat still that long so I was more than okay with it. I tried to squeeze in a workout so I put Kensie right next to me to attempt to keep her semi happy for a few minutes. It almost worked. 

Murii showed up and held her while I finished and then K was in better spirits. She seemed to feel a lot better as the afternoon went on. I took her temp before bed and she was back down to 97.4. So, her screaming bloody murder at me for giving her a bath is a slight mystery. 🙄 

Yesterday morning Kensie and I went grocery shopping and I got a ton of new foods to get her to try. So far she’s turned down everything but yogurt, turkey and bananas. I’m going to chalk it up to not feeling well and keep attempting it throughout the weekend…and well, for forever. She’s gotta give in and eat real food eventually, right? 🤦🏼‍♀️

Once these next 2 teeth break through she will have a total of 8, so this weaning thing is about to go into overdrive.

Whoa. I thought I’d start spacing the blog out to every couple days…terrible idea. This is way too much to post at once. 😂 Part of the reason for my slackerness (I know it’s not a word, just go with it), is because we have been NON-STOP the last few days! 

We got back from Colorado super late Sunday night, spent Monday recovering and getting ready for a crazy, fun, busy week, and tonight we celebrated Halloween with the best of friends! 

As you can see, a lot of DIY happening with the costumes this year! Kensie was going to be a pineapple but I didn’t like any of the outfits I found. A friend of mine dressed up for a high school event as Alvin and then I got the idea to call in the squad and create the cutest little costumes for them! Simple, yet effective. I figured it was extra appropriate with how good Kensie is at storing food in her cheeks. 

I was also extremely impressed with Casey’s dump truck skills. Riley really wanted to be one (last photo)…mama for the win!!

K spent Halloween morning at the gym and got her first babysitting gig! 

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I started to push Henley around while Ashley finished her workout and Kens came and took over. She did that nonstop for a solid 5 minutes and only stopped because they left. 😂

Yesterday was nothing special to report. K took the day trying to get adjusted back to her schedule. She was definitely crankier than usual and didn’t sleep as much as I thought she would, and she has another tooth breaking through. 

And that brings us back to Sunday! We had so much fun celebrating Uncle Andrew’s birthday! 

Since we had to catch a flight out of Denver that evening, we went to a brewery on the way. Wanna talk about a small world? We ran into Rob’s whole family there! (The guy Kensie calls “Bah Bah”). K LOVED playing in the leaves and Wake shared all of his toys with her! 

The flight home was smooth and quick and we lucked out with an empty middle seat! Kensie fought it for a while, but about 2 hours in she finally gave in and went the heck to sleep. 

 

Phew! Okay. All caught up. 

Oh, and I watched Baby Einstein’s this morning while I had it on for K and learned the sign for “mom”. Pretty sure Kensie has been signing it for months. That and another word that I can’t remember now because I was just way too excited that she says mama in at least one language. Ha!!!

Kensie has had such a fun time in Colorado visiting her Uncle Andrew and (soon to be) Aunt Catherine! She’s struggling a bit with the time change, but the views have kept her happy in between her naps! 

The flight out was the longest flight K has been on. She fought her nap with a few screams but other than that she was great, she just wouldn’t sit still. Holy wiggle worm! Not that I expected anything different. 

Catherine (my brother’s fiancé) flew us out to surprise him for his 30th! Surprised he was!! Kensie hasn’t seen them since she was 2 months old at Christmas, but she was pretty excited! 

Our first stop was a brunch spot called Snooze! 

Kensie ate some eggs and played a game called “empty every sugar packet from the bowl and then put them back and do it again 600 times”. Super fun. 

Then we headed to Garden of the Gods! The views and weather were AMAZING. 

The travel, exploring and time change made for one super sleepy babe!!

Today we headed to Cave of the Winds. We did a cave tour and zip lined on the side of the mountain! K just spectated for that part. 

After the caves we went to lunch and did some shopping on Colorado Ave! I am in LOVE with this weather and walking down the street with mountains in the background isn’t too bad, either. OH! And K said the word “book” today! 

The time change (2 hours behind) meant a 5:30a wake up today and some crazy thrown off naps, but Kensie has been so good through her sleepiness and has been loving spending time with her family and looking at new places and people!

 We still have one more day in Colorado, but I figured I’d break the trip up into more than one post or the amount of pictures might freeze the WordPress app again. 😝

KB has a busy day…and it ended at the Pumpkin Patch! Kensie picked out her very first pumpkin. She made sure it was a good one by licking the side and attempting to chew the stem. 🤦🏼‍♀️

Thanks for the Facebook recommendations for those who gave them! (Minus Rob’s Publix suggestion 🙄) We went to Painted Oaks and they had an adorable set up!

They also do horse rides and Kens was mesmerized watching them!! After she was done staring in amazement she called it a dog. 

This morning we got to meet another sweet friend, Baby Charlotte aka Charlie!

Baby and momma are doing well and we are excited to have another little lady in the tribe! If anyone is looking to get pregnant, especially with a girl, come join CFEO. I think we’re up to 12 pregnancies and 9 girls (in the last 12 mo).  Something like that. 

This morning K and I paused for a photo shoot before we got in the car because the weather was too gorgeous not to enjoy! She was killing the model game. 

I guess the cool weather makes her extremely happy. It has that affect on me, too. 

The rest of our day was running to the chiropractor, swim refresher and the gym. Kensie is cutting MORE teeth so her float and breathing was not the best today. Mrs. Heidi is going to have K back in 2 weeks once the teeth are through to make sure she’s truly good to go for the fall. 

We have another crazy day tomorrow but hopefully it’ll involve both of K’s naps. For my sake.

Verdict is in! KB is still a tiny little nugget. 

Little boo came in at 18.3lb (I was off) and 27.75inches! (I was close, but I kind of cheated because I had to try to measure her when we did her passport photo so I had a slight idea.) She’s in the 8th percentile for height and 33rd for weight. 

Chris and I are not short, so not sure when this little sprout will bloom – but my mom said I was a slow and steady grower, too! The doctor told us  their height isn’t an accurate measurement of how tall they’ll be until their 2, so we will wait and see! 

Kens did great at her appointment. She didn’t like the nurse and cried when anyone touched her, but she LOVED her doctor. She reached for her when she came in! 

Complete disclosure: she really just wanted her computer 😂 but, she was very content on her lap once we wouldn’t let her have it. 

Kensie may disagree, but her appointment went well and her doctor was very impressed with her coordination and motor skills! She said she has the social skills of a 15 month old but I don’t think that’s a surprise to anyone. 🤣

We do need to up KB’s iron intake a little. She was on the lower end of the “acceptable” spectrum. Since Kensie seems to like eggs lately I’m going to attempt sneaking some spinach in there. 😉 I also got some tips on weaning and getting Kensie to drink normal milk. Kensie only nursed 3 times today!!!! She had Chipotle for lunch and even ate some guacamole! (She isn’t a fan of avocado or guacamole normally. You can’t even trick her into eating it.)

After her check up we had a quick nap and went to day 2 of her swim refresher! Her float was much better today and she was already back to dunking herself under water. 

Once Kensie learned her rollback to float, she started leaning forward to stick her own face in the water as soon as Mrs. Heidi gave her the signal that she needed to take a breath. Such a goober. 

Ever since Kensie started having these top teeth break through she’s been fine during the day but her sleeping at night has been rough. She was doing great sleeping from her dream feed until the morning; now she’s back to waking up 2-3 times for the past week or so. 

I’m not sure if she will go back to sleeping better once these next two finally cut through or if we need to re-sleep train. Is that a thing? It’s about to be a thing. We are going out of town this weekend so I’m holding off until we are back since anything we retrain at this point will get ruined with the schedule being thrown off. 

OH! And speaking of out of town, I bought a travel case for her car seat and a gate check bag for an umbrella stroller since the guys that pack up the planes are apparently careless and inconsiderate. So, if they’re good, I’ll post the amazon link. 



It was a sleeeeepy, sleepy day for momma and KB! We were both on the struggle bus after a busy, but fun weekend! Kens woke up at 6:45 and we relocated to her playroom where I was half zombie, half sleeping on her playmat. 

On Sunday we went to brunch to surprise the birthday girl, Carolyn! K CRUSHED some eggs, so, apparently she likes those now. 

After brunch we went to a baby shower for sweet Baby Axel!! I somehow didn’t take a single picture with the pretty momma, but she got one of KB! 

I spent the morning (post zombie – once Kensie went down for a nap) trying to get everything put away from her party and then KB had a fall refresher for swimming today! 

K took a super short morning nap and then it finally caught up with her. Her afternoon nap was 2 long, quiet, blissful hours. 😂 I actually woke her up from it so we could go to the gym. 

Speaking of “go”…that’s Kensie’s new word. This morning I got her dressed and said “we have to go!” And was telling the dogs to get out of the room and Kensie started saying “go, go, go!” She then proceeded to say it for the next 5 minutes until we left the house. 🤦🏼‍♀️

Kensie got extremely cranky right before bed tonight and started chewing on her bib and hand. I felt her 2 top middle teeth but the 2 outside of those haven’t broken through yet so I have a feeling they’re on their way. 

Tomorrow morning is KB’s one year check up!!! My guess is 27 inches and 21lb. I’ll keep ya posted. 😉

What a weekend!!! I think I’m less sure of what to say in this post than I was on Kensie’s actual birthday. 

Saturday was Kensie’s birthday party and holy moly…I won’t have to buy this kid anything for the next 7 years, at least. K needs another entire playroom just to fit her new books, noisy toys, slide and pink Maserati. 🤣

I asked people to bring letters for Kens to open when she’s 18 and some of the gifts/letters/time capsules that people came up with were SO special. I made the mistake of reading some of them and let’s just say I hope I don’t cry that much when I reread them in 17 years. 🤷🏼‍♀️😂

The best part of Saturday was seeing how many amazing people Kensie really has the privilege of growing up around. She really is so, so loved (by them and those that weren’t there!) and Chris and I are so grateful to have the absolute best friends and family. 

I owe a HUGE thank you to Michelle, Charlotte and Ashley for spending so much time helping me with the party before, during and after! You ladies are amazing. And to my momma, dad and brothers for helping me clean up, taking care of KB and putting together all her new toys so I didn’t have to! 

Kensie had a few moments of uncertainty but overall she had a blast playing with her friends and loved all the attention! She even gave out some kisses. 😉 

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I sent a friend a few photos (“few” hahahahahaha) and he made a pretty amazing video to capture Kensie’s first year for us! Hopefully this link works…and I was told I should give you a tissue warning. 

As I write this Kens is sleeping next to me in her new 12 month PJs and they actually fit her. That happened literally overnight. 

Now, if someone can tell me how/where to store all these bulky ass baby toys and chairs I’d appreciate it. 😫

It’s HERE! It’s Kensie’s first birthday!!! What a year it has been. First off, thank you all so much for the the posts, texts, phone calls, etc. KB is SO, so loved! 

It’s truly been the best year of my life (and hers, by default 😜) and I am SO glad I kept up with this blog and have all of these memories to look back on! I started scrolling through the very first posts the other day and while it feels like yesterday, I also had already forgotten so many details. 

I don’t event know where to start with documenting this month! I feel like she’s grown up so much in just a few short weeks. 

Kensie still loves the puppets on Baby Einstein and gets SO excited to see them. Now she mimics their movements and some words! 

She can say dog (her favorite word 🤷🏼‍♀️), duck, jack (more like dack), Dada, bye, and a word that sounds like “this” or “kiss” (I haven’t figured it out yet). Kensie can say and sign all done, bye, hi, and sign more, eat and please! She mimics sounds, including whistling, yet still won’t say mama. 🙄

As of today, Kensie has started finding food she wants and bringing it to me to open for her! We made it a whole year of breastfeeding which I’m so proud of us for! (And looking forward to weaning 😉) 

K gives the best hugs and kisses and loves holding hands. When people tell her “hi” she turned to them and gives the cheesiest, yet cutest smile. If they’re extra lucky she waves. 
She has 4 teeth up top and 2 on bottom. K is 20ish pounds and 27 inches tall! She finally fits in some shoes which is perfect timing because she is walking alll over! And climbing. I have a feeling she will be getting out of her crib on her own soon. 😳

Kensie is catching on to everything in her routines and “talks on the phone”, tries to brush her own hair, puts her necklace to her neck, and puts bows on her head. 

Well guys, I did it. I kept a small human alive for a whole year! It was a year of learning and growing for both of us, but I’d say we did alright. Words can’t express how grateful I am that I had the opportunity to work from home and take care of KB full time. It wasn’t always easy, but every second was so worth it. 

As we all know, parenting doesn’t come with a manual. Luckily we have some amazing people in our village to guide us and the most important thing they’ve done (other than love the mess out of KB) is offered advice and supported the decisions we’ve made. 

Kensie slept in a chair inside of her crib for months. She sleeps on her belly sometimes. We coslept. I fed on demand. I vaccinated her. I let her watch TV. She’s in a gym that’s way too loud and dirty for her; she literally licks the floor sometimes 🤦🏼‍♀️ (I don’t know why..don’t ask). When her pacifier falls I wipe it on my pants or use my own mouth to clean it and then I give it back to her. I’ve left her sitting in another room screaming for a few minutes because I just couldn’t deal with it anymore. I wake up in the middle of the night and feed or hold her if she cries. I’ve used anything and everything as a burp cloth. I’ve kept her out way past her bedtime. According to the books I did a lot wrong. But I look at her and I’m pretty damn sure I did it all right! 

Happy First Birthday, Kensington Brooke Hall! Your daddy and I love you so very much and we are and will always be your biggest fans!